Japanese Gardens

Patrick's cousin Cristina and her family came down from the Seattle area for a visit.  She has two adorable little girls. They came and hung out at our place for awhile,  the went went to lunch at a Greek place. After that we drove down to the Portland Japanese Gardens.  The Gardens themselves were really pretty.  We weren't exactly happy with the staff. We felt like we had a personal escort without being told. Any time Cristina ' s daughters foot would go off the path this guy would come over and say " I'm sorry but I noticed her foot just went off the path,  please be more careful. " All the while there are adults meandering off the paths and nobody said anything to them. It was weird. Afterwards we walked down to the Rose Test Gardens. The roses aren't blooming yet, but it was still very pretty and free! We had a really nice day hanging with them.

Easter

Easter was a little non traditional this year. We skipped baskets and Church. The kids did get some See's candy though. After a relaxing morning, we headed off for a hike in Forest Park.  It was so beautiful!  We still can't believe how green it is here. The boys spent most the time ahead of us, while Savannah hung back with us and talked.  We had a great time!
We hiked out and back 1 1/2 miles, so 3 miles total. After we were done with the hike, we got some hot chocolate and then went for a drive. The countryside of Oregon is really pretty. It's fun exploring.  We headed home just in time for dinner.  I pulled the ham out, and put the sweet potatoes in. We enjoyed a tasty dinner together.  After dinner we started watching Raiders of the Lost Ark. We stopped the movie to have some carrot cake I made and play the game telestrations Patrick had gotten for Christmas that we still hadn't played. We LOVED  this game! It was so fun. It had us rolling with laughter.  We highly recommend it. After many rounds it was getting pretty late, so we decided to finish watching the movie then go to bed. It was a great Easter Sunday with the family.

Downtown Portland

Since the kids are on spring break, we decided to do a little exploring. We drove into Portland (only like 12 miles away). Our first stop was Powell's City of Books.  The parking garage was a bit of an adventure.  It was 1 car in 1 car out.  It was super steep and very tight inside. The bookstore was awesome.  It's huge,  you need a map to find your way around . You could easily spend hours there.  Lots of cool stuff! After that,  we drove to Chinatown and parked. We walked over to a bunch of food carts that they call (pods) here.  We all picked different foods for lunch. It was crowded and loud,  but the food was good.   After lunch we walked down to the waterfront.  I was on the hunt for cherry blossoms.  We eventually found them and along the way the kids got their true taste of city living and all the homeless people in Portland. Honestly most pictures if I would just pan a little in any direction there would be a large population of homeless.  It's much different than Albuquerque.It's interesting.   It started raining,  so we headed to the car. When we got close to home we stopped for hot chocolate.  It was an interesting day in the city!

Goodbye New Mexico House

Our house was listed for less than two weeks before we got and accepted an offer. We built this house. We picked the lot and the floor plan. The kids were tiny when we moved in.  On Facebook I posted, Apparently you can put a price on Blood, Sweat, Tears and tons of memories!