Girls Lunch, Portland and Home!

WARNING! This is a picture laden post.  I apologize in advance.  I have even more but I'll save them for another post.  :-)

This is the reason Grandpa and I were in a hurry to get to Portland.  Mandy sent this picture to us as we were driving Friday morning.  She had just told Piper that Grandpa and Grandma would be there soon.  We actually left our house about 5:30 a.m.

For those of you that read Teresa and Gracies blog, here is "their" mountain, Mt. Hood from about 230 miles away.

A little closer. I magnified it and the picture became blurry.  Sorry about that!

I took this one around The Dalles, Oregon which was closer yet.  Isn't it just gorgeous?

Driving along through the Columbia Gorge.  It's lots easier to get some pictures when someone else is driving.  :-)

We were an hour early for lunch, so Hubby dropped me off at Gracie's house and she drove us to the Red Lobster restaurant where both Taci and Teresa arrived at the same time as we did.  Great timing.  We had a very patient waiter who took pictures with all of our cameras.  Except Gracie's.  Her battery died.  Oh well, we're good at sharing.  :-)  I adore these ladies and our time together.  We weren't even planning gifts for each other, (except the doily I made Teresa), and we had presents anyway.  I brought everyone a skein of Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn cotton in springy colors of blue.  Taci gave us project bags and Teresa brought us eggs from her chickens.

Do you see the doily I made Teresa?  She has some really great pictures of it on her piano if you would like to check out her blog on my sidebar.  Do you see the glass ball on the doily in the middle of the picture?  Teresa gave me one of her prize Japanese fishing floats for making the doily.  I have been trying to find one for years when we've been at the coast with no luck and Teresa knew it.  Wasn't it sweet of her to give me one of hers?  There is a better picture of the float later in the blog.

Here is sweet Gracie checkinng out her yarn.  She was a little hidden in the above picture.

Just look at all of the goodies.  I also took Taci a baby sweater, hat and socks along with some extra hats for her Mom in Brazil who works with an orphanage there.  You can see them in the left of the picture.

Here's the beautiful float joining ny collection of birds.  I'm still trying to decide it's permanent home.

Yummy!  I have only been to Red Lobster once before, years ago.  This was my delicious lunch.  Shrimp, fresh green beans and salad.

Here we are.  Back to Piper.  She had a great time covering Chloe up an patting her back saying, "night, night".  Chloe was so good but doesn't her expressions look a bit like Eyeore in Winnie the Pooh?  Woe is me....I'm so sad.

Grandpa and Piper reading a book in the backseat of Brad's truck.  We're on our way to IKEA.

Mandy and I were supposed to go to a craft night when I was in Portland last time.  It was canceled because of all the snow, so they delivered all the materials to us to make on our own.  That's just what we did on Saturday.  I think if we do this again we would use smaller nails rather than the ones that were provided to us.  Mandy made a pair of birds sitting on a clothesline.

Here they are together.  Mine is the dove.  Not bad, but we both agree they would look MUCH better with smaller nails.  We were able to make these while sitting outside on the patio in the sunshine.

Chloe and Polly had a great time running and playing in the yard.  The grass is so green here.  Ours in Spokane is still brown with some green tinges!

Brad was having fun playing ball with Piper and the dogs.  :-)

Ooooh!  Not sure what she saw, but I loved this expression.

We spent an hour or so at the park two blocks from Mandy & Brad's house.  This is Pipers first time down the slide with Mommy.  She loved it.

Swinging with Daddy.  They were holding hands while swinging.  I was a little too late snapping the picture.  Can you see that smile?  She loves her Daddy big time.

Grandpa and Mommy taking a break.

Pretty posies at the house.

On our way home yesterday I got this great picture of Mt. St. Helens.  For those of you that don't know.  Mt. St. Helen's erupted in 1980 and it's beautiful peak became this flat top.

Here's Mt. Hood as we were leaving Portland.

Spokane is on the edge of what is called the high desert.  Here we're leaving the desert behind and coming up to the valley that Spokanne lies in .  You can see the evergreen trees beginning to appear out of the desert floor.

Boulders lying here and there hint at the mountains to come.

Mt. Spokane.  "My" mountain that I can see from our windows and deck.  Sorry about the cars and roads.  It's hard to get a good picture at 70 miles an hour.

Heading down from the upper plateau down into the Spokane valley.  That's downtown Spokane.

Home!  We sure packed a lot into two days!  We were exhausted when we got home last night.  Next post will have pictures of my IKEA purchases.

I hope I didn't bore you too much.  It was the prettiest weekend since last summer and we had beautiful drives both going to Portland and driving home.  We spent lots of time outside and played a lot.  I can't believe how much Piper changed in the short time since I was there last month.  She's talking lots more and so sweet.  I miss her already.

Have a lovely day my friends.

Blessings,

Betsy