On Nature (and Babies)

Tempted as I am to entitle this post "Why Oregon is the Supreme State of the Union", I fear that may appear divisive. Plus, I don't care for stating the obvious.


Oregon is supreme, because we live in the city:

(See the orange/brick building with the pointy green hat? We live next to that.)

And, we have this at the bottom of our building:

But with a recent 15 minute drive north, we arrived at the berry farm, for some berry-picking fun! We enjoyed the pleasant weather and friendly farm animals, and frolicked in the berry-bushes:

We ended up with 24 pints of assorted berries. And sunburns. 

(Aren't they pretty? The poor raspberries
 didn't make it into a single photo. Nor did I.)

Sure, it felt a bit like manual labor there at the end, but we survived.


We headed east for 30 minutes the next weekend to enjoy Multnomah Falls. This is the only picture of the falls we managed to capture:

So here is what it really looks like:

Deciding a mile hike to the tip-top was a good idea, we set off pretending to be Lewis and Clark (or at least, I did). Instead of pioneering the trail to the west, we found shooting calf pain and burning lungs. But we made it! You can't see much of the actual falls from the top, but you can see a not-so-flattering sweaty picture of me:

Have I forgotten to mention that we are 30 minutes from snowboarding, 45 minutes from the coast, and have llama farms, wildlife rehabilitation centers, and vineyards galore? Aaaah. Please take this as invitation to come enjoy our lovely state. But don't ask Joel how he feels about Oregon first--he's still "adjusting" to the awesomeness.


In other (baby) news, I feel like a large sea lion floundering around on the sand:

But I exaggerate. I'm feeling well at 37 weeks. The carseat has finally made it out of the box onto the floor (but not yet to the car), and we do have a crib (but it's still in the box). Progress. These are the only things I've managed to pack in our hospital bag so far (plus some pajamas):

So to sum up, we're all set!


Sorry I don't have a picture of my very recent pregnant self. Clearly, neither appropriate quality nor quantity of photography is our strong suit.