{Mrs. Stew}

It's been an eventful last few months here in Oregon!  A lot of exciting things have been happening :)  First a recap of a trip I had planned for Jeff's birthday!

I wanted to do something fun for my hubbys big 3-0!  I would have loved to plan a big trip but since he's still been working on finishing up training planning a get away wasn't really an option.  SOOOO instead I found a jetboat ride that would take us from Portland to Astoria for the day.

No flash photography :)

All was fine getting onto the boat.  There was an interesting group of people going on the ride, us, a couple from Hawaii, a group of Japanese tourists, and and elderly group in their 80's.

Finally got one!

We got about 1 1/2 hours into the ride and we started to pull away towards a dock and Jeff and I swore they were pulling off to the side to show us the high school where "Twilight" was filmed.  The narrator of the ride came down and told us we were pulling off because the engine blew a gasket and there was oil and fuel everywhere.  Awesome.  We sat on the boat for about 45 minutes until he came back again and told us we weren't going to be making it to Astoria and there were getting us off the boat to walk us into town where the company would buy us lunch.  In the mean time there were driving a mechanic up to Kalama to work on the boat and then we would go back to Portland.  

Our boat is the one about my right shoulder

At the Mexican restaurant in Kalama.  We thought we would just sit where ever we wanted in the restaurant  and then they would just pick up everyones ticket.  We were a little surprised to see that they had pushed 3 tables together to have everyone sit down together.  

I was a REALLY weird day!  But makes for a good story, I'm thinking of our next get away to make up for this!  It won't be on a boat :)

Finally back in Portland!

Other exciting news is that Jeff is fully certified!!!!!!!!   The most exciting thing about this is NO MORE TRAINING!  He had two different check outs to finish.  One was done the Saturday before his birthday and the final checkout was done on his actual birthday :)  Coolest thing about that is that he has graduated high school and college on his birthday so this is another achievement that he can add to that date.  I'm so proud of him!  I can't imagine the work he has to do!  

We have some other exciting things that will hopefully be happening soon, we will keep you posted :)