Hanging out with my bro...

This is the most fun I've had with my bro since I can remember. Quite possibly, ever! He's here for a week with his boys. Brandon will be 8 in July and Matthew is almost 5. Having very little "boy" experience in our household, they are cracking us up!

We've been off doing things here and there, but also hanging out at the house a lot. I still have to work, as does Scott, and Will is working on his Master's degree online, so he's got plenty of reading to do.

Yesterday, we let the kids play while Will and I worked. Then we hopped on our bikes (Will brought up his and the boys') and rode to a nearby park and Emma's school playground. We were gone a couple hours and had a blast. We were sooo proud of Matthew because it was a bit of a ride, yet he hung in there and did it! Granted, a ride that would normally take about 10 minutes took 40 on the way home, but still! Pretty huge for a little guy on training wheels.

Today we headed to downtown Portland to lunch at Old Town Pizzeria. It's in a 130 year old, supposedly haunted building. Pizza was pretty good, atmosphere a weird throwback into the 1880's and the 1970's. We didn't see Nina (Nine-a) the ghost, though.

Here's a funny story for you... I'd been talking this morning about going to this "haunted pizzeria". As we were on our way out the door, Emma asked where we were going. Matthew (remember, he's 4) was trying so hard to tell her where we were going. But instead of "haunted pizzeria" he said "haunted diarrhea"! We laughed soooo hard. It was the funniest thing I'd heard in a really long time.

And here's another super cool thing that happened today... After we had lunch and then drove around 45 minutes trying to find the flipping Aerial Tram (which we eventually did find, thank you very much), we stopped at Dairy Queen. We were all eating our ice cream and laughing
away, just having a great time. A lady comes up to us and says, "I have to say how nice it is to see a family having so much fun!"

Matthew replied with a mouth full of ice cream, "We're not family! We're cousins!" Of course, we all busted out laughing again. Ice cream flew from more than one mouth!

Here's a few photos of the past few
days.


Will and Brandon at Old Town Pizzeria









Will, Hayley, Emma, Brandon and Matthew on the Aerial Tram























Brandon helping to make tacos























Matthew sacked out against Hayley