A Little Taste of Oregon-- Our New Home

We are officially Oregonians! We arrived in Salem about 3 weeks ago. My gracious in-laws saved us by flying down to Utah, and making the long drive with us back up to Oregon. We now live about 40 minutes from them which has been lots of fun. Overall we really like it here but there are definitely some things we are getting adjusted to...

1. No one here has air conditioning! This has probably been the hardest adjustment, believe it or not. It was soooo hot the first couple weeks we were here! They say it is an unusual year and usually it is only hot for a very short time, but oh man, it is miserable even if it is for a short time.
2. It's BEAUTIFUL here! There are big, green trees all over the place, just like Georgia, PLUS mountains, PLUS the beach! Pretty amazing...
3. All of our neighbors smoke. This is much different from Provo, Utah. And when you have to keep all your doors and windows open so you don't suffocate from the heat, this is not a lot of fun.
4. They say it rains a ton here. I guess we haven't really hit the rainy season, but this is what I hear will happen. I have mixed feelings about this. I like a good rain every now and then, but I think too much rain and too many gloomy, dark days will not make me a happy camper. I've heard different things about the rainy season, but I don't think it will be unbearable.
5. You-picks are all over the place. I never knew they were called that, but they are just places with tons of fruit where you can go and pick it yourself. (Kind of obvious). We've seen signs for cherries, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries... and the list goes on.

Here are some pictures of some cool stuff about Oregon:

Standing on the beach and watching the sunset.

Blackberries grow all over the place here. They are "Oregon's weeds." My mother-in-law said you always know when someone's new here if they are pulled over on the side of the road eating blackberries. I'm glad she warned me of this because apparently they spray for weeds on the sides of the road.

Lots of Queen Anne's Lace

There are massive Christmas tree farms here! Around Christmas time, huge helicopters come in and haul off gigantic loads of trees to all over the place. I like how they grow a big finger on the top. I'm pretty sure they will eventually trim them because no one wants their star to be four feet above the rest of the tree.

These are baby Christmas trees that were planted this summer. I guess it only takes 5-7 years for them to be full grown.

Grape vines

LAW SCHOOL! This is perhaps the scariest thing we've seen here. :)

As we come across other cool stuff, we'll continue to add it to our blog. We'll keep you posted.