catch up on school, field trip, father's day

So, I realized I have been a slacker on my blog. We had Austin's last day of preschool. We went to a park and the kids sang for all of us. Austin hid behind his Mickey Mouse the whole time, but I do love how he is just his own person.Austin with his teacher, Miss Connie.
Austin is such a fun, sensitive, happy little guy. He always makes us laugh. I had taken Talia's clothes off to feed her dinner that night and Austin put on her clothes and started dancing around in them.
Isabelle got an award at school for telling the truth.
We went on a walking tour of Portland. It was fun to learn more about "Stumptown" or "Mudtown", as they used to call it.

These are "Benson Bubblers." The main guy who logged in Portland, way back, put these in so he wouldn't have drunk employees. I think they are fun, constantly bubbling.
There are lots of brass animals around downtown Portland.They used to paint all of the buildings white, to make it brighter and sunnier. Now many are reflective, to do the same thing.There are words in the bricks around on the sidewalks. The kids got to do some rubbings of the phrases around town.In the early 1900's it was not in to have brick showing on buildings, so they covered the buildings in iron and made beautiful designs. Why don't we have style like this now?
Our tour guide gave all the kids magnets so they could tell which buildings were covered in metal and which ones weren't.We saw some fun fountains. (At this point the kids were getting pretty tired.)This is the famous "Portlandia" statue. I guess she was only put in, in the 1980's. She is suppose to be welcoming visitors to Portland. I think it looks more like she is about to pick up this onion ring from across the street....

Now, Father's Day

First, we woke Rob up with breakfast in bed and presents.

That night for dinner, I did something I almost thought I would never do: I cooked Salmon.
Rob requested it for his Father's Day dinner, so what could I do? So, I made salmon, artichoke, biscuits, and rice.
The salmon wasn't the best, but I tried another recipe the next night and it was way better! For dessert, Talia will model the French Silk Pie I made.She is in chocolate dreamland. It was that good. I loved pairing it with strawberries as well. :)

California Dreamin', no for real!

We were super lucky to be able to go to California in May to visit my Dad and see some of the sights while we were there. Rob scheduled some business to offset the costs. We go to go to Disneyland while we were there. (Rob worked during the day and met up with us at night). It was so nice to have my dad there :)

Robert got picked to be in the Jedi Training there and got to fight Darth Maul!The person Austin most wanted to see was Mickey Mouse. He was so excited! He even picked out a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal for his souvenir.Isabelle got to see Rapunzel (Tangled).

After Disney we went to Universal Studios, this time with Janice too.
Next we headed out to Legoland.They had so many cool Star Wars things there.

The White House out of Legos! Had to take a pic since we were just there!We had to take this pic of my dad and Janice by the Hollywood Bowl replica. They took us there a few years ago!
This was one of the kids favorite rides. It was like a little town that they drove through. They stopped at red lights, stop signs and everything. It was so fun! Notice Robert is driving "cool" with one hand.

Fun times. Austin got one of these swords and plays with it every day I swear!
On this ride the people in the boat get to shoot bystanders with water. I must have got hit a billion time before I could take this picture!There is a fun water play area there too. We didn't have our suits the first day we were there. Talia didn't mind.We had our suits the next time though.
Did you know there is an aquarium at Legoland? It is kind of small and lame, but we got cheap tickets, so it was ok.
The next day we went to Sea World and got DRENCHED in the rain. We bought ponchos as soon as we got there so it wouldn't be as miserable.We hung out inside for a while.

It was so cool to see people riding dolphins!
But, everyone's favorite was Shamu. On the coast we feel lucky if we see some water spurt into the air about a mile away. Here we got to see them up close doing amazing things! It made me feel so much reverence for God's creations.
All things bright and beautiful all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful the Lord God made them all. (That is what it made me think of).

Isabelle fed the sea lions.We went to a wild animal park. It seemed like the zoo, except that the cages were bigger, so we had to walk really far to see each animal. I think the zoo would have been better.Robert said that playing on the Rhino statue was the best part of the whole day.Rob got this cool Indiana Jones hat there.For our last day in San Diego, we went to Balboa Park. It was nice not to spend money for a day!
The whole thing was done in 1915 out of plaster and chicken wire in old Spanish style. It was super cool.
They also had an Old Globe open air theater where they perform Shakespearean plays. So cool!Tiled bell tower.
Cool Cactus.
Organ Pavillion, they have a concert here with an organ like they have in the Mormon tabernacle, once a week. How cool!
Thanks Dad for a great VACA!