Portland

So, I seem to only have time to cover one city a day while Clive takes his afternoon nap. Eventually, I will document our trip!

Our whole trip was centered around visiting my parents on their mission in Portland. We left Seattle and drove the short drive to Portland Saturday morning. We got to my parents' place just before afternoon session of General Conference. We had a nice and relaxing Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday evening we drove to the small town of Vernonia where my parents do missionary work when they aren't in the mission office. It was a beautiful town and we got to meet the newest converts!

On Sunday, in between sessions, my brother James (who was also visiting my parents from Maryland with his family) blessed his baby girl, Torrah Marie.

The next day our little family went into Portland (my parents actually live in Hillsboro just outside of Portland) to go see the Portland tabernacle (it's referred to as a tabernacle by some and just a cool, old building by others). This was Richard's one request for the trip. For those of you who don't know, Richard loves tabernacles. He actually has written a lot about them on Wikipedia. So, my parents got us the keys so we could see the inside as well as the outside. Richard was in heaven! Look for yourself, it is a beautiful building:

The next day was Oregon Coast day. It was beautiful, but, unfortunately, it was freezing, so the first part of the day was spent like this:
Then, it got a little warmer, so we (ok, I, everyone else got out at the other stops) decided to face the cold and enjoy the beach.

My parents specifically wanted to stop at this little railroad station for Nelson. He loved it, of course. Clive and Addi (my niece) did, too!

Our last stop was the Tillamook cheese factory. The "tour" was a little disappointing, but the ice cream at the end wasn't. Here's Clive and Addi looking down at the huge blocks of cheese!
This stop also seemed too short, but I am so thankful that we got to go see my parents! They left on their mission when Clive was six weeks old, so it's been way too long since we've seen them. It was fabulous to spend time with them and my brother & his family!

Seattle!

At the end of March, we headed off on a twelve day vacation to the Pacific Northwest! After driving all day to get to Seattle (with a stop in Boise for lunch at a friend's house - thanks, Jess!), we were happy to arrive at Richard's sister's house. They were such good hosts and were great to us.

The first full day there, we had a "kids day". We hit up the children's museum by the Space Needle, rode the monorail (aka train), walked around Pike's Place, and I snuck in some time at H&M. Unfortunately, we didn't check our camera before we left that morning, so we don't have any pictures of that day.

The second day Anne and her family watched the kids, so Richard and I could have a date. Anne had made reservations for us to have lunch on top of the Space Needle. It was beautiful even though the view looked like this:

After the Space Needle, we just walked in the rain downtown Seattle and then visited his niece who has an apartment not far away from the Space Needle.

Our time in Seattle was way too short (three nights, two days), but we needed to get to our next destination on our PNW Tour!

Better Late Than Never...

ShamROCK 2011 came and passed quickly. That doesn't mean we didn't have lots of fun. Here's the proof:

Clive "getting" Nelson!

DJ Clive rocking out with his friend, Millie.

Nelson and his friends getting ready to "rock it"!

ShamROCK 2011

I saw this shirt at the Children's Place last June and knew that my boys had to have them! They will both be sporting these shirts to the party!

I really like that when I start to type in the title, I only get to "Sha" and blogger knows that I am typing "ShamROCK"! I hope all of you, my blog friends, knew that this post was coming, too! It is getting to be mid-March and time for our annual St. Patty's karaoke party.

So, here are the details for this year:

When: Friday, March 18th

Time: 6:00 - 8:00

Where: Our House (of course!)

Who: If you're my friend and reading this, come and part-ay with us as we ShamROCK the night away (well, evening hours before the kids need to go to bed - we are on a schedule here).

Dress: As always, costumes are recommended but not mandatory!