A Trip to Portland

After a relatively slow June, July promises to be a bit more chaotic. We begin with a big trip to Portland for the Wedding of two of my former students, Cameron and Alyssa. Alyssa was also Cailan's nanny for several months right after Heather started working again. Cameron and Alyssa asked us to speak at the wedding and asked Cailan to be the ring bearer, so we all had jobs to prepare for. Since it was going to be a big trip, we planned a couple of extra days to have some fun. We started off with a trip to the zoo!



Much of the zoo was under construction, Cailan was exhausted and it was about 95 degrees - but we had a good time anyhow.

Next on the agenda: the beach!


Cailan is really into throwing rocks into water right now, so this was great - until a big wave splashed him... after a few tears, he recovered enough to explore and play in the sand.(Last year he didn't want to touch the sand, so we feel pretty good about this) Here are Heather and Cailan sitting on a beached ankylosaurus:


The wedding was actually near McMinnville, which is known for farms and wineries. Heather found us a place to stay that was a bit more interesting than the Best Western: the Gahr Farm. Basically it's a farm that is being returned to natural habitat, including adding some ponds for endangered frogs.


It was a very peaceful place with beautiful views.



The cabin was built to be very eco-friendly - using construction and materials to make it more thermally efficient. This probably would have worked great if we hadn't been in the middle of a heat wave. As it was, it was quite chilly in the mornings, hot during the day and great in the evenings. Cailan had a great time learning about seeds and plants.



The cabin had two bedrooms and Heather's former boss and his wife from Tacoma (Randy and Valerie) came down to visit and play with Cailan.

We failed to get any actual pictures of the wedding. We were busy and then suddenly stricken with a mystery stomach virus that laid Heather out and left Cailan and I pretty worn out. End story: they got married. We recovered enough to have cake and go to several wineries the next day. We got home more tired than we left though.