The holiday

Jay and I were lucky enough to get to celebrate Thanksgiving twice - on the actual holiday evening with Brynn and Robert, and then on the following Saturday with my family in Newberg.  On the drive to Newberg we stopped in McMinnville at the Evergreen Aviation Museum and met up with my family for a tour.  Larry was a volunteer at this museum for a few years, though Jay didn't have the chance to visit until now.  We had a great time reading the signs and walking through a history of air travel.  
When we came to the Spruce Goose Jay and I went into the belly of the wooden beast and found that the cockpit has been blocked off, only to be accessed by those who made an additional purchase.  As luck would have it, a gentleman was heading into the restricted area with a museum volunteer when he announced that 5 are allowed into the cockpit though he was a party of 1.  We jumped on the chance and headed up the little spiral staircase.  What a great experience!  We spent about 15 minutes in the large cockpit and got to sit in the pilot and co-pilot seats!  The photo where I am looking out the windows shows a section of the plane where the wood paneling was removed and the windows added later.  We were told that the cockpit used to be open to the public for viewing at all times until enough items were stolen and graffiti added to the walls that the Goose's access had to be restricted.  We felt very special to get to see this space. 
  We finished up with the Spruce Goose and took in as much as we could of the other planes in the building, though we could have easily spent another 2 hours learning from the amazing volunteer docents.  We then walked over to the Space section of the museum, housed in an identical building.  Jay and I will need to take another trip up to the museum and dedicate more time as we eventually had to tear ourselves away.  The museum is working on securing a space shuttle to add to their collection - we will definitely have to see that!!

Saturday Jay and I visited Larry for most of the morning and stopped to see Grandma Liz before heading back to Newberg for turkey dinner #2.  

Before and during dinner Karsyn entertained us all with her black olive finger tricks!  Then we finished the night with pie and a viewing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  Which then sparked a whole conversation and research project on the many variations of Lime Jell-o (people actually put tuna in their jello dishes...yipes!).  The rest of the weekend we kept pretty entertained by Karsyn (except for Shep...Shep was not amused) and a stroll around my sister's neighborhood before heading home.  Enjoy some photos!