THE DAY! Thirty-five years ~ our coral anniversary

July 14th, 1979

July 14th, 2014

Spending our anniversary together

Harlan took the day off from work so we had the whole day to do what we wished. He wished to eat breakfast at Elmer's.

We had an 11 o'clock appointment

I wished to go for a massage…which we did at Massage Envy. Harlan had one too. It's probably the last one he'll ever have and the jury is out on me. It was nice and relaxing but both of us have too many knots to get un-kinked in one session. We'll need to see what other methods to achieve relaxation we can try next time.

We went to Clackamas Town Center

I don't have any photos of our shopping trip other than this one. I saw this in the window of some shop  and anyone who knows us well knows the significance of this graphic :0)

After having coffee at Barnes and Noble and doing some more window shopping we headed east on I-84 into the gorge.

Multnomah Falls and Multnomah Falls Lodge

I chose to start my meal with a scrumptious salad, baby greens with hazelnuts and a vinaigrette. 

It was a bit unusual for Harlan to get the fish an me the beef but that's how it went. 

Also we had a flip-flop on our usual choices for desserts. I have been totally abstaining from them but chose to have the full meal deal that day. 

Our server took this picture of us. I love it!

After dinner hike

It's been 100 years since they built the bridge across the river between the lower and upper falls.

We anticipated it being much busier than it was there.

The damage that was done to the bridge this past winter has been totally repaired and it's almost impossible to tell there ever was a big chunk gone.

It felt kinda like we were honeymooning again…taking pictures of each other along the way.

We walked across the bridge and a tiny way up the trail on the other side where we saw a rainbow in the mist. I wasn't wearing the right footwear to hike to the top of the falls. As we turned around a small speck of pink on the trail caught my eye. A heart shaped pony bead :0)

Heading toward Portland 

As we drove back toward town we ran into heavy traffic about 10 miles from Troutdale. The construction of that bridge over the Sandy River causes quite the bottleneck. But if we had not run into traffic I probably wouldn't have gotten this screen shot on my phone taken at 7:14 on 7/14/14

What a great day!

We have been blessed during these past thirty-five years 

and we are thankful

Thirty-five years: Sunday celebration

The Apostolic Lutheran Church's summer services

Harlan and I met at the fall services of this church back in 1978. It was a great delight to attend the Sunday morning and afternoon worship services at the annual convention in Vancouver this year. We got to visit with so many friends and family! Harlan's cousin's husband snapped the above picture for us. There were seven of the Ray Hilman children in attendance. Six of them are in the photo above. Howard, Raymond, Clint, Iris, Harlan and Dennis. Har's Aunt Helen and sister-in-law Judy are with us too. 

So many dear ones were happy to see us. Mary Prouty was one that especially remembers Harlan as a little boy. He couldn't say his "r"s when he was that young. She never forgot him calling through the screen door saying, "Open the door, Maewy" 

We loved seeing some of the family from Canada too.  Har's sister, Naomi, is pictured with their cousin Joan, from Alberta. Their mothers were sisters and their fathers were brothers. Double cousins are pretty great!

It all started with a shared hymnal ;0)

It's been almost thirty-six years since those fall services. We actually got acquainted at the end of the first day when I shared my hymnal with him. I visited the book table this weekend to purchase a new hymnal to commemorate the occasion. I still love those hymns!
A stop to visit the GRANDS

We try to pop by to see the grandkids sometime during the weekend. We drove over there on our way to our hotel for the night.

Danika and Garrett and I were having fun doing selfies so I had Har pose with Genevieve and Wyatt.  When I see these guys in pictures it shocks me to realize how big they're getting. Time sure flies!

I took pictures to show Garrett of the dahlias he planted this spring.

It was a variety pack so we didn't know what we would get. The yellow one is tiny and the orange and yellow one is huge!

Motel 6

We didn't want to stay at any place fancy or expensive and Motel 6 was neither. 

They even left the lights on for us :0)

They also had a truck like ours on their bedspread but got the color wrong. Ours is blue.

Thirty-five years - day two

A beginning of a beautiful day

If we wake up early enough on a sunny summer day we are treated to this!

Our fish tank becomes a prism that casts rainbows into the music room. This photo has not been retouched in any fashion.

Morning bike ride

Since we were attending Sarah's wedding in the evening we decided to go for an early morning bike ride. We headed down the hill toward the MAX tracks on N Interstate. Our niece, Tiffany told us about a restaurant that she and her hubby enjoyed down that way. She told us approximately where it was located. Somewhere near where I pictured the Gotham Tavern to be. As it turned out, it was in the space formally occupied by the Gotham Tavern.

It is advertised as a Swedish restaurant but it has menu items from the other Scandinavian countries as well.

They have very good coffee! Since we were celebrating our anniversary weekend, the server ordered us a half order of aebleskiver. YUM!

I'm glad that we biked to the restaurant.

The metabolism of a foodie needs to be revved up after such an awesome meal.

We decided to ride home a longer way instead of trying to brave the steeper path up the hill.

The ride turned out to be very nice. I usually set the pace but Har is more familiar with the bike lanes and paths around the Lloyd Center area so I followed him. It reminded me of part of the verse that was on our wedding invitations.

"whither thou goest, I will go" :0)