Pacific Northwest

In the spirit of cooperation and unity of this Olympic fortnight we are writing this blog post together, and competing for medals. The Freeman medal count for the last week is the following:

Nate:

Number of Medals: 6

Events: acrobatic sleeping (he can sleep anywhere!), job searching (some very good prospects..thanks to those who have been praying for us), travel planning, diaper changing, making us laugh, and eating ice cream.

Joanna:

Number of Medals: 6

Events: nursing (since Nate cannot compete in this event), cooking, running, insect killing (no competition here either), laundry, and getting Mason to sleep

Mason:

Number of Medals: 4

Events: long distance spitting, tug of war (aka pulling cords out of sockets), cutest laugh,  and loudest scream when he doesn't want his clothes changed.

Olympics aside, this year we decided to go to the Pacific Northwest for our family vacation. Nate had never been up there, and Joanna had only seen a little bit of it. If you haven't gone up there, drop what you're doing right now, and buy tickets and go. Just do it! Seriously, it was one of the most enjoyable trips either of us had been on. We flew into Portland, where we stayed with Steve and Shirley and we rocked Portland! We had tons of fun with them who were kind enough to let us stay with them. The highlights included a trip to the ever so hip and ever so delicious 'Voodoo Donuts'.

 Staring in awe at the beautiful 'Moltnomah Falls',

smelling the flowers at 'The International Rose Garden',

so fun to be with Shirley, William AND Steve. He was able to join  us for that outing,  even with his busy work schedule!

and taking a beautiful hike to 'Punch bowl Falls'.

I think we may have worn our boys out!

We also toured the cheese factory at Tillamook with Steve and Shirley on our way up the coast.

We certainly could have stayed longer as we enjoyed it so much, but we didn't want to let Lewis and Clark down, so we continued northward. We stayed a night in beautiful Astoria where the raging Colombia River meets the not-so-pacific Pacific Ocean (the currents there are so treacherous that it is sometimes referred to as 'the Graveyard of the Pacific').  It was a true sailor's town and we enjoyed visiting the cutting edge 'Maritime Museum'

walking up the hundred sixty some odd steps of the Astoria column to get a gorgeous panoramic view,

and going on a little trolley ride through town.

 Did I mention that Mason was a pretty darn good little traveler? Yeah, we didn’t take that for granted. And, despite the below picture, he did not find it boring. I was actually teaching him how to do whale calls.

We went across the river to Warrshington so we could meet up with my great Uncle Greg and great Aunt Tony (did I mention they're great?!) in Stanwood, about an hour north of Seattle. Traveling is so much more fun when you have people to stay with and experience your travels with. They took us up to Vancouver, where we got a great meal and walked along the beautiful harbor. I have to admit, I wouldn't mind retiring there . . . it was nice.

A couple of days later, Greg and Tony let us borrow their car so we could spend a few days in Victoria. Victoria provided lots diversions and beautiful vistas. We went to the 'Butchart Gardens', which was one of the most beautiful places we had ever seen.

If you name any flower, it's probably there.  The Parliament building was gorgeous, both day and night.

The Empress Hotel was a little bit nicer than our 'Days Inn' hotel,

and the BC Museum was one of the coolest interactive historical museums I've seen.

Mason wasn't quite sure what to make of that great wholly mammoth. He made sure it didn't get one step closer to us.  

One of the highlights was Joanna making her performing artist debut on the busiest square in town directly facing the Parliament. She got quite a few encores, but she had to leave her adoring fans for a hungry son (and husband).

SO in love with him! Playing Chopin.

Nate also played a little, although not for long. Every second he played though, I LOVED it! He was also pulled aside randomly to do an interview for a board game and admittedly butchered one of the questions. Do you know the first two lines of 'O Canada'? Nate's guess was "O Canada, O Canada, O Canada, eh?" So, maybe our sister-country Canada TV or internet will get a good laugh at that one. So now we know that it's really "O Canada, my own my native land". He definitely won't get that question wrong in the future now should another occasion present itself!

While almost everywhere we went was incredibly beautiful, one of the most beautiful parts of the trip was riding the ferries to and from Victoria.

Although we didn't see any whales, the scenery was spectacular. The sunset over the San Juan Islands was stunning. We returned back to Stanwood, and got a good night's rest. For our trip finale, we went to Seattle with Greg and Tony who took us to the top of the Space Needle for a delicious lunch

and then to Pike's Market, where Nate submitted an application to be a fish catcher (or maybe he didn't).

 Greg and Tony were terrific hosts and provided excellent travel advice, meals, and memories. One of the best parts of the trip was that the weather was almost always perfect. We went home the following day, completely satisfied and rejuvanted by our trip.

Since then, we've been enjoying our much more open schedules by jogging, going to Seven Peaks, reading, watching movies, canning, and exploring options for future employment.

The big news on the Freeman side: my brother Jason is engaged to the delightful Ashley Haycock!  He proposed to her after a nice ship ride in Alaska.  We are thrilled for them both and look forward to having them back in town while they prepare for their wedding on November 20 in the Timpanogos Temple.  Congrats again!

Also, Mom and Dad Jacob leave tomorrow to the Philippines on their mission! We will really miss them.

That's all for today! Goodbye!