I have been taking photos, even though I have not taken the time to actually upload them and write something!

We had a fun trip to Portland, even though Scot was sick most of it. He is hardly ever ill, so it was bad timing for that! We had a late Friday night flight into Portland, and then we drove to Sun River on Saturday morning. We got caught in quite a snowstorm going over the pass, so it took longer than it usually does, but we finally arrived Saturday afternoon. It was a nice rental house, and we were lucky enough to get the master suite. We decided to go skiing Sunday afternoon. It started out nice, but then got pretty windy with low visibility towards the end. The kids stuck it out and seemed to have fun, so we decided to go for a full day on Monday since it looked like the weather was going to warm up later in the week. It ended up being really nice and the kids got a lot of good practice on their skis. Tuesday we went into Bend to watch the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie, which we all enjoyed. Wednesday Scot and I went into Bend alone for lunch and walked around downtown while Mom took the kids to the Desert Museum. Thursday it was time to pack up and head back to Portland while Mom headed south for her cruise. No rest for the retired! Thursday night we got to see my dad, who happened to be in Portland at the time. He had to leave the next morning since his MIL had died, but he was able to come over to my brother's house for dinner before he left. Friday we spent all day at the OMSI Museum. We took a tour of the submarine there, and then the rest of time we just explored all the cool hands-on exhibits. We also saw an IMAX movie about Alaska. We had pizza that night. Owen and Declan were very enamored of my brother's house, especially because they could run all around the outside of it. I think it felt exotic to them because it was at the top of a steep hill and there were a bunch of green plants and trees around, unlike the climate here! They wanted to eat outside on the porch for most of the dinners. Saturday we went to a big mall and went ice skating for a little while, but I guess the ice wasn't very good. Then we ended up going to forestry museum, which was really nice. There was hardly anyone there, so we got to do all the hands-on stuff without having to wait. The kids did a scavenger hunt paper and got a prize at the end. My brother took us to the airport on Sunday morning and our flight left without incident, although we ended up flying into a little snowstorm here. It wouldn't have been so bad except that I had to drive almost an hour in it to pick up Dottie from the foster volunteers that were watching her while we were gone. The kids still have Monday off from school, so we went roller skating with one of their friends, and then they played with some other friends at the park. Tuesday it was back to a normal schedule with school again.

The weekend after getting back were our two orchestra concerts, so I was busy with those. I got to see Declan's soccer game but not Owen's. Luckily I got to see Owen play today, finally. I have been helping in the school library during time when 1st and 3rd grades come in to check out books, so Owen's teacher came up to me and said he was working on an email but hadn't finished it yet, so I was worried that there was some problem, but it turns out he just wanted to explain that Owen and a few others from his class were working on some 4th grade math, so it was actually good news. He used to really hate math, but I guess that has changed!