Portland trip

We had such a wonderful trip to Portland this past weekend. We left on Thursday, which was the start of UEA weekend (Utah Educators Association) and all the kids were out of school. I've never seen so many children at the airport headed to Disneyland. But we were excited to be heading to Portland.
Upon arrival, Clark noticed the beautiful green landscape of Portland and begged us to move there. The kids were in heaven playing with cousins. I enjoyed visiting with sister-in-laws and friends.





Of course Cannon and I were seat buddies. He pretty much nursed the whole flight. I was glad I was sitting by family and not some really cool 20 year-old rock climber dude. Yes, I have had a nurse a baby next to one of those on a flight. Very embarrassing.















Seating arrangements are key on an airplane flight with a family of young children. Bethany and Faith were seat buddies. Bethany really likes to mother Faith so we figured this was a good combination.

Clark and Elinor were also a relatively peaceful duo. During the flight we did move around a little and found that although Elinor and Faith did well together, Clark and Bethany were not such a good match on the flight. I've made a note for future reference. However we did receive several compliments on how well behaved the kids were so I'm going to take that and run!




This is one of my dearest friends, Jessica Moyes. We were college roomates and she lives in the Portland area (actually in Stuart and Tiffany's ward). I haven't seen her for three or four years so I was so excited to see her. I could talk to her for hours, she is so fun.



Here are some of the kids outside Jessica's house. Elinor and Josie had a particularly fun time together. Years ago we went with them to the circus here in Salt Lake and somehow it bonded them for life or something so our kids felt like they were seeing dear friends again too.



We were so grateful to stay at Jesse and Amy's home (Abe's brother). They were very gracious hosts. Between our two families there were ten kids under the age of ten, but they got along amazingly well. Clark and Alex spent a lot of time working on their monster manual. I didn't take pictures but we also got a chance to do some good visiting and chatting with Stuart and Tiffany's family. We had dinner at their home on Sunday and visited for a while on Saturday. The kids loved running around their property and even playing down by the creek. According to Clark, "Adam lives in paradise!". We met up with Katie and her boys for my favorite Portland restaurant-- Burgerville!!- the blackberry shake was to die for! We went to see their beautiful new home and checked out their bearded dragon.







Here are our kids and Jesse and Amy's kids as we started off at the zoo. The weather was beautiful and the Portland zoo has a new baby elephant--so cute and so much smaller than I thought it would be. They have the best zoo I've ever been to.


We went on a fabulous date with my brother and sister-in-law Matt and Misty. Here is Matt bonding with Cannon.




We love Misty! We miss her so much. Sunday night we went to go see Matt and Misty's apartment. We played Rock Band on their Wii and it was a blast. I was the drummer and did pretty well if I do say so. Abe rocked out singing Bon Jovi's, Wanted: Dead or Alive. He was pretty hot!


Saturday morning we went to a perfect pumpkin patch! There was a hayride and a cow-train and little hay-maze and absolutely beautiful fall weather.




Here is the cow-train. It was actually quite a long bumpy ride and Abe was feeling a little queasy by the end. All the cars had names and YES- there was a cow named Betsy. She was broken down in a barn somewhere, but we found her!



Here is Cannon and his cousin James (Stuart and Tiffany's 7th). They are about five months apart.
We really did have such an enjoyable time. Thank you to everyone who hosted us and fed us and visited with us. We felt very well taken care of and are so grateful to have such wonderful family and friends.