Refreshed? Not really, but I had a good time

Since money is tight around Chez Elle we can’t get out to do fun and fantastic vacations like we would really like? (which would include a trip to some tropical beach or a country where they don’t speak English).? And since United Airlines stole all of my miles I can’t pack up and take a solo anywhere.? I’m still bitter about that, but what can I do at this point?? Not much.? So we folded ourselves into our most fuel efficient vehicle (the bug) and drove to the booming town of La Center, WA.? Consequently, this is where one of the trusty sister-in-laws lives.

La Center is one of those cities that earns it’s city revenue from speeding tickets and doesn’t have a grocery store, but does have 3 tribal casinos.? Cute place, but I wouldn’t want to live there.? However, La Center is about 20 miles north of Portland, OR.? Handy.

We spent our Saturday at the Portland Zoo.? I love this zoo.? It’s big, lots of animals, and an all around fun time.? We packed our lunch, but with the heat my bread free lettuce wrap was a little nasty.? From the zoo we went down the hill to the International Rose Test Garden.? Portland is known as the Rose City for a reason.? The roses were simply beautiful.? If it weren’t in the 90s I could have stayed there all day and used up all 1400 available shots on my camera.

From the test garded we drove to the Pearl district to find refreshments at Peet’s Coffee and then on to REI so I could get a new water bottle.? I was hopin for a metal one, but since SIGG is suffering a shortage of stock I was out of luck.? They had a few, but none I was in love with.? If I’m going to pay $21.95 for a water bottle I sure as hell am going to buy one that I love.? So I ended up with a new BPA free Nalgene in Lime.? Now that I love.

After the Pearl we headed to the Cinetopia in Vancouver to see Wall-E.? OMG this is just about the cutest movie of all time.? We had a slight moment when the boy thought the seat was going to fold up on him so he spent the whole time on his dad’s lap, but other than that and 40 pounds of popcorn he was fine.? Go see this movie.

Saturday was a bit much for the three year old.? Tons of stuff, no real nap and a food schedule that was all kinds of screwed up.? The air conditioner turned off in the condo and at 1:20 in the morning the child fell out of the bed.? Didn’t help that the bed he was sleeping on was about 3 feet off the ground.? It ended up being a good thing because it woke G up too and she turned on the AC.

Sunday we went to the even bigger (read one building makes up this town) of Yacolt.? There we stopped for snacks at the Trading Post and hopped on the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad.? This is a 10 mile ride along the Lewis River through the forest and through a 300′ rock tunnel.? A fun ride, but the boy rode most of it with his ears covered.? He was so afraid of the train whistle.? I thought this child would be giddy to ride such a big train after the major meltdowns we had in Sacramento at the train museum.? He said he liked it, but his favorite part was on the way back we stopped at a trail that went down to Moulten Falls.? The rocks by the falls were such that you could go down to the water and wade in the river.? Ice cold, but at 95 degrees outside… it felt good.? This was the first time the boy has ever waded in a river.? He loved it.? I loved it and we have lots of video.? (I’ll show you later)? We will be making plans for a camping trip to a river shortly.? In the end a good time was had by all.

We got home around 6:30 Sunday night and we were all so exhausted from all of the fun.? I think we fell asleep the second our heads hit the pillow despite it being 81 inside of our house.? Now we have to get back into the groove for 2 weeks before our really big super spectacular vacation at the end of July.? Now that’s going to wear me out.