Oregon Coast Day 1

The kids and I spent most of Monday 8.06.12 packing and getting the house ready for our trip to Washington. Mike came home at around 10pm that night and asked if I was tired. We both agreed that we weren't tired and we packed all the sleeping kiddos in the van and headed out right then. A long car ride is so much better when everyone is sleeping. Mike drove most of the way and we surprised Brook and Daniel's babysitter Tuesday 8.07.12 morning around 10am.

It was fun to see Pasco and were Brook and Daniel have their home. A beautiful city and every store and restaurant right there around their home. Their house was beautiful and the kids loved the trampoline.

That night Dan & Mike went to go pick up the RV so we could get it packed and leave for Portland early in the morning.

We drove along the Columbia River which was absolutely gorgeous. The mountains and the trees and the water! Daniel drove while Mike navigated.

The carnage that morning!

Mike was able to do a bit of work while traveling.

First stop was Multnomah Falls in Oregon.

Now I show you this picture to remember that Mike took off with a couple of kids to check things out while we were trying to get kids dressed and babies put in backpacks and such. In the meantime there were a couple of buses that pulled up and unloaded. As we made our way around the buses we saw they were filled with old people and Chinese girls. We walked as fast as we could to pass them up and had a good laugh!

Just beautiful! We walked up to the bridge to get a closer view.

Man that's a lot of kids in there!

We began to see the advantages to RV parking!

Then Daniel maneuvered us through Portland to the Portland Zoo.

The Zoo was very nice and a nice job (I thought)of educating visitors on all the different habitats/animals of the Pacific Northwest.

With Mike's camera, Katelyn's camera and my camera plus pictures from Brook we have enough pictures of animals to last us a life time.
here are some highlights of the zoo.

B is for Brigham and for Bear

Eagles Nest

Jessie what ya going for there?

This persistent goat really liked Mike.

The Elephants

Majestic Sea Lions

Look how these cuties measure up.

Tyler trying to be king of the jungle

Up close with the desert folk

Amy went into this little petting zoo area and Daniel walked up and asked anyone if they wanted to pet a "Amy". That Daniel what a riot he is!

Toot Termites on top of their gi-normous hill!

My personal favorite was the bats. I had never seen such a habitat and bats awake even! It was fascinating to me!

Awesome dads and their many wild animals. We had a great day at the zoo!

That evening we bedded down in Ft. Stevens State Park. Daniel fit the RV in its space like a glove. The dads took some kids down to explore the beaches while moms got the camp and dinner ready.