Car Wash Fountain

Today we were in downtown Portland, and Emma wanted to wait for this fountain to turn on. It cycles on and off every 10 minutes or so (from what I gathered as we were there a while!). We had to stand back far enough to not get sprayed from all those nozzles!

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Fun day

We were at a friend's house to celebrate a birthday. Emma remembered that they had this cool motorcycle, and it was the first thing she wanted to do when we got there! There was even a horse to ride, and she wouldn't get off the bike for anything (except when other kids wanted a turn)!


The swing was fun, but she found it hard to keep her balance while sitting or standing on it!

Extreme close-up on the trampoline! Emma said she was doing "backflips" because she would swing her arms around in a circle and then bounce backwards!

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Park play

This morning Emma stayed home with PapaGrammyCuz so they could hit the park before it got too hot again. They brought a barrel full of water balloons to play with!


I love this picture of the three "cousins"!


Little monkey girl!

Then, Daddy and I got to go for a 9 mile bike ride (a bit long for Emma's legs!) after church while Emma got to go drink a Slurpee :)
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Air show

On Friday night we headed to the air show. We like going to the abbreviated show on Friday nights because you get a couple of hours of action, you get to walk the runway and look at the machines on display, and it's not a long hot day either!

Emma said this F-16 jet was still loud even with ear protection on! It was still really cool despite its thunderous jet engine!

Emma really liked the rescue helicopters best. The pilot of the Coast Guard helicopter told her it was okay to touch the stick, but not to push the buttons!!

Also of mention are the cool inflatable slides!

As usual they put on a spectacular fireworks show at the end! This is one of the reasons why we like the Friday night air show!

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Stanley Cup

Today Emma and I headed downtown to see THE Stanley Cup! It's hockey's championship trophy, and there is only one. Each year they inscribe the name of each person from the winning team on it, and the size of the trophy constantly evolves. It weighs just a pound or two less than Emma!! Each person that works for the winning team gets to have the Cup for a day and do whatever they want with it, so a local man who works for the Boston Bruins (but lives in Vancouver, WA) brought it to show to the fans in Portland. He used to play hockey here!

It was hot out there. Emma was a REAL trooper as she stood in line with me for 1 hour, 20 minutes. (Which we were lucky, hundreds of people in line did not get a picture with it.) As we got closer, I asked our line neighbors to take our photo because I didn't know how it was going to work once we got on the stage.

As it turned out, there were people there to take a picture with your camera while another photographer took pictures to appear on the Winterhawks website. Some people put their little babies in the top bowl of the Cup. We asked if Cheetah could go up there! "Of course," he (Tom McVie) said!

Here is the picture that the professional photographer took of us!

Shining beauty.

They also had the inflatable hockey shoot that you can normally find at the Winterhawks games. Most of the hockey sticks were taller than Emma, but she fired several rubber pucks!


Next we went over to the autograph tables. Seven of the Winterhawks players signed a team photo for Emma! Cool! In the second picture she is not ignoring the guy, he had just given her a high five and I was too late with the camera :)

Emma did so well waiting in line, but we were hot and needed a break from the sun. Conveniently there was a Baskin & Robbins a block away! This was a much deserved ice cream cone for her!

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Newport

This weekend we headed to Newport for a camping weekend. We also wanted to visit the aquarium, but what to do with Zoe? We found a doggie daycare in town and Zoe got to play with other dogs for just under 3 hours. She was very happy when we returned of course :)

Deep sea diver! Emma noticed you could close the little door on the face mask part in the second picture.

Watching the sharks and walking through the tunnels! These were hard for me to photograph.

Watching the otters kicked back and relaxing! We got to see them eat their lunch too. Everything they eat is frozen first to make sure there are no parasites.

The touch pool was kind of slimy!

Sea nettles - cooooool!! I could watch this channel all day!

Bunny and Emma peeking!

After the aquarium, we picked up Zoe and headed to Mo's for some lunch (chowder!) up on Otter Rock. Emma liked feeding the squirrels crackers! She tried calling them over like cats.

She climbed up on this concrete pulpit, grabbed a stick and began some outdoor drumming!

The picture of Newport that you always see - the bridge! We rode our bikes from the campground to this side of the jetty, and watched many boats come in from fishing.

The playground at camp was pretty cool - especially the zip line. Emma said you have to say "Wheeeeeee" as you slide across! The end of it is kind of abrupt as you slam to a stop.

Climbing wall and dirt digger too. Fun!

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Family portrait

Emma drew a picture of all of us yesterday.  We are one big happy family!

On the left you'll see Emma and Daddy.  It may appear that Daddy is standing on her head, but Emma explained that he's actually standing behind her.  On the right are Mommy and Zoe, and I'm holding a frisbee for Zoe!

Police station tour

Today we got to tour a local police station with some friends from our church playgroup. I am really glad I get to go along on these field trips!

First we toured the actual offices, and then the holding cells. They can't keep anyone here for longer than four hours, so the turnaround time is quick. They either have to then release the person, or transport them to the county jail.

This station has two motorcycle police officers, and they let us sit on one of the bikes! Definitely my favorite part :)

Emma sat in the back of one of the police cars!

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