A Day Trip to Portland, Oregon for Family Time - Sunday, August 23, 2020

Family time is so important when you live far away from them. It's a long haul from San Antonio to Portland, so now that we're staying in Gig Harbor for almost two months, we are taking time to spend with family. 

Today is my son Michael's 41st birthday. Happy birthday to you! At 11:00 a.m., we met at the restaurant of his choice, Red Robin, for his birthday lunch. My brother and sis-in-law Frank and Gina, my sister Jan, our son Randall, and Bob and I got together to celebrate with him. 

It's great that the restaurants are opening up again with mask mandates and 6' distancing between tables. This allows for families and/or friends to go out to eat again. It was a very good lunch and we included dessert, of course. 

Me, Jan, Randall, Frank, and Michael
(Bob took the photo).

Michael has a Red Robin Rewards Card and received a free burger and free Gooey Chocolate Brownie Cake. We also ordered three Mudd pies for our table. My brother ordered his Mudd Pie "a la mode." We kidded him about it and told him it's an ice cream pie. He had never had Mudd Pie before. Three Mudd Pies were too many for our table of six. OMG. We waddled out of there...and didn't finish all of our desserts. 

I'm going to back up to the start of our day. We had a very nice drive down from Gig Harbor to Portland. We saw Mt. St. Helens and read about three small towns in Washington at a Shell gas station picnic area. See the info boards about Toledo, Vader, and Winlock below if you'd like to go somewhere off the beaten path.

Mt. St. Helens, Washington.

On our way to the restaurant, we drove by our first two houses in Beaverton, Oregon. The first one was 1,200 sq. ft. and we lived there until our furniture and the boys got too big. Then we moved 1/2 block down the street to a 2,400 sq. ft. house. This allowed the boys to graduate from the Beaverton School District.

1,200 sq. ft., 3-bedroom home.

2,400 sq. ft., 4-bedroom home.

After lunch, Randall headed home and the rest of us went to my sister's home to play pinochle. Well, four of us played pinochle. Bob took a nap. 

We were fortunate today to be able to visit Mom at assisted living. They had an outdoor courtyard set up with a plexiglass divider and we could visit with Mom two at a time over a 45-minute period. However, we had to stay on our side of the plexiglass, no hugs or kisses. Mom is doing very well, but she's getting stir crazy. She can't go out on excursions or have visitors go in to see her. But because the facility is COVID free, they set up the outdoor meetings. We'll take what we can get!

Mom peeking around
the plexiglass.

At the end of our visit with Mom, we all headed back home. It was so nice to get close to her again. We'll be thrilled when we can actually give her hugs and kisses again! Maybe we'll get another chance for a courtyard visit before we head back to Texas. In order for that to happen, all the staff at Marquis must test negative for coronavirus for 14 days and there can't be any coronavirus germs on test surfaces in the facility.

The day went as planned and we enjoyed it. It took us about 2-1/2 hours to drive back to Gig Harbor.