A Great Weekend in Portland

I had a weekend off and the itch to see some kids so Dan and I flew to Portland on Thursday, April 11th.  We had arranged to stay with Tessha and Patrick one night and then spend to two nights at the LaQuinta in Wilsonville.  Elizabeth was bringing the girls down and would stay with us till Sunday.  It was so fun!

I love being with Tessha and Patrick and then to have Elizabeth and the girls come was a real treat.  I'd never been to an IKEA before but Tessha and I went to the one in NE Portland and meet Elizabeth there.  We had lunch and did a little shopping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After shopping we went to Tessha's place for a bit and then went to check in our rooms.

We had a bit of dinner at the Chinese buffet (can't remember what it was called but sort of a Panda Express type.)  Tessha went home and we settled in for the night.  Elizabeth and the girls were right across the hall from us so it was fun to help them get to bed.

 

The nest morning Dan and I went to the Portland Temple for the wedding of Wendy and Mark's boy, Patrick (can't remember his wife's name).  It was a very nice wedding and we got to see lots of family there.  Elizabeth and the girls met up with us at the temple. 

Afterwards we decided to go to the Wooden ShoeTulip Festival in Woodburn, OR.

Tessha let us borrow her car and we were able to all go together.  We stopped at the McDonalds to get a little snack and directions and then headed down the road.

I have so many pictures it's hard to pick which ones to post.  I take a little comfort in knowing that I will also burn a CD of all the pictures for the year as well as a CD of the blogs.  If you don't find the picture you want here, just look in the pictures CD. 

So fun!

We tried on wooden shoes,

 located our home towns,

 rode the tulip train,

 took pictures of people taking pictures of the tulip fields :-),

 returned from the tulip train trip,

 took pictures of the tulip truck,

 took pictures of tulip beauties,

 and beautiful tulips,

 and more beautiful tulips,

 and more beautiful tulips,

 and more beauties in the tulips.

 We floated ducks pumping our own water.

 Took pictures of more beautiful tulips,

 and more beautiful tulips,

 and more beauties,

 and more beauties,

 and even a cow?

 Before we left Dan talked me into buying a beautiful teapot from the Tulip Farm to commemorate our fun adventure.  One day a tulip beauty may want a reminder of this day.

 Wait, it's not over yet.  We celebrated our weekend in Portland with dinner at Red Lobster in Tigard.  As Patrick said, "We made history" that evening because this is the same Red Lobster where he and Tessha had dinner 10-12 years earlier when the ended their engagement (?).  They hadn't been back since.  Earlier, Gwenevere had told Elizabeth that her favorite food was crab.  Elizabeth told her that my favorite food was lobster and Gwenevere's reply was, "We should all go to dinner."  And that's just what we did.  She ordered crab and I ordered lobster and we both shared.

 

 We spent one more night and then on Sunday morning Elizabeth and the girls went to visit James' family and we headed to the airport with Tessha.  What a great weekend in Portland.