Oregon ups (and downs)

This last week my friend Sarah and I went to visit Aaron and Emily! It was a blast! All three kids were great in the car the whole time and we loved seeing their cute little townhome. Dawna and Adele enjoyed a very happy reunion filled with lots of dress-ups and pretending to be puppies and being loud at the dinner table... I brought some matching clothes for Dawna and Adele (and actually their cousin Hannah has a matching outfit, too)

On Thursday, we took a short road trip up to Union Creek to let the kids play in the snow. This was definitely the highlight of the trip for Dawna. In Joyschool, we talked about nature and season and weather. She's been wanting to see the snow SO badly and even asks if we can move to a place like Hannah's house (where they get snow in the backyard-I guess she remembers from last April...)

So, upon arrival in the snow, we bundled her up (thanks to many generous friends who let us borrow snow clothes) and she immediately began to eat the snow ("It turns into water in your tummy!" she says) Then we walked to the meadow/pavilion/amphitheater place and Dawna (with some instruction from her snow-experienced cousin Adele) plopped down and made several snow angels:
Then, as per so many stories and songs she knows, we built a little snowman. Dawna and Adele had a good time finding leaves and sticks for eyes and arms and then (Emily was so prepared) they added a carrot stick for a nose! So perfect!

Most of the time, Larry preferred staying under cover and climbing on the picnic tables.
...but we did get him to sled down the little hill a couple of times with me or Dawna. I know he'd never admit it, but I know he was having fun doing this!
I like this picture of Lawrence and me because you can't EVEN tell I'm 34 weeks pregnant! And see??? He's standing in the snow and smiling at the same time :)
And Dawna and I getting ready to go down the hill:
She didn't want to take a picture, she just wanted to GO!

Later that day, Em and I went to Costco to drop off a car for Aaron. He had a minute and gave me an eye exam! It was so cool! Aaron... I mean... Dr. Severson clearly is one of the best in his field. Confident and kind and very knowledgeable. It was seriously awesome! And I have 20/20 vision :)

The three girls ate out both nights--Chinese food in Ashland one night and pizza and ice cream the next night. Hey--we're all pregnant, we can eat what we want!

Unfortunately the drive home was not so.... uneventful... Apparently, somebody left a moving dolly (aka hand truck) in the middle of I-5 and unfortunately, we ran over it... those don't go smoothly under cars going 65 mph, in case you needed to know... so after a call to CHP, a tow truck, and a rental car, we finally got home... but our car is still in Redding getting fixed... and we should be able to ride up with mom and dad this weekend (as they are going to visit them) to pick it up... yay... not the most fun ending to our trip, but we made it...

Still, I'm so glad we went and we all had a great time! Thanks Aaron and Em for being such good hosts!