Oregon!

Grandma, John and I were in Oregon for 12 days last month visiting John's Aunt Katharine and Uncle Jarey. Katharine and Jarey live in Corvallis, where Jarey is a grad student at Oregon State University. Katharine works for the state of Oregon in the capital city of Salem.

Having just come back from Texas, John and I were THRILLED to experience the cooler Oregon temperatures. (It was actually very, very chilly there in the mornings -- in the high 40s -- and we soon figured out that we hadn't packed enough cool-weather clothing. I'd checked the 10-day forecast for the area before we left but really only paid attention to the daily highs, which were in the low 70s.) I was so happy not to be sweating all day long, and John got to wear some of his new fall clothes!

We did quite a bit of sight-seeing, I would say, considering we were doing it all with a 19-month-old. The first weekend we were there, we hung out in the Corvallis area, visiting the Farmer's Market on the Riverwalk, hiking up a trail that gave us great views of the town, and harvesting our own blueberries at a blueberry-picking farm. Here are some pics from those first few days:

Jarey carrying John on his back at the beginning of our hike.....

Mom and John at the top of the big hill.....

Grandma, John, Sarah and Katharine at the top of the hill.....

Katharine, Jarey and Grandma trying to get John to smile for the camera.....

Jarey teaching John how to play the mandolin back at the apartment.....

Jarey and John admiring the goats at the blueberry-picking farm.....

John pointing at the goats.....

John getting ready to harvest some blueberries.....

Dumping out the few blueberries he had picked.....

Jarey helping John pick some more blueberries.....

"Boy, this harvesting stuff is hard work!"

John has had a difficult day of harvesting already.....

During the week while Katharine and Jarey were working, Grandma, John and I took a day trip to the Oregon coast. We visited the town of Newport, which had a really nice aquarium and great seafood. It was extremely foggy and damp for most of the day, but it cleared up right before we had to head back to Corvallis to pick up Katharine.

John and Mom at the water birds exhibit at the aquarium.....

Grandma and John at the touch pool.....

John and Grandma in the sharks section.....

John admiring the big sharks (which he called whales).....

John and Mom posing on a bay along the coast.....

Happy to be out of the car - look at that genuine smile!

Grandma and John walking along the water.....

And here's a video of John wading in the water of the Pacific Ocean back in Newport.

Walking in the Pacific Ocean from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, the camera we were borrowing from Katharine and Jarey stopped working in the middle of our trip, so these are all the photos we have from it! We don't have any photos at all from our trip to Portland during the second weekend we were there. Oh well.