Limerick

There once was a cat named Snowflake

who would knead you wide awake.

She was a friend to chickens

and loved tree-climbing missions,

and thought she was a bird by mistake.

Jonah and I wrote this Limerick during home school this morning.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Weekend Adventures

Ski, bike, ski, bike, ski, bike, ski....
We are making the most of what ever weather conditions mother nature delivers.

Jonah at the Lumberyard (wearing blue shirt with red sleeves)

Jesse and Jonah ski jumping

Besides skiing and biking, Jonah played his violin at the Baroque Festival yesterday.  

He performed Minuet 1 by Bach.  I wanted to share the video with you, but the file was too large to upload to the blog, so try the link below, instead.

1/26/2020 Minuet 1

We also went to see the Exquisite Creatures exhibit at OMSI.  Sooooo Cool!

It's been nice to squeak in visits with Nanna, The Gioias, and Grandpa too.

We have had a busy January!  More pictures from the Europe trip to follow soon.

xoxo

Vienna

Traveling demands a certain amount of flexibility, because no matter how prepared you are, unexpected challenges will arise.  I would consider Jesse and I seasoned travelers, but neither of us were anticipating drama to start in our home country. At airport check-in we were informed that Jesse's passport, while valid, needed to be valid for three months beyond our return date....and mid-March was just about a week shy of this requirement.  Yeah.  So after a quick family huddle, we decided that Jesse would go to Seattle to get a new passport and that I would proceed on with the boys as planned.  The first flight was just the three of us.  In San Francisco we met up with Sally (GranMama) and she helped me get everyone to Vienna safely.  

It was a challenge to get reunited with Jesse.  He got his passport without problem.  Then his flight got delayed in Newark.  They boarded and sat on the plane for 5.5 hours waiting for the snow to stop.  In Frankfurt they rebooked him on the next flight to Vienna.  Sally and the kids and I had already left Vienna at this point and were taking the train to Salzburg.  The four of us got the rental car and drove to Berchestgarten arriving in the evening.  Jesse hopped on a train to Salzburg directly from the Vienna airport.  Unfortunately, part-way through the trip the train engine had problems... They had to get pushed back to the station and get on a different train which doubled the overall trip time.

Finally Jesse arrived in Salzburg and took a cab to the house in Berchestgarten.  We are so happy to be reunited!

Here are a few photos from traveling, our walk around Vienna, and taking trains.

PDX

Lufthansa

Austrian Air

Jonah sleeping, Ezra not sleeping.

Good morning Vienna!

Super cool shoe store

Over the Danube

Beautiful sunny day

We took the U-bahn (subway), S-bahn (train), and Westbahn (train)

Going to Salzburg!

Our train had a special car just for kids... Ezra enjoyed the extra space to climb.

Made it!

The foothills are dusted with snow.  

Summer Trip to Bellingham

I compiled a short, 4 minute video from our recent camping trip up north to visit family and friends.  Bellingham is a 5.5 hour drive from our house, but it takes us about 7 hours to make it there with stops for the kids and meals.  It's a haul, but sooooo worth it to see this special group of people and enjoy one of our favorite places in the summertime. 

There was a lot of bike riding and no broken bones this trip.  Yay!  Jesse rode "Cougar" cleanly which is the trail he broke his wrist on 2 years ago.  We did have to go to urgent care at one point to have a foreign object removed from the eyeball-side of Jesse's eyelid.  Best $30 copay he's ever spent!