Utah!

After my adventures in Portland, I flew down to Salt Lake City, UT to spend some time with my sister Heather and her family. Heather and her husband Ross live in Daybreak in South Jordon and I love all of the walking paths in their neighborhood - very well planned.


Little baby Oliver likes to curl his toes. We dragged him all over town for shopping and good food.


On Thursday, my brother Jason and his family came up from Manti with my children! we all met at Thanksgiving Point for a picnic and reunion.


Cousin Jacob the cowboy (Calvin's new BFF), sweet Sophia and Cousin Soren.


Oh, I miss this little guy!


Heather and Ollie. Great boobs run in our family - and Heather is nursing and may kill me because I posted this. Too bad! I love this photo.


I love this shot of my Dad and Ollie. Ollie takes after Heather - big dimples. I have wonderful parents.


The next few photos were taken by Jason during my kids visit to their house in Manti.


We took a lot of photos of Oliver - because he is the smallest.


The Johnson cousins: Sophie, Max, Soren, Jacob, Margot, Calvin and Phoebe. Missing: Ollie


I miss these guys too - I think Max got taller on this trip.


Cousin Margot with Heather and Ross's dog, Teka


Brothers


After spending the day together and eating way too much of Mom's cherry pie, the oldest five cousins crammed into Mom and Dad's car and headed off to Idaho Falls for more adventures. They will be playing with Grandma and Grandpa for a week and then joining the rest of the family in Island Park for a family reunion the following week.


Soren and his Dad, Ross


Margot and Amber


I spent the next two days hanging out with Heather, visiting with friends, catching up with my still gorgeous MTC companion over ice cream, shopping and watching movies. We managed to make it to Cafe Rio once for chicken salads and I was able to visit with my friend Leta for about 20 minutes on Saturday before heading home.

On Saturday morning we went to the SLC Farmer's Market and sampled the foods. The fresh limeade was my favorite.

We just kept sampling . . . across the street from Pioneer Park is a Belgium waffle place - so good!



The next time you are in Salt Lake, do yourself a favor and go to Les Madeleines and order a Kouing-aman. They are the best thing in town. Vacation was lovely and now I am home.

Final Day in Portland

On my last day in Oregon, we drove South to hike the Silver Falls Loop. We wore our bathing suits for dips in the waterfalls and took the route that brought us past as many waterfalls as possible in 5.5 miles. It was gorgeous - of course. Oregon is just a beautiful place and somewhere I could easily see myself raising my children. We'll have to see what the upcoming year holds for our little family, but I will definitely be returning and suggest you visit as well!

3rd Day in Portland

Matt stayed over night and joined us for a few adventures the next day before having to drive home for work. We decided to spend the morning exploring the gorge. All of the mornings in Oregon started out misty and overcast until the sun came out to clear up the view. Because of this, on our first couple of stops, we could not see the vistas across the valley.

The photo above is another Twilight reference - the Inn featured in the prom scene. Evidently is it a very popular place to visit these days and it really does have an amazing location. From what I could see of the Inn, the owners need to take advantage of all of this free press and sink some money into replacing the roof! There was a wedding being cleaned up from the day before when we arrived.


We stopped at many different waterfalls during the day. Some short hikes, some longer and several visible from the road.


Our longest hike of the day was up Beacon Rock. The entire trail consists of switchbacks up the face of this enormous rock. By this time, the fog had cleared and the views from the trail and from the top were beautiful! We soothed our sore legs with greasy burgers, soft serve and onion rings on the way back to Portland and then said good-bye to Matt.

I had not seen Matt for several years so it was very nice to be able to catch up and visit for a couple of days. Every time I see my family, I wish we lived closer - I miss them.


Much later in the evening, Koo and I walked down to the little main street of her town for some Thai food. Pumpkin curry is a new favorite - yum!