Astoria

This past August we took a trip to Oregon with the Burtons to try and help them escape the intense Arizona heat.  We began our wonderful get away in Astoria, the cutest little victorian town.  We stayed in a hotel that was directly under the bridge that crosses over to Washington, we all had fantastic views of the magnificent bridge from our hotel room windows.

This adorable pomeranian, named princess Roxanne, was staying in a room across the hall from us, oh she was adorable, she added to my almost obsessive desire to own a pom one day.

The night we arrived we got dinner at Fultano's, a local pizzaria.  The pizza was delicious! They had some really unique pizza combinations.  We got a hawaiian, to play it safe for the kids, as well as a veggie pizza which was loaded with spinach, olives, artichoke hearts, red peppers and sprinkled with feta cheese.

The next day we visited Fort Clatsop to learn all about Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea (pictured above with baby Jean Baptiste).  One of my favorite things about Oregon is how lush and green everything is, it just amazes me!  Everywhere you look is a picture waiting to happen.

The fort was so interesting and fun to visit, the boys had a blast exploring and trying out all the different activities.  We learned what daily life was like in the fort, they had authentic items of clothing from that time period to try on, we learned all about the guns they used and got a shooting demonstration where the ranger shot a spit wad instead of a bullet, very interesting.  We also learned all about how they would make candles out of animal fat and went exploring in the near by forest.

Then we headed back to the visitor center where the boys filled out Junior Ranger booklets and received an award, signed a certificate and got officially sworn in by a park ranger, it was pretty cool!  I love Will's signature on his certificate. 

Some of Andrew and John's entries ...

Cute Karin had been teaching her kids all about Lewis and Clark in preparation for the trip, she is such a fantastic mom.  She had taught her boys that one of the foods that Lewis and Clark would have eaten on their expedition was Jerky they would have made themselves, so she had brought all of us some turkey jerky as a treat.

After our fort Clatsop excursion we had the afternoon free.  The Burtons took off and filled every minute of the afternoon with lots of different exciting adventures.  Our family took a more relaxing approach,  first, we went to visit the famous Goonies house, that's right the classic 1985 film, Goonies was filmed in this charming little town. You have to walk up a long driveway to get to the house and I was surprised at how steady the flow was of people coming to visit the house.  When we arrived the owner of the house happened to be outside doing some yard work, he was very nice and talked with us for a while.  He was funny, he said he barely knows the movie and only saw it because he bought the house and wanted to understand why so many people came to see it, he liked the house because of it's amazing view

Then we spent some time driving up and down the little streets admiring all the wonderful victorian houses, they each had different personalities and fun unique characteristics.

After our house hunting we decided to check out an antique store we had seen on our drive into town.  It was a very nice store with lots of amazing treasures.  I found these two awesome old cameras at such an amazing price I just couldn't resist them.  The bigger camera is from the 1800s and the smaller one is from the 1920's, I love love love them! 

The next day we began our journey to Yachats but before we left Astoria we stopped by their farmers market.  I had so much fun I love farmers markets and this one was a great one, there was wonderful produce for sale, my dad bought a big bag full of cherries for everyone to enjoy.  There were also so many fun vendors selling all sorts of items such as yummy teas, pies, flowers, popcorn, tide clocks, candles, crocheted items, soaps, photography, art sculptures, the list goes on and on.

This flower booth was amazing, they had such gorgeous arrangements.  I really liked the combinations they came up with, they were fairly unusual but very stunning! 

I'm pretty sure every resident of Astoria has an amazing dog and they use the farmers market as an excuse to come show off their pups, as you can imagine I was in heaven.  There were dogs everywhere, and they were some of the most beautiful breeds I have ever seen.  I should buy my Pomeranian and move to Astoria where I could go shopping at the farmers market every week, buy some pretty flowers and strut my pooch. 

These guys were so fun to watch and listen to they really knew how to jam.  They even played one of my favorite songs, Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show.