Family & Water Falls

Friday morning after we had breakfast we packed up our stuff and got it all put away in the car.  The hotel we stayed in didn't have any rooms for that night so we had to switch hotels.  Margie figured that if we had to switch anyway we might as well go to a hotel on the other side of Portland so when we started our way back on Saturday then we would already be past all the Portland traffic, she's so smart.

After we packed up the car we left Margie at the hotel to wait for Nate and Amy so they could all go and tour a mansion.  I decided instead of going with them that we would go over to Brandy (my cousin) and Ryan Blackwell's home and spend the morning visiting. They live about 8 miles away from the hotel we stayed at so it didn't take us long to get to their house.
The kids had so much fun playing with all their toys and kids.  Brandy has five boys so Tyler and Josh were in heaven with all the fun boy toys.  Brandy has a baby that just turned one so Megan had plenty of baby stuff to play with too.  We spent about two hours chatting away (really I could chat for days with Brandy) and then decided we had better go to lunch before the babies wanted naps.
Megan ended up falling asleep in the car on the way to Sweet Tomatoes.  It ended up being a good enough nap because Tony went the wrong way to lunch and it took us longer then it should have.  Lunch was good.  We all had our fill and enjoyed the company the most.  It is so much fun to be with family.  We really like the Blackwell's.
After lunch we met back up with Margie, Nate, Amy, and their kids at Costco (to get gas) and then we all headed to the other side of Portland to see the water falls.  It is a good thing that we didn't have to get anywhere at a specific time because the traffic was really bad.  It took us about 45 minutes more then it should have to get to the other side of the Portland.  Once we passed the airport the traffic got a lot better and we were able to visit a number of water falls.
We first stopped at Vista Point (I think that's what it's called).  It is a cool building about half way up the canyon that has beautiful views of the river.  It was super pretty and had bathrooms too (a must anywhere we go).
From there we stopped at four more water falls.  Some were really close to the road so you just had to walk a little ways to see them.  Others were further away from the road, but then you could take a trail and see them closer.  There was one that you had to walk on a trail a little ways and then you came down to see this awesome water fall.  It wasn't a lot of water that was coming down, but it came straight down and made a cool mist of water coming off the rocks.  Tony took both Josh and Tyler down by the end of the fall and they got a little wet.
We also found some really cool bridges as we would hike to the water falls.  Some were just little and then others we super big and high off the ground.  I panicked a little bit with the really big ones.  I was so worried that one of my kids would fall off the bridge and into the rocks and water.  They had rails on all the bridges but they were big enough that a small child could totally fall through.  So I was pretty strict about the boys holding a hand and Megan being held. 


The picture with Margie and the grandkids is at one of the falls where there is this cool rock to the side of the trail.  It was a perfect spot for a picture.  Margie really is such an amazing grandma and loves her grandkids so much.  We really are so lucky to have her in our lives.

This family picture is from the third fall.  You can kind of see it in the back ground.  It was hard to get the kids to cooperate for all the picture taking, but we did our best.

It felt so good by the falls.  The weather was pretty hot that day and you could totally tell a difference when you were by the falls.  I felt like I could just sit by the falls all day long and be perfectly fine.

It was surprisingly humid while we were there.  I love the dry heat so when there is any humidity I can totally feel it.  But we had such a good time it was well worth it.

On our last hike to the really big water fall that you can see off the freeway we found this really cool tree.  All the kids got in and liked the cool "hide out" tree.  It did make it hard to take pictures with such a small opening.  Josh was not working with us for a picture.  He was too busy exploring.