Oregon Trip: Getting There (Day 1)

When Scott and I got back from Boise, we went straight to work. We worked our 40 hours in four days so we could be ready to leave again on Saturday. We worked late Friday night, then got home to finish all the laundry before our trip. Saturday morning we got up and packed before my dad took us to the airport. On the way we stopped for an early lunch at The Olive Garden. I'm not a big fan of Italian food, but the soup, salad and breadsticks are so great! We arrived at the airport with just under an hour before our flight and met up with Julie and Landon.

We all arrived in Portland at about 2:00 pm and waited about half an hour for the rest of the Millers to arrive. After meeting up with the family we went to pick up our car rental - we had reserved two separate cars for the eight of us. Dave came back from the counter and announced that we instead had rented a 12-person van. We were all skeptical, but it turned out well!

From the airport we drove to Applebee's for dinner, then on to the Portland Temple for baptisms. Our time there was great! It was nice to have the whole family together in the temple and we performed baptisms with members of a Spanish Branch from the area. It was exciting to run things in another language, especially because it was easy to understand what was being said. After finishing up at the temple we jumped in our party bus and made the two-hour drive to Depoe Bay, Oregon. Depoe Bay is the smallest harbor in the world and is located between Newport and Tillamook. At first I didn't realize what the smallest harbor meant, but I'll post a video later of why it's a big deal.

We arrived at our beach house around 10:00 pm. Our house was perfect for the eight of us - each pair of us had a room with Scott and I in the separate carriage house over the garage. We had a hot tub on the back deck and were located a block or so from Bella Beach. So perfect! After hauling in the luggage a few of us drove back to Lincoln City to buy some groceries for the next few days. After family prayer and scripture we all headed to bed.