March 2015

Henry turned 6, March 13! Here he is lining up his smarties and enjoying birthday ice cream.

Happy Birthday Henry!

March 9- 13 Randy was in Pennsylvania for work. It was a week long training in rigging that proved to be a good time. He got home on Henry's birthday, so here's everyone welcoming him home and looking at all the goodies he got (a bag, shirts, little notebook, ect.) The second day Randy was gone was a very sad day at our house. Our less than 1 year old cat, Dodge died. Understandably, it was really hard for the kids.

Everyone stayed up late to watch a movie for Henry's birthday!

Henry and his cake. This is a mindcraft cake Henry designed and I tried to create.

It's our family tradition to listen and dance to the Beatles birthday song on our birthday.  Here's Henry, Sophia and Tim dancing to part of that song.

The next day Henry had his birthday party. Here's his friend, Jack, Tim, Henry. Luke, his friend, Francesca, Madisen, Sophia and Max. They played games, ate cake and just played.

The following weekend, March 19 (Thurs.) through the 22nd (Sunday), Randy and I went to Portland, Oregon - alone! Randy was going anyway for work, and this time I got to go too! Kathy and Dale were very generous and looked after our kids while we were gone. We got to Portland on  Thurs. at noon Portland time (3:00pm at home) and we hadn't eaten so we were starving. We found a great place to eat called Henry's Tavern. We also saw the show that night.

We didn't take nearly enough pictures, but on Saturday we walked the path along the river. It was a pretty walk. Portland was warm, and lots of the flowers were in bloom. We walked all over the city and got caught in the rain a few times.

Portland is the city of roses and they have a rose festival every summer. During this festival volunteers learn how to row these great dragon boats.

What you're looking at is the ceiling of Kells, an Irish restaurant we ate at. All over the ceiling are rolled up dollar bills. We were told they stay up their because of Irish magic. If you donate $1.50 a waiter will fold the change and bill up just so, and toss it up and it sticks to the ceiling.Well we had to see i,t and it did indeed work. Once a year they scrape off all the money and donate it to the local children's hospital.

We took in all kinds of sites. Here I am when we visited the Oregon Historical Association. We also got to see the Art Museum, the farmer's market which was really cool. At the market if you got food from a vendor you were given a real plate and silverware (no plastic) then vendors had tubs with their names on them in the area of the market to return the plates and silverware, right next to the compost can (instead of trash can). Very cool. We also got to see our friend's farm, an hour outside of Portland.They live on a beautiful farm on top of a hill, where you can see Mt. Hood. These friends are trying to be totally self sustainable, it was very interesting to see their animals and garden. For supper we ate a turkey they raised and butchered and veggies from their garden, and had a great time together.

It was a lot of fun checking out restaurants and coffee shops. We took multiple trips to Powell a huge book store. It was 4 stories high and took up the whole city block. The store had used and new books, side by side, row after row it was a great place to browse and do a little shopping. This picture above is from our last day in Portland. We had a map that was a bit misleading and so we took a few extra turns up a very, very, very steep hill. It was a long walk, and we never even made it to the museum we thought we were going to. It also started raining, it was crazy! And we were tired, but we were already checked out of our hotel ( we were taking the red eye out at 11pm) and so we had no where to just sit. So we decided to take the trolley to see some a lot of the city while we sat.

One last look at Portland.

The Monday we got home was the night of the cubscout Pinewood derby.  Henry and Max had a lot of fun racing.

On Tuesday Dale and Audrey arrived. We had so much fun. We hung out a lot, one night they got the kids McDonalds and the adults went to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. It was a great time! Saturday, Audrey, Kathy and I took Sophia shopping and she got new shoes for Easter/1st Communion. Dale and Audrey stayed all week leaving bright and early on Sunday.

Tuesday night Henry and Sophia made their Easter hats for the Easter party at school the next day. Henry's is an Easter basket, and Sophia's is an Easter bunny.