Shut Up and Eat in Portland, Oregon

We are actually on vacation right now in Oregon. But I was looking at some blog stuff and noticed that I had a huge spike in hits yesterday. I know I have typically posted on this blog on Wednesday but had not since I did have the capability to really share it very much but obviously there are people still coming even if I don't share it across my social media sites.

Anyways, our first stop when we arrived in Portland was for lunch at this place called Shut Up and Eat. The sandwich and fries are really as good as they look comma perhaps even better. I did order a bloody mary because I really do like Bloody Mary's but I wasn't all that impressed with this one. Maybe I should have had an Italian soda there instead. The sandwiches there tend to be Italian in nature and tasted awesome.

I had put my husband in charge of finding a place to eat lunch when we first arrived there. Since he is in Portland often for work he has eaten at a variety of places but typically he is without a vehicle so he is usually within walking distance or have something delivered to him.

Cedar Lodge and Settlement - Wisconsin Dells

This is the outside of Cedar Lodge and Settlement cabin number 29. Obviously, this is that night. All of the cabins have these lights on them which look pretty neat. Cabin number 28 and 29 are both two bedroom with a loft cabin. Each of the bedrooms has a queen bed and the Loft has two queen beds, plus a sleeper sofa in the living room.

I think what I liked most about the place was its location along the river. The kids could go and play on their place at or dig in the sand beach and we could sit there and enjoy the calmness there after having spent the day in downtown Dells or at Noah's Ark or another water park. This is a picture of the fire pit. They do provide wood and paper and matches to start it. We brought along our own marshmallow sticks and s'mores supplies but they did sell s'mores kits in the office.

My kids and their cousin are young enough to still enjoy a place that so this was an asset to us to have this available for them too get rid of some energy. There were other kids staying in the hotel part that they played with at the place that as well.

Here I am set up at a chair enjoying the coffee my husband picked up for me looking at the river and the Bluffs. You do see some army ducks tours go by and people floating down the river on tubes or in kayaks. Right next door is a place that rents fishing boats, tube, and kayaks. It is quite a lazy river so it will not be and exciting tube time but a relaxing one instead.

The cabin rental did include passes to go to both Noah's Ark and the water parks at Chula Vista Resort for our entire State. We did go to Chula Vista to the indoor waterpark the first night then we went to Noah's Ark the next two days. The inclusion of these wristbands help offset the cost of the cabin which was quite a bit. The cabin next door at the other place seemed to be cheaper but did not include the passes. Had this not been a waterpark intended trip I may have looked at the place next door instead which we may do in the future. It also included passes to go to the Big Cat Rescue but that look to be almost a half-hour away in the opposite direction of where we were going to be heading when we go home.

The place also did have a pool but we never got a chance to use it because we were busy doing other things. We thoroughly enjoyed having the use of a full kitchen and 2 bathrooms. We stayed there with my sister and her family so there were two families in the cabin.

One thing I didn't care for was that we were required to remove our own trash. It's not a big deal but when you pay $400 a night, you expect them to remove the trash. I also found it to be quite Dusty on the lights and light fixtures and underneath the beds. If the kids weren't playing hide-and-seek and came out covered in dust bunnies we probably would not have noticed but I expect it to not have so much dust.

Overall though, it was a nice place to stay and the inclusion of passes was awesome. They only required a two-night stay which is why we chose this place where as a lot of other places in the Dells require a three-night stay in the summer.

Chula Vista Indoor Watermark - Wisconsin Dells

There are a variety of places in the Dells that advertise FREE passes to the Chula Vista watermarks (indoor and outdoor) with your stay. The place we stayed (Cedar Lodge and Settlement - will post about later) was one of those places. With Wisconsin Dells being the waterpark capital of the world it is crucial that hotels, motels, and campgrounds have a water park or offer passes  to one in order to entice customers. We drove by quite a few places that had free Chula Vista passes listed on their Marquis. I knew in advance that we were getting the free passes here from the place we were staying at we decided to stay at a different place other than one of the big water park resorts because we were planning to go to Noah's Ark for the water park.

Having access to an indoor water park was nice. We went to the Chula Vista Indoor Waterpark for 3 hours the evenings we checked in. Anyone traveling with kids should know the magic height is 48 inches and  they can go on everything.

Like most big water parks they have the customary huge bucket that fills and dumps on everyone playing in the climbing area with smaller slides. There is also a roller coaster slide and a couple of body slide a couple of tube slides and a couple of Matt slides as well. There is a hot tub indoors, a basketball playing area comma a smaller kids Splash area, and a lazy river.

Like a lot of lazy Rivers it really is not so lazy. They allow kids to be in it without tubes and they are pretty much running through the Lazy River the entire time. One of my favorite rides there was one that is like a toilet bowl where you circle around until you get flushed down a hole. I thought the roller coaster water slide was quite jerky and was not as fun to go on as some of the body slides and mat slides. I did not think the lifeguards here we were very attentive. They seem to let a lot of stuff go except for in the hot tub I noticed they would make sure anyone under the age of 12 wasn't in there unless they had an adult with them.

It was nice to have an indoor option 4 something to do when it was getting cooler. They do have other outdoor pool and water park areas at this hotel but we did not go to them.

Lake Time Up North in Minnesota

This past 4th of July weekend we spent five full days up north in Minnesota at our cabin. When we are up here we like to go to a variety of different lakes. This time we decided to try out a couple of new lakes to see what they were like. We drove up in the evening and got to our cabin quite late but that made it so we had the five full days to be out and about.

The kids decided to do swimming and snorkeling while we were at this Lake. It was quite clear so snorkeling was actually possibility.

These top two photographs are taken on Bay Lake. Don't let these pictures for you, we managed to find a quiet spot on the lake but the rest of the lake was extremely busy. We had to drive around quite a bit trying to find something that was not filled with boaters pulling tubes and water skis or a place where we would not bother fisherman.

This next picture was taken at East big rabbit Lake. We decided to get out early to go to being before a bunch of other people arrived. We just want to be safe with the kids in that have too many other boaters and other two hours to watch out for. It was a pretty perfect morning and early afternoon to go tubing.

These two fishing pictures are taken on West rabbit Lake. You access both East and West rabbit Lake from the same Public Access area but there is a channel between the two Lakes we had intended to go tubing on the 4th of July but it was cloudy and a little windy and felt a bit chilly. So we decided to go fishing instead. Obviously, both of these fish in the picture we're not Keepers but my son did catch three that were later on.

These last two pictures work taken on-loan Lake. It is a little bit of a drive Kama probably 15 to 20 minutes but is one of the closest beaches that we have to go to. Usually we like to take the kids to be not this week because the water seems a little warmer here and there seems to be a lot of families on the lake. It does not have a very big but it does have a roped-off swimming area and has a Sandy Beach for them to play at. Sometimes they just want to play in the sand.

Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley, MN

It has been about three years or so since I have been to the Minnesota Zoo. We were really hoping to do the new playground they had their but water levels were too high and it was closed. They still had fun at the water splash area and the park with the beehive.

Being that it was summer the Aveda butterfly garden was back and that is always a hit with my kids. We didn't see all of the butterflies and moths that were on the sheet butt we did see quite a few and it was fun to get up close to so many of them.

The one thing that is really awesome about the Minnesota Zoo is that the enclosures can be quite large but on the flip side for those of us visiting that means a lot of walking. I really enjoyed seeing some of the animals and creatures we have not seen in any other Zoo before period I wish I could remember the name of the street at in the picture Kama I will have to Google it, but it sounds like it is comparable to a sloth. Maybe slightly more active but not too much more. I had never seen one of them before. A lot of the animals seem to be pretty alert when we were there first thing in the morning. The zoo opens up at 9 a.m. and we were shortly there after that.

My son was quite small the last time we had been here so he doesn't really remember anything from the zoo. Although he has not been deprived of Zeus, we have gone to many and often we go to zoos when we travel. I decided that this summer we would get a Zoo membership. It will be a full year membership but I am hoping to get there once a month for the summer. We usually do memberships to zoos and museums and rotate which ones we do. It has been a long time since we have had this Zoo membership and I figured we were due.

This is a picture of the big aquarium in the tropical encounters Wing but there is a huge area of aquariums if you go to the other side of the zoo. That is also inside. I didn't take any pictures they are this time, or at least not with my phone. I am sure when we go back there sometime in the winter I will get more pictures.

This time we only went around and saw the exhibits. We didn't get to quite all of them because we had been there for quite a while already and we're getting tired and since we have a membership to the Minnesota Zoo now we can come back and see them. Also we did not see any shows this time either. I figured that would be something fun to save for other visits. This time we just wanted to get around and see all the animals and the parks. I plan to take the kids again in July and hopefully that new Nature park within the zoo will be open. It says it is seasonal so they would like to experience it before it's season is over. And we will try to see a show or two.

Minnesota Bucket List Postcard

I received these Postcards From the Owatonna Chamber of Commerce. I really like the top one titled marvels of Minnesota. I thought it would be a neat sort of bucket list as we make our way around to different parts of Minnesota. The Louis Sullivan Bank is in Owatonna and featured on here. On the way to our cabin we passed by the big walleye in Garrison.

We have seen the some Broda Covered Bridge, the spoon and Cherry in Minneapolis comma and I have seen the Jolly Green Giant before it was moved but the kids have not seen it. I have been to the Spam Museum in Austin but it just reopened in a new and much larger location so I will have to take the family to see that sometime soon to. There are a lot of things on here we have not seen. Most of them are just oversized statues.

Why does my phone turn the picture when I had it right side up. Ugh.

She Is......Women in the Outdoors Weekend at Eagle Bluff

Let me tell you a little bit about She Is. It is a nonprofit organization that plans outings for women to do as a group. This is my third year going to the she is spring women's weekend. They do have one coming up in the fall but it will be hard for me to know whether or not I can attend that one because of when my kids might have swim meets.

The spring weekend is held at Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center in Lanesboro Minnesota. When you register for this weekend you will pick out classes in your order of preference. Each person will get for classes but you rank 10 of them in your preference order. I think there was about 25 classes to choose from so there is a wide variety of things to do outside and inside. I tend to gravitate towards the ones where I can be most active.

The above picture is me on the ropes course and the zip line. I have done this class each of the three years I have gone. I find it to be such a thrill.

 This is just a picture of one of the meals they served us. Sometimes we get to have things that we might normally not have at home. This is just a taco so nothing different here but we did have Watercress shelter at one meal and rabbits to add another. Both do things to me. Eagle Bluff tries to use local and sustainable ingredients when they are making their meals as much as possible. But as a mom I just enjoy that someone else is doing the cooking and cleaning for an entire weekend.

 The indoor crafty class I chose to take this year was to make a hammock cocoon swing. I did finish it but I still need to buy cushions to put inside and figure out where to hang it from. It might go up to our cabin.

 This is me with my friend Lori. She drove about 4 hours to come spend the weekend with me and three other of my friends. I had not seen her in a couple of years so I was thrilled to be able to have this time with her. We did go canoeing together as one of our classes and did the hammock swing class together as well. I didn't bring along my phone when we went canoeing so no pictures from that.

 It is morel season time in Minnesota when we were there and I found for that were all about this big.

 One of the classes I took was survival 101 where we were taught about different types of shelters you can build and how 2 make your own fire. We were split into groups of three women and had to work together to use the resources we have available to us and see you what we could do in regards to making fire hand making a shelter. We also made raspberry tea using raspberry plants that were near us. I was very pleased that our group was able to make a fire using flint and steel. When everyone had made their shelters we did a Parade of Homes of sort to go around and look at how each group decided to make theirs. No group was the same.

Each of the two evenings there was an optional group class for the entire group. The first night the group class was on how to grow shiitake mushrooms which is something they do at Eagle Bluff. These are the places they buy their inoculated plugs from. I was thinking this might be something I might like to try up at our cabin. The other evening class was the star lab demonstration to learn about constellations up in the sky currently. I did the class last year so I opted to just hang out this year. But two of the ladies in our group were new to this program so they went to check it out and enjoyed it.

We also had an optional Saturday morning yoga class for the group that I did with my friends. It was before breakfast so not everyone is interested in getting up early to workout. But I was and am glad I did. Next year you should join me at the spring She Is weekend!