Farewell beautiful Portland!

After being separated from daddy for what seemed an eternity, suddenly our time in Portland had run out without us getting through our fun to-do list! So we made the most of our last weekend there, starting with an awesomely warm, sunny day down at the Waterfront in downtown. I use to run through this fountain as a kid! Dude wasn't so much having it.

The girls, however, were enthralled. Though do notice that they're not casually holding hands here. J has a death grip on M's arm to help boost her courage. It took more than one very high-pitched screaming trip until they made it to the middle.

And he continued to keep his distance. 

Finally they did it! They were so proud of themselves and had such a blast!! And how cute are they really?

Even being around the edges was stressing out the little man, so Bopa took him on a walk to look at the river and some boats.

Then Bopa suggested we rent one of the bicycle surreys to pedal down the path along the river. J thought she could help but once we got going, it turned out her legs were like an inch too short to actually be useful. She still tried though! She just kept kicking her pedals, which led to an unfortunately timed loss of a flip-flop at the bottom of a hill we were about to go up (we'd been diligently gaining speed to help make it easier, which we of course lost when we had to stop to recover said flip-flop).

M and Dude got the royal treatment up front, enjoying the breeze and treats while we pedaled away. We ended up going down, crossing a bridge, all the way up the east bank esplanade, and back across a bridge. It was a good workout even if Bopa claims we weren't all pulling our weight!

Then the next day, Daddy came! YAHOO! He says, "If you ever want to really feel loved, leave your family for 6 weeks, come back, and see how excited they are to see you." I, on the other end of the deal, however, don't recommend this. But it was super cute. The girls tackled him, and then dude got to the door and watched curiously. When they let daddy go, he cautiously walked toward him with a silly smirk on his face, jumping into Coop's arms. He then wouldn't let Coop put him down (slapped my hands away when I offered to take him even), and for the next half hour would randomly look at anybody in the room, point to Coop and say with such a delighted smile, "Daddy!" When it was time for his nap, we took the girls down to the kids day at the LO Art Festival, where they had a blast hitting every single craft booth there.

We then had a delightful goodbye dinner at Coop's parents' house (where I sadly took no pictures), and then spent a busy bunch of hours packing up everything late into the night. When the little ones woke us in the morning, we ate, gathered our things, gave lots of crying hugs to the girls (who will be joining us in July when our house closes), and headed out for North Dakota. It was a long drive. We had to stop every 3 hours to feed baby G and to let the little guy stretch his legs. After 12 hours on the road, we were only halfway, which was really, really discouraging. So instead of stopping with another whole day of it ahead of us, we drove through the night, arriving at around 6:30 AM. This is what the aftermath of that looked like!

But now we're here and daddy for one, is sure glad we are!

And I can report that the little man has recovered and is quite a ham.