Ray, Lillian, and I hit the road for a Portland adventure last weekend, and boy are there some stories! We left on Friday, which turned out to be the most... umm... interesting. Let's dive right in! We left early for an ultrasound appointment in Grants Pass at 8am. It was awesome! We can never tire of seeing our little one like that, and hearing the heartbeat. So fun. The technician gave us lots of image printouts, then said for a whopping five bucks she could burn a cd with every image she captured. Awesome! Most of them were the traditional 2D variety, but the machine had 4D capability so we briefly got a peek that way and got a few pictures. Hello, baby! (At the time of the ultrasound, we had 22 weeks down, 17 to go!)
Baby profile...
Baby hand...
Baby hiding... just like Lillian did!
Here is Big Sister Lillian at 32 weeks...
After much deliberation (on my part - Ray wanted to know all along), we decided to go ahead and find out the baby's gender this time. We're not keeping it a secret necessarily, but there are some people that don't want to know, including a VIO - Very Important Oma! So, we will try our best to keep Oma out of the loop, and we hope all of you will help us out!
After the fun ultrasound, we headed north for Salem, where we had booked a motel for free using our Air Miles. Awesome again! However, before we got there, we had a minor incident. Okay, two minor incidents. Okay, one costly incident that delayed our big plans, and another that put our plans in jeopardy altogether! First, as we were cruising along I-5, we blew a tire! We knew we needed to replace all of our tires, and the one that blew was one we'd had to have serviced twice before already, so it wasn't a shocker, we were just hoping to get through the trip first. Alas, that was not to be. So, a quick tire change thanks to SuperHusband on the shoulder of the interstate and we were on our way to a tire place for a pair of replacements. Our handy dandy GPS that Howard and Sally got us for Christmas found a Les Schwab less than 7 miles away, and they had us in and out of there in about an hour. Not too shabby! We ate pizza a couple of doors down while we waited - and that's where the second incident took place. Ray left ahead of Lillian and I to check on the van while we cleaned up and had a diaper change. While Lillian was laying down on the change table, she puked. Yikes. So we cleaned up as best we could then walked back, Lillian half naked (thank goodness it was a beautiful day) and me toting not only my purse, diaper stuff, and the leftovers, but also the pukey clothes. Yay! Got Lillian into clean clothes and were ready to go again just when the van was ready too. But then the debate came - do we go on with our plans to check in at the motel and head immediately to the zoo, even if Lillian is sick? She seemed fine, fairly playful and cheerful after the fact, so maybe she'd be okay. We discussed this while en route to the motel, deciding we at least needed to get that far. Just as we pulled in to the parking lot of the motel, guess what happened? Lillian puked again! Without getting too detailed, let's just say there were larger volumes so the mess was not just on her, but on her carseat, and the van's seat as well. Oh yeah. But we decided to push forward, since her spirits seemed fine. After some more clean up, we headed to the zoo after all. We were all a little zonked (we all started off this trip with a cold, to boot) but managed to have some fun.
Lillian and Mama...
Lillian and Daddy...
Bundle up!
After a quick side trip for dinner we headed back to the motel to do some laundry (thank heavens they had facilities available!) and get some much needed rest. Fortunately, there were no further "incidents" the rest of the weekend, so although we hadn't quite shrugged off that zonked feeling (at least Lillian and I - Ray seemed ok - glad one of us was!) we motored through a bunch of touristy stuff Saturday and Sunday. We set out on Saturday for the Portland Children's Museum, which is adjacent to the zoo. But as we approached the highway exit, there were signs that the parking lots were full and directions posted to alternate parking with shuttles to the zoo and museum. Hello, spring break! It was crazy busy, and when we saw the lineup of families waiting for a shuttle, we hightailed it out of there. Fortunately we hadn't pumped up Lillian too much for this stop, so she didn't seem to mind. Instead we headed to OMSI - Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. It's much more fun than it sounds! A lot like Science World in Vancouver, with a lot of kid-friendy hands-on exhibits, plus a planetarium and an Omnimax theater. It was fairly busy, but at least we could park close! Watched an Omnimax film about creatures of the deep ocean, which all three of us liked - well, we think Lillian did, but she also fell asleep so who knows. Saw lots of other cool stuff, including an exhibit on prenatal development which was totally boring to Lillian but totally awesome to Ray and I, especially seeing a model of what a human fetus looks like at exactly the stage of pregnancy we were at on that day. Very cool. On to dinner at a great BBQ place Ray had discovered while in Portland on a conference a few weeks ago (we recommend Clay's Smokehouse Grill, if you're ever in town).
On a pre-spring walk a couple of weeks ago...
Then we hit the road again, heading for Newport on the Oregon Coast. We stayed in another motel booked for free - awesome - using points from our credit card. Lillian slept the whole way there but still went to bed easily after a little downtime in our room - yay! Initially our only plan was to see the Oregon Coast Aquarium, but we ended up packing in a lot more on Sunday. We headed to the Aquarium early, before they even opened, anticipated big spring break crowds again. There was only one other family waiting with us for the doors to open, so it seemed unnecessary - until we left an hour and a half later and saw the lineup of families waiting to get in. Good call on going early. Lillian had a huge meltdown in the gift shop, ugh, but we chalked it up to a hectic weekend with abnormal naps plus those pesky "incidents" on Friday and moved on. She still had fun seeing all the fish and other animals, and loved getting her hands wet in the tidepool where you can touch sea stars and sea anenome. I loved the Passages of the Deep, which were tunnels you walked through with tanks full of sea life all around you - above and below. It freaked Ray out a little to stand on the windows - he thought for sure he'd fall through! Tried to get some pictures, but I'm not sure they do it justice.
Ooo, fish!
Look, jellyfish!
Passages of the Deep - with Ray safely off to the side!
Ahhhhhhhhhh!
We headed to Newport's bayfront in search of lunch and maybe some more activities. Found a deal where you buy tickets to three separate attractions for one discounted rate and went for it. I think all of them are a bit of a tourist trap and not really all that exciting, but what the heck, we were on vacation. First we went through Wax Works, which was okay but paled in comparison to my memory of the wax museum in Victoria. Then we had lunch at Mo's, which claimed to have the best clam chowder around. It was okay, and we sure got a lot of food, but none of it was anything to write home about. Or write a blog about! We went to Ripley's Believe it or Not next, which once again was okay but not really up Lillian's alley. The best part was near the end, where there was a photo display of people who could do strange things with their lips, tongues, and faces in general, then a couple of mirrors challenging you to try to curl your tongue. *Spoiler Alert* If you're going to go to this place, don't read the rest of this paragraph! After we moved on from that room, we went around a bend and past some other exhibits, then found ourselves on the other side of those mirrors, which turned out to be two-way. We could watch the people behind us on the tour making the silliest faces in the mirrors, just inches away from us! Pretty funny. Ray and another fellow there were having a blast watching the strangers and trying to see if they could get their attention through the mirrors by putting their own face up close or knocking on it. Boys.
Just a cool shot of the jellyfish... I love the colour!
The third attraction was Undersea Gardens, another mediocre affair that reminded me of something similiar in Victoria, but it's been so long since I was there I wouldn't want to compare the two - though I'm pretty sure they have almost the same name. We were on what looked like a boat and went downstairs beneath the gift shop where we were actually under water in the bay, surrounded by windows full of sea life. There was a presentation where a narrator talked about all the things a diver showed us through the window. Cool idea, but a little short and very scripted. Lillian slept through the whole thing. I don't think she missed much, and besides, I kinda like it when she falls asleep in my arms :)
Off we went again, this time headed home. The trip felt long since we were all exhausted, but Lillian had a blast at a park we stopped at for a stretch, and she scored her very first Burger King crown (which Princess Lillian has worn every day since then, often upside down - pretty cute!).
Weeeeeee swing!
Princess Lillian holding court with Ernie...
So there you have it, our short but jam-packed adventure! Likely our last one of that kind as a family of three! Whee! Wonder how much puke there will be when there are two little ones. Hmmmm.
One more for the road... Lillian has discovered a BIG love for slides!
