OR is OK by ME

Greetings & salutations from the Great American Northwest... the family & I are on vacation here in Oregon, staying with my mom & dad. (This, somewhat obviously, explains the dearth of blog posts this last week.)

So, here's a quick highlight reel so far:

• watching fireworks on the 4th over the Columbia River
• seeing Ratatouille in the Columbia Theater in St. Helens, OR... a great little small town theater! (This was Collin's FIRST "in the theater" movie.) BTW, the movie itself was delightful.
• going to OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry) with my dad & Braeden... the picture above is taken in the Chemistry lab
• having lots of time to read & relax, thanks to my sister (Aunt Liz) and mom & dad being able to help take care of the boys
• having lots of time to hang out with my sister & folks, thanks to being in Oregon
• spending time with my best friend from high school, Keith, his lovely wife Melissa and HIS mom & dad who were up here visiting from SoCal... while we chatted, Braeden played with Keith's daughters (all three of them!) and two neighborhood girls. (Keith commented that the overload of estrogen was his day-to-day existence - Braeden was just getting a taste.)
• Braeden & I got to make stops at Rainy Day Games (what a great store!) and the Lego Store in Washington Square.
• And, thanks to that visit to the Lego Store, I found the missing set of our Castle Duplo Legos... and an extra armored dragon! (Yes, small things make me happy.)

We're headed to the coast today... so no posts again until late in the week. If everything works right, however, we should come back with pictures of sand castles!