More visitors, moving, cherries

Our last round of west-coast visitors consisted of my sisters, Stef and Rosie, and Rosie's girlfriend Rachel. Highlights of the trip consisted of a rainy visit with Stef to the famous Portland Rose Gardens and Powell's Bookstore on Friday, and a whirlwind tour of the Columbia River Gorge area with all the girls on Saturday: Multnomah Falls, Hood River windsurfers/kiteboarders, Timberline Lodge, and a late lunch in Government Camp before heading back to Corvallis (beginning to sound familiar??). We spent Sunday relaxing in Corvallis. Monday we headed to the coast and took in the sights of Newport, the Yaquina Head lighthouse and the huge common murre colony there (stinky, as it was an on-shore wind!) , the Rogue Brewery, and the beautiful views of Cape Perpetua. I saw all the girls off on their respective journeys home (Stef) or elsewhere along the west coast (R-squared) on Tuesday morning. They all snapped copious photos, so I'll post a few here once they're sent to me. It was so much fun having Stef, Rosie and Rachel here; never a dull moment with the Daley sisters (as Nate can no doubt attest to).

So now, no more excuses for delaying the packing. We've turned the living room into box-storage central and are eating away at the random foods still left in our pantry and refrigerator. Two more full days of packing prep before we load the truck up on Saturday, with the help of our friends Jack, Kelly and Valerio.

Here's an update on my growing belly - we're into week 29 this week, and I'm still feeling quite good and comfortable, which is lucky considering how much we've got going on these days. There will no doubt be frequent bathroom breaks on our 4 day cross-country drive, but overall, I don't think my "condition" should slow us down too much.
We borrowed a friend's ladder this afternoon so that we could get up to some of the ripening cherries above arms-reach. I stayed ground-side to pick on the lower limbs; Nate climbed up to do the ladder picking. Check out the bounty of about 15 minutes of picking! We'll do one more round of picking on Friday. They are delicious, maybe more so because they're free.

Bacheler's visit Oregon

We're becoming professionals Oregon tour guides - last week, we hosted Nate's entire immediate family (mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law). Another fun-filled week was had with the Bacheler clan, exploring around much of the western 1/3 of OR by Grand Caravan for 4 days and then spending the weekend back home in Corvallis. Our itinerary included the Columbia River Gorge (Multnomah Falls, kite-boarders and wind-surfers in Hood River), Trillium Lake/Mt. Hood/Timberline Lodge, Smith Rock State Park, Bend, Crater Lake National Park, Oregon Caves National Monument, the northern Calif. redwoods, sea lions, gray whale, and lots of sightseeing along the coast.

Perhaps the most memorable event of the week was a crazy hail storm that we encountered in Bend - more than 3" of pebble-sized, wet hail fell in a matter of minutes. People clad in shorts and flip-flops were pulling over to the side of the road to clear off their windshields. Massive road flooding made it quite an adventure for us to find a safe route back to our motel. Here's a short video of the mayhem, along with some other photos from our week.

Daley's visit Oregon

Nate and I hosted my folks out here last week and had a great visit. Oregon is an easy state to impress with - tons of amazing natural features, beautiful scenery, and we lucked into a week of picture-perfect weather. Mom and Dad stayed busy identifying all the new plants and animals they were seeing, and took tons of photos and video to document their adventures. We saw common murres and sea lions at the coast, had a picnic lunch at the Crater Lake Lodge, watched rock climbers at Smith Rock, and hiked behind waterfalls at Silver Falls State Park. We even lucked into seeing a baby black bear cub run across the road in front of us on our drive to the coast one morning.

Here are some photos from the visit, including a good belly profile shot of me (below) with Mom, touring the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in OR:



We'll host a lot more family in the next 3 weeks, right up until we pack the moving truck and hit the road for Wisconsin on June 28th.