Tillamook Cheese Factory

 
We knew we wanted to take a tour through the cheese factory and so we did that first, before we headed up the coast to Rockaway Beach.  It was so fun!  Dallas loves cheese and we enjoyed walking through and learning all about how they make cheese and ice cream.  It was a fun start to our vacation.  
It was kind of hard to get a good photo (while Wes was in the sling) and so I just turned off my flash and this was the best I got.  It did have a yellow tint to the windows, but it was much clearer than this.  Anyways, it was AMAZING!  The blocks of cheese that you can see on the belts were huge!!

We learned that it takes 10 gallons of milk to make 1 pound of cheese.  That’s a lot of milk!!! 
Dallas would wave to all the workers and we even had a few girls wave back to him.  He’s such a flirt.
Dallas the farmer.
 
Daddy and Dallas by the dairy cows.  At first he thought they were real and then he wanted to ride them.  Silly boy.


The Wes man and I.  He was a pretty good traveler considering all the boys had colds.  Dallas was the most feisty and yet he was the one with the most energy too.  Funny how that works.

I loved this ad-Thought it was pretty clever.

We get to taste the cheese!!!  We tasted 6 different kinds- Squeaky Cheese-aka Cheese Curds, Cheddar, Extra Sharp, White Cheddar and Pepper Jack, and some kind of Garlic Cheese.  The Squeaky Cheese was Dallas and Toby’s favorite.  I liked the White Cheddar.

More cheese please!!!

They would take the extra blocks that weren’t perfect in the factory and use those for the tasting area.  This was the cheese cutter they used.

   The Moo Cows as we call them.
Yum, it’s ice cream time!!  The factory smelled sooooooo good and that was due to the waffle cones they were cooking.  We all got ice-cream and it was so tasty.  I love their Mudslide and got that for my treat.  Toby tried the Blackberry, Strawberry Cheesecake and Carmel Swirl.  Dallas ended up eating all of the blackberry and most of the strawberry cheesecake before he moved onto mine.  Guess we should’ve fed the kid more than just cheese for lunch.   
  
“Yup, cheese and ice-cream.  Sounds good to me!”

Outside the factory

The boat that they used to get the butter up the harbor to Portland.  This is what is on all the packages.  It was called the Morning Star.

Love my ornament!  A block of cheese.  I try to get ornaments from all the places we visit.  This was too funny not to get.  It's always a treat to see my Christmas tree filled with lots of fun ornaments and memories.  They don't all match, but I don't care!

Sure was a tired boy and slept till we got to our condo and had almost everything unpacked!!!

***We were finishing up our vacation with a trip to see a lighthouse.  We had to pass the cheese factory on our way and pointed it out to Dallas.  About half way to the lighthouse he asks for cheese.  I offered him some string cheese and he didn't want it.  He started freaking out saying he wanted cheese!  I asked him if he meant the cheese factory, and he said yes and got a big smile on his face.  (we're working on our limited communication skills-it's hard for him and for us when we don't know what he is trying to say!)  I told him that we'd get some cheese when we were done and figured he'd forget about it.
After we were done with the lighthouse, we were heading back into town and he said "Cheese?"  "Please?"  and then out of the blue he said "Milk"-Toby and I both looked at each other in amazement.  He remembered that we had gotten him chocolate milk as part of the cheese factory tour.  He wanted to go back and get cheese and chocolate milk!  What a smart kid.  I totally thought he would forget about it, let alone remember chocolate milk.  Sure enough, we went back and did another tour and got that kid some chocolate milk!