Christmas Break in Oregon!

Fall semester ended well for both Tyler and I. The stress of classes was finally gone (till next semester) and we prepared to travel to Oregon. I bought a special pillow for my tail bone in hopes that the 12 hour trip won't create more flair ups with my cysts. Tyler went to work for the week, and then we headed out on Friday night and drove to Ontario and stopped for the night. We lucked out because the roads were not bad at all! It must have been all the prayers we said :). We got up early the next morning and headed on the road. We stopped shortly at Multnomah falls, and then headed on our way till we finally got to my Mom and Dad's house.

We played lots of games, and ate lots of good food. I gotta say I miss their cooking! I'm not as adventurous at our apartment and we have been eating a lot of the same meals. Lame, I know ;) . Christmas was great, and we loved our presents. When it gets warmer we will for sure be using our picnic basket and blanket!

Since we had so much time, we planned some trips. My goal was to sell Tyler on the Northwest! He had never been to Oregon before so it was my chance to show him what there is to love. We went to the Evergreen Aviation Museum one day and had fun looking at all the planes.

We also wanted to go to the coast. We chose a day when the weather was supposed to be good, or at least not raining, and headed out. I missed the beach so much! I love watching the waves. 

In front of Haystack Rock 

Mom, Emma, and Tyler

The last thing we did was go to Portland. My mom came with us and it was a good day! We went to Voodoo doughnuts and then China town to look at the stores. We also ate lunch there.

Maple Bacon, Voodoo Doll, and a Raspberry filled doughnut.

Tyler, Me, and Mom inside Voodoo. Finally in the warmth after waiting in  line! 

Then we went to Powell's City of books. It is the largest, new and used bookstore in the world. When we first walked in I didn't think it looked that impressive, until I noticed that each room lead to anther room, which lead to another room, which lead to another room. Each room was HUGE and they color coded them to help with finding the area you want to be. We didn't buy anything, but it was definitely a cool place!

It was so good to go home to Oregon and see everyone. I'm glad we were able to make it!

Straw Maze and Big Jud's

Fall semester had started and we were pretty busy most nights. Between the homework and studying, we decided that we needed to take a break and go do a straw maze. Around Halloween time I used to do Corn mazes with my friends and family, and I didn't want to stop that tradition. So I told Tyler about this straw maze that I had been to the year before. Plus, they supposedly had a wallaby there! So we printed off instructions to the place and headed out.

When we got there I looked around for any sign of a wallaby, and sadly, I never found it. We must have come when they put it away. So sad...

 Tyler was impressed with how big the maze was, and how tall they made the walls. It definitely made cheating impossible!  What I liked was that they made places where you had to crawl under the bales of straw to get to the different areas. With Tyler's amazing sense of direction and maze skills, we made it out much sooner than I thought we would have :)

 

Next up was Big Jud's. They are famous for their large burgers.  The restaurant was in an old run down looking building, and they definitely didn't have enough seating for the amount of people who wanted to eat that night. But it was worth the wait :)  We got "The Big Jud's Special" that included the burger, 2 drinks, a basket of fries, and 2 waffle cones with ice cream. It was quite a lot of food, and we ended up stuffed and with left overs. 

"R" Mountain

We decided that before school started up in the fall we should go and hike "R" Mountain. It's real name is the Menan Butte and it is a volcano. From the look of it, I thought it would be a fairly easy hike, however, that was not the case. We were huffing and puffing before we even got half way up! Its partially because of the sand, and also because it has quite the incline at the beginning. 

Isn't it deceiving?  lol

This is just after the sandy portion. I definitely used the chain to help me up! 

This is how most of the trail looked when we got on the top of  the  butte. 

 This gives a good idea of our hike. We hiked up to the top and then walked around the outskirts of the butte.

We ended up finding a good place to stop for a rest and lunch. It was overlooking the river and valley. 

View we had when we ate lunch

Here was our view of the "R". It definitely needs a makeover! I refused to leave until we found the R...poor Tyler just put up with me. They didn't have any trail leading to this area, and once we were on top of the butte we had no idea where it would be. But we lucked out when we ventured off the trail and spotted it. 

After we saw the views and found the R, we decided we were tired and headed home to our apartment.  I definitely enjoyed the hike, and it reminded me that Idaho is pretty in its own little way ;)