Spring Break 2015

The kids and I hit the road for a nice, long 9 hour drive. They were actually really good the whole time. The hardest part were pit stops, but we made it through with noise cancelling headphones, chocolate, and Dr. Pepper for me, and IPads, movies, and candy for the kids.

There are definitely parts of the drive that drag on, but the scenery in some parts is beautiful. These are my attempts at pictures with my phone while driving. 

 

 

Tanner had no time adjusting to being an Oregon boy. Wet to his knees within an hour of arrival. 

Making himself at home. 

 

Sidney loves to sing along with Grandma and her guitar. 

We went for a walk along the river front and the flowers were in bloom. 

 

 

The polar bear is always a hit.

Covered bridge walk.

 

 

Each spring there is a tulip festival in Woodburn. I am never there in the spring, so I was so excited to be able to go. It was over an hour drive, so I wanted to make it worth it. I really wanted to get some nice pictures, because I may never be back again. I just don't know. There are 40 acres of tulips! It was incredible! Tulips are one of my favorite flowers. I don't know what I was thinking. With a 2 year old, strolling through the flowers is just a dream. It had rained the day before, and within 10 seconds of getting out of the car he was flat in the mud. After taking a few pictures with my DSLR and having to keep putting it back in my bag every 5 seconds to chase after him, I decided it wasn't worth it, so I put the camera back in the car. Sigh. Now I follow the farm on Instagram and get my flower fix from there. Tanner also started picking flowers and eating them. We did have fun, though. It was a gorgeous and warm day, and I'm so happy to have been able to see something so incredible.

 

There was this adorable pink tractor, but with a long line of people behind us, and trying to prevent Tanner from climbing it and hurting himself, I couldn't quite get the picture I wanted. We brought cousins with us.

 

 

 

 

There was a u-pick section, here are the kids with their bouquets. Off in the distance to the left you can see Mt. Hood. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playtime at Grandma's with cousins. 

 

 

Fun on the cousin's farm. 

 

 

On the drive home we stopped at Multnomah Falls. 

 

Tanner is a blur because he is ALWAYS running! He's so fast! 

And then the drive home. Oh man, how did we survive? After a week at Grandma's non-baby proof house, where Tanner escaped from the pack-n-play, even after we barricaded him in with random things we found around the house, our drive took over 10 hours. It should be 8 hours, but with stopping it usually takes 9. For some reason our stops took forever. Then I got him a chocolate milkshake, thinking it would be ok because it had a lid. Well, the lid had a big hole in it to make room for whipped cream. I looked back to find himself rubbing it all over his entire body, including his bare feet! His hair was crustified the rest of the day. Then he got hold of a ding dong and smooshed it in his hands. He was disgusting! When we got home, I put him in the tub where he pooped. So I ran him to the other tub and before I knew it he had pooped again and was holding it in both hands, trying to give it to me! Josh wasn't home when we got home, and I was exhausted trying to clean up and get the kids to bed. I'm laughing now. I wasn't laughing then. 

 

 

He kept trying to touch Sidney, and she was not happy about that. Fun trip! 

 

 



Spring Break

We actually did something for spring break this year. It came really early, March 10! We started out going strawberry picking. The pictures are on my phone. Maybe one day I'll get them off of it. It's almost an hour away, but we drove down with friends and met some other ones there. It was a perfectly gorgeous day. The place is absolutely adorable. Tons of beautiful fields, cutouts for photos, picnic tables, and a cute country store with delicious fried pies that someone told us we had to try. It felt like a perfect fall day, there were leaves on the ground, and a nice breeze. Great start to the week.

 

Then Kathryn came! Josh took a few days off too, so it was such a fun week. We picked her up from the airport and drove by our childhood home. She and I were the two in our family born here. I was one year old when we moved into the house and she came a year later. She hasn't been back to Texas since we moved away when she was a toddler. So that was kind of fun. We were looking at pictures of it in my scrapbook, and it's been painted. I must be getting old to think it's fun to go see childhood places.

We had some other plans for the week, but some of them got scratched because Tanner ended up a little sick and was not having it in the car. That's ok though, we had plenty to do. Mostly hanging out at home, doing crafts, eating out. There's an awesome enormous movie theater by our house. We saw 3 movies. Pretty ridiculous, but this theater is like it's own vacation destination, and we rarely go to movies, so it was fun to live it up a little. Kathryn and I went to 2 movies in one day, ha! Jayden and Sidney made her signs to welcome her at the airport. But in true Houston fashion, traffic made us late, so we didn't get to go in. We miss her now!

We ate out a lot. This is a good Mexican place. 

Cutest and biggest BBQ place. Don't worry, we ate at more than just these places. This is where we take our visitors to make them feel the Texas experience.

 

Just hanging out. 

We also went to Brazos Bend State Park. The alligators were out, just laying there. It was cool to see them and all the birds.