Oregon

Ten years ago this year this sweet family, minus one in from the picture...minus two from our family now, moved to a little town called

Grants Pass Oregon.

Our oldest had just barely turned 4 and she thought we were moving to

Grant's Pants.

She didn't want to live in any body's old pants.

We assured her we'd be living in a house, not some body's old pants, once we figured out what she was worried about.
 MDH and I and our three oldest

Banana 4

Duder 2

Doodle 3 months

packed our few....very few things and started a new life in a new town, new state.

AND

We loved it! We made so many good memories as a family and with friends.

I feel as if Grants Pass in a way is my Alma Mater. I can't think of a word or phrase that exactly describes how I feel about Grants Pass. So Alma Mater, mother of my spirit, is the closest I can think of.

Northern Utah is my home but in a way Grants Pass will always be my hometown.

It's the place I really came to know myself and trust myself as a wife, a mother, and friend.

MDH and I were able to go and visit a couple of weeks ago. We went on the trip so we could celebrate the life of a dear friend and participate in his memorial service but we also took the opportunity to celebrate part of the life we had there and catch up with friends.

It was such a quick trip but we packed as much into it as we could.

Thanks to my Mom and Dad for staying with the kids.

We flew into Portland Thursday night and picked up our rental car the next morning and headed south to Grants Pass (approx. 4 hr drive). During our 5 years in OR whenever we visited Portland we'd drive past the outlet mall but we never seemed to have time to stop. This time we made time. We bought enough we had to mail it home to ourselves......Good Times!!!

In GP we stayed with one of my best friends in the whole world Cheryn and her husband Alan and their son Austen. I need to apologize to Austen for not bringing the kids with us. He was bored out of his mind to have to listen to us old folks jabber on and on I'm sure. Sorry. But it sure was enjoyable for us.

Cheryn was my first Visiting Teacher there. She taught me what it was to truly love those you serve. She's amazing! And usually I can't tell people about her because I cry every time....cry in a happy way....she's that good!

A couple of funny things. When we moved back to Utah we thought we'd see people we knew all the time when we were out and about places but we hardly ever did/do.

When we were in GP it was a completely different story. Every place we went we saw people we knew. It was GREAT! It made us feel good that people remembered and recognized us too.

So, we decided to drive past a couple of the houses we lived in there. 3 houses in 5 years = YIKES!

Our first house we didn't drive by and didn't get any pictures of.

The other two we shouldn't have driven by because it left us feeling depressed because of the lack of yard care. When we lived there MDH was always meticulous about our yards and gardens.

Here's our S.Street house, where we lived when Mr.Man was born. The rose bush I planted is gone and there is way too much trash in the yard.....so sad.

Here's the only picture I could find on my computer of the front of the house when we lived there. This was Duder's first day of school. I've never been able to grow inpatients any where else like I did there.

And we didn't keep our trash and old furniture in the front yard.

The kids wanted us to get a picture of the blue house we lived in....our last house in GP.

Again, the grass really needs to be cut but at least there's no trash in it....well at least you can't see it.

There used to be a huge sweet gum tree in the front but it's gone now. I guess the owners didn't like cleaning up all of the spike bombs. We're still finding some of those in our cars and it's been 5 years.

Saturday morning we visited the farmers market, had fresh doughnuts and tamales for breakfast and then rafted the Rogue River with a group of our friend's friends. We had an amazing time. The water was high and fast so our trip was a lot quicker than usual but still very enjoyable. When I get the pictures from the rafting trip I'll post some.

That evening Cheryn invited some other friends over for dinner too and we loved getting to see them as well.

Sunday we met at the river for the memorial service. It was a very informal gathering and just the way I'm sure he would have liked it. It was fitting to be in such a beautiful place that he loved so much remembering him and the way he touched all of our lives.

After the service we drove back to the Portland area and went to church with our good friends Tyler and Shonda. It'd been forever....well... 5 years since we'd seen them and it was so good to get to laugh and visit with them and their beautiful daughters. And, bonus, Shonda made the most delicious dinner, southwest pulled pork salad. So YUMMY.
What a blessing good friends are!

We spent the night in a room at the Holiday Inn by the airport which we got for $30 by bidding on Priceline.com. The room was great, a really nice room, but the view was a $30 view (the roof and a parking lot) that's ok though we weren't there long enough to be bothered by the view.
By 4:30 am we were back at the airport dropping off the car and going through security.
By 9:00am MDT we were in SLC and by 9:30 am we were  home passing out surprises to the kids.
and
By 11:00am I had our bags unpacked and laundry started and Duder at his tennis lesson.
Back to the real world.

We've been asked if we would move back, my answer is, Yes, in a heartbeat, if, it were 10hrs closer to here. This is where our family is. So, with all of the neat things we were able to do there and great experiences we had, I feel like the relationship our kids are developing with their grandparents and cousins here, now, is just as important if not even more important than what we had.

We can't wait to take our kids back there to visit though......and when we do we'll for sure visit the pharmacy and have a phosphate.