Portland, Chapters 1, 2 & 3

Ok, so "chapters" might be a little pretentious, but just bear with me here? Thanks. :-) We got back to Portland Saturday evening, and since Frank had to work in Portland on Thursday and Friday, decided to just stay at my parents house for the week, so we wouldn't have to transport the kids and dog to Wenatchee, and then turn around and come back three days later. It's a five hour drive, so while it's not hugely difficult, and they are great travelers, we didn't want to make them do that, so we didn't. The reason why we wanted to be in Portland the following week shall become clear once we get to chapter three. So anyway, we got back to Grammy and Poppa's--and were quite OVERJOYED to meet our sweet doggy. Debris came running up to meet her, and immediately stopped in her tracks and shouted... "MOMMY!!! SOMEBODY SHRUNK CALLIE WHILE WE WERE GONE!!!!" She's a 95-100 pound dog, and she seemed tiny after spending the week with Vinnie!! He's a full breed Cane Corso tho, and she's an Italian Mastweiler... (1/2 Cane Corso, 1/4 English Mastiff, 1/4 Rottweiler-glorified mutt, basically) so there's a lot of similarities between them, but some differences too. We think she'd be much bigger, but she was treated abusefully (not a word, I know) for the first two years of her life, and allowed to have four litters of puppies before she was two, so we're pretty sure that must have stunted her growth. Anyway, she seems tiny now. :-) She was SO happy to see us, it was too sweet. She NEVER goes through a door that's even a little bit closed, and a 5:30 am the morning after we arrived she blasted through our bedroom door, jumping and greeting us. Haha!

Chapter 1

We spent a lot of time with Uncle Adventurer and Auntie Ten... the girls really enjoyed playing Wii at their house. :-) Kiki was starting to get good. :-)

Even upside-down. :-)

The Adventurer spoiled them rotten with huge gumballs. They worked on them all week. It was very weird to be at my parents house without them being there--they were off in Wyoming visiting their new Granddaughter. I took a bunch of sewing projects, and the girls played great there, but it was still weird.

We also spent a lot of time with Gramma and Poppa G...

Chapter 2

Thursday we went to the Portland Zoo with our friends over at And So That's What She Did. We had a great time... you know your kids are going to be great friends with someone else's kids when within seconds of meeting each other they're doing armpit farts and showing each other their favorite crazy faces.


We amused ourselves with the awesome Pacific NW exhibit while we waited for Jeny and Emy and Elly to show up. :-) Auntie Ten came with us, and she and I found the bottoms of the ducks to be highly amusing. Especially the one with only one foot. Amazingly enough, it did not swim in circles. I was sad--that would have been cool. :-) This picture is for her.

Kiki kept us on track with the map. She was VERY concerned that we were going to skip the Hippos.

The girls LOVED the Pacific NW fish exhibit, of all things. Also, they are both firmly convinced that they can speak Elk... so they tried speaking to the elk for a while. They were sorely bummed out that they did not respond to their elk calls.

It was the oddest thing... all three of the girls LOVED the bat cave... I think they could have stayed there all day.

Sweet little Emy, pointing at the zebras. I didn't realize how big my kids actually were until I got to hang out all day with this sweet tiny little person. It was quite delightful. :-)

Kiki's hippos could have easily been mistaken for rocks. She was happy, so that's all that counts.

And the Lions... which I was very excited to see... I haven't been to this zoo since they got them. The three adorable amigos are growling here, in a lionly fashion. We introduced all three of them to Cotton Candy, and Elephant Ears. It was a good time. :-)

We also took the train ride... if you're going to pay to get into the zoo, you might as well spend the few extra bucks and do the train ride too. It's beautiful, and goes through Washington Park... a huge, beautiful park in Portland.

There was a lot of this going on, all day. Yes Auntie Caca, if you're reading this from Alaska, we raided your sweatshirt collection for Kiki and Debris. I did not pack for that unholy coldness in JUNE!!! Unbelievably rude weather.

Chapter 3

So, the reason we wanted to be in Portland the weekend after the previously aforementioned weekend (got that?!) is because our favorite Rover shop was going to have a 10 Year Anniversary party and a Rover Show, and we wanted to go. I was going to dedicate a whole post to this, but I realize that the vast majority of my readers probably don't give a nutty poop about Rovers. Which is a shame... you should. But, I decided to have mercy on you, and only show a few of my favorites.

This is my Kiki and Debris, all wrapped up in Daddy's Jacket, standing in front of Frank and my DREAM ROVER. (The white one) That, my friends, is a Defender 110. I want with great wantingness. Isn't it beautiful!?

A long line of Rovers... and a whole bunch of Rover Lovers.

A super cool old Rover... pulled out of a field and brought back to life.

And, eating lunch under a Defender 90. That is the life.

Finally, sweet blessed finally, we headed home. Momma was ready, I tell you what. All five of us had a great time away but were happy to get back to normal. Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

Phew! Glad all that's over with!! We'll be back with more fun stuff soonish! New mouse comes tomorrow, PTL, and I will be very glad to get back to doing posts in a speedy fashion... it's very hard to edit and load photos when your mouse is double clicking on everything. I'm not used to using the keyboard shortcuts anymore like I used to when I worked on the computer all day, so I've sort of had to relearn those a bit. I don't know them in Photoshop yet, so ha!... that was all very fun!