Dinosaurs!

The Portland Zoo has an (extra cost!) walk-through exhibit of animatronic dinosaurs. We tried it last summer and the kids got scared and we had to bail out early (no refunds, sorry!). This year they had a lot of fun, especially with the ones that "spit" (water, I'm assuming).

(catchup) Wildlife Safari

We went to the Wildlife Safari in Wilsonville, Ore. I was expecting something pretty cheesy, but it was actually very fun and interesting and the kids loved it. There's nothing but a car door between Daughter and this giraffe. Second picture: they were not nearly this charming throughout the day but I couldn't resist this image. Third: we were pretty confidant that Daughter wouldn't have anything to do with the camels, but Son enthousiatically called our bluff ... and once he was going to go, Daughter had to also! They had fun. Fourth: not much else to do in the area, but there were a couple nice parks in Canyonville. Son pretends to be asleep. There is a great burger place, though.

(catchup) Backsplash for the Kitchen (100th Post!)

This goes back a few weeks, into the depths of my Google-imposed exile from blogging. After much painful consideration of thousands of different tile patterns (okay, I exaggerate) we finally settled on this nice number from Lowe's. We did it ourselves over a couple weekends, and Daughter even got into it for a while. She fit under the counters nicely.

As for the "100th Post!" bit, I think this is actually the 101st, but I had been looking forward to marking this milestone so here goes: we made it to 100 posts! I've really enjoyed doing this, sharing these pictures and this tiny small part of what it means to raise these two wonderful, annoying kids.