Train ride to Portland, the Saturday Market and Waterfront Park

It was the girls' first train ride, and they enjoyed it. I saw a little into my future as we were sitting near 3 teenage girls who just rambled on non-stop.

Here's a picture of Jodi and Grace (Hope's in the sling).

We went to the Saturday Market (Although, it was Sunday) and walked around with some friends from California that were vacationing and up for a wedding in our beautiful little city. The Market had a fair-like atmosphere, all sorts of shops and people playing musical instruments, the best had to be the guy drumming on buckets, he had a crowd gathered around him.

We wandered around the market, grabbed some food, and headed for the waterfront park to sit and eat our gyros. The girls just loved Bob, the soon-to-be dad.

Faith trying to do cartwheels. Cute!

Grace giving me "the look"... I'm already worried.

Fish and Frogs

On Monday, after my consult, I accompanied Jodi and Faith to Hope's 2 month check-up. Faith and I waited in the lobby where they had a little play area for Faith. Hope weighed in at 11 pounds and 23 inches long... a nice size. Faith got tired of playing and sat in my lap next to the aquarium and we watched the fish for quite some time. She had a lot of questions about their fins and gills, and what each one was... of course I knew a little, but not much. I told her we'd go look at some fish... we ended up buying 2 African Dwarf Frogs. They were just so darn cute and fun to watch that we added 2 frogs and 2 fish today... now have 4 African Dwarf Frogs, and 2 Harlequin Rasboras. Grace was a little emotional about the thought that one of the frogs might be stuck in the submarine, and when we went to look at the store she almost busted out in tears when little Nemo in the saltwater tank was being engulfed by an anemone and his brother was upside down getting sucked into the filter. It was endearing, yet a different experience... I'm glad I got them fish instead of a dog or something... I'm really not looking forward to any of our pets dying. The fish and frogs are doing well and it's a lot of fun to watch them swim around.

A Great Food Day... and Happy Easter

The day started off similar to most Sunday's... with me wishing I could sleep in, but that's impossible with 3 girls. Hope was crying, and Jodi had spent a few hours in the middle of the night trying to get her to sleep, so she asked me to see if I could calm her down and let her rest a little bit. I changed Hope, and set her down in her chair so she could watch me make some breakfast. I started up a pot of coffee, and I began looking through the cabinets for something to eat. I noticed Jodi had a box of scone mix, and I looked on the side of the package; it said I could use it to make waffles, so I did. I threw some bacon on, and cooked up some omelette's and we had a great breakfast. It made me feel really good, when the girls told me how great the meal I had made them was. We were running a little late for church, but oh well.

On our way home, we realized we didn't have much as far as an easter meal was concerned, so we stopped off at Albertsons to pick up a few things. Jodi waited in the car with the girls while I ran in for supplies, I knew we at least needed a salad, mashed potatoes, ham or some type of bird meat, and rolls. I ended up buying a 5 lb whole young chicken and added eggs to my list, I don't think you can officially have Easter without those deviled eggs. I cleaned the bird out, and patted under the skin and all over it with with brown sugar and some salt and pepper and spices. I looked through the cupboards and I found some stuffing mix too. I love stuffing, it wasn't stove-tops, it was this crouton-like bag that you mix together with Chicken Broth and some spices and melted butter; I had never made it before, but everyone loved it, Faith even asked for more. I made a nice gravy for my mashed potatoes with the chicken broth, threw a salad together, had some deviled eggs, and we ended up having a great last minute Easter meal (took me 2 hours to cook it all)... and again my kids made me feel great by telling me how much they loved my food, Jodi too. Throw brown sugar on Ham or Bird meat and you can't really go wrong.

It was really nice to have such good food, and it helps that everyone loved it... especially the kids.