Last Days in Oregon

I think 99% of you know this by now, but for those who don't, we moved back to Utah in June. I had a pretty huge list of the things I wanted to do while we were living in Oregon and I am happy to say we accomplished most of them. I was a little bummed because I REALLY wanted to go on a hot air balloon ride and see Silver Falls, but knew we probably didn't have time or money before we moved. Believe it or not, we got to do BOTH in one week. JP's co-worker at the airport is a hot air balloon pilot and hooked us up with a early morning flight. We got to fly right over the Willamette. It was awesome!

A big balloon in a big balloon! 

Then, JP flew us above Silver Falls which was even better than hiking them. It was so pretty! I just had to pretend that I wasn't about to puke. JP is an incredible pilot, but I'm still getting used to flying in little planes. Don't worry, I kept my cool (barely!). It was such a fun week and the greatest way to end our short affair with Oregon.

These last few pictures are of my lifesaving friend, Malia. She is pretty much the only reason I made it through my not so fun first year as a speech therapist with a massive caseload. I swear our first meeting was fate. On the second day of living in Oregon, I walked into my first work meeting of about 500 people and didn't know a soul. Malia walked in at the exact same time, came right up to me and asked if i knew anyone and if I wanted to sit by her. The room was full of people from all different professions (only about 30 were speech therapists), and Malia just happens to be a speech therapist too.  She spent the next few days driving me around Oregon, helping me with work stuff, and planning fun activities.  We floated the Luckiamute River (her idea- and she didn't even know we are huge river floaters) the week JP and I moved to Oregon and the week we left (when I was 8 months pregnant). 

The next picture is us at a drive-in movie theater, but we pretty much talked the whole time, and the one after that is us saying goodbye at her house :( I can't wait to see her at the next speech conference in Cali if I can afford it!

(awesome that my font went from underlined to not and I don't know how to change it AND I don't know how to write a caption under each picture. It sucks to be technologically challenged).