Portland

Well, ok, I'm not actually in Manzanita Beach yet, but hello from Portland! I'm at my Aunt Kelsey's house, in the living room- Aunt Kris and Aunt Kelsey are asleep and Uncle Matt hasn't gotten home from work yet, so all is quiet. I haven't been here in years- I honestly can't really remember the last time. I find it really hard to believe that I didn't come to Oregon at all the entire time I was in college, but I honestly don't remember doing so. The last time I was here was for our last family reunion (more on that when we get to the beach, as it is sure to be strange), but before that... wow. I think it must have been when I came up to visit Lewis&Clark for college. I stayed with Whitney in the apartment behind Grandma's house, when they were in the process of cleaning out and painting Grandma's house after she died. Jonah lived in her house then, and it was so weird to see Grandma's house all white, not smelling like smoke, and without all the signature Grandma stuff- the giant chair, the dining room table cluttered with photos, the living room no one ever sat in, the tubs of ice cream in the freezer, and of course all her hats in teh bedroom. Oregon holds such odd memories for me...

Take Aunt Kelsey's house. I remember coming here with Taylor in the summers- when we were younger, it was more fun to stay with Aunt Karen, because Simon and Jonah were still at home and we could shoot bows and arrows in their backyard, or Uncle Bob would take us BB shooting on top of a mountain- but as we got older we enjoyed staying with Aunt Kelsey more. Uncle Matt always had jellybeans (hence his nickname, Uncle Jellybean), and we would all sit in their giant bed and watch The Price Is Right and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There are no toys at Aunt Kelsey's, but we always got treated like grown-ups, and that meant a lot... especially when MacKenzie and Spencer were born, and the alternative became spending our days in Pocahontasland.

I know all of you probably don't care about all this-- it's just random thoughts that I figure I'll start to forget as I get older, so I should write about them now, right? There will be a lot more before the week is out, so if you're one of the two people who read this (hi Jenn and Kara!) and you're bored by family things, you might want to tune out for awhile.

Oh, and by the way, the road trip up was great. Aunt Kris, Tobin, Jonah and I had a blast, and I'm not kidding at all. More about that later though.

Happy Olympics Day! Look for this kid in the Opening Ceremonies and in the swim competitions-- he went to my high school, trained in my neighborhood pool, and I was on student council with him. Nicest kid ever.