February 15 (pictures)

Last week was a lot of fun.  Here are some highlights:

Tuesday morning we had a Valentine's party here.  It ended up being 9 moms and 17 kids.  Some were from our old ward, some from our new, some neighbors and some other friends.  We decorated cookies and made paper hats and it was a lot of fun.  Cade played Star Wars with a few boys and Cami sat on the chair and read books to herself.

Thursday morning we headed out to Portland.  We stopped in the Columbia river gorge on the way.  First we went to the Bonneville fish hatchery and saw some huge trout and a couple of 6 foot long sturgeon.  We drove down the scenic highway and saw some big waterfalls.  Horsetail falls is right on the road, Multnomah Falls is a short hike, Wahkeenan falls is about a 0.25 mile hike and then Bridal Veil falls is 0.3 miles.  The kids did really well and didn't complain much at all.  Ellie was either in her carseat on the stroller or in the Bjorn front pack with me.  She slept great and ate when she needed to. After seeing the waterfalls we drove into Portland and had dinner with some friends from UCLA, Hope and Daniel Lattin.  They are awesome and I'm glad we could see them again.

Horsetail falls

Top of Multnomah falls

bottom of Multnomah falls (it was rainy)

Wahkeena falls (I've got Ellie with me)

Proof that Ellie was there

We stayed in a hotel that night.  Cade and Cami were so excited to sleep there.  They slept all night but were up at 5:45 starving.  I got them a snack and got myself ready then took them down to the hotel breakfast which started at 6:00.  It let Kirk and Ellie sleep a bit more too.  We packed up and drove to the zoo.  It rained pretty hard for the first hour or so and then lightened up and the last couple of hours we just had clouds and no rain.  We saw pretty much every animal in the zoo.  Cade and Cami loved the elephants, giraffes and alligator the most.  Again, Ellie either slept in her carseat on the stroller or in the front pack with me.

Cade took this one 

We left the zoo and headed home about 3:00.  We have decided (again) that big city traffic is no good and we like the Richland version of traffic.  We made two stops on the way home.  One was for dinner and the other to calm Ellie down because she was so tired and not sleeping and totally freaking out in the car.  We made it home about 8:00 and unpacked.  It was a quick, but fun trip.  It is nice to spend time with the family and not have to worry about work or food or house stuff.  I needed a break and this was great.

My dad flew in on Saturday morning and I will write more about that next week.