Jake is 30!

Jake turned 30 this year. We celebrated with a fantastic cheesecake. Unfortunately, this is the only picture that wasn't blurry, but you get the idea.
One of the many many things that I love about Jake is that he's always 2 years older than me, so I can regularly remark about how old he is.

Dear Saylers...

Ahhh. Summer has basically come and gone without any blogging. It has been, by far, THE most PERFECT summer, EVER! - only 1 or 2 weeks of 90+ degree days (7 of which I was gone for.) Here are some of the cute pics that I found right away. I have more, and maybe I'll post them.

You know that a kid is sleepy when she chooses to snuggle up with a water bottle on the kitchen floor.

2/3 of the McClure cousins.

Cleya turned 6! This is her snuggling up to her ladybug cake.

This is Lirah every morning. Her hair is always a little messed up.

This is Lirah's birds' nest. It was particularly awesome this day, so I took a picture of it.

Lake Michigan! We've taken 2 trips up North this year and are planning a 3rd. Cleya could live one the beach - it's the one place that she doesn't get bored.

Lirah was less impressed by the beach. She preferred to sit on the towel and eat sandy food. If she was to venture near the water, she had to be held.

And finally, this is Cleya and her snake, Snakey. He's been around since we moved here and our cat catches him occasionally. Cleya rescues him and snuggles him for a while before reluctantly setting him free until next time.

Our first stop was the rose test garden. Acres of beautiful roses.


The sun came out for a bit between rain showers.

This was one of the first things we saw when we drove out to the coast on the first day.

I told my little sister that I was going to tell everyone that that was her nose.

This is where we discovered just how cold it was. It was freezing, and beautiful.

That isn't mist in the background, it's blowing sand that was whipping across the beach.

When we were at the beachfront hotel, these rocks were in walking distance. I was so excited to have found real starfish that I ran back to the hotel to wake up my sister. 2 hours later we got down there to take these pictures. The tide was coming back in so there was a sense of potential emergency. The ocean was very cold.

This little starfish was just chillin'.

This is the rainforest, from the car. We didn't end up getting to any good area of Washington until around 7 so we didn't try to hike.

This was a beautiful mountain lake that we passed in Washington. It helped to increase Washington's ratings. The whole thing was a stunning color of turquoise blue.

On our last couple of days, the ocean looked angry. This is my sister explaining something about something. I'm sure it was really important.

Another picture of the angry ocean. We didn't take any pictures of the delicious food we had. That's a shame because it was fantastic. We had a great trip. It was nice to be somewhere different and see such amazing, beautiful things. And my sister and I are not only still speaking, but agreed that we'd do it again next year.

Well, we didn't end up going to Montana. We intended to go hiking in Port Angeles, but it was raining. We ended up driving all of the way down to where we had been 2 nights before. We toured all of Washington in 2 days!
We spent the next 2 days milling around tourist towns, in and out of little shops. We also ate more excellent food, including a giant strawberry shortcake and a marionberry tart. We have had some of the best food and by far the most seafood on this trip.
We're headed home tomorrow. Our flight leaves at 6:30, so we have to wake up around 4:30. I've become rather acclimated to this time zone, so I'm not looking forward to the early morning.
We should be home by 7pm. I can't wait to see my family and get some pictures onto the computer!

Right now I'm sitting in a hotel lobby to type. It's about 7:45, which is what time I thought it was when I got up. Never trust the room clocks.
We are at the Northern-most point of our trip. I didn't intend to be here so soon, but we ended up driving through 1/4 of Oregon and the whole state of Washington yesterday. Washington was kind of a disappointment, to say the least. It's basically like Southern Illinois with evergreens and the occasional mountain. It's very overgrown, so even when you're right next to the ocean, there's about 50-100 yards of solid growth blocking your view. I was used to Oregon, so I was a little bitter. So I just kept driving. The second half of the drive was actually pretty nice. We came upon a beautiful mountain lake and have seen some good rainforest.
Today we have some big decisions to make. We could work our way down to Seattle, hike some mountains (my sister is pretty mobile now), and see where we end up. Or we could high tail it across the state to Montana, because honestly, it's only 9 1/2 hours away. Why not?

I think that the time change is making my sister feel pretty triumphant. Today she woke up at 7:15 after going to bed around 9:30, just like civilized people in the Midwest!
Yesterday we had a very touristy day. We went to the rose test gardens, which were beautiful and very fragrant. I'll have to post pictures when we get home.
Afterwards we attempted to find Chinatown, which we eventually did. We had lunch and then navigated our way out of the city. Portland driving is kind of scary: their roads are seemingly made of rocks with some asphalt mixed in, so they're very loud; there's lots of traffic; there are some pretty scary bridges. But I have my trusty navigator with me, so we made it around ok.
We headed to the coast and after an excessive amount of mountains we finally got there. We did find a French cheese shop that had brie samples. We ended up doubling back and getting some peppered brie and a baguette for supper. In addition to the cherries we picked up it was very tasty!
Today, since we are getting an early start, we have endless possibilities. We'll probably head South and start driving up the coast.
I have to keep reminding myself that it's only Monday and we have 5 full days left. There's no hurry.

Right now it's the early morning here in Vancouver, Washington (not Canada, which I hear is beautiful.) I've been up since 5:45, which is 7:45 central time, which is actually really sleeping in for me. My little sister, my travel companion, is still asleep. It's about 7:30. I've gotten coffee and taken a bath so far. Now I'm typing on my sister's old laptop that has the 'o' and 'i' keys missing. It's amazing how you take those letters for granted until you have to press little gummy circles very hard to activate them!
Today we are going to explore Portland, which I am told is a great city. It's very cool here, only the low 60's. Apparently, that's about 10 degrees cooler than usual. I'm already dreading going back to St. Louis where is was 98 degrees with 98% humidity. I was actually cold last night when we went to dinner. Speaking of which, it was fantastic. We ate at a fish house that was pretty popular looking, like there might be one in every big city. But it was very tasty. I got rainbow trout and my sister got coconut prawns. We wondered what the difference between prawns and shrimp is because they were referred to separately on the menu. (I'll let you know if I find out.) Then we visited Trader Joe's because honestly, neither one of us had ever been to one. We got a few toiletries at the Dollar Tree that we dared not take on the plane like mousse, tweezers, and razors. (I got harassed for taking baggies of lotion and Solarcaine on the plane.) By then it was 9, which is 11 central time. I was exhausted and crashed before my sister was done typing her blog entry. Our hotel has very nice beds and is generally more upscale than I usually stay in. We have one more night here before we head out into the great unknown, armed with a crappy laptop. I will (try) to keep you posted.