Long Weekend

While Noah is in Hawaii and Forrest 

was in Loon Lake painting his mom's house Alyssa and I took a long weekend in Portland with my family.  As usual my parents took us out to wonderful restaurants including the Stone Cliff Lodge. It's on a cliff above the Clackamas River.  We watched several people rafting and tubing from the edge of the cliff.  The restaurant's salmon chowder and house salad were amazing. 

While we visited with my parents, my sister, and my brother and his wife, I didn't take a single photo of any of them.  Sorry guys. My mom, my sister, and Alyssa and I spent a girl's day out downtown shopping and going out to lunch.  We were amazed to see at least 60 people waiting in line at the mall to buy a new iphone.  We walked past this group that was roped off in the middle of the mall several times.   Incredible! I guess those must be the same people who will camp out overnight to be the first in line to buy a new video game system.  My time and sleep are more valuable than that.  I can wait.

On the way home Alyssa and I stopped to look around her first choice of colleges, Saint Martin's University in Lacey.  It's a private Jesuit university with fewer than 1500 students.  The school has several new dorms and a beautiful campus of old and new brick buildings.  Alyssa was very impressed.  She kept saying how grand everything looked.  Hopefully she'll be able to earn enough scholarships and grants to attend this school. I wasn't able to attend my first choice of university because it was private and my scholarships weren't big enough. Now 26 years later students have a lot more options. Although I still think of her as  my little girl, watching her on campus I started to really see her as the accomplished young lady that she's becoming.