Oregon Gardens and Gordon House

The Oregon Gardens were just starting to bud and bloom. Jacques enjoyed his first experience with an umbrella! We toured the only home in Oregon designed by Frank Lloyd Wright - the Gordon House. It is just over 2000 sq. ft. with 3 bedrooms, an office and 2 bathrooms and was designed around 1956.

Chinese New Year

We enjoyed the lion dances in Chinatown celebrating the Chinese New Year. The lion dances are supposed to scare away the evil spirits and summon luck and fortune for the coming year. This is the year of the rabbit. Jacques was pretty wary of the rabbit and the lions! Jacques and Tanner pose with the lucky rabbit. Jacques got a red envelope with a chocolate coin from him.

We went to the convention center to see the cultural exhibit and several cute children's groups performed.

Aquarium Pt. 2

There was a great exhibit of trash sculpture...



Here is a close up of a turtle sculpture made from trash that was picked up along the beach. If you look closely, you can see bottle caps and broken plastic bits. The white coral is made up of broken styrofoam.

The jelly fish below is made up out of plastic bottles found along the beach. It was probably12 or 14 feet tall.

A whale rib cage made of trash...

Oregon Coast Aquarium

We took advantage of the sunny afternoon and drove out to Newport, about 3 hours south west of Portland.

We stopped at Depoe Bay to do some whale watching. Tanner and I each saw a whale blow water above the surface as they were traveling from Alaska to the South. Jacques had fun looking around the center and he even got to use the binoculars too.

At the aquarium we saw a variety of wildlife. My favorite were the jellyfish. They had one pacific octopus but he was curled up in a crevice unavailable for a photo-opp.

Hi ho silver and away!!!!!

Winter Hike

We took a slow walk through the tryon park last week. Jacques found a great walking stick! It was cool but dry and we enjoyed getting a break from the Portland rain ;)

New Year's Eve with the Whales

We decided to spend new year's eve watching for whales at the pacific coast line. Tanner had seen a spot on the news about the whale migration and so being Texans, we decided to witness this great event!

On the way to our whale watching new year's eve!

Ecola view point where we watched for whales (mostly from the car). I was very excited about a "whale" I spotted until about 10 or 20 minutes later when I realized it was still in the same location, at which point I decided I was avidly watching a rock break the surface of the water!

It was a great day to see from a distance! This is a shot I took at Indian Beach of people walking on the shore.

The lighthouse was visible today. I finally spotted some whales........;)

Fall Color

Walking in the leaves by the Reed College pond.

Tanner and Jacques under a ginko biloba tree.

The pond at Reed College was photo-worthy!

We met this red tail hawk, "Seme" along the way.

Mt. Hood National Forest

Next to the streamwatch cascade trail was the wetland boardwalk trail which was very peacful.

We watched baby coho salmon swim in the stream through the viewing station.

We hiked at the cascade streamwatch trail on the way to Timberline and saw some beautiful sights!

It was a winter wonderland above around 4,000 ft. on the mountain.

We had brunch at the Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood.

Oceanside

We had a wonderful trip to the coast today. We went to a new spot south of Cannon Beach called Oceanside. There was a cave and tunnel that revealed a rocky beach on one side and a sandy beach on the other.

Building sandcastles on the beach...the weather was in the 70's.

We visited the light house at Cape Meares and the Octopus Tree.