A True Home

Mt. Hood on the Oregon side of the Columbia River.

Looking to the Washington side of the
 Columbia on our trip home from the coast.

This is where I live, the Pacific Northwest;  marked by the Cascade mountain range, sliced by the Columbia River.  I didn't grow up here. No, I'm an L.A. girl, and Alli is, too.  I think we consider where we went to high school to be "home" but she lived with me in the San Gabriel Valley longer than she lived in Chicago. After college and a short mission trip to Russia, I came up to visit a friend and put the final touches on her impending wedding.  During my visit the engagement broke and I decided to come live with my college roommate in Washington State.  I thought I would live here for 2 years and then head north to Seattle, a city more befitting my style.  Boy was I wrong!  My first teaching job, finding the keeper of my heart and soul, two beautiful boys, and 18 years later I am still right here in Southwest Washington. I love the cool, crisp air.  I love that the temperatures are so mild the majority of the time that I can walk out my front door and go for a run.  I complain about the rain every February only to reap it's benefits in a beautiful, green spring and summer.  When people ask me how I ended up here I am always a bit befuddled.  It's a convoluted story of looking for the wide open spaces of geography but also to stretch the wide open spaces of my youthful heart.  I will be independent!  Tom says the real reason I came here was to find him. It's sweet every time he says it when he thinks I'm not listening.  How else do you explain finding your soulmate at Yacolt Primary School?  The trip from Southern California, my first home, to Washington State, my true home is much longer than the 1,100 miles would make it seem.

This is the view from the balcony off our room. The darker
 blue between the trees is the Pacific Ocean.

The chairs we would have sat in to enjoy the rare sunshine
 on the coast of Oregon if it hadn't been below freezing!