Mother's Day Adventure

I had a glorious Mother's Day with a family outing to the Columbia River Gorge. I wanted to go somewhere fun for the day that was a little out of the norm for us, and gave us an opportunity to enjoy the beautiful weather we finally had. I finally decided on a trip to see the beautiful waterfalls in the Gorge. We haven't really spent much time there as a family and it sounded like a good idea to get out and be one with nature. 

We took the scenic route which takes you by all the waterfalls and gives you the picturesque breathtaking views of the gorge. My absolutely favorite time to be there is fall when the leaves are turning colors, but spring is equally beautiful when the wildflowers are blooming and everything is such a bright shade of green.

The Crown Point Vista House is so incredibly old dating back to the early 1900s, and was recently refurbished back to it's original glory a couple of years ago. It has exquisite views, and they have all kids of fun historical facts about the building and scenic highway throughout the years.

Here is the view from the Vista House looking across the river to Washington. Bryan asked Gabi what separated Oregon and Washington and she said "a border". Nick pipes in with the Willamette River. Yes, I know. Geography still needs a little work. They both knew the correct answer, just took a couple of times to get it out of their mouths.

Here is the view looking east up the gorge. 

The first falls we hiked to was LaTourelle Falls. A beautiful location and one of the higher falls in the region.

The bottom of the falls. 

I actually got to be in a picture!

My favorite falls was Bridal Veil Falls. The upper portion falls into a pool, then drops again to the creek.  Very cool. We wanted to swim in the pool, but since the water is melted snow we decided that wasn't such a great idea.

Here is the creek & trail leading up to the falls. Just a beautiful spot.

Of course no trip to the gorge is complete without a trip to Multnomah Falls. Apparently half of Portland had the same idea because it was crazy crowded there. We didn't run into a lot of traffic or people anywhere else, but because you can access Multnomah Falls from the scenic byway & I-84 it gets more traffic I think. Plus it is the 2nd largest waterfall in the US, and one of the iconic landmarks in the Portland area. I was hungry by the time we reach the falls so wasn't up to the mile long hike to the top so we skipped that. 

Horsetail Falls

We were going to head into Cascade Locks or Hood River to eat and window shop, but there was a major traffic jam and I didn't feel like waiting in the long line of traffic for who knows how long so we headed back to Portland. Gotta love the road construction season in Oregon! We ended up eating an early dinner/late lunch at Famous Dave's BBQ since we worked up quite an appetite with the hiking we did. 

All in all it was a great Mother's Day doing exactly what I wanted to do while spending some great quality time together as a family. And we got home just in time before the rain started. At least our weather was perfect for our adventure!

A sneak Peek!

Just a sneak peek to what I came home from work to yesterday! Yes, Bryan painted the laundry room, and I LOVE the color! So bright and happy. Still have to paint the ceiling, but with the white trim and accents in the room it's going to look so fun! Now if only I could convince him to let me paint the cabinets....

Happy Earth Day! (Better Late than Never!)

I finally finished my placemat & napkin project! I just love using cloth napkins and cute placemats for meals. So much nicer looking than paper napkins on the table! And more environmentally friendly than throwing away paper napkins all the time. So what kind of started as an Earth Day project, turned into a great excuse to use my new serger!

I had been wanting some new everyday placemats for the table that went with the new colors I was playing around with for the living/Dining room. When I found this fabric at Fabric Depot the last time we were there a I knew it was perfect! It is now the inspiration for not only the laundry room, but the kitchen makeover as well! The placemats are reversible. We have the light springy side for now, and the dark chocolate brown for the fall and winter months.

The napkins were a super breeze to make. I love rolled hems! My new serger makes them so easily, with just a flick of a switch - gotta love that! I could make those all day long! Now I need some cute new napkin rings worthy of the new napkins.

Laundry Room

So we have started work on the laundry room. Actually we are halfway through with the laundry room project, but I'm just getting around to showing you the progress. I'm very excited to get it all finished so it can actually function as a laundry room and not as a dumping ground for all the tools & crap that seemed to collect in there.

This started because Bryan wanted to finish out the tile floor downstairs. It was a project we actually had everything we needed, so seemed simple enough. But as always happens, the project quickly spiraled into something more. Kind of like the "If you give a Mouse a Cookie" book.

It started with tiling the floor. But since you are going to be doing that might as well fix the holes in the wall. And while at that might as well scraped the popcorn off the ceiling. And while doing that you might as well fix the heat duct which is exposed and just sprayed with popcorn instead of finished off properly.

In order to do all that of course all cabinets must be removed from the walls. This leads to deciding to create a pantry upstairs in the kitchen instead of storing all the food downstairs in the laundry room where there was an overload of cabinets. While there was storage galore in this room, it was very inconvenient to constantly run downstairs for that can of tomato sauce or box of noodles for dinner.

Unfortunately I didn't get a very good before picture of the enclosed hallway this room looked like with 2 full walls of cabinets. The countertop was great on the one wall, but the room always felt very claustrophobic due to the excessive use of cabinets. Which didn't even match.

Bryan had already started removing cabinets when I remembered I didn't have a before picture. But you can tell where the cabinets used to be by the paint color on the wall.

Notice these cabinets don't match the ones on the other side of the room.

Progress being made. Walls all repaired, popcorn ceiling scraped, heating duct covered. Originally when we bought the house there were 2 laundry rooms. At one time our house functioned as an Adult Care facility. They had added a really crappy room outside our ugly laundry room door and put another set of washer & dryer out there. The plumbing was jimmy-rigged in here to accommodate the new "laundry facilities". We removed all that when fixing the bathroom downstairs, knowing we would repair the walls when we finished the laundry room. We also removed the room outside and reclaimed the lovely covered patio outside last year.

Halfway there! Texture sprayed & walls primed. Looks so much better already! We took a break in order to get some laundry done. Apparently when dad says "Get all your laundry done because the washing machine is coming out" that actually means wash a couple of pairs of pants, but forget to actually do the full basket of dirty clothes in your room. I think they get the concept of no washer & dryer while the room gets redone now.

So now it's on to the floors before we can paint the walls.

I know you can't see it, but the white circle in front of the kitty door is a perfect paw print cast out of some wet mud that dropped during the drywall phase of the project. Poor kitty wasn't too happy with dear old dad I'm sure! LOL

And what is the finished color going to be you ask? Well here is the wall color & fabric for the curtain for the door.

I absolutely love this fabric and plan on using it upstairs in the kitchen too. Only with green instead of the turquoise. The wall color is the new Martha Stewart paint at Home Depot. The color is called Hummingbird Blue. Matches the blue color in the fabric perfectly! The fabric is a Moda print of course. From the Cherish Nature line. I LOVE Moda fabrics!

It was actually sort of Bryan's idea to paint a bright color in here. He wanted to use a color for the walls! My dear hubby. Lover of white walls actually suggested using a color we haven't used yet. Something bright and different. I'm so proud of him! I never thought I would get to actually use a bright color like this in my house, but I'm so excited to try it out.

So this weekend it's removing old flooring and tiling the floor. Then we can paint! Can't wait!

Freedom at last!

Nick finally got his cast off yesterday. Now that is one happy puppy!

They cut it off with a saw-like thing that cut the cast, but not the skin. Bryan offered to do it for him with his Dremel but Nick wasn't so in to that. He was much happier with the "hot" nurse doing it for him instead.

Feels so much better now!

So then they X-Rayed the arm again and the bone is all healed. Still has a couple of weeks in a split until it's completely healed, but at least he has motion in his arm now, and can take a regular shower. And I think Gabi is thrilled he can help with the dishes again.

His poor arm looks a little worse for wear, but nothing a little (or A LOT) of lotion won't cure. Thank god for that wonderful Renew lotion. Best stuff on the planet!

So it's been a while

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything, and that's because we've been really busy! Not only did we take a great vacation to San Diego for Spring Break, but we also started some house projects, and Nick broke his wrist in the middle of everything too. Just more craziness in the Geddis Household. So here are some photos of what we have been up to. I will try to get back to more regular postings as we have some big house projects on the near horizon!

The sunset from our Hotel window

The fam at the Flower Fields in Carlsbad. Beautiful Ranunculus flowers as far as the eye could see!

Crazy boy!

Our new teenager! Can't believe she's 13 already!

What a sweet couple!

Overlooking the San Diego Wild Animal Park - These are the lions.

Took the tram tour to see most of the animals in more natural habitats.

He's really yawning. But I love this picture!

Flamingos were everywhere it seemed!

The cheetah was purring the entire time he was out. Didn't get to pet him. Kinda like my arms the way they are, but we were really really close to him!

All of us at the Wild Animal Park.

This statue is awesome! Huge and way cool!

The Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum. We toured most of it. Took us over 3 hours! But a very cool thing to see.

Here are Nick, Gabi & Bryan in the sleeping bunks on the midway, pretending to be sailors.

Sea World was cool!

Fed the dolphins at Sea World

Watched the Shamu Show. Way cool! Such amazing animals!

The Sea Lion show was also very funny & entertaining.

The San Diego zoo was way too amazing for words, but I'll sum it up with this: PANDAS!

They were so adorable! Loved finally being able to see pandas first hand.

There were other animals too - like baby giraffes!

And baby Orangutans. Oh wait. That was mom posing as one!

I have so many more great photos and video of our trip, but I think that's a pretty good over view for you guys. Don't want to bore you too much with our vacation photos.

All in all it was an amazing trip. The weather was great, the food was amazing and the company was pretty great too. So many great memories from that trip. Can't wait to go back! Maybe when Nick doesn't have a broken arm so maybe the kids can learn to surf. Cause what trip to San Diego doesn't include a little ocean time?

Next post will be an update of the house and the newest project we are working on!