Spring 2009

Spring is here, and so we would thought we would show a few pictures of the lovely flowering tree out the front of our house.

 

 

 

Jessie's 10th Birthday

Today was Jessie's 10th Birthday Party. She had 10 of her friends, and we all went to a "ceramics painting" store so the girls could all paint their own ceramic figurine, jewelery holder, vase, etc. Jessie also was able to paint a dinner plate, which we put a happy birthday jessie with all of her friends signing the plate on the outside. She can use the plate to eat off, or she can hold onto it and hang it on the wall as a decoration. She has not decided yet. We will not see the finished works until next week.

She also worked hard on Saturday making the cup-cakes for the day. She chose to have those instead of a full cake - much easier to hand out than slices of a full cake! They were a hit, with most of the girls wanting to eat two!

 

 

 

 

Sick Kids...

Unfortunately Darren came home sick on Monday night from work, only to infect Cynfor on Saturday, then Jessie on Sunday. Here are the "sick kids" hanging out watching the Basketball all "rugged up." As you can see by the photographs below, they are still pretty high spirited, but both not feeling fantastic. 

 

 

 

Girl Scout "sock puppet show"

Jessie's Girl Scout troup had a "sock puppet show" on Wednesday. Some of the show pictures are below.

 

 

 

 

Aussie day 2009

Because of the time zone differences between the USA and Australia - Australia day was actually happening when we celebrated at Jake and Jenny's house on Sunday. As you can see - several of us got right into the spirit. Jessie's flag actually ended up being hung on the outside of the house after she paraded around the house a little. (Jake and Darren in the background getting the pole ready)

 

 

 

 

Chinese New Year - 2009

We celebrated Chinese New Year's eve with Jake and Rachel at Wong's King restaurant in South East Portland. As you can see, we had a good spread of food - some was new to Rachel, who had not experienced an Chinese New Year meal quite like this before. 

We had a great night out with both of them, and enjoyed the food as a group. 

 

 

Out trip to the OHSU tram

OHSU (Oregon Health and Sciences University) stands on the top of the hill a little to the South of downtown Portland. At the base of the hill is a tram which has now been operational for just over 2 years - it was opened not long after we first moved over in August 2006. We thought that being that it was such a lovely day, we would go an take a ride on the tram to the top. As you can see by the photographs below, it is a pretty amazing view on a great day. 

The day was very cold, but the view was spectacular. The large mountain with the pointy peak is Mount Hood - the largest peak in Oregon, the mountain missing its top off to the left is Mount St Helens, which lost its top back in 1980. 

Zoo Lights - 2008

After the snow had settled down a little, we took the kids - with Mick and Simone - to the "Zoo Lights" at the Oregon Zoo. It was a nice display, some of the animals were around to look at, we rode on the train (not pictured below) - and had a great time. You can see that by the picture of Molly below eating popcorn!