Oregon Loving

 

So we arrived into Portland, the evening of the 3rd July, we had just enough time to zip into town..grab some dinner, at this very old famous restaurant. They are renowned for having turkey dinners all year round and anyone who knows me will know how much I love a roast so I had to give it a try! Plus it made a nice change to all the camp food/fast food we'd been eating! and we also made it to Voodoo Doughnuts which I was mega excited about! 

There was a very long line, but it was worth it. Check out the doughnuts we got! The peanut butter and Oreo was my fave!

 

The next morning we drove out to Multnomah Falls, with my love of waterfalls I was suuuuper excited about coming here!

 

 I had seen it on pinterest a few years back and when I realised we could make it co-incide with our road trip I was set on making it happen! It did not disappoint! It's the 2nd tallest Waterfall in America, and was quite a sight to behold! and a great way to start off our first ever 4th July in America! (note the patriotism of my tee!) 

We started climbing to the top, but Byron had to leave the tired pregnant woman half way up as I was struggling with the steep incline! so he snapped this pic right at the top! It was a beautiful setting.

After seeing the falls, we headed into downtown Portland. Actually, a lot was closed because it was a national holiday which I was a bit surprised about. On public holidays in England, cities are always booming with people shopping around and eating but Portland was seriously dead! Sadly the awesome cable car we wanted to take across the city was closed :( but we headed to one of the food truck pods the city has to check out what was on offer... 

 

I opted for a gourmet grilled cheese stuffed with Avo - it was delish!

Whilst Byron went for some pulled pork action.. 

and no day of fun is complete without a stop at a cupcakery! I've been following this one for a while now, I was initially drawn to it because of the name! but then because of it's awesome flavours too, and the fact all it's cupcakes are filled. I LOVE filled cupcakes! 

Their selection was impressive, and it was seriously hard to pick! If we didn't still have voodoo doughnuts left over from the night before, I would have picked a whole box! but of course I had to go for the triple coconut cream flavour!

It was one of the biggest cupcakes I've ever eaten! and most delicious..it was a seriously good pit stop! 

 

By the time evening rolled around, we were feeling the need to be somewhat healthy after the few days of sugar gorging we'd partaken in! So I had to throw out our original dinner plans and we researched somewhere selling organic local produce and came across the Huckleberry Pub! It also helped that it looked so super cute, and was decked out in all it's festivity for Independence Day!

It was a lovely evening out so we sat on the deck, Byron went for hand rolled pasta with bolognese, 3 cheeses and roasted eggplant...

and I had the most delicious duck risotto! It was certainly one of the most nutritious meals we'd had in a while! 

After dinner, we headed down to the Waterfront to catch the fireworks!

 I had even brought my American flag with me, but apparently Portlandians were not all decked out in red, white and blue as I had hoped! I appeared to be the most patriotic person there! and I wasn't even a native! 

It was certainly an impressive display over the water though! and I felt very happy to finally be celebrating an Independence Day in the country I love so much! 

The big dazzly ones are my fave! 

It finished on a bang with plenty of red, white and blue fireworks to remind us all of the day we were celebrating! 

 

The next morning we had an early start, back on the Highway, and back to being surrounded by trees. Oregon is such a green state! We loved it! 

After a few hours drive, we arrived at Cannon Beach. It was the cutest little town that time forgot! We even saw these old fashioned cars driving through.. 

They still had their Americana decorations up... 

and we were especially loving this Tsunami evacuation route sign!! Scary stuff!

 

This little 'candy store' was the cutest place ever! They had taffy in the most amazing flavours! 

We headed down to the beach, it was pretty overcast sadly. For our first beach day of our trip we were hoping for a hot sunny day! 

Fortunately the clouds did clear up after a while and we managed some blue sky, but it still wasn't really warm enough for a dip or for sunbathing! So we posed by Haystack Rock.. 

 This was my 'wow the water is cold' face! after some trickled over my feet during the pic!

You have no idea how long it took us to get this picture! We asked a few different people, but they kept cutting our feet out...and By the photographer feels very strongly about framing a whole person when taking a picture so finally the last lady we asked came through and took this snap for us!!

We kept heading down the coast for more amazing views like the one below...

on the good old highway 101!

After a lot of hours driving, we finally came to our campsite around dinner time! We discovered there were some sand dunes right behind where we pitched our tent so we went to check them out! 

 

How crazy is that! They were actually pretty massive! 

It was rather windy though!  so By's idea for a nice romantic sit down on our blanket as we watched the sunset didn't really work out...since sand kept getting whipped in our faces!!

 

So, we sneaked this glimpse of the beautiful skyline! and then headed back to camp...ready for a very early morning start to Crater Lake!

Our Final Week in Van City...

 

So our last week in Vancouver consisted of lots of farewells! like my last day at work! A few days before they very sneakily told me to bring the autistic boys I worked with into a classroom at lunchtime for a farewell - I was thinking it was a farewell for the boys as one of them was moving onto High School...but as I walked in and everyone was staring at me I realised I'd been tricked! Not many of the kids really understood what was going on but they saw there was cake so they all shouted happy birthday! haha, it was quite cute!

 My amazing colleagues, knowing my love of cupcakes had arranged for this giant cupcake cake to be made for me! Isn't it awesome! it had a giant aeroplane flying all the way from Canada back to England! and there was even coconut and chocolate cupcakes and all my favourite treats! Sadly all my photos from it were saved to my work email and I've lost them since, but it was a lovely surprise! I was a bit horrified because I'd had pretty bad morning sickness that day before I left for work so I hadn't even bothered to put make up on and suddenly everyone was taking pictures of me! so maybe it's for the best they went missing! They made me a lovely photobook of all my memories from Maywood School and all the autistic kids in the school put together a book of their favourite things about Canada and things I needed to try before I left - it was super cute! 

 

Here I am with Erin and Sue - I couldn't have done my job without these ladies! I worked with a boy who liked to flee the classroom quite a lot and Sue worked in the classroom opposite so whenever she saw me chasing him down the hall she'd be out quick as a flash to assist, and Erin had worked with him before I got there so she was always a huge help in dealing with him too! They were always on hand to crack some jokes and make the stressful part of my job less stressful! and they indulged me constantly talking about cake and baked goods! haha...

and here I am with the classroom teacher I worked with, Arnold.  You've heard me talk about him alot, him and his partner were so good to Byron and I and lent us their truck far too many times to recall for us to have fun Whistler adventures or to see all the sights when we had family here - I loved everyone I worked with at Maywood School - and it was pretty sad saying goodbye to everyone!

 

On the day I finished work, we headed to this place on Main St called Roots Cafe, By had been promising to take me there for yummy treats for a while after he discovered it on a study session one day.  The best part was when I ordered and asked the guy behind the counter if they made their milkshakes with ice cream, he looked at me like I was crazy! He was like 'what else would we make them with?!' I told him tons of places in England only use milk so I was just checking...he was like 'well that's not a milkshake'! I was like you're telling me! He kept shaking his head and couldn't get over the fact that crazy Europeans think milkshakes can be made without ice cream - he promised to make mine extra thick to make up for all the mediocre shakes I've had to put up with living on the wrong side of the pond! It was seriously tasty!!

 The next night I had a serious craving for pizza, like I couldn't stop thinking about it the whole way home and it couldn't just be any pizza - it had to be the good kind! The real good authentic stonebaked kind!

 

So we stopped at the oh so cute Via Tevere over on Victoria Drive.  Check out that little car out front! It was super amazing pizza! and was worth the queue we had to join just to indulge in some!

On the Saturday we checked out the International Buskers Festival on Granville St with Cassie and Peter.  It was a beautiful sunny day in the city, and was fun to be out and about taking everything in.

This street art was pretty cool!

and this guy Reuben Dot Dot Dot! had come all the way from Australia to showcase his talents! We were impressed with his skills,

but of course the favourite part of our day was heading back to Tacofino, and introducing it to Cassie and Peter!

Since they've lived in Texas before they know what good Mexican should taste like so they have pretty high standards! 

I was glad our meal lived up to expectations!

and they certainly never disappoint with their desserts! this was a chocolate cookie ice cream sandwich filled with horchata flavour ice cream!

and because no Mexican meal is complete without a happy churro ending we had to give their banana churros a try!

The next day the sun was out in full force again! so we gathered all our favourite people and headed to Kitsilano Beach for an afternoon of Beach and BBQ fun! 

Did you know you can't buy disposable BBQ's in Canada? I guess no one needs them when they bring their beefy real deals down to the beach!

Peter was the BBQ king in charge of grilling up those tasty burgers!

and nothing makes me happier than stripey straws!

Nicole brought a little bit of American patriotism to our picnic by making these delicious sugar cookies..

and topping them with blue and red berries!

Kristen made these amazing white choc and pecan cookies! and Jen made some delicious crumble - one thing you can be sure there was never a shortage of good desserts when we got together! 

  I whipped up a tropical fruit salad because when it's so sunny outside you just have to!

We played this ladder toss game, and things got pretty serious when it was boys vs girls!

Is this not the most perfect setting? green grass, sandy beach, blue ocean and mountains in the background!

 The boys also gave badminton a go...until wind stopped play!

We had a few rounds of beach volleyball which took me right back to our ward beach volleyball nights when we lived in Turks and Caicos!

I quickly became official photographer after I kept forgetting I was pregnant and diving for the ball a little too frequently!

I love this action shot! and this one below of Jeff in slow motion!

 

We took this group shot just before we all had to start heading home - have you ever seen a group of happier more lovely people? Oh, how we miss these friends of ours!

and I could take photos of Kate and Lila all day! They are super cute!

 We left just as the sun was setting over the ocean...

Writing this post is making my heart break for how much we miss this place!!

On Monday, it was Canada Day! So we celebrated by our friends cooking us up an amazing Mexican feast at their cool apartment downtown - I wished I'd taken pictures but I was too busy stuffing my face full of super delish slow cooked tacos and homemade guacamole!

After dinner, we tried our first taste of Marble Slab ice cream (Canada's equivalent of Coldstone) which was amazing...and then headed down to the waterfront to catch the fireworks!

I had taken my little Canadian flag along to wave it patriotically among all the other people in the crowd dressed in red and white!

It was the perfect end to our last few hours left in our favourite place!

 We got home pretty late...finished up the last of our packing and a few hours later we were awake again to begin our American road trip adventure - up next!!