A few weeks ago (the weekend of 10/26-27) Heidi and I celebrated our Wedding Anniversary - 7 glorious years!

Saturday was an incredible fall day that saw temperatures reaching into the lower 70's! We took a day trip to the coast to visit Seaside and Cannon Beach. Both cities lie along the Oregon coast, but that's where the similarities end. Seaside seems to be a bit more "commercial" or crowded. There are arcades along the main streets that remind one of an old boardwalk. There is a new time share hotel along the beach of Seaside that detracts some from it's small town appeal. Cannon Beach on the other hand is small, one street town that has many little "mom and pop" shops to lure the tourist into their shops. This was our second trip to cannon beach and we took advantage of the great weather spending all of our time wandering up and down the large sandy beach. One notable thing is that we had to stop for ice cream before we left and we stopped at a yummy place. They were serving Tillamook ice cream which is rich and creamy and oh so yummy. Oh, and then we had to try the homemade fudge, also yummy-yummy.

The transition from Saturday, 10/25 - 10/26 meant more than just our anniversary, it was the first time that the Leff family experienced the daylight savings time "fall back" first hand. I had to be at work at 1 AM on 10/26 to make sure all of our systems were "contained" or in a state that is not usable prior to the 2 AM change. Once we lived the duplicate hour and arrived at 3 AM, we were able to turn the systems back on and go home. This made for a really rough day/night/day for me, but I got to bed early, and I got a comp day on Monday so I could get some rest.

We were fortunate to have my Mom and her fiance Ron celebrate with us. We had a surprisingly good breakfast at the local Courtyard by Marriott. They had a small breakfast buffet with eggs, bacon, oatmeal, cereal, and fruit. The hidden treasure was that they would cook you made-to-order pancakes and waffles, which came out fresh and hot. Yummy-yummy! After the large breakfast, we went to downtown Portland for the - Saturday Portland Market (and Sunday's too) This is a weekly collection of vendors selling homemade things, crafts, arts, food, and such. There were musicians to provide atmosphere and food to satisfy the hunger. This market is under a roadway that is right next to a park that runs along the Willamette River.

To celebrate our anniversary went to see a very good, but very disturbing movie called Mystic River. This one stars Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon and is about as gripping a drama as there is. We then went to dinner at McGrath's Fish House. This place is a great value for the quality of food that you get. And of course, for dessert you can split a slice of their "Mile High Mud Pie". After dinner we.

Since I had Monday off, I took the opportunity to watch Chloe and Heidi have fun in their "tumbling" class at a place called The Gym-Nest. Chloe especially likes the balance beam and the trampoline - boing, boing.

After the gymnastics and a quick bite to eat, we were off on an adventure. We decided that the Columbia Gorge and Multnomah falls would make a fun trip. We started out trying to find the Historic Columbia Gorge Highway ... with no "real" directions of course. As luck would have it, we were running short on gas, so we decided to pull of on an otherwise random exit that claimed to have a gas station. After --slowly-- climbing up the side of the Gorge at a very steep 10% grade, we arrived at the gas station. It turned out to be a one pump station attached to a little general store in a very small town. From there we discovered that we were actually traveling on the Highway and continued on until we arrive at Multnomah Falls. This waterfall is a natural beauty ... we'll probably wind up posting some pictures one of these days. All five of us hiked the 1 mile trail straight up to the top of the falls. It was a challenge since we had Chloe in her backpack and the grade is very steep with switchbacks the whole way. The hard work was worth it once we got to the top and looked over. Of course, I didn't lean too far over.

On our way home from the falls, we were hungry, and tired. We thought that pizza sounded great, but not knowing the area, and being pizza snobs, we wanted to make sure that we got good stuff. We wound up settling on Belaggio's Pizza in Beaverton, not far from our house. The best part about the pizza was that it was fast. It wasn't particularly great, but it wasn't gross either.