So we are all back home. I have to admit that Nathan was not the only homesick one in the family.....I was really ready to see my boys and my cats! Travis and I had a great time on our trip....such *beautiful* scenery, unlike anything we had ever seen before. We took quite a few pictures. Travis especially loved the tide pools and the starfish that you could see when the tide was out. I enjoyed the town of Astoria the most, which is kind of weird because it is probably the least touristy place we visited, but I loved the way it looked.....lots of old Victorian homes built into the sides of huge hills. We also crossed into Washington State, just to say we had been there and stopped at Ft. Columbia State Park, an old military installation that was literally built into the side of a mountain. It was really interesting! We both enjoyed the fantastic views of the ocean along Hwy 101 up and down the coast.....so wild and undeveloped compared with most of the shorelines we have seen.

Our hotel.....WOW. If you ever have some extra $$$$ and want to stay somewhere very comfortable and relaxing, with awesome views and food, check this place out. http://www.stephanie-inn.com Incredible. We have absolutely nothing bad to say about the place, and if we ever have the chance, we will go back. The breakfasts were so good! I only wish I could eat like that every morning. We ate dinner there one night too (we had to set it up when we made our reservations, way before our trip) and it was excellent as well. We got room service twice for dinner, and they had a curried corn soup one night that I am going to try to duplicate.

We drove back to Portland on Wednesday and visited the International Rose Test Garden (beautiful) and the Japanese Garden (also beautiful and very peaceful). All in all, we enjoyed our trip, but the time change was hard on us, in both directions. We also both remarked on feeling a little claustrophobic at times, as if the mountains were closing in on us! We are definitely midwesterners at heart. We started to miss our "climate", too, but by the time that kicked in, we were about to head home. It was definitely a trip to remember, and meeting Nellie and her family was the icing on the cake!

We got back Thursday evening (after running through the airport in Denver to make our connecting flight.....I am still recovering!) and had *the* meeting with our builder on Friday morning. We got our bid, and......it was under what we want to spend! (Only by about 4K, but hey, we'll take it!) This is getting really long, but some highlights.....the builder is not comfortable doing a walk-out basement, which was a bummer, but he will do some very nice egress windows down there instead, so I am fine with that.....if the boys are going to sleep down there, it will be less easy for them to sneak out when they are teen-agers! Also, we had thought about doing a pool at the same time we build, but we have decided not to, in part because of the cost, and in part because the city pool/waterpark is less than a mile from our house, with sidewalks in place all the way. Also, in Indiana, you don't really get to use a pool for that long considering what they cost. We are fine with that decision! The cabinet guy did his bid as though we are having custom cabinets everywhere in the house (ummmm, NO) so I need to go back there and hash that out. There are a couple of things with the windows that need to be tweaked, but nothing major. We went out today and picked our appliances (which were nothing exciting in the bid, and we knew right away we would bump them up). We are getting GE Profile appliances in the kitchen, with regular GE stuff in the basement kitchenette. They showed us an induction cooktop, and we decided to get it. It is so cool....it boils water in less than a minute, without heating up the pan or the burner like a conventional cooktop would. I can't explain the science behind it, but it will sure come in handy when I want to make a bunch of pasta! DH also wants to investigate geo-thermal heating, which is more expensive to put in but apparently saves a lot of money in heating/cooling costs. We are hoping that the price of that will be off-set by the savings we will get on cabinets once I get that adjusted. And finally.....DH is fine with not listing our current house until the first of the year! I can't even express how relieved I am about that!

So life is good. DH goes back to work on Monday and is on call pretty much solid for the next 10 days, because his partner will be on vacation. My dad arrives Tuesday for another 10 day stay. I have to get a filling on Tuesday, too. My sisters will be visiting the weekend after the fourth, and it will be great to see them. The boys survived their time at camp/grandma's without any trauma, and I think everyone is glad to be home.....our dog and cats were happy to see us, too![/QUOTE]