A Trip to the Coast

Our lovely friends Taylor and Nathan invited us out to the Long Beach area for the weekend at Nathan's grandpa's cabin. Another couple joined us, and we had a great weekend of relaxing. playing games, walking on the beach, eating lots of great food, and catching up. Since T and N live in the Vancouver area, we don't get to see them terribly often, which is unfortunate because we really love spending time with them! But alas, we make do with awesome weekends every once in awhile!

The trip started off with a real bang. Kevin was flying in from Sacramento on Friday, and I was meeting him at the airport, taking the fancy pants lightrail from downtown. I had made a big mushroom, sausage, and spinach lasagna the night before, and took it to work with me. I stuck it in the freezer at work, and at the end of the day, I was ready to go a bit early and was excited to get the trip started. I pulled the lasagna out of the freezer, and it flew straight out of my hands! It was seriously like watching something in slow motion, as it fell to the ground, I sent a quick and ultimately useless prayer to the pyrex gods that the pan not break. Not only did it break, it shattered into about a billion pieces! I was swearing up a storm, let me tell you, and was very glad there were only a couple people present to witness my meltdown!

Fortunately, the lasagna actually came out of the pan as it shattered, and landed on the foil side, so it didn't get all floor nasty! I cleaned up the glass, and then ran like the wind to the Bed Bath and Beyond 5 or 6 blocks from work, found the pyrex dishes, grabbed a 9x13 pan, and flew back to work. I pick the lasagna back up and start to put it into the pan, and realized, hey, 9x13 inch pans are apparently not standard size. The pan was too small! So I just cram as much in and gather all the rest of my stuff and hope for the best!

It ended up being great, of course. But man, what a pain! The whole ride to the airport, I was clutching the thing like someone was going to kidnap it! Anyway, the rest of the weekend was pretty calm in comparison, and we had a nice time just chilling out. We'd love to go back again!

Attempting to take a little hike at Leadbetter State Park. The trails kept ending in the water, we're thinking the tide was unusually high!

Kevin and Taylor

Taylor and me! :)

See, no trail, just water! This is on the Willapa Bay side of the strip of land.

Poco in orange, and Hildy in grey. The bestest dogs! Kevin and I have threatened dognapping every time we see them!

These crazy gates were along a couple different roads around the park. We speculate that this might be the Leadbetter Estate!

A drizzly walk on the beach

On our way out, we decided to check out Cape Disappointment and see where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. It was a glorious afternoon, the sun was out in full force!

We're suckers for lighthouses! :)

Thank you Taylor and Nathan for hosting a lovely weekend!

To Portland we will go!

We headed down to the Portland area to see our friend Taylor marry her best friend, Nathan! It was a wonderful chance for Kevin and I to go to a nice hotel and get away for the weekend, no projects, no baby visits, just enjoying watching a good friend marry a good man! Hooray! Their wedding was very relaxed, completely beautiful, incredible food, and really great company and catching up was had by all!

Taylor carved these herself! How fun!

It was at the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse in the Octagonal Barn, which was a fantastic facility for a fall wedding. I didn't get many pictures because it was kind of rainy outside, and really dark inside, and my camera is pretty crummy. But it was very awesome inside! There was even a real barn owl that just hangs out in the rafters! It was catered by McMenamins, a brew pub chain of sorts in Oregon. They find old buildings and restore them and turn them into the really cool venues for things like weddings. They had the best food, a sort of Thanksgiving theme complete with turkey and gravy, and instead of cake, they chose Pumpkin and Pecan pie with the most heavenly whipped cream ever! We stuffed ourselves silly! Their ceremony was very sweet, with very personal vows and their families standing up with them. It was so nice to get to see them take this monumental step together! Thank you, Taylor and Nathan, for inviting us to welcome you to the married world!

Accidental artsy shot that I like :)

Cute little outbuilding on the property

I feel pretty, oh so pretty! :)

Wonderful old woodstove in the barn, kept us nice and toasty!

I loved her centerpices, very autumnal!

My hunky husband!

Me and the beautiful bride! Congratulations, Taylor and Nathan!

Kevin and I took the opportunity while down there to get a few things off our registry also, and not have to pay sales tax! Woohoo! Still need to finish off our dishes, since they didn't have them available, but just about everything else is complete! Now to find spaces for all of it again! Now time to focus on Tuesday, everyone remember to vote, and let's hope that we have real change!