Just Like All the Other Boys

Boys love controlling the channel changer. There is something about having the power that we all love. But the one thing that none of us knew was that it is deep inside our genes that this desire for the remote comes from. Just see for yourself.

Catching Up: Part 2, Grandparents

As promised, here's our second catching-up post from the summer. About two weeks after we returned from California, my (Alli) parents came up to Oregon. Seems like the can't get enough Clark time. Weird. :-) Then a week later Bruce and Janice came out to meet Clark and spend some quality time with him also.

We had a great time with my parents, but they came up here during a record heat wave. Not too unbearable for people who live in the Central Valley, but we're on the third story and don't have air conditioning! We basically spent the whole time just trying to stay cool! We did manage to have a fantastic southern brunch at Screen Door complete with praline bacon and a huge pile of fried chicken and waffles. After that mom and I dropped off the boys at the Oregon Brew Fest and headed out to the Fabric Depot - quite possibly the most fabric I have ever seen in one place! We also visited with Uncle John and Aunt Alexis and enjoyed their a/c and a little Bachelorette. The rest of the week was just spent hanging out and spending time together. Their last day here we spent most of it in Starbucks before a trip to Costco to pick up an air conditioner. We loved having them here and hope the heat didn't scare them away!

Screen Door

Whoa.

The boys at the Oregon Brew Fest.

Being silly with Hillary's (my cousin) hair. He looks like Side Show Bob - ha!

The next week Bruce and Janice flew in from Kansas to meet Clark. It was so great to have them here and the weather was much better! We did tons of stuff with them around town and Clark was a total trooper. We visited the Rhododendron Garden, the Portland Zoo (where we got to meet Mark Sheppard), watched Coraline at one of the Portland city parks, and hung out downtown. Whew! We packed it in! It was such a great time. The garden was beautiful and so was the lighting so we got lots of great pics that day. The zoo was also fabulous; meeting Mark Sheppard was awesome and feeding the lorikeets was definitely a highlight! Mostly we were just glad to have them here and so thankful that they could spend lots of time with Clark.

The Rhododendron Garden

The Rhododendron Garden

Grandpa Bruce and Grandma Janice

Our little family!

Clark's got his monster feet on and is ready for the zoo!

This guy is HUGE!

Bruce got some amazing shots that day!

We all got to feed the lorikeets.

Watching Coraline in 3-D at the park.

Clark is so blessed to have the best grandparents!

Catching Up: Part 1, California

Holy smokes! Where did the summer go? We have barely posted since we got back from California, so here's the first of many catching-up posts!

We went to California at the end of June/beginning of July for my sister's wedding. Amelia and Chris were married on the Fourth of July and we couldn't be any happier! Ben and I love Amelia and Chris is a great addition to our family. The only drawback is that now the "balance of power" in my family resides on the male side. It used to be my mom, my sister, and I with just my dad representing the men - we even had a female cat and dog growing up! Ben came into the family 9 years ago now, but that wasn't enough to upset the balance. Now with Clark and Chris, us women are outnumbered! But I digress...

The trip to California was a big one! We were gone for over two weeks, in the car, with a newborn! Clark did great. He zonked out every time the car was moving. Except for stopping every 3 hours for 30 minutes to feed him, the drive was pretty easy. It was a very exciting trip for all of us, but especially Clark. With Ben's extended family mostly in and around Visalia and most of my extended family coming in for the wedding, Clark pretty much met everyone there is to meet - including all of our Visalia/Fresno friends. One goal of ours was to make sure that Clark met all of his great-grandparents. Mission accomplished! With a few special stops in California, Clark met them all.

Some highlights of the trip in no particular order:

• staying with Josh and Steph
  
• getting to visit with our old small group
  
• meeting the band guys and a few other friends at Edo-Ya
  
• the bachelorette party (sans Clark, thanks Ben!!)
  
• hanging with Jamie, Randy, and the kids
  
• going to Bakersfield to see Jenny, Phil, Ryan, and meet Jack
  
• the wedding (!!!)
  
• BBQ with the Porter side of the family
  
• tacos and donuts with Scott and Dave at Tacos de Tijuana and Foster's
  
• visiting all of the great-grandparents (with stops in Santa Rosa and Yreka)
  
• spending lots of time with my parents (first-time grandparents)
  
• our anniversary dinner at Henry Salazar's (thanks, mom and dad, for watching Clark)

Whew! We had the best time down there, but were glad to get home and put Clark back in his own bed.

Here are some pics of the trip. More posts to follow as we get caught up!

(Okay...so...I went to insert some pictures into this post and I picked out 41! There are too many good pictures! I had to create a slide show, so please click on the slide show and check out all the pictures!)