Lost Camera

I am so sad! We had Robert, Tina, their girls, and Tina's parents here for five days and I couldn't find my camera the whole time! I still don't know where it is. We had so much fun and we saw so many amazing things that were very picture worthy, and I didn't get any. It was a really fun time, though. We started out by meeting them in the Columbia Gorge on Saturday and seeing the fish hatchery at Bonneville Dam. We also stopped at Lower Horsetail Falls. It is so pretty, and there are stairs down to the edge of the water that I missed last time we were there. There is always something new to see at these places, I think.

On Sunday, after church, we drove back to the Gorge and hiked down to Bridal Veil Falls. This is one of my favorites so far. There is a bridge over the water and the forest all around you. It just feels like heaven. We also went and saw Wahkeena Falls, which is also lovely. I think that this one is Stephen's favorite. Then we found a pavillion and had a picnic lunch. It was raining, and had been the whole time that we were hiking, so we left after lunch to come back home. Even with the rain it was a great day.

Monday we drove down to Newport and spent some time on the beach. It was pretty warm and a nice day to be there. Even though it was a holiday there weren't that many people there. I was pleasantly surprised. We ate lunch on the beach and then headed back into Newport where we rented some crab pots and went to the dock to see if we could catch any crabs. We actually caught quite a few. It was so fun! This was my favorite activity. We scarcely drew up the pots without any crabs in them. We had to throw most of them back because they were too little or they were female. You can't keep the female of the Dungeonous Crabs. We caught several of the Red Rock Crabs which you can keep any of them. We ended up with five or six of those, most being pretty big. We gave them to some of the other crabbers on the dock, though, because we had our heart set on eating at Moe's Restaurant and the crabs wouldn't last more than about six hours. The food at Moe's was delicious as always. Once again I had the Halibut fish and chips, but next time I think that I will branch out and get a full Halibut steak. I think that would be better for me than all the fried food.

On Tuesday we drove out to Hood River and drove through the fruit loop. We ended up with a bunch of peaches, pears, apples, lavendar, and the best cherries I have ever had. I don't think that I have ever had so much fruit at one time. We also stopped along the side of the road and picked our own blackberries. They were the sweetest blackberries that I have ever tasted. We brought them back and had them on our cereal on Wednesday morning, before we headed back out to the beach. This time we went to Cannon Beach. It was quite a bit cooler than it had been on Monday. We didn't stay too long on the beach. We drove down Highway 101 to Tillamook to go to the Cheese Factory. I have never seen so much cheese in one place! The workers were really nice and took the time to wave to us as we watched them work. We had lots of "squeaky cheese" and ice cream. It was a great day, and a great week.