Do you mean Westside as in Pdx Westside, or Seattle Westside???
Because you said OR/WA, I'll give you my opine about Battle Ground.
Battle Ground is a gorgeous place to live. The city itself isn't anything special...one cute little downtown area, but it's nothing to move here for itself.
There is, however, a naturopath ped and herb center here that is pretty well known in the area.
We live a little north of town, towards Mt. St. Helens. The area is hilly forests, has lots of trails for walking, waterfalls, old cedars, rolling farmland. There are lakes pretty close for boating and fishing, a little north for swimming and recreation. The drive from Battle Ground to Mt. St. Helens is absolutley gorgeous. Battle Ground can be the launching pad for several different day "Gas tank Getaways". As far as scenery goes, we have it all.
It is getting expensive out here, because more families are moving away from the city (Vancouver and Pdx) to have more room and land.
Washington State University in Vancouver is very closeby, and that campus is absolutely breathtaking with it's views. The campus actually has a really cool water fountain that is meant for kids to play in.
There is a large apostolic lutheran element out here, lots of women with lots of children (5-6 is not uncommon), wearing dresses (don't get me wrong, they look pretty chic to me, but frighteningly similar to each other), long hair, no makeup...again, nothing wrong with that, but it is a little disturbing to me, and I wonder what they are taught and told to look a certain way to "fit in" and be obedient to church rules and expectations....
In school, the apostolic children group together and can be very mean to outsiders coming into the area. It's taken my kids almost a year to feel like they are finally fitting in and making friends. There was lots of teasing because my son had long hair, and none of us go to church. Anything different and unusual to the local kids was up for discussion and teasing about. It was pretty hard on my sensitive, liberal-minded kids.
But the faculty and teachers have all been great, schools are ehhh...okay....there are lots of recreation opportunities for the kids....lots of homeschoolers and support (but again, most are probably christian/apostolic based homeschoolers), and new construction is popping up everywhere with new housing developments and new schools.
You can see a little more of my area and my land specifically if you go here
www.flickr.com/photos/arazas and look around.
