Portland Vacation

I thought I'd better write a bit about our fabulous yet too short vacation in Portland.

I arrived early to help out with some work commitments and Mr. C flew in on Thursday night. Poor thing arrived at the hotel I was staying at around midnight absolutely exhausted. I, on the other hand...had spent a leisurely evening shopping with my dear friend for baby stuff, , eating Japanese cuisine and watching TV waiting for John to arrive.

The next morning we headed to my in-laws house...they had so kindly set up their motorhome outside the front of the house so we could sleep in there with the kids and still have some privacy. It was the perfect arrangement.

John's grandfather was also there from Kennewick, WA so we had a pretty full house and it was wonderful to have so much family around.

We beat the kids to the house by about 10 minutes. It was pretty cute watching Mr. C peer anxiously out the window while waiting for them and sure enough...when they pulled up both little giggle and chortle when racing for their dad. **sigh** They missed him as much as he missed them.

They were also both carrying cute little bear signs that read, "Its a girl!"

The weekend was a whirlwind! We played and had a big family dinner on Friday, football game and baby shower on Saturday, Salmon Festival on sunday and back to school/home to Arizona on Monday.

We met Lexi's new squeeze...He JUST turned 20, rides motorcycles and works in a guitar store. Pretty nice guy...tried really hard to fit in and be part of the family. I thought he was a good match for our music loving almost 18-year old!

Eric played a GREAT game of football on Saturday. He looked so cute in his uniform and so SMALL compared to some of the other guys on his team. We had a full house at the game...Great grandpa, grandpa, dad, me, auntie sarah, 4 cousins, uncle mike, sissy lexi and maddie...it was a fun cheering section.


Orion and Sarah came and spent most of Saturday with us. It was wonderfully fun. John took the kids to play while Sarah and I went to the baby shower that had been planned. The shower was really fun and Orion ended up spending the night in the motorhome with us. He and Eric had a great time playing together.

The Mike Larson family came over for the family dinner on friday and also on Saturday and we had so much fun just chatting and hanging out...the little guys are getting so big. Josh is still "little boy gullible" and came to hear my secret every time I told him I had one...of course it was always a tickle. Jake...much more wary of his crazy auntie Anna and I was amazed at how much Nick had grown...he's really starting to look more like his mom.

The Salmon Festival with Sarah, Greg and Orion was a big surprise. WAY more fun than I thought it would be...We drove out to Oxbow park on the East side of Portland...the festival had all kinds of kid-oriented things to do. The best was the life-cycle of the salmon bracelets they made. All three kiddos can tell you how and where a salmon is born, lives, spawns and dies. Pretty impressive for an afternoon at a festival. They also had a big Indian village complete with teepees and smoked salmon to try. We also spent a little bit of time just sitting down by the Sandy river. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I really missed Oregon at that moment...

At the end of it all...we went out for breakfast on Monday morning and let the kids play hookey from school for the morning hours. When John dropped Maddie off he met with her principal and teachers. More on Maddie in another post...

We said some sad goodbyes and then spent the next couple of hours packing and cleaning out our mess in the motorhome.

Goodbye dear Oregon! We'll miss you!