Saturday, July 29, 2006

Another packed weekend here! Friday I had some work to do and Caroline, Kelli and Sam visited to help watch the kids while I counseled. We had a few errands to run but most of the day was spent at home. Kelli and Sam have this new game called Apples to Apples and we played it several times as it was a hoot. It can actually be educational for all ages in learning who some famous people were and some vocabulary. Mike won the first game and was feeling oh so cocky when the second game he was blown to pieces. We also played with Sam's new "20 Questions" game which simply amazed all of us. We couldn't believe it guessed lava lamp and then subwoofer to get them both right. Does anyone know how those things work? There has to be some trick. After subwoofer we adults thought that we should try something as unique as "booger" and what did it come up with?????? SNOT! Can you believe it? We were floored and still left wondering how it works. After that we decided that we would turn it off before and not use the real word out loud to see if there was some type of voice recognition device and I think it still got a couple right. This was all very entertaining and we even got Barry and Cathy Lee involved as soon as they walked in the door. It was great to have everyone visit and we were also glad that Caroline, Kelli and Sam stayed to ride out the horrible storm that came through town.

Today we woke to Mike making breakfast - yes you read that right - Mike made breakfast. He cooked pancakes for us (Barry, Cathy Lee, Landon, Ella and myself) and also a small tribe of college students that were lost somewhere nearby (or that's my thinking since he made about 50 pancakes). His pancakes were very yummy and he even made a Mickey Mouse pancake for Landon. When Uncle Barry sat beside Landon he commented "I like your Mickey Mouse pancake Landon" and Landon replied "no, it's not Mickey Mouse, it's just shaped like one". I don't know about you all, but I was so relieved to know he wasn't eating a real mouse that was disguised with a cup of maple syrup on top. Later on Gammy and her Aunt Bernice arrived and we talked them into trying some pancakes as well. By the time Caroline, Kelli and Sam made it we had cleaned up from pancakes and decided to feast on pizza. Thanks to everyone for visiting and sorry we rushed off but it seemed we were set for a task and we ended up accomplishing it. I will give you all the details tomorrow.

With that said, the pictures I am posting are a continuation of our trip to Portland. Last Saturday morning we headed to the Oregon Zoo. It was a lot of fun and the weather ended up being better than anticipated. It was hot but overcast so not as hot as it could have been. Landon and Ella enjoyed seeing sea lions from the glass window below the water, sea otters floating around in their pool, giraffes, zebras, elephants, falcons, owls and moutain goats. Most of all I think they enjoyed the large sandbox located in the shade with lots of toys and least enjoyed the water mister that Mike took them through to cool off. After heading back to Pappy Lee's for a short nap we headed out to go to Oaks Amusement Park for some evening fun. I was shocked at how much Landon loved the go carts, large slide, and circling kids cars and didn't enjoy riding on the train. Ella took a ride on the merry go round but didn't meet the height requirements on most rides. I think Mike would have stayed for 2 more hours if he could have continued to ride the go carts time after time. Thanks to Pappy Lee for holding Ella and watching us ride all of the rides that are meant for kids.