Roll on Columbia roll on

Usually we stay pretty close to La Grande, but the kids are older and we thought it would be fun to venture over towards the Columbia River. All 9 of us loaded in the Suburban and we set off for Maryhill Castle. We only had a few hours to spend there as our day was booked.

We really could have spent much longer there.

They had so many chess sets. That was Tanner and Taz's favorite part of the castle.

Upstairs they had a whole room of dolls posed in different settings. The dolls were very old, from the 1800's and Ella loved this particular scene.

Posing as they would have dressed is always fun.

This is a display of the dolls shoes. They looked so like they could be in style right now in 2010. They were so small and adorable.

They had sculptures on the grounds outside the castle.

We hurriedly posed with some of them.

we stopped along the river at a rest stop to eat lunch. We had fried up some chicken and I'd made homemade salsa and Tanner made a bean dip with homemade guacomole. It was a glorious picnic, but again, rushed as we had to be at a dock for our two hour cruise down the river by 1:45.

We made it to the dock just as they were boarding. Here we are waiting in line.

It was quite warm outside, so most of us were content to sit in the airconditioned cabin and save seats for those that went back and forth, in and out. We learned a lot about the Columbia River and saw some fun sights along the way. The kids ordered drinks inside the cabin and it was a fun two hours.

It was getting late, but we were only about a half an hour from Multnomah Falls, so we decided to head there after the cruise. I hiked up to the bridge with the kids and we took some pictures up there.

Tanner and Trey stayed with me as the other three ran down the trail when we headed down, so I was actually able to get some pictures of just the two of them.

As we came down, we noticed this man behind Cynjyn. He was just sitting there sketching the waterfall. He was so good.

Taz was memsmorized by him and refused to leave until he was done. Taz talked to him quite awhile and I was hoping he might give the picture to Taz, but he didn't.

On the way out, the girls cooled off in the stream below the falls.

It had been a long day and a new adventure that we hadn't done before.

We were tired when we got home, but that didn't stop us from playing Hand and Foot. That seemed to be our game of the summer and we played it at every opportunity we had!!