A Tale of a Very Fast Week

 Last week was spring break in this house. On Friday, a friend asked how the week was going. My response- the week had gone so fast, it was over before we knew it. She said a week going by fast meant all good things. I'd have to agree with her, we had a really fun week.

Last fall I reconnected with my friend, Robyn from my days at Ricks College. She lives in Portland with her family and told me her door was always open. She generously welcomed all six of us into her home for 3 days. I sent her an email a couple days before we left asking if she was still sure about us coming to stay. Her response made me laugh. She said, 'Yes! I'm sure! I already bought juice boxes for the kids!' She has the best sense of humor.

There is no way I'll get a couple different posts up so here is one long, picture laden post of our week.

We drove down Sunday after church and Monday morning our first stop was the Oregon Zoo. My kids are zoo loving kids. Our first animal stop was this sun bear. He was enjoying a 'sunny' day in Portland and though he wasn't moving on that rock, the kids didn't want to leave him. I'm happy to say I found my zen and let them take their time at each and every animal.

Family selfie at the zoo. Even Owen cooperated.

 There is a place where you can feed birds nectar out of a cup for a dollar. Everyone loves this place! I couldn't snap a photo soon enough but this bird actually landed on Dane's head first. He walked around a little bit and then jumped down to his shoulder. Kat was so jealous.

 Reed had a couple different birds land on his hand. All the birds in there just grossed me out. They squawk and eat all day long. Surprisingly, I didn't see any birds poop on people but I was on edge the whole time we were in there.

This baby giraffe was so adorable. We watched him for a long time. Mainly because I love giraffes. We ate our packed lunch near the lions and then ran into one of my old young women. That was a fun surprise. The kids carried around a second camera and there is a whole memory card full of zoo memories from their eyes. That's where all the pictures of Nathan ended up.

We had perfect weather. Not a single drop of rain and plenty of sun peeking though the Portland clouds. Towards the end of the day we had to bring the big guns out for Owen (binki and blanket) so he could make it through the last hour or so. It was a long day for buddy. He went to bed early and slept all night. We went back to Robyn's and during dinner the rain started and didn't really stop through the next day. I'm so glad we went to the zoo on Monday.

Day two was rainy and wet but we carried on with our plans to walk around the Portland Temple and go to the new visitor's center. 

 All that rain brings with it gorgeous flowers. The grounds were very pretty.

The visitor's center is new and opened a little over a year ago (I think). It has multiple touch screen TV's, different video stations, iPads and a theater room. We watched a movie in the theater room with the sister missionaries. The movie was on eternal families and of course I was teary by the end of their presentation. We could have stayed there longer if it weren't for our resident two year old. Owen was terrorizing the whole center.

 I let him wander around some but ended up worried about a catastrophe when I found him hugging the Christus statue. I did not want him knocking the whole statue over! I tried taking him away but one of the sister missionaries told him it was OK to hug Jesus. So he did. Over and over. He kept saying, 'I hug Jesus'. Then he leaned over and said, 'I kiss his feet'. So he would alternate between hugging Christ and kissing his feet. It was the sweetest thing.

 Robyn has three kids that are all close to the ages of my kids. They were all instant friends. Her younger daughter, Gabby, was obsessed with Owen. Thankfully, it was a mutual relationship. He would yell through the whole house looking for her after she left for school (their break was the week earlier). Her older daughter, Kameron, is six months younger than Kat and six months older than Nate. Can you believe the height difference?! There's a recessive height gene somewhere because Robyn and Chris are not very tall.

Dane and Aaron are only a month apart and they became fast friends. Dane was so sad when we left and fought back tears. It pulled at my heart a bit because he could use a good, close friend like Aaron. They want to end up in the MTC together. Isn't that cute?

Both Robyn and Chris were so good to us. I could write a whole post about how fun it is to be around Robyn. She grew up in New Jersey, served a mission in France, has lived in Utah, has a husband from Georgia and settled in Oregon. All that to say, she's has lived a fun and full life, has great stories and is funny. She can pull out a Jersey accent in nothing flat and her kids know she means business. (Can you believe we didn't take a picture together??)

Even with gps, we spent 45 minutes lost in a scary, industrial area of Portland. Missing a left hand exit over a bridge was a big mistake. It took us forever to get home. To get some energy out we stopped at a fish hatchery/dam our friends told us about. The kids fed rainbow trout and ran around like crazy animals. Owen was a mad little guy though. We left his wet, muddy shoes in Portland so he couldn't get out of the stroller. Needless to say, our stop was cut a little short because of mood.

 Kat was so happy when the Herman the Sturgeon swam next to her window. Little Miss Dr. Doolittle. He's a 70 year old, 450 pound, 10 foot sturgeon she tried talking to through the glass. She makes me laugh (and asked me to take this picture).

The rest of the week we stuck pretty close to home. We went to a couple different parks, played with friends, I worked one day and we spent the weekend watching General Conference as a family (that really deserves it's own post). It was a good spring break and I was sad to see it end. I love these kids so much, I'm grateful to be their mom!