Weekend in Portland

On Friday we left the house at 6:00am for what would be a 13 1/2 hour road trip to Portland, Oregon to visit Aunt Barbara and Uncle Tony. This was our first trip to Portland! Tom and I made the trip to Ashland with our roommates in college, but this was another 300 miles or so! All said, it went very well. Fortunately our kids were great in the car, I went more stir crazy than Tommy did on the way home!

While in Portland, we enjoyed spending time with Barbara and Tony, as well as their cats Magic and Gremlin. We experienced Portland at its rainy best and thus spent the weekend indoors. We went to the Portland Children's Museum (hooray for my Bay Area Discovery Museum reciprocal membership, which got the 6 of us in for free! Saving $50!) and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (thanks to Barbara's friend "Other Barbara" who had a family pass, also getting us in free and saving a LOT of money).

These pictures are all mixed up, but show the great times we had playing, reading, learning, snuggling, eating, and laughing!

Family picture at the Portland Children's Museum

Lucy, Uncle Tony, and Aunt Barbara
(Eagles vs Niners in the background)

Barbara reads "Where the Wild Things Are" to Tommy for the first time

Astronaut Tommy at OMSI

Playing games in our jammies

Uncle Tony supervises Lucy in the Baby Garden at the PCM

Tommy and Daddy play vet at the PCM

At the water area at OMSI, they not only provide smocks for the kids...
they provide Crocs in various sizes and colors!

Reading in the car

Tommy teaches us about the brain at OMSI

Tommy sleeps while we wait for our table for dinner, he also slept through dinner!

Lucy found this in the gift shop and latched on...

...and would NOT let go!

Everybody took a turn driving

Tommy plays with the tinker toy exhibit at the PCM

and the water area

Lucy enjoys the ball pit at OMSI

Tommy loved playing with the air tubes and balls at OMSI

The big kids enjoyed playing too

Lunch at the Black Bear Diner in Shasta
(Tom and I enjoyed remembering a lunch we had here with Eda and Joanne in 2003!)

Lucy chats with Rosie, one of Barbara & Tony's bears

Lucy in the car

Someone went shopping and didn't have to pay sales tax!
Can you guess what's inside that rectangle-shaped box?
Tom enjoys his birthday/Christmas gift. I joked that I think it would have to be Lucy's birthday/Christmas gift too!

We left at 6:00am Monday morning and exited the last freeway just as the Giants won their series!

But with all that excitement... this is really what the whole trip was all about!

Thanks for a great trip Barbara & Tony. We love you!