soooo tiiiirrrred...

Well folks, I am past the halfway point of my Portland trip, and I am exhausted. It's been so wonderful catching up with friends and family... but yikes, coming here is less like a vacation and more like going through the spin cycle of the washer! But, on the plus side of that, I got to see my parents, who are two of my all-time fave peeps. I actually got a good pic of them today, kickin' it in the living room:

However, things have slowed down bit. Last night I got to stay with my lovely grandmother, who I just adore. We polished off a bottle of Ravens Wood Chardonnay (VERY good, BTW), watched Persuasion, and ate lamb chops. This AM we called her cousin Wendy in England and it was really nice to talk to one of my favorite people across the pond.

This afternoon, my little bro and I drove to Seaside, a little town on the Oregon Coast. We are staying at The Tides, a nice hotel with cottages and such on the southern part of the beach. My family spent a lot of time out here when I was growing up, and comig here always brings back such good memories. The weather is fairly nice (not raining), and we will be building a fire soon over which we will roast wienies and marshmallows. Good times. As we were making our way through the Coast Range, I found this rather ironic sign:

I'll post more shots from the past couple of days soon, but for now I will just leave you with the view from our room:

Not bad.