Day 29: Getting settled in...

Um. 

Yeah. 

So this is not really our sort of place, y'know? But we are getting settled and looking at maps and trying to figure out where our backpacking trip will actually take us and what Grandma and the kids can do while we are in the wilderness and apparently finding the places that don't really work well for anyone in our party.

The kids asked me to take these photos (which is a fairly big deal for our kids that can get pretty tired of the camera): 

We have a different kid lining everything up these days.

I didn't share some of the more embarrassing ones but I do think they are wonderful art directors.

Time to get some civilized rest before we leave it all behind for 60 hours. 

Day 28: 320 miles and 2 states with an extra person

Things we accomplished on our way to our next "home":

1. We saw Multnomah Falls!

2. We tasted wine throughout Washington wine country - starting with the best winery and ending with, well, something else all together! (I am not posting pictures in the order that we visited.)

He might not know how to read, but he does know where to direct this family.

Our boys wanted to smell what we were up to. Paul asked Bear what he smelled and he said something like "strawberries in the grass" and it was a pretty dead-on descriptor. Proud parents right here.

3. I finally managed to teach the truffle pig to point instead of pick all of the ripe fruits.

There are a lot of photos of the kids rolling down hills and playing around the vines and lying in dog beds and shots of our environs because you cannot actually do wine tastings with kids around. Wineries will let them in the door but kids will do everything in their power to get kicked out - they will scream, run, get awfully close to the expensive bottles, pound, wrestle, whine... so I explored with the kids while the big folks got their drink on. Do you know how you can tell when Paul has been drinking wine? He asks you to take photos like this:

And manages not to giggle so much while the shutter clicks away. I love him.

(I thought this intersection was funny because those signs imply some sort of picturesque Dutch landscape. Instead, just more high desert.) 

4. We made it to a new place with all of our stuff and all of the people in tact!

(yes, we now call that weather pattern "wind Tussies")