Our Vacation

OK , so last May Marc, Grant, Logan, and I took a week and went to see both his grandparents. The thing with seeing his Grandparents is G & G Green live up in Silverdale, Wa and G & G Dunn live in Coeur D'Alene, Id. So, needless to say we had quite the drive ahead of us. We left here Sunday morning and planned on driving to Portland, Or. Marc's Uncle Jim manages an Embassy Suites there and we could stay the night there and head on to Silverdale the next day.

Well, after 12 hours of driving we finally got to Portland. (we left home @ 9:00 am and get there after 9:00 pm.) It really shouldn't take that long, but with a newborn you have to do that stopping every time he needs to eat. I was really excited because I have never been to Oregon before, and I got to see a lot of it. Two interesting facts about Oregon: The interstate speed limit is only 65 mph (1/2 the reason it took so long to get to Portland), and you can't pump your own gas. Yes, that is correct, it is a state law that you can't pump your own gas.

Anyway on to Silverdale. We made a quick stop in Vancouver at Marc's Aunt Dede's book store. (She is Jim's wife if you didn't make that connection). The rest of the trip to Siverdale wasn't as bad as the drive to Portland. This one only took us about 6-7 hours. This part was also neat because I have never been to Washington either. OK, so side tracking a little, in my structural engineering course @ UW we watched a video on "Galloping Gertie". Galloping Gertie was the Tacoma Narrows bridge that collapsed in 1940 due to some poor structural engineering. Anyway it was really neat for me to see the bridge that we learned about in my class.

So back to the vacation. Tuesday we went with Marc's other Uncle Jim (on the Green's side) on a ferry from Bremerton to Seattle. We walked around the docks for a little bit and went up to the famous Pike Place Market. We didn't have time to go to the Space Needle, but I'm sure we'll be in Seattle again. That night we had a action packed game of hand and foot. G & G kicked our trash. Marc and I didn't do very well.Wednesday we hung around with grandma and grandpa and looked around Silverdale. That night Marc's Uncle Jim, and Aunt Anita came over for dinner with some of their kids. I was a little bummed because Uncle Bill couldn't come and he is the only one out of the 7 Aunts and uncles I haven't met yet.

We left Silverdale Thursday morning and drove to Coeur D'Alene, that took about another 6-7 hours. So I got to see more of Washington. There was even a ski resort still open with at least 3-5 feet of snow on the ground! We drove through Spokane and saw where Doug and Mar are moving to in July. Then, finally back to Idaho. We spent Thursday evening @ G & G Dunn's house. Friday we headed up to Lake Pend Oreille ( yeah another french name). They have a time share at Pondoray Shores resort. We went fishing, swimming, and walked around the lake.

I guess we had to come home sooner or later. Sunday we left for Lewiston so we could break up the trip home. The drive home is amazing. There are 2 huge grade drops one as you come into Lewiston and another before you get to Riggins. So ,there you go. I actually did the math and we were in the car driving almost the same amount of time that we were not.

Oh and one last thing Congrats to Uncle Jim and Aunt Ann for their mission call to Sydney, Australia! We'll miss you!