The Mighty Northwest

We started our trip in Seattle...

My favorite part of Seattle is Pike Place.

Paul and Krynn met us up there and we watched the Mariners beat Detroit. It was a very good game. The retractable roof was so cool.

Corey's favorite part of Seattle was flipping off the protesters. He loves Israel.

I had 2 new nieces to meet and they were so sweet and adorable and fun to squeeze!

Bradley is my oldest nephew and I haven't seen him in a while so it was so weird that he can talk and carry on a conversation. He is hilarious!

Jackson cannot carry on a conversation yet and has a short attention span but he is so funny and adorable! He's got a lot of energy.

Annie is the world's chunkiest baby and the sweetest thing ever. She can just hang out all day and not cry or fuss at all. Unless she's hungry.

Audrey is brand new and so so sweet! She is so little and fun to hold. She's my brother and Krynn's first baby and they are the cutest parents.

Corey keeps reminding me that we don't need kids because I can just take care of him instead...

We went to Crater Lake without any of the kids since traveling anywhere further than 20 minutes usually requires multiple stops.

I guess I didn't realize there would be 4 ft of snow at Crater Lake in June. We didn't stay for long. I was kind of embarrassed to even get out of the car to take pictures since I was in shorts.

Falls Creek Falls is one of my favorite hikes close to Roseburg. It's a little over a mile and the forest is incredible. I've found few places more beautiful than this...in my opinion.

Mo's famous clam chowder was not as good as I remembered it...The restaurant was right on the water though and it was such a pretty day. After we left Florence we drove to Eugene to see my friends Christie and Zac but I didn't get any pictures while we were there. We just hung out and watched the end of the Lakers game...they won :)







Here are some pictures from around Roseburg

Some from Eugene

Portland

Then we went home. We had so much fun with my family and friends. I love love love the Northwest and will always miss it but I don't know if I would live there again. I miss the friendliness, the laid back atmosphere and all the weird people that live there. Now, our next family reunion will hopefully be in Hawaii at Paul and Krynn's new place!

Mt. Vernon

Behold, George and Martha's home...

                   

Cajun Festival

My cousin Jesse is also in the Air Force and is stationed a few hours from Sheppard so he drove down this weekend to hang out. Today Wichita Falls was having their 3rd Annual Cajun Festival so we stopped by for some Louisiana fun.

It was pretty small but we got to sit on hay bales and watch a few bands and get some cajun food and people watch (my favorite non-competitive sport). I'm too afraid to eat crawfish so I just took pictures. A guy standing next to me dropped one off his plate and I started to reach for it but withdrew in horror when I saw its little eyes staring up at me. Sorry guy.

I was so happy that the first band covered some of my favorite country songs! Louisiana Saturday Night, The Devil Went Down to Georgia and Mountain Music. I secretly wish I were a cowgirl. I'm too afraid of horses though.

Easter

This year I found a Brazilian store and did Easter Brasileiro style! We kind of ended up throwing away most of the candy but it was so fun buying it! I loved the store and it brought back so many memories. I miss Brazil a lot!

We went to Corey's brothers house and their side of the family has the cutest kids so I got to take pictures of them. We had a great time, like always, and are so glad we live close to them.

Annapolis

We got a late start on the cherry blossoms this morning so while trying to find parking we gave up and decided to go somewhere else. We're not very determined.
Corey didn't want to fight more traffic at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore so we decided to checkout the Maryland state capital. Once again, very historic and we read a bunch of informative placards. I looked at them, pretending to read as I usually do. Corey is taking American History right now so it was a little more relevant to him.
We scored free parking since EVERYONE was at the National Mall and had a nice time walking around Main St. We had the best crab dip in the world at McGarvey's Saloon & Oyster Bar then walked it off at the state capital building. It's the oldest one in the country that is still in legislative use. Not sure if that's why Maryland has the most ridiculous laws in the U.S. or if it's something else?
We highly recommend Annapolis to anyone in the area. There's lots of kayaking and other boating adventures available but we were not only not determined today, we were not adventurous either.