Road trip!

This past spring Kevin and I started talking about the possibility of making a road trip out to the Midwest. I told him since the furthest we had driven with our kiddos was Monterey, we may want to try somewhere a little closer. So we decided to finally head up to the Pacific Northwest and visit our good friends John and Brenda. They had been down here several times since moving north but we had not made the trek up to see them yet. We found some dates that worked and hit the road soon after school got out. Here are some snapshots of our adventure!

Everyone was super excited and chill on the two days there. The two days home..... May have been another story.

First lunch stop, Lake Mt Shasta. We loved driving with this big mountain in our view for a while.

We spent our first night in Bend Oregon where we walked to dinner downtown and actually had a fun night in the hotel with our kids swimming in the pool and watching cooking shows. Everyone is growing up!!!

The girls were most excited about holding Sierra. She was a trooper, and put up with a lot of kids holding her. She however slept most of our time there! What a blessing to have such a good sleeper.

John and Brenda took us into Cour de lane Idaho one day for a nice hike by the lake. The kids had a great time racing each other to the next number. Our oldest and John and Brenda's oldest may or may not be just as competitive as each other.

Ethan was most excited about James' dirt bike. We were glad to have that there for him as well it kept him very occupied!

Touring downtown Spokane. We have added a few since our adventures 14 years ago in SJ!

we were very blessed by John and Brenda's hospitality. We had lots of good food, fun games, good conversation, and way too much good laughter. We love having friends like them that we can just pick up with like we've never left. Until next time!

On the way home we decided to head west and go through Portland. We drove along the Columbia River. It was probably one of my most favorite drives. So beautiful! We stopped at the Maltanomah  Falls for a little hike up to the bridge you can see over the kids heads. It was very cold as a rain storm blew through right as we arrived. We could see the blue sky coming though so we waited out the worst of it in the van and then headed out to stretch our legs. 

I don't have any pictures but we were able to stay with my Aunt Jan for a night in McMinville. That was a super fun and quick 12 hours. We will have to spend some more time there soon!