Portland

Sadie and I got back a couple weeks ago from a trip to visit the Cottles. 

Sadie could not wait to bring her backpack to go see "Bwizzy" in "Owuguhn".

Sadie was very excited about the airplane, but the landing scared her out of her mind.

 

I had high hopes of the girls playing like little angels for 4 straight days. It turns out they have a love-hate relationship that's full of exhausting exchanges about sharing toys. Unfortunately, Sadie got sick the second day we were there and coughed, whined, and pouted most of our trip. I am now starting to realize how crappy she was probably feeling, so maybe we can let her behavior slide a bit. Despite Sadie's illness we managed to have some fun.

The first night we attempted to have the girls sleep in the same room. Yeah, terrible idea for toddlers. Won't do that again. 

The next day we headed over to a little man-made creek where the girls had fun and made a new friend. How old would you guess that other little girl is? 5? At least 4? Nope, she's 3.

You know, just posing for a pic with friends with their arms around each other.

Friday night Lexie and I got to go out on the town while Nick watched the girls. If we lived close to the Cottles I would make Nick come over and put Sadie to bed every night. She went straight down with no fighting him. 

After that Sadie started to get sick and I moved her into the room I was sleeping in. Poor girl.

On Saturday we hit up the Nike employee store where I spent too much money on myself and the girls continued the love/hate fest. Here they are hugging/fighting in the cart.

 We ate at a Burgerville where Sadie copied everything Brizzy did, including giving Nick lots of love (see below). 

Then we headed downtown to the semi-professional soccer league game. What were they called, Lexie? The lumberjacks? Anyway, the girls were absolutely thrilled about riding on the train on the way there. Check out the video on Lexie's blog for the shrieks when the train started moving.

The girls were so thrilled, in fact, that when we found out soccer tickets were $10 each we decided to just take the train back out to Beaverton and call it good. Before heading home the girls took a detour to dance for some street performers.

Unfortunately we had to wait for another 20 minutes for the train to come through so Sadie and Brizzy fought over Nick for a bit while eating fruit snacks.

During the return train ride Brizzy just couldn't hold the pee in any longer. We were trying to pretend nothing happened and just hoped the other train patrons didn't notice the puddle of pee rolling to the other end of the car.

 I still laugh out loud at this picture

On Sunday we went to the Cottle's ward where Nick gave a touching testimony, Sadie refused to go to nursery, and I got to hear Lexie give a YW lesson. 

On Monday I went to work with Lexie. She works for some political campaign that's kind of a big deal and they had events in both Portland and Seattle all day. We helped set up in Portland and then made the 3 hour drive to Seattle. We talked and analyzed the entire way- a lot about Holland, our church, being working moms, and life in general. It was actually kind of fun and the three hours went by really fast. Holding a $98,000 campaign donation check at the event was a little surreal. Working with all those rich people reminded me of my internships at Harvard Business School- everything, including name tags, has to be perfect! A big thanks to the Ainge's for watching the girls. Especially since Sadie started to get really, really sick this day.

The cardboard cutout of the candidate during the event set-up

Before we drove back to Portland we did a quick drive-by of some important sights in Seattle. Now I can say I have been there. Does it matter if you actually get out of the car or not?

On Tuesday we went and saw Holland's grave. The Riverview cemetery is so beautiful. I am so mad I didn't take a picture! I guess my excuse is that Sadie was coughing up a storm as well as pouring snot out her nose. She actually threw up a few times from the coughing. At this point I was starting to realize she had more than a little cough or allergies.

Once I got Sadie some cough medicine she seemed a little better. 

The girls gave some good hugs on the curb at the airport. Sadie was very excited to go see her dad and Louie.

We got through everything quickly until some alarms started going off when we went through security.

Apparently, there is some ingredient in cough medicine that is also found in explosives. After being searched in a private room for 20 minutes it was determined that Sadie and I were not threats and we barely made our plane.

Our return flight was almost empty and Sadie spread out to watch movies. She cried a few times about her ears hurting and we found out a few days later she had a bad ear infection. If you are keeping track that is 3 ear infections in 3 weeks between my two girls.

It was wonderful to see the Cottles, but Nick told me I can't come back unless I bring Daniel. 

Don't worry Nick, you guys can get in plenty of guy time in September.