Portland Pics

Here are the pictures to go along with my Portland Report:

The boys with a dino friend

Dean & Edie digging for bones

Edie was the only one brave enough to touch the snake!

Evan loved this huge water toy in the preschool room

Something else he thought was awesome


Dean helped to build the dino skeleton

Grandpa & Drew working together to solve a brain teaser

Me & Evan posing by the river

Drew was being shy for the camera?

I think Pie was holding onto Edie to feel safer in the air tram!

The view from the sky. Portland is beautiful!

Wordle

This is a fun website

We're back!

We're getting back into the swing of normal life around here. Grandpa Fardanesh is traveling home as I type this and my laundry pile is again back down to a managable size.

Portland was fun, but we didn't stay long enough! We took 2 days to drive there, stayed for 1.5 days and then drove home again, this time in 1 day. Way too much driving and not enough sight-seeing. We saw all kinds of things that we want to do next time we head up that way.

We arrived Wednesday evening, had a huge dinner with one cousin and her family and called it a night. Thursday morning we discussed, at length, our options. If there ever was a time to dispense with the proper Persian manners and JUST DECIDE SOMETHING ALREADY!, this was it. Where is Aunt Ann when we need her?? Anyway... We ended up at OMSI, a very cool science center/museum for half of the day, then a late lunch and walk along the river, then a ride in a cool air tram over part of the city. Pie was such a brave soul to travel in the air tram. He conquered his fear of heights for a while to come with us. After that we had another huge dinner at another cousin's house.

We left early Friday morning and got home at bedtime. We spent Saturday with more cousins, this time close to home, and then Saturday night Pie, Pay and their dad left for Las Vegas, one more quick trip before Ghassem had to leave. Pie and Pay are home now, and as I said, life is back to normal.

Next time we go to Oregon we want to stop at the Wildlife Safari, the Portland Zoo and maybe a lunch with Ali's parents. And Mt. Shasta. And an Oregon beach. And Crater Lake... You get the idea. We just didn't have time this trip.

Summer Vacation #1

Are you confused at the title? Are you currently wondering "I thought the Fardaneshes were only going on one vacation this summer. Why is she calling it Vacation #1?" I know my life is confusing right now. Try and keep up.

We are now going on 2 vacations this summer. The first of course was to Southern California to visit my family, especially Karin and her adorable new baby boy. Fabulous pictures to follow. What you don't know, though, is when we were on the road on Thursday, traveling to Berdo, Pie got an email from his dad in Iran informing us that he was flying in on Sunday and staying with us for a few weeks!!!! (How many exclamation points are too many?)

We had to shuffle plans pretty quickly. Can I just say that it's a darn good thing I'm so easy going? So were going on another road trip this week, this time to Portland to visit Pie's cousin because Grandpa Fardanesh wants us to meet his favorite neice. I had just enough time between trips to get home, do a bazillion loads of laundry, finish writing my talk (it's over! YAY!), prepare my sharing time, visit with cousins in the area, and now pack up to do it all again. Really, if my father-in-law wasn't such a pleasant house guest, I would be in a bad mood about all of it. He's very nice to visit with, so it's all OK.

But first, here are my favorite pictures from our Stewart vacation:

On the 4th of July with all the fam at the baseball game.

Drew holding new baby cousin, Isaac, after his baby blessing.

Matt had a great time at Legoland with Edie and Conrad. Better than Magic Mountain, right, Matt?

Evan was finally released from the stroller but kept running away, so his daddy had to capture him again.

Dean climbing in the knight's play area at Legoland.

Edie's favorite was the horsey ride.

Evan was so excited the whole boat ride. It was so cute!

The next day at the beach, Dean and Matt are boogie boarding.

Evan is the big boy now and loves to hold the babies. Here he is with Baby "Dase".

On the way home. The new California laws don't say anything about hands-free picture taking!

The Roller King

Happy Birthday to Drew!

Last night was Drew's birthday party at the local roller rink. He decided on the venue a couple months ago when he had a blast at the school's skate night. Normally we don't do big parties at "party places", just because I'm afraid of them getting out of hand. I don't think it's good for kids to have huge, elaborate parties. But I checked into the skating rink and it wasn't outrageous. And I realized Drew hadn't had a birthday party since he turned 4! So it was about time.

We were aiming for about 10 kids at the party, because that's what the skate people said was good for the size of room they had, so I let Drew invite 12 friends because I was pretty sure some would be out of town, or otherwise busy. Umm, not exactly. All but 1 showed up, so including Drew and Dean, that's 13. It was a little crowded. I don't think they cared, though.


Something else I didn't forsee, but was secretly pleased with: some of Drew's friends couldn't skate. They tried for a while and then the group that gave up entertained themselves with a game of tag on the carpet, sans skates. I'm secretly pleased because usually, his friends are better skilled at sports things. Not that I'm comparing them or anything...
(hee, hee, hee!)

Evan didn't skate, but enjoyed the pizza a great deal.

Both Dean and Edie skated the entire time, usually holding onto Pie's hands. He was reliving his pre-teen glory days when he spent many, many hours at the skating rink!

I know. I didn't think they made skates that small, either!

He's nine. I can't believe it. (I think I say that every year!)