4th of July and Beyond (Continued)

Anywho, as I was saying...after the beach we headed back to my Dad's in Vancouver, WA. Jared and I and my niece, Marlana, stayed the rest of the week there. The first couple days there I was still sick and wasn't able to help my dad as much as I wanted to. I wanted to make him meals and do yard work and help clean the house, etc. But the first day there I didn't even get dressed. Jared was so sweet and completely made up for my sick-slackin. He helped prune a bunch of bushes, and mowed the lawn, and made some food for my dad to have after we left. I'm so lucky! Every girl needs a Jared! We did a lot of fun stuff with Dad while we were there too.

I heard the Columbia River Gorge is the most concentrated area of waterfalls in the US. I've always loved hiking up to the top of them, or even just seeing them when we drive by. Dad took us on the drive that my Mom liked to take so often. We drove up highway 14 to Stevenson and stopped for ice cream.

We crossed over the Bridge of the Gods into Oregon. We stopped by a couple different waterfalls. The biggest one was Multnomah Falls. We hiked up to the bridge and took lots of pictures.

Then we drove along the old scenic highway on the way home. We passed more waterfalls, and stopped at the Vista House up at Crown Point. There's a great view of the gorge from there.

I met up with some of my old Jr High/High School friends, Margi, Ashleigh, Alisha, and Brodi. We went to breakfast and then to a park to let their kids play. It was so good to see them! It's been a really long time.

We played a lot of games with my Dad while we were there. We made him some good food. He loves orange glazed salmon so I found a recipe on Allrecipes.com. I love that site. We also made some potato soup (another favorite of his). He loved it! We ate all of our meals outside on the deck. The weather was perfect all day everyday!

On our last day there we went to the Zoo. My brother Brett and his sons came too. The Portland Zoo makes Utah's look like a pet shop. It's so beautiful and has many realistic habitats for the animals.

When we were trying to take this group picture, a humming bird kept getting in the way. So I decided to get a picture of it!

We spent a lot of time looking at the yard, and watching the birds and squirrels. My dad has a couple regulars that will come and eat right out of his hand!

I wish I could see my Dad more often. We had a really nice trip. It was so hard to say goodbye!