Day Two - Portland Children's Museum

Yesterday we got up to....RAIN! And tons of it! We were really excited to head out to the Tulip Festival and get some great pictures. There is a photography contest every year and looking at the past winners I knew I could win this year! We checked the Tulip Festival's website and it basically said that is full of mud and not many people are going because it's too rainy and wet to do anything! :( We didn't pack any mud-friendly clothes and we knew Paiton would be miserable, so we decided to skip it!! So sad!
Instead we headed to a big outlet mall that was near us. It was a GREAT mall with lots of good stores: Gap, Coach, Adidas, Nike, Gymboree, Carters, etc. So much fun! My awesomely sweet hubby offered to buy me a Coach purse I fell in love with but I decided to forego that offer for the time being.
It was FREEZING there! It was still raining but even worse was the very strong wind and how cold it was!! By the end I had to just wrap Paiton up in a blanket and head to the car while Matt bought something. It was still a fun mall!
Trying to take pictures but as you can tell, it was too windy!


We then headed to our super cool hotel, The Governor, in downtown Portland and checked in. We decided what we wanted to do next while Paiton took a short nap.
We took a walk to a really great chocolate place called Moonstruck Chocolates.

We got these delicious chocolates:

The gift one is Paiton's, the middle one was mine, and the end with the hearts was Matt's! They were soooo good!
Then we headed to the Children's Museum! It was a blast!
Paiton played in the Baby Garden for awhile:


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They had a section that was set up like a hospital! It was really cool! Matt measured Paiton and she was 2'4" tall!


Then they drove the ambulance!

No ambulance trip is complete without talking on the radio!


Paiton and Daddy climbed through the tree house:

All day we kept seeing kids walking around with paint smeared all over their faces. We finally realized why: there was a face painting station!
Daddy showed Paiton how to do it:

She didn't have any trouble taking over!



Paiton and Mommy!

There was a jumbo sized alligator! Paiton brushed his teeth!

Playing some more:

The last station, playing with clay!

It was definitely time for a nap after the museum!

We went to Rock Bottom Brewery for dinner, a place we like to go to in San Diego and were surprised to find here!
We got the big ball park pretzels, which came with a spicy spinach cheese dip, which Paiton LOVED!


Daddy bought Paiton this cool car at the museum and she loves driving it around!

Day One - Drive to Wilsonville

Day one of our vacation has come and gone, and boy are we happy to be out of the car!! We drove for about 8 1/2 hours yesterday to get to Wilsonville, Oregon. I was looking for a hotel near the Tulip Festival we wanted to go to and on Priceline I made an offer of $35 for a 3 star hotel, and it got us one in Wilsonville. SCORE! It took us about 8 1/2 hours to get here. We stopped twice to feed the baby. Both times because she was crying and hungry and both times the only option was McDonald's! After eating McDonald's twice in one day I think it's safe to say we'll be avoiding it the rest of the trip! Paiton did great, she watched some Dora and Toy Story, read her books, and talked to us. She slept for about an hour after breakfast, and for about 2 hours after lunch. We realized we just need to stuff her with food and she'll sleep!! :) The last 2 hours of the drive we were in a torrential downpour and it was really hard to see. It was NOT fun! We didn't stop at Multnomah Falls like we wanted because 1) we would have been washed away and 2)Paiton was asleep. So we decided that on the way home rain or shine we were going to stop and take some pictures!!
Here she is ready to go!

Watching Toy Story:

When we got here we got settled and then went swimming!! Paiton LOVED it! She is such a little fishy! She kept saying "Go!" like she thought we might just let her go to swim away! She had a blast! (Oh and GO is her newest word. Now that she is walking all she wants to do is "Go!" It basically means Put Me DOWN!!)









Baby Got Back!!! Check out this badonkadonk!!


Ready to rest!


After swimming we were exhausted. The night before Paiton and I slept maybe an hour total because she was for some reason crying all night. So we both fell asleep around 7:30 last night!! It is 8 am here and Paiton and Matt are still asleep! She will be ready for some fun today!!
It is raining again today. We are going to check out the Tulip Festival this morning, although we are not sure how that's going to go since it's a big field and it's pouring rain....Then I think this afternoon we are going to take Paiton to a Children's Museum we found in Portland across from the zoo! How fun!!
I will update again with new pictures of our 2nd day!!

So long, farewell!!

I thought I better blog tonight! Tomorrow morning we leave bright and early for our trip!! WOOHOO!! There were some stories I wanted to put on here and I knew I'd forget if I waited until after our trip!
We actually weren't supposed to leave for our trip until Tuesday morning, however we heard about a Tulip Festival going on in Woodburn, Oregon. I got interested and started looking it up. It is going on right now and is about 40 minutes from Portland, where we're staying. I searched online and Matt and I debated back and forth trying to decide what to do, we knew we wouldn't have enough time to do the Tulip Festival, the museum, and the zoo with only 2 full days in Portland. So I found a cheap room in some little town near Woodburn and we are actually going to head there tomorrow! We'll spend tomorrow night hanging out, maybe swimming if there's a pool, eat dinner, whatever! Then Tuesday we will go to the Tulip Festival and also a big outlet mall that is near there. Then that afternoon/night we will head to our hotel for the next 3 nights in Portland! How fancy and world traveling are we!? ;)
Anyway, here are some pictures from this weekend.
Matt was off Friday so we hung out with Nana and went to Chili's for dinner with the family. We never get to go out to dinner with them so it was a lot of fun!
Saturday we headed to a woman Matt used to work with who was just diagnosed with cancer. We took her some lunch and visited with her for awhile. I think Paiton brightened her day with her silliness!
Then it was nice so we headed to Matt's parents house to see his dad who was in town this weekend. Then we headed to lunch and to play at the park since it was nice out!









On the walk back to Chris and Kathy's after the park we got a nice surprise! The ice cream man drove up!! Well actually, we heard the sounds and tried to guess which way he was coming from so we could get some!! And the best part of all ... he had a Dora ice cream cone!!!!!!!

OF COURSE Grandpa bought it for Paiton.
She was wearing a white shirt. It was purple. It wasn't a good ending!! He he! :)
She insisted that it lay on her shirt like this:

Then to eat it she just would lean her head down and lick it! Silly girl!

The final result!


Look at this glare!!

You know it's a good day when it ends in a nap!!



On Sunday we ran some errands then headed to Mom and Dad's house just like every Sunday! That is when we found the hotel room and our plans changed! Matt and I ran home to pack {quickly} and headed back to my parents to spend the night.
We were eating dinner and Paiton was playing in the living room quietly, like she always does. Then she said to Papa "Hi!!" and we looked over and she was like this:

She got up on the table all by herself and sat there looking at books!! Agh! She has become quite the little monkey! We are thinking she used the Bumbo to climb up onto the table!

We even got to see Aunt Lisa and Uncle Tim for just a little bit today! It was a nice surprise!
A couple funny stories:
~The other night we were watching TV and Matt had an empty water bottle on the floor. She picked it up and said "All gone" and walked over to the trash can and threw it away! We were amazed she did that all on her own! Then the next day in the trash I found about 6 toys...tonight at Nana's she threw away 2 bowls...hmm...I wonder what all has gone out with the trash that we're missing??
~She has been singing a new song while she eats her crackers. Nana and Papa love it. It goes like this "Mmmm....Yummy! Mmmm....Yummy crackers!" She is CONSTANTLY singing. In fact I rarely have the radio on in the car because she just sings so pretty to me whenever we go anywhere!
~She is officially a WALKER. She doesn't really crawl unless she falls or is in a real hurry. It is so cute to see her little body tottering around like a big kid!!
~She has a new thing she does to get some attention. She did it yesterday to someone and today when Aunt Lisa came! She acted like she had never seen Aunt Lisa before and just stood with her head staring down and wouldn't look at her. Then she climbed on me and pulled my sweatshirt over her head. It was hilarious. Then she would hide in between my legs or lay on the floor and bury her head. We were cracking up! Of course they ended up being friends after a little while, but Aunt Lisa really had to work at it!
This is SUCH a fun age right now and I just love it. She is able to communicate with us and says so many words we usually know just what she wants. Usually it's "cookies" or "crackers" :) Paiton loves her Titi and Abba and will walk through the house saying "Titi? Titi?" looking for Cami. It's very sweet.
Well, tomorrow we're off to Oregon! Please think of us and hope we have a safe trip!! We packed some Disney movies, books and toys to entertain the baby for 8 hours, so let's hope it works!!
I am HOPING to update the blog every night with what we've done so I don't get way behind, but we'll see :)