Beacon Rock and Hood River

Last Friday, October 17th, Pete's brother, Paul and his wife, Inger and their kids came to visit us. All of our kids are around the same ages, so we have a lot of fun with them.

Thursday was Makenna's eighth birthday. So, we started the night out by having birthday cake and icecream to celebrate her birthday. The kids had a great time eating cake and icecream and goofing around with each other.





The kids played until late into the evening until we decided it was calm down time and we put on a video for them while we played Ticket to Ride with Paul and Inger. After the kids went to bed we decided to play one more game. The Farming Game. I am a gamer, but I hate this game! I was bankrupt within twenty minutes, so I spent the next two hours playing banker for everyone else. Paul and Pete really enjoyed this game, but it was a little long for Inger and me. We finally went to bed at two in the morning!

On Saturday morning we got up and had a big yummy breakfast. This is a tradition with our two families. We always eat a big breakfast when we go to Paul and Inger's, so Pete and I had to keep up the tradition at our house.

After breakfast we packed up and headed to Beacon Rock. We have always wanted to climb this, so we thought it would be fun to do with Paul's family. It is a BIG rock! I thought we would never get to the top! Shaylee was such a trooper and walked almost the entire way up and down by herself. Easton who is two was able to climb almost the entire way up. The kids were great and really had fun together climbing the rock.


Paul and Inger on SR 14 along the Columbia River Gorge.




At the bottom.


At the top!





See how little that road is? That's how far up we are.


We then headed to Hood River to their apple festival. There were tons of different apples and pears being sold as well as apple cider. They had samples so you could try them and find your favorite ones. Pete loves the Honey Crisp apples, so we bought a few of those. The craft part of the festival was disappointing. You have to pay five dollars an adult to get in and there was only one tent full of crafts. We thought there would be more. They did have a nice park by the river where you could see the wind surfers up close and throw rocks in the river. It was really neat.




One of the wind surfers. People come from
all over the world to wind surf in the Gorge.





Jaron loved throwing rocks in the river.

We then went to their free craft show at the fair grounds and we got a couple of Christmas presents. Hood River is a gorgeous little town and we loved driving through it and seeing all of the pretty scenery.

We ate dinner with them at Arby's and then they headed back to her sister's in Aloha. We enjoyed being able to spend time with them and we LOVE to have visitors. It's so fun when the kids can play with their cousins and get to become a little closer especially when we live so far away.