Give-Away *WINNER* & Waterfalls

What a fun day we had yesterday! Our daughter Amy brought our granddaughters Jenna and Paige out for the afternoon.  Here is Jenna when they first arrived, I asked her to bring her sock monkey so I could get photos of both the girls and their monkeys, here is Jenna holding them both. :-)

Here are both the girls with their monkeys.. I have to tell you, the photo session was HILARIOUS! Trying to get a good photo of two wiggly girls is a challenge to say the least.  I have 20 photos and most of them have blurs or something goofy going on.  This one I thought was adorable.

Having fun...

The best one without blurs.. :-)

And below are the girls drawing the names out of the hat for the Give-Away... ::drum roll::

AND THE WINNER IS.........

A lovely blogger who lives in England, Anne from Andamento Blog. I just love her blog as she takes us along with her on these fun bike rides through the English countryside and shows us great old ruins and cows and lakes and things.  I count her as one of my blogging friends.  Anne, please visit my Etsy shop and pick out your favorite pair of earrings and I will send them to you!  :-)

After a cozy and fun afternoon by the fire and taking photos and drawing names.. we bundled up for a drive to show the girls the gorge and some waterfalls.  Here they are at Portland Women's Forum State Park with Vista House and the Columbia River Gorge behind them.  

Then we drove around Vista House and on to Latourell Falls.  It's a beautiful waterfall and quite big.. the photo below shows the wonderful neon green lichen that grow there all year.. and see the orange lichen too?  

Here is the mossy and fern-covered rock wall by this waterfall.

Next is the most un-discovered and special waterfall - it's a favorite of mine - called Shepperd's Dell Waterfall.  The family that owned the land where this waterfall is in the early 1900s would go there for family "church" as it was such a sacred feeling place.  You can't get the full feeling and magnitude of this waterfall from the photos, but you walk down a curving pathway from the edge of the bridge you see in the photo below and you come to a viewing platform at the VERY EDGE of this rushing waterfall - it's loud and amazing!  In the photo below you can see the rock wall on the left, that's the walkway.

Youngs Creek cascades down a twisting alcove in a series of falls totaling about 180 feet in height, with the lower half of the visible portion of the falls (essentially everything upstream from the bridge) totaling 82 feet. The falls begin with a horsetail which feeds into a plunge, stuffed back in an inaccessible part of the recess. Below here, the creek turns 90 degrees and cascades 32 feet over a few small drops before funneling down a 50 foot veil with a concave hourglass shape. As the creek passes beneath the graceful arching bridge spanning the chasm, it drops over two final falls of about 20 feet each.

Amy and the girls in front of the falls. 

Shepperd's Dell Bridge and the waterfall as you stand at the viewing platform.  You can see the railroad tracks at the base and the Columbia River is over the lowlands you can see past that.

It was super fun to have almost 40 people leave a comment for the give-away - as I've said before I just love reading your comments, it makes me feel as if I'm making friends around the globe - which I just love.  I hope you are all enjoying Spring!  ((hugs)) Teresa