Portland with the Malans {July 31-Aug 5}

One of the fun things about living in Seattle for the summer was that we were pretty close to my sister Jessica in Portland. We took advantage of being 3 hours away and drove down to visit them. I drove down on Tuesday and Nate stayed and worked, then took the train down on Friday night. We had a fun few days shopping, doing some little olympics, watching the boys play together, watching olympics, and just hanging out. Here are some highlights of the trip:
Homemade Olympics – We got together with a couple of Jess’s friends and their kids and put on some Olympics. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun.
 

High Jump, and Bennett & Davis doing the Relay Race – Bennett’s timing was never quite right on the high jump – they were supposed to see how high they could touch on the light post. As you can see, one of his feet is on the ground. Probably not the best strategy.

Wilsonville Fountains

I love these pictures of Bennett & Landon going down the big slide. Bennett seems to be doing ok…then he’s struggling to maintain control…and he crashes

Bennett wanted to make sure I put in a picture of him winning going down the slide. And Ryan was pretty fearless with the fountains – he would just run right through

They had these grates covering the “river” at certain parts, and I guess Ryan has heard me tell him too many times to turn around and go down the stairs backwards – he would lay (lie?) in the middle of the grate on his stomach, and scoot backwards probably 7-8 feet until he reached the edge and could step down into the water. He did this multiple times.

Playing in the Backyard – the boys loved going in the backyard to play. Being in a small apartment in Seattle with no lawn or outside toys, I think they were feeling a little deprived.
 

so many fun toys! I thought for sure Ryan would spray himself in the face when he was playing with the hose, so I had my camera ready (yes, I got my camera instead of stopping him) but he didn’t.

Shane’s Work Party – We tagged along because they had yummy food, a bounce house for the kids, and some water toys. It was HOT. But fun. And we got to catch up with some friends – he used to work with Nate and they lived across the street from us, so it was fun to see them.

Powell’s Books and Symphony in the Park  - last but not least, we went to Powell’s Books in downtown Portland on Saturday night. I could have spent hours in there! (without the kids…). It was so fun to look at all the kids’ books they had. We bought a fun board book about Seattle that has drawings of a bunch of sights in Seattle – it’s fun to look at it with Bennett because we went to all but I think 1 of the places talked about in the book. After Powell’s, we grabbed a to-go-picnic-dinner and took it to a park to eat while listening to the symphony. We got there during intermission so we just caught the 2nd half, but that was probably better for the kids anyway.
 

During one of the songs, they had the kids come up, get a musical instrument, and participate in the song.  The picture on the right is of the three boys with their musical instruments. Fortunately there was still an orange one left for Bennett.

We left right after church on Sunday and picked up my dad from the Seattle airport to give him a break from his 10.5-hour layover on his way back from France. It was fun to see him for a few hours – we brought him back to our apartment, had dinner, and Bennett loved playing with grandpa for a little bit.
More blog posts to come of the rest of our summer adventures in Seattle!

Thanks for the family picture Jess! And thanks for a fun week - it was great!