Sunday morning was another early morning for us! Bennett was pretty much done with traveling at this point and he made sure we knew it for the rest of the day! That being said, at some point during our day, Becky said to me, you know in a few years I'm sure all you will remember are the cute pictures from today and you won't remember his attitude ... hopefully she's right! :)
Okay, so Becky had to work from 5:30 to 10 that morning so she was up and out early, but the rest of us enjoyed a very leisurely morning and fabulous breakfast prepared by Michael.
Here's a couple pictures of their apartment ... notice the awesome painting that Michael did in their new kitchen... I want him to come down and do that to my kitchen!
Eating our wonderful oat flour pancakes and fresh fruit! Bennett's face is just as happy as everyone else's here! Breakfast was so yummy!
As we were packing up the car to go to church, Bennett discovered that the next door neighbors had toys out front that he really wanted to play with! We however discovered that he could walk down the stairs by himself in an attempt to get said toys!
he reminds me a little of Frankenstein with his arms out front like that!
When Becky got off of work we met her at church. Bennett slept through the whole thing and the priest talked about serving the poor, I really enjoyed it! After church we took the "long way" home so we could see some beauty ... man oh man ... Oregon is beautiful!
After Becky was nice and clean and "de-coffeed" we took off to get lunch at a "Sprouts" type market close to their house!
Bennett was super happy because he got to be in the car-cart ... for about 15 min. After that I considered leaving him in Oregon... we didn't of course, but I don't think any of us enjoyed our amazingly yummy lunch enough due to the screaming and crying and throwing that was going on at one end of the table... oh well... we'll never see those people in the store again anyways!
After lunch we drove into Portland to go to Washington Park and see the rose gardens!
We didn't know Portland had a "Sky-fari!" over the freeway! Awesome!
The Rose gardens were beautiful!
We had a great time smelling them and realizing how different roses can smell! One actually has a grapefruit-ish smell to it! (we also really enjoyed all the funny names they have too!)
Becky had the idea to take "prom pictures" by the roses ... their's are great, except not on my camera, here's our prom pictures...
We did lots of exploring and playing to try and keep Bennett happy ... it worked part of the time.
(notice how I am in non of these pictures with my son! Becky was literally saving the boys life by taking him from me!)
We did have the good sense to remember to take a picture together
... here's the self timer one
... and then the one a person offered to take for us
We took in the view of Portland for a few more minutes and then decided to take off and explore Powell's Books.
Powell's was crazy! I couldn't believe the amount of books that were in one place!
Bennett loved/hated it! He loved how many books there were, but hated that his mom ruined all his fun because he wanted to rip them all off the shelves! Again, Becky saved the boys life and got him to look at book for about 5 seconds... but it is a really cute picture!
After the bookstore it was time to part ways so we could make it back to the airport ... after a diaper change and a good laugh playing with Becky and Michael in the car, it was time to go :(
We were a little worried about finding our way to the airport, but after a little delay...
... there were signs to guide us there with no problems!
When we stopped to get gas I had to take a picture of the sign for this restaurant
All weekend we had seem them while driving and we both kept saying that it looked like our last name ... we know it wasn't but still, pretty close.
The flight was nothing special, except the Matt and Amy Roloff were on it (the mom and dad from Little People, Big World!) I couldn't help it, I had to get a picture, but well, I was too chicken (or polite) to go talk to them!
So, that brings us to the end of our trip... it was so nice and refreshing to just get away and see friends and celebrate love and enjoy beautiful surrounding!
Bye-Bye Oregon! Hope we get to visit you again really, really soon!
The morning of the wedding we were all up super early (not on purpose, just life with a 1 year old) so we all packed up the car together because the boys were planning to drive me over to Katrina's parents house at 10:30.
However, Bennett had other plans and he went down for a nap at 10 am! So.... I went down to some of the other's girls rooms to bum a ride so Adam could stay and let him sleep (Adam had to wake him up so that they could check out of the hotel... I guess he needed some extra sleep)
So, we (Steph, Melissa, Heidi and myself) made it to Katrina's parents house about 10:30. Katrina and two of the other girls had already had their hair done professionally so after a bit of socializing the rest of had to get started on each other. (Which ended up being mostly just Heidi and Melissa helping all the rest of us out!)
At 12:30 we left for the church to all get officially ready
A funny thing happened while buttoning all 500 of Katrina's buttons ... we realized that we both were still wearing the rings I bought in Russia (they say, "Lord, save and protect" in Russian) so in our silly excitement, we had to snap a picture!
Who knows what time the florist had arrived at the church but man on man, she was amazing!
Katrina and Louie decided to take pictures together before the ceremony
sneaking a peak from the back as they met
Around 4 o'clock we all went into hiding in the back room again, let the boys enjoy the hard wood floors (Bennett loved hearing his boots on it), and made sure that Katrina ate something before the ceremony!
At 4:30 (when the wedding started) Adam was out front meeting Michael and Becky to hand off Bennett. Only thing was, Bennett had fallen asleep so they drove off with a sleeping toddler... very brave that Becky and Michael are!
(We later found out that he woke up a little confused, but never cried!)
I love when people who really love the Lord and want to serve Him together get married! The ceremony was so full of beauty and love and honor! (and Katrina was super cute with her vows! I've never heard anyone say them so passionately and with such vigor!)
The reception started soon after and we all had a great time!
(Adam wasn't at the head table, so I went and visited him)
(three kinds of cupcakes... the chocolate cinnamon were amazing!)
We had to take an APU picture ... mostly since there were all these crazy kids from Whitworth there and we were all standing around talking about how old we were and how much energy they all had ... but none the less, we got a cute picture!
Funny, we really do look older...
So, Katrina and Louie took off after changing into there converse and it was perfect timing because with in minutes of them leaving it started to rain super, super hard!
Adam and I took some extra cupcakes for Becky and Michael and made a quick exit (with permission from the maid of honor of course) to go get Bennett and free the babysitters! Little did we know, Bennett had been fabulous and was having a great time playing twister with the fam!
Becky's brother lived about 10 minutes from where the wedding was so Becky and Michael watched Bennett over there (they also took the opportunity to use the TWO laundry rooms her brother has... amazing house!) We hung out for a while (waiting for the last of the clothes to dry) and it was again so nice to just relax in the company of good friends ... and to explore Becky's brother's rad house!
Bennett absolutely LOVED playing with Becky and Michael!
Once we were all packed up, we made the drive back up to (just south of) Portland to Becky and Micheal's cute, cute apartment for a good nights sleep!
This picture also inspired me to vacuum my couches ... Yuck!
