Last weekend, we headed up to Spokane with Jason, Leslie, Ashtin and Jason's mom Connie. It's a 6-hour drive from Salem to Spokane. We went up there to help our granddaughter Paige celebrate her 20th birthday. The Bulldogs also had two pre-season soccer games and we watched those on Saturday and Sunday while sitting in wind, snow and cold. We had rented an AirB&B, which turned out to be just great! We (mainly Leslie and Connie) did most of the cooking so we didn't have to eat out all the time. Paige met up with us and gave us a tour of the Gonzaga campus and her dorm room. Then we went over to the Zag Shop and bought some Gonzaga shirts, stickers and couple of other things. Paige's soccer game was at 1:00 that afternoon, and we watched the team do their warm-ups before the game. The first game they played was a local community college team which was not even on the same level as Gonzaga. The Zags beat them 9-0 and Paige scored 3 goals! Paige's aunt and cousin drove up separately that afternoon to join us for the birthday celebration, so that evening had nine of us at the table. We fixed a ham dinner and Ashtin made her sister a red velvet birthday cake. Paige was so happy that all of us drove up to see her. Sunday morning Paige had another soccer game at 11:00. This time they played a much stronger team from Boise State, but they managed to beat them 2-0. Paige didn't score any goals in that game. The weather in Spokane was on the chilly side with snow showers and wind. I don't know how those girls could play with shorts and t-shirts on!
We headed back home after the game. It took us about 7 hours to get back because we missed a turn and had to take a different route. We also had to wait in a construction-related traffic jam. That cost us another half-hour and we were all super tired by the time we got to Salem, where we spent the night before we headed back to our home. The snow was falling along the coast range and so we had to be careful because the roads were a little slippery on our way west.
