Oregon

Cole and I left last Friday to visit my sister, Tricia, and her new baby in Oregon. It was such a fun trip. Here's all the exciting(ish) details:

I had layovers both ways. My first flight to Denver had this big group of teens on it and one of them ended up sitting me.
This is her:

The group she is a part of is called the Silhouettes. You may remember them from 'America's Got Talent'. I loved them.

I ended up chatting with her a good bit about what they do. They are an impressive group of kids. This young lady even had recent heart surgery to repair a hole in her heart.

So I made it to the middle of nowhere, Oregon...which ended up being the best place on earth for my weekend away. This is Tricia's backyard.

They farm, in case you can't tell. I got to drive a tractor that cost about $250,000. Farming's not cheap.

Here is Tessa (Tricia's cute baby) and Cole.

There's a little of a size difference.

Then my other sister, Amy, and her husband, Lorrin, and their baby girl, London, came up for a day.

Cole eating London's head.

Fun baby times!

After Amy left, Tricia took me up to see the Owyhee Dam. It was built before the Hoover Dam and is a smaller version, but the biggest at it's time of completion.

It was very cool, and very big. The drive was absolutely beautiful! On the way back I got to see a hot spring for the first time in my life.

That night we went over to Aden's (Tricia's husband) parents' house. He took me on his own tractor. He had been working over at his dad's helping him plant corn.

They have a one eyed dog named Zip. She is such a good farm dog and would ride around in the bed of the pickup truck everywhere.

This last picture is the house where Aden grew up and where his parents have lived for some thirty odd years. Aden is the youngest of 10 kids, and they all lived in this little house. I loved it. It was quite humbling...and perfect. These farm folk are some hard working people. They make quite an impressive community of people.

I loved having this little guy come along and having him sleep with me every night. He was kicked out of our bedroom at home and has never slept in bed with me til this weekend. It's quite a cute face to wake up to in the morning.

Other adventures included throwing homemade firecrackers into a canal, shooting a gun, and eating Tricia's good cooking from their homegrown cow and pigs. It was a great week!

Oh, and this past Sunday while I was gone was our 12th anniversary. We talked on the phone and we actually went out to dinner before I left to celebrate.