Portland

 Our Bishop asked Andy if he’d be willing to drive to Portland to help with a Temple trip for our Priests and Laurels at church.  Andy loves to drive and was born in Portland, so he said yes, of course.  He told me and I HAD to go too!  We were married in the Portland Temple nearly 11 years ago (on Saturday).  It was just five months before our Temple was built here in Tri Cities.
I had to make some arrangements to go for the kids, but with just a little arm twisting and a little begging, we made those plans.  My mom went home Tuesday night and then came right back up here to watch the kids.  A good friend of mine brought her little girl over to play and made the kids pancakes for breakfast and was here until my mom got here. Vincent was the only one with a place to go and my mom took him there and went to the grocery store with the girls. I had to rearrange Elizabeth’s dentist appointment for Thursday instead too.  All of that was worth it.

Look at this beautiful temple.  Can you find the little bit of blue sky poking through?

Andy and I in front of the Temple.  I asked one of the newly graduated to Relief Society girls to take it for me.

We haven’t aged at all right? This is my favorite picture!

We stopped at a boat ramp place that we found on one of our trips with a little bathroom on the way to the Temple.  One of the girls ran straight for the water and the others joined her.  These were the fun girls in our car.

At the Temple, I played with my camera (big surprise) and zoomed in this far from the parking lot to the statue of the Angel Moroni that tops the Temple.

 We had a lovely baptismal session in the Temple, despite a little confusion.
Afterwards Andy brought out his map to make sure everyone knew how to get to the Pizza Hut we went to for lunch.

 We had a yummy lunch there and then our car went to Multnomah Falls just outside of Portland.  It’s a huge tourist attraction.
One of the girls with us took this picture for me.  I cropped out the bottom. =)

 Isn’t this a beautiful attraction?  We only walked the quarter mile up to the bridge, but there is a longer hike up to the top.

 Then we took the Bridge of the Gods and came home on the Washington side of the Mighty Columbia River.

 The girls were ready to greet us when we got home and Vincent was asleep due to misbehavior. My mom survived with our busy kids and went home for the night.
I went on a good walk with a buddy to try and burn off some of the pizza calories I ate today.  I think I would need to go two more times to burn all of them (and a Costco muffin that I shouldn’t have eaten…)

---