Portlandia! (Photos + Video)

As I mentioned previously- I spent my American Independence Day- the 4th of July- in Portland Oregon visiting family I haven’t seen in 7 years. I made an effort to take lots of videos and photos to compile the Youtube video as seen above. I really enjoy making this little vacation summary videos- Hope you like it!

It was by far the best 4th of July I can remember. Let me give you sort of the run down of the (busy) 4 days my mom and I were there:

– On the morning of the 4th, we jumped on a little jet plane

-Immediately we drove to Washington to buy illegal fireworks galore- literally the most intense, packed, insane fireworks store(s) I’ve ever WITNESSED!

-Met up with the rest of the family for a traditional BBQ (yummy!) 

– Then when the skies turned dark- we set off all the fireworks we bought and sparklers in the middle of the street (along with the rest of the entire block 🙂 ) -SO WORTH IT!

– Hiked Multnomah Falls -one of the most gorgeous waterfalls I’ve ever seen- it also has been featured in a multitude of movies (i.e. Twilight)

– Checked out the Bonneville rainbow trout and white sturgeon fish hatchery  – saw the biggest sturgeons of my ENTIRE LIFE there! They raise this fish for release back into the wild, not for consumption (wahoo!)

– We stopped at Vista House at Crown Point to check out the unobstructed view of the Columbia River Gorge

– Drove to the coast – ended up at Pacific Beach where you can drive your car ON THE BEACH and park and enjoy the scenery. I got to do some tide-pooling- one of my favorite things 🙂

– Visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory – had some awesome cheese samples (sharp cheddar is the BEST), and some delicious ice cream

– Went wine tasting a couple local Oregon wineries (I prefer California wines for sure 😉 ) – although frolicking through the vineyards was quite fun !

– Made a stop at the Nike Headquarters – where my cousin has been working for over 25 years. It really is the size of a small town! It’s beautiful, has lots of sports fields/facilities, a lake, 2 running tracks… purely amazing! The ESPN High School 7ON event was occurring that day which meant 14 NFL players were roaming around. Being from Dallas, I’m a huge Cowboys Football fan- and luckily we got to chat with Felix Jones of the Cowboys! What a nice guy..

-Went shopping at the Nike Employee Store (hello 50% of all merchandise and a new pair of awesome running shoes 😀 )

– Partied in Downtown Portland with my cousin and his girlfriend and his best friend. Had a TON of fun dancing the night away! Then of course we hit up the famous VooDoo Doughnuts at 3am for some tasty treats. I got the Arnold Palmer donut- yummm!

– We spent some more quality family time together… it was so nice meeting my new little cousins I can’t even put it into words- they are going to be little beach blonde heartbreakers.

Before we left for the airport, I drew them some fun chalk ocean animals on their driveway. 

I really had a great time in Oregon- we are going to try and make it a tradition to go up there every year for the 4th of July. The weather was perfect, the people were so nice, and being surrounded by family was just the best feeling in the world. Thanks for a great time Dina, Bill, Alex, Tiffany, Zach, Archie, Nolan, and Sawyer!