Last weekend we made an impromptu and inaugural trip to Wildlife Safari in Winston, OR (just south of Roseburg). We’d heard from a couple other parents that it was worth visiting. I’m happy to report that we had a pretty good time. Evan really enjoyed it, and even Erin seemed to respond by trying to [...]

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As is tradition on this blog, here’s an image of the first (non-cherry) tomato harvested from this year’s garden. (We harvested the first cherry tomatoes a couple weeks ago.) There’s one more tomato just a few sunny days away from being picked, but then it looks like we’ll be waiting for a little while longer [...]

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Evan loves UPS and FedEx trucks, and he can spot them from blocks away when we are driving. We’ve had friendly encounters with both UPS and FedEx drivers in the past, but I have to say, the FedEx drivers have been exceptionally generous. One driver we met last winter offered to help us order [...]

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We’ll start harvesting zucchini any day now. The pole beans are doing the best they can in their shady plot. The cherry tomato plants are full of blossoms, and we have large fruit on the other tomato plants.

We harvested some over-ripe peas upon returning from vacation, and we’re looking forward to more of them [...]

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When you return home after 9 or 10 days, you never really know what state your yard and/or garden will be in. We were pleasantly surprised to find our backyard in pretty good shape upon our return. The grass (which we had replanted in the spring) was a little long, of course, but everything else [...]

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On Sunday morning, we got up even earlier than the day before so we could make the hour drive from Portland to Hood River in time for our 9am ride with Thomas the Tank Engine. Though it wasn’t initially our first choice, we were relieved to be on the first train of the day because, [...]

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On Friday afternoon, we arrived at the Embassy Suites in downtown Portland. We’ve stayed at a few places in downtown Portland, but this was our first time at this Embassy Suites. Let me just say that when you have kids — especially ones with early bed times like ours — it is so worth paying [...]

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The theme for the Portland leg of our trip was “trains,” as you can see by the following photos.
From downtown Portland, we rode the MAX light rail out to the Oregon Zoo:

Once at the zoo, we rode the “zoo train” through the woods to Washington Park and back:

The following day, we drove out to Hood [...]

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My appendix, to be exact.
On Sunday afternoon we returned from a 9-day “vacation” to Portland and Western Washington, during which I had an emergency laparoscopic appendectomy shortly after arriving in the Seattle area. I awoke at around 1am on the first night in our Bellevue hotel with severe abdominal pain that persisted despite downing numerous [...]

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