Oregon Trip May 2009

So I just realized that my graduation was posted but our big trip to Oregon was not.

This year is my Granddad Bud's 80th birthday. His wife Illa thought it would be a wonderful idea if all of my grandpa's children to surprise him on his birthday by traveling up to Albany, OR. This went from a 4 person surprise to all of my grandpa's children and siblings and half of his grandchildren and 6 of 9 great grand children. My family traveled up. My mom had 4 daughters, 2 son-in-laws, 3 grandsons, and 3 granddaughters make the long 12 hour trip to Oregon.

My sisters and Mom started the trip in Price at 6am and slowly made their way up to SLC to pick me and Steven up at Grandma Candy’s house. We were finally on the road by 1pm.

We had many adventures which made the 12 hour trip into a 24 hour trip for some of the riders. These adventures included backtracking, running out of gas, finding out the gas stations close at 11pm in Oregon, and getting lost and then found again. We had fun. At one point Steven drove all three of the boys in one car, the boys wanted to play a game so he taught them about story games and for the rest of the trip they wanted to spend as much time with their Uncle Steven as possible. While Steven drove the boys, me and my mom and sisters were in a different car and we were able to reminisce about our childhood. My mom told us stories about when she was little and my sisters told me stories about when I was little.

We pulled into Albany at 6:30am on Friday, May 25th. Everyone crashed and slept in until we had to get ready to go the party. I woke up at 7:30 am like I always do so I was not well rested. Lol. We had so much fun getting together with the family. My grandpa was so surprised and happy that everyone made the trip. We spent the whole day listen to old stories and updating everyone on what we have been up to.

On Saturday morning we met up and said our goodbyes and made our way out to Newport, OR to see the ocean.

Newport is beautiful! This was the first time that my nephews and nieces have seen the ocean and they loved it. We played there all day then at the end we said goodbye to Tara and Matt and the Girls. They were making their way to Northern California to see the Redwoods and we were making our way home. When we got to Portland, OR we made a stop at a waterfall which was so pretty. After that brief stop we then spent the rest of the day and night driving to Boise, ID.

While in Boise Steven and I met up with Steven's brother and sister-in-law (Butch and Gesi) and had breakfast together. They then took us to meet up with my family at Sierra Trading Post! My sister Cassie loves this store so we had to stop. We parted ways at lunch time and made our way to Grandma Candy's house.

We got to Bountiful at 3pm and divvied up the luggage and Steven and I went to SLC and the rest of my family kept going to Price.

It was a fast trip but it was so much fun!