This spring, actually the past six months, has been really full of travel for our family. And as much as I love traveling, I'm happy to say we are finally at the end for a while! Sam's last big trip was to Ireland for 9 days with his MBA students. It was a fantastic trip and he got to visit, tour, and speak with folks at Guiness, Intel Ireland, Jameson, and more. A few months back, when I actually asked him to
stop telling me about how cool his trip was going to be, he came up with the idea that I should go somewhere while he was gone to break up the time I'm alone with the kids. It was mainly to reduce his guilt, I think, but with Sam and the majority of both our families coincidentally traveling at the same time, I thought it might be a good idea to get out of dodge. So I got to go to Texas to see Naomi...again! (We planned this trip before Sam decided to
surprise me for my birthday.)
It would be my first time flying solo with two kids, which honestly made me want to change my mind several times in the weeks leading up to the trip. But I looked at it as yet another badge I could earn on my motherhood sash. I can do this, right? (By the way, I have many more badges for motherhood that I ever did for Girl Scouts!) And I did do it, and it was
mostly fun, which is pretty good considering how hard it can be to travel with small kids! It was a fun, active five days in Texas, so here is my top ten list of
exciting events on our adventure:
10.
Swimming: Naomi and Alex have a lovely pool at their lovely house, so when it's 90 degrees and kind of humid, the water feels quite lovely! Provided you check the filters for reptiles and other critters, it was lots of fun. Sasha was ready to jump in solo and swim around, and Morgan actually did some swimming in deep water and is
so close to being able to swim without her floaties.
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| Mermaids in action |
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| Sasha feels quite at home here |
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| JUMP! |
9.
Awesome dinners with good friends: I was spoiled by the Calles and got all my meals made for me! Naomi even took requests from the girls for pancakes in the morning. Alex's pizza and all meat items were delicious, particularly after 'rendering' them with his special smoker and grill!
And the night we shared wine and watched fireflies on their back deck was really nice (other than strange bugs flying into my hair!) The only thing that was missing was my husband.
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| Alex, meat master extraordinaire! |
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| They love having Naomi wait on them |
8.
Four nights of putting both tired girls to bed on my own: This was exhausting, included some tears and tantrums, and something that I am glad is over!
7.
Chasing after two running kids in an airport, racing to our gate in Seattle, and carrying a Britax car seat over 28 rows of people on the plane: Hopefully I was some entertainment for the people around me. That definitely got the heart pumping, though
exciting may not quite be the word I would chose to describe it. Again, glad that is over.
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| Pretending to be a civilized airline passenger |
6.
BFF Facetime: Our five kids played so well together most of the time, so we actually did get quite a few opportunities to chat and hang out together. We are both still trying to figure out what is next for us and, unlike last summer, we figured that this was our 'Exploring Motherhood
With Kids' conference. Kids or no kids, few things make me happier than chatting with my best friend ...and sharing a bottle of rosé by the pool too!
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| Our five kiddos - Calles have us on height! |
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| Bonding over Netflix |
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| Morgan learned big wheel tricks from AJ and Max the dog. |
5.
Broken bones and the Milky Way: We visited the Perot science museum int his really cool, new building in Dallas with our three youngest kids. They had a great children's play area, and it was so fun (for me!) to see the dinosaur exhibit with huge skeletons on display. Morgan wasn't quite as impressed, and Sasha kept informing me that the bones were all broken. But Morgan and AJ were really into the space exhibit and sat through a rousing show on our solar system.
4.
My missing bag: As luck (which seems to be missing a lot lately) would have it, when we did make it home to Portland with us all safe and relatively sane, my bag was not to be found. Actually, we didn't get to the baggage claim right away because the girls were hungry and we grabbed some food after we got off the plane. While trying not to burst into tears as I sat next to the empty baggage carousel with two tired/spastic young travelers, I tried to look on the bright side: at least I had packed the car keys in my carry on and we could still get home (since Sam was in Ireland). Apparently, a gentleman traveling from Alaska to Roseburg grabbed our bag by mistake and took it down south. To Roseburg. Two days without a bag was a minor inconvenience, but I was just thankful that it was not gone forever (along with my camera!)
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| Unicorn delight |
3.
Midway Rides: For the girls' first fair experience, it was pretty perfect. There was NO ONE at Dallas' Fair Park so we enjoyed all kinds of midway rides with no lines and no worries that the kids would get lost. There were honestly more staff working there than guests. It kind of felt like the movie 'Vacation' when they get to Wally World and it's closed and break in and ride all the rides they want! I was pretty impressed that my girls and I rode the log ride three times and went on some little roller coasters together (even after eating corny dogs and curly fries in 90+ degree weather). They loved it (except when Sasha was too short to ride)!
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| "Why, hello kitty!" |
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| Future BFFs |
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| Fighting the crowds at Fair Park |
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| Fearless girls! |
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| The very high view from the Texas Star |
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| Enjoying the aquarium |
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| Sasha looks serious, but she loves the rides! |
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| Lauren is in charge |
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| The log ride - wahoo!! |
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| A nutritious lunch of corny dogs! |
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| A copperhead snake (courtesy of Google!) |
2.
Copperheads: I have heard Naomi's stories about snakes and weird creatures that inhabit the woods behind her home, and it always made me thankful I lived in western Oregon, where neither animals nor a weather event could really kill you. Then we saw three copperheads (= poisonous snakes) while walking on the forest path behind her house. It was even more alarming because we had been walking along for 20 minutes or so, AJ and Morgan had been collecting bugs off the ground, and only when we turned around to go home did we see the snakes where we had just been, less than 10 feet from us. That was pretty freaky. And we didn't see just one, but three different ones!
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| "This way, Mom, for poison ivy, bobcats & snakes!" |
1.
Tornado Watch: You would think that the snakes would be #1 on my list, but actually the threat of a tornado takes the cake. The week before we visited, there was a very bad tornado near Fort Worth, but while we were there, the really devastating one hit near Oklahoma City, less than 200 miles away. Two of the days we were there, there were tornado watches, which means that you better be ready in case the tornado sirens go off. The first day, we were hanging out in the pool and not a thing happened. But the second day, the threat was more serious and we had a huge thunderstorm (at least by my standards) with lots of rain and wind. But we didn't have to hide in the closet and my kids didn't seem too bothered by the, as Sasha put it, 'wonder and lightning.' While I was scared that something could happen to the kids and me, I somehow put my trust in Mother Nature (and perhaps a margarita) that nothing bad would happen. And I thank my lucky stars that we were indeed quite lucky, after all.
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| Thunderstorm, Texas style |
Thanks again, Calles, for a wonderful trip! The girls and I had lots of fun and can't wait to see y'all in July!
It's only June 30th but it feels like it's already been a long summer. The temperature is 90 degrees and we are having some humid (for Oregon) weather. Looking back on these gardening pictures from earlier in the spring and summer makes me wonder both where the time has gone and how lush our backyard seems now. 
We managed to grow quite a few strawberries this year which were pretty sour but the girls didn't seem to care. I had to baracade them in with an ugly net to keep out the critters, but that was better than telling the girls to be patient for the fruit to ripen, only to find one morning every berry had been eaten off like last year! And the two clematis we planted last year went berserk in May. I couldn't believe how many blossoms they had, especially since I wasn't even sure they would like being planted behind the planter box. I am hoping they bloom again this summer because they were really beautiful. 
