I’m getting considerable better at recording interesting
events in my journal daily so instead of giving you a play by play of
my entire holiday I will try to focus mostly on the highlights or things I have
pictures for.
OREGON
After four planes we finally arrived in Portland, Oregon. I
had managed to catch a bad cold that week but the day we flew out it seemed to
be almost gone. Unfortunately, all the pressure on the plane and lack of sleep
made it worse. I got to spend my first day on our holiday mostly in bed. Matt’s
brother Mike had arranged his family and grandparents to come to Salem that day
for a barbecue lunch/dinner. I managed to survive a few hours on Dayquil but
eventually got so tired I had to take a nap. My biggest worry was that I would
get their two young kids Danny and Rocklynn sick. Luckily I woke up the next
morning feeling much better.
The next two days we spent in Corvallis with Laura and
Michael Dexter. Laura arranged for us to go out with some girls and float the
Willamette River. As Matt was jealous we went again the following day, but
bought a raft so Laura could go with her kids. It was a lot of fun!
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| Laura and her kids Liam and Amelia |
That night
I also got to spend a little time with our friends Patrick and Valerie Gollmann
and meet their son for the first time. Next we went to Eugene and stayed with Matt’s sister Jaime
and her son Jacob. We didn’t have any big plans in Eugene other than closing
our bank account there, and visiting friends and family. Matt was still
struggling with jet lag so he enjoyed sleeping in late. Jaime made us curry the
first night and we had friends Paul and Cassie visit with their daughter Anya,
and Matt’s sister Lindsey and her daughter Amelia were there. It was fun to
talk to them after a long 3-year absence, although I realised it’s difficult to
spend much time catching up in just a short time frame. Some things you just
don’t want to post on Facebook.
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| Matt's niece Amelia with Jamie's pitbull |
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| Amelia with her rainbow dash jacket |
The following day Matt and I caught up on the recent
American Ninja Warrior videos while we waited for Lindsey. We all went to visit
the Gateway Mall which had been completely redone since Matt and I were last
there. It’s now mostly an outdoor style mall and we didn’t really like the
changes. Considering how it rains most of the year there, it doesn’t make sense
to me to redo a mall so that you have to go out in the rain to visit different
stores. The layout seems way more complicated. On the bright side Matt found
some great fudge at Cabela’s – a large outdoor sports store. To finish off our
night we had all of the family meet at Papa’s Pizza and the kids loved being
able to run around in the play area.
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| The family at Papa's Pizza |
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| Matt's entire family kids and all! |
Most of the week Matt had been trying to find a time to meet
up with his best friend from his childhood. Finally, we worked out to meet Paul
Suzuki and his wife Friday morning before we headed to Salem. Unfortunately,
his wife wasn’t feeling well and so only Paul came. Although we spent a good 2+
hours at the restaurant, it just wasn’t enough time. I could tell Matt was sad
that we didn’t spend more time with him, but sometimes on these holidays you
can only get a few hours with people due to busy schedules.
Our last day in Oregon we went to the Oregon State Fair in
Salem. Mike and Holly and their two kids, Laura and her two kids, Lindsey and
her daughter Amelia, and Jaime and her son Jacob were there. Notice anything
about the group? Matt and I were the only ones without kids! It was a lot of
fun to experience the fair with a bunch of kids. We got to see them frequently
change their minds about what they wanted to do or eat, and spend lots of time
playing with corn. Our favourite was the petting zoo which had some less common
petting zoo animals like deer, alpaca, and even a baby kangaroo! Another
highlight was these large balls that float on water and all of the older kids
got to go in one. They were pretty fun to watch. It was a fantastic day and I
was glad we were able to spend that time with family and nieces and nephews. We
may not live in Oregon, but I hope we can always keep contact so that these
kids will grow up knowing they have family in Australia.
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| Lindsey, Amelia, and Matt on the monster truck |
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| Matt's nephew, Danny, in one of the blow up balls |
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