ingrid

Francis had quite a day today.  It was good; apparently so good that she had to close the day in tears saying, “I just never want it to end!”.  Brad was sort of disgusted.  ”It’s just never enough with that kid!”, which is true of course, but I sort of relate to what she is going through.  And I am pleased that this day was just SO good that it would be excellent to continue forever.

What did we do?  We started the day going out to breakfast at a place Francis identified.  She didn’t remember the name, but she remembered that she had a particularly sugary dutch baby there a couple months ago.  Then we went to church, arriving early enough to spend a bit of time on the playground.  It was Pentecost today, so there was a lot of flag waving and ribbon shaking in the service… sort of fancy.  After that, there was cake at coffee and donuts.  It was something about Pentecost being the birthday of the church.  Then we jetted for Mt Hood.

We didn’t quite know what we were going to do once we got there, but we knew there would be some sort of fun.  This spring in Portland the sky is clear and the mountains that ring our city stand out boldly.  On a sunny day they are bright, vivid and shockingly close.  The grey winter made us forget about them.  OH!  Hello mountain! The kids have been obsessed with spotting the mountains (St Helens and Hood) and making observations about their snow, shininess, closeness, largeness, etc.  To them, they are Mt Helen and Saint Hood, and at the point where they began building topographic models of them in the sandbox, we thought it might be fun to take them there. (Helen is next!)

We packed snow pants, coats, boots and a sled, but only really needed boots as it was 83 degrees up on that mountain!  The snow was still there and there were some snowboarders making their way slowly down the mushy mountain, but it was balmy and beautiful up there.  The sky was so bright that it was blinding.  Can you guess what we did?

We rode this.  Yes!  It had a sign at the base that said, “Riding with toddlers and infants not recommended” so we did it of course.  That was what the baby jogger said about rollerblading with babies and that is a staple of our life!  And really, if you want to keep young and beautiful, I’m not sure it is recommended to even HAVE kids, so why not take them 60 feet up in the air on a mile long ski lift ride?  Makes perfect sense to me!  (And the baby was strapped to Brad’s chest.)

Once at the top we discovered we had forgotten most of the best parts of our picnic, so we ate bread and oranges and sat in on some rare dry rocks poking through the snow.

You can see everything up there, but much like any nature photography, you take the picture breathless in wonder at the beauty before you, and then you promptly wonder why you bother to take the picture.  It is never quite as good as what is there.

The rest of the day paled in comparison (at least for me).  We headed back to town, ate at a sort of unimpressive southern food restaurant, the kids rented “Lady and the Tramp” from the local video store and watched it cracking up at the doggie antics throughout.  All of this was well and good until bedtime and then, “I never, ever, ever want it to end!”.  Well, me too kid.  This was a great day.  How could we make it go on forever?  I suggested just not getting off the lift, but Brad thought that was a bad idea.

Happy Birthday Francis.

In: Awesome!, family, My super freakin' cute kids, on the road again | | #