Oregon Adventures XX

*The funny bits have asterisks, in case you're in a hurry. :-)

When we aren't going to be spending Christmas at home, we don't buy a real tree.  We get this Charlie Brown one out of the attic instead.  As I strung the lights on, half of them went out.  I was thinking it was the ugliest tree we'd ever had, when the kids couldn't stop raving about our beautiful tree.  Ha!

The girls making granola bars all by themselves for the first time.  (They were good, but exceedingly chocolatey.)  All three also sewed their own pillows this week.

Yesterday, we went to Portland for a baby party for Ben's cousin, Levi and his wife, Julie.  It wasn't until 2pm, so, we went early and parked near the Portland Saturday Market.  I walked to the market to do some Christmas shopping while Ben and the kids had a wee adventure.

They walked across Burnside Bridge to a bus station.  This was taken at 10:30am.  It was a rainy day, it doesn't start to get dark lately until 4pm.

 And rode a street car to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry).

They had lunch there and played while I finished up most of my Christmas shopping.  I picked them up a little too early for the party, so we drove all over Portland until it was time for the party!  We met the host of the Oregon Public Broadcasting show, "Think Out Loud," Dave Miller.  Ben's cousin's wife, who is great with child, is a producer of the show.  We also met a band member of Levi's old band, "Ages and Ages," who we used to go see in Pittsburgh when they toured.  It was a lovely baby party and had excellent Lebanese food.  

I sang with a group of five other women at church today for special music, and had a solo part.  It's fun to sing again.  Ben has played hand drums for the last two weeks to accompany one song we are learning at church.  The weather was in the high fifties today and absolutely gorgeous.  A month ago a day in the fifties felt cold, but now, it's glorious!  It has been raining most days for at least part of the day or night for the last few weeks.  The grass is no longer brown, and the trees, though they have lost most of their leaves, many of them have moss on them that is a brilliant green now.

*Before we moved here, I  had a strange conversation with Ezra in the car one day.  He announced that he would not be using an umbrella in the rain any more as he wanted to be "an organist."  I paused to think about this for a while and asked if he meant that he would like to be someone from Oregon.  He said, "yes, an organist!"  I explained that people from Oregon are called, "Oregonians, not organists or Oregoners."  It turns out that lots of people call Oregon, "Ore-gone," like it's no longer here.  Oregonians don't like this pronunciation.  They prefer, "Oregun".  Could someone from Wyoming tell me what they prefer?  Wyoming or Wyomee? Thanks.

*Phoebe had another moment...every five minutes Phoebe was announcing that she loved me as she sat there in her Princess Elsa dress eating leftover sausages and an orange for lunch, she exclaimed, "I'm happy...and thankful...and reasonable."  I beg to differ on the last one, but it wasn't the time for arguing these things. 

We are counting down the days to our big trip out East: 7 left!  We are excited to see as many people as possible.  Ben won't be with us for most of the trip, but we'll see him for a few days in the middle.   We plan to do a ton of baking this week.  I will try to get a picture of the trees and their moss for you.  Have a great week!