Trip to Vancouver, Days 1 and 2

We were packed and on the road Monday morning by 11:30 after waiting for Landon to interview with our local school district for the principal position at South Fork Elementary. We found out the next day via an impersonal, form email from the secretary that he didn't get the position, which placed quite a dark cloud over the remainder of the trip for me at least. A cowardly, unprofessional and disrespectful decision to send an email to someone who is a personal contact, recent administrator within the district, and who is widely liked and respected by parents, teachers, administrators and school board members. I'm just sayin... So anyway! We drove all the way to Pendleton, OR that first day, and stayed at the Hampton Inn. Landon and the girls swam in the pool until it closed at 10:00pm, then we called it a night.

We left the next morning, realizing later that we had left the swimsuits hanging up in the closet! (We picked them up on the way home the following week.)

We made a point to stop in Cascade Locks to get an ice cream cone at the Eastwind Drive In, which is a place I remember getting ice cream cones with our family in our old station wagon, back in the day. Then we stopped at Multnomah Falls, but because it was raining and it was packed with people, we took a quick picture to prove we stopped and kept on driving.

We finally arrived in Vancouver and made our first stop at Burgerville for some mouth-watering burgers, took them to Grammy and Grandpa's house and ate while visiting. I then spent a couple hours cleaning out maybe a fifth of Grammy's bedroom, broke into a major sweat, and took 4 loads of cathair-coated clothing to the laundromat with Landon. The girls stayed back at Grammy's house playing with Heidi's kids and David's kids who had all arrived just as we received the @#$% email. The hour at the laundromat gave us some time to compose ourselves, put on a happy face and try to have fun with everyone.Since Grammy wanted us all to leave (she was sick and all the family togetherness was getting to her), Grandpa took us to Los Jalapenos for dinner. The food was good, and it was fun to get so many of us around a dinner table together. The grandkids showed their appreciation to Grandpa on the way out to the cars.We stayed with Kris and her kids, Gracie and Morgan. They were so hospitable and made us feel comfortable in their home. We had fun teasing Morgan about her current passion for Japanese culture and I had fun teasing Kris for farting while sitting next to me on the couch.