We started our journey from Fresno to Wilsonville, OR, over a week ago. We were going to celebrate Mom's 90th birthday party. This has been a very big plan for a long time. Mom even planned her knee replacement surgery in February considering the recuperation time so she would be walking well by her birthday, May 25th.
The family, Jennifer's and Jason's, from Fresno; Natalie's from Argentina; and Paige's from Wisconsin all traveled to Wilsonville. My sister, Janet and her husband, Patrick, Joce's family and Ryan are from the Oregon area . We of course came from our travels in Arizona, Nevada, and California.
Our first stop on our journey was Sacramento and we stayed at the Carmichael Elks. We visited our good friends, Gloria and Dennis Turner. Tom had worked with Dennis for many years at the Dept. of Education and I had not only worked with Dennis, but stayed many times at the Turner's when working for SkillsUSA. (We look forward to seeing the Turner's on the road as they start again to travel in their Chinook.
We took a short trip to Yuba City to see Clovis and Mickey Armstrong. Clovis also worked for the Dept. of Ed. and has had some health problems lately and had to cancel her Reunion Party for the Ed. Dept. staff. We wanted to see the Armstrong’s before leaving California and Clovis insisted on our coming by. We enjoyed a nice lunch and good conversation with the Armstrongs.
When we left the Elks our next stop was at the Redding Elks. We have never stayed there before, but we will definitely stay there again. It is a beautiful RV park along the river. We called my cousin, Sharon, and make plans for dinner. We went to a wonderful Mexican restaurant. I have the very best green sauce enchilada EVER. This is my favorite and I try it every time I see it on the menu so I've had a lot of examples of this dish to compare to.
We traveled up I-5 and got so many good shots of Mt. Shasta. I guess we were lucky because the bad weather started to approach the California-Oregon border and clouds would cover the mountain for the next week.
Our next stop was Seven Feathers at Exit 99 in Oregon. One word, Beautiful.
We drove the rest of the way to Wilsonville to the Pheasant Ridge RV Resort. We had reserved for 6 nights, but when we checked in we found that we could stay 7 nights for $3.00 less. Duh... we are staying 7 nights.
The next 5 days are just a blur of preparation for Mom's birthday, dinners with family, the big party, food (lots of food), hugs, talking, talking, talking, and just lots of fun. The following pictures are just a few of the scenes of the fun times. First, we got together at my niece, Jocelyn’s house. We chopped, diced, sliced, skewered, and cut up vegetables, fruit; made corn muffins; and salads.
The next day we set up the food tables.
Then we ate.
So much fun.
And the All Family Picture – Serious and Goofy.
We also got the group pictures, too. All the grandchildren, the great grandchildren, and individual families.
Ryan’s band was playing at a club nearby and the some of younger generation went to listen. Even they used the “club issued” earplugs. Julie texted from the club and said, “Aunt Jany was right, you would not like the music”. That was soooo funny.
Julie spent every night with us in the RV and the rest of our family from Fresno stayed at the Wilsonville Inn. We all had a wonderful time, and if you want to see all 200+ pictures, this is the link: Mom’s 90th Birthday
Today my sister, Janet, took Mom to the train; the Fresno group traveled back to Fresno yesterday; Natalie’s family went to Northern California to visit family before heading back to Wisconsin; Paige’s family went to Seattle to visit family before flying back to Wisconsin; and we… well we went caching and got 13 yesterday and today.
So I guess you could say all is back to normal… “On the Road Again, Caching Places That We’ve Never Been”. But we sure will miss our wonderful, funny, eclectic family!
Wow, your Mom looks fabulous. She hasn't aged at all. Looks like a lot fun was had by all of you. Great to see all the kids and their kids. Have fun, love the pictures.
ReplyDeleteTom and Kay P.s. Menzie had eye surgery and can see out of one eye.