Chris had a conference in Portland and since his company was paying for gas and hotel, Cortney and I decided to tag along too! It was lots of fun! I didn't take too many pictures just a couple at the zoo, but I still have some good stories!
We got in Sunday night and we were staying in a hotel about 3 blocks away from where the Blazers play, so pretty much right downtown! Of course we had to go swimming that night, Cortney was so excited! She also loved that she got to sleep on the "secret bed" - just a couch bed :)
The next day the weather looked good so we headed over to the zoo! I love the zoo! One of the things I really liked about living in Salt Lake was that we lived less than 10 minutes away from a zoo, we went there all the time. Cortney took her camera too, and for the first couple minutes she took tons of pictures! She was moving the camera so fast all of them came out blurry. But it is kind of funny because if anyone has been to the Portland Zoo, you know you really don't get down to the animals for the first little bit. You kind of have to walk down the path for a while. By the time we actually got to the animals she was more about looking and playing than taking pictures.
When we first got in Cortney was excited ran over to the flamingos and said, "My favorite! I love flamingos!" :)
She really liked this goat...not really sure why.
We decided to take pictures of each other! Maybe when I get a chance I will sit down and see if any pictures came out!
Let me just take a minute to say how big she has gotten! She is four and writing her name much better, starting to read, and is so tall! Plus I have a hunch another growth spurt is on the way because she is eating tons again! I am amazed at how much she learns every day and how fast her vocabulary is growing!
She went into this little cave thing with pictures of little bears inside. At first she was scared because she thought they were real bears. But after she got in she stayed there for a while just chillin!
She wanted me to take a picture of how big she was compared to the bears!
She looks so little in these pictures...right after I was talking about how big she is.
Pictures of the bears sleeping. We came back later when they were awake.
Ahhh! My baby is all grown up!
She loved the monkeys...she is taking another picture in this one...
This one is dark, but we were watching turtles swim for a little bit! I think it has something to do with living with Chris parents for a year, but we love turtles now!
This was a little toy thing where she could swing from vine to vine like monkeys, she was super excited to try it out and then got stuck on the first one!
There was a little baby girl elephant named Lily who was born in November...I think. She was so tiny, we only got to see her for a couple minutes.
Here are some of the elephants who were outside, the baby one stayed inside.
Cort just playing!
Lions! We didn't get a good picture of them, there was a live feeding going on so they were more focused on that.
Cort climbing up the lion statue
She made it!
Playing an instrument
Driving the jeep...
Hippos! Cortney has always had a thing for Hippos ever since she was little.
Zebra, he stayed in that exact same spot for about 5 minutes without doing a thing.
Giraffe! Before we came to the zoo Cortney wanted to see the Giraffe the most, it wasn't outside, and all we could do was look in a little window, but he was pretty close. Cortney loved how he would like the wall. Personally their tongues kind of freak me out.
FAVORITE PART OF THE ZOO!
Cortney and I went in to feed birds, and she loved it! So much so that we went in and did it a second time!
She got one to site on her hand a couple times!
Here is one up close on my hand...
She did not like it when it came up to her shoulder!
One bird even took away her cup! She thought it was the funniest thing! After talking to my mom, I guess that same thing happened to my little brother Jake when they went to this zoo!
At one point I had 3 birds on my arms, and then one came and landed on my head! The ones on my hand were easy enough to get off but the one on my head took a lot of shaking to get rid of...he must have really liked my hair or something! Luckily the birds didn't poo or pee on us, happened to a couple of other people when we were in there.
She has been talking about this ever since, she loved it so much!
Cort chasing down the birds!
Penguins! I love penguins!
Especially the way they waddle!
A couple pictures of Cort and the penguins
The polar bears were awake in this one! One was in the water playing with a red ball. It is so cool to see animals so big, act like a little kid - you could tell it was having so much fun.
The other one would do the same thing over and over again. I read something about how sometimes polar bears in zoos will kind of pace around in the same movement over and over again. They are not sure why they do it. But this one would walk forward all the way to the stone wall, then walk backwards, kind of in a dancy way. Cort loved it, she said he was dancing!
In this picture he is actually walking backwards.
For the first time she got to eat an elephant ear! We shared one, and it was yummy! She was a little apprehensive about it first when I told her the name, but when we took a bite she was in love! She said it was the best thing ever to eat! (She has said about 9 other things are the best thing ever to eat since then - so that might just be a phase)
Some day I will buy a camera or a lens that will zoo out a little more, until then this is the best shot I could get of the both of us! Lots of fun!
The next day we visited an old friend of mine, Brittany. We have known each other since the 5th grade, and are pretty similar in a lot of ways. Even down to the show we are watching on Netflix with our husbands right now. We are both watching Monk incase you wanted to know :)
I was born in January, and Brittany's birthday is in May. I had Cortney in January and Brittany had her first child Kyleigh in May the same year I had Cortney. Kind of fun! The girls got along really well! Mostly played dress up and fairy princesses, it was really cute! Plus that gave Brittany and I lots of time to catch up!
The girls making faces
The little guy off to the side is spencer! We became great friends, Spencer and I...
Awwww....
They had so much fun together! It is kind of fun to see my mini me and Brittany's mini me play! We didn't know each other that young, but I am guessing if we did we would have played the same way!
So what else... we went swimming lots! We got to paint our nails, skype with Nana, and go to some restaurants! Also I let Cortney pick 5 ponies to bring with her on vacation so she would have something to play with. I was a little sneaky and picked one more for each day we were going to be gone and in the morning before she woke up I would put one somewhere in the room for her to find. She LOVED this so much! She would always get so excited and wonder how they found her and got all the way to the hotel ;)
Thursday night we went to Albany and Friday Chris was able to tour the plant where his friend Justin is a safety guy. Afterwards we had lunch with Justin's family. It was fun to see them again. Chris and Justin have been study buddies since BYU-Idaho. They were in the same program there, and then they both went to school at the U of U.
When we got into Albany we found out that there were some conventions going on and it was almost impossible to find a room. We went to a Holiday Inn Express and they said everyone was completely booked, but that they just got a call from another hotel that had a last minute cancellation. Chris was ready to just drive over, after all it was like 2 minute drive. But I asked if they could give us their number so we could call and snag the room. I'm glad we did - because when we got over there the lady had just turned down another person who was trying to get a room! Yes!
The room there was the same it had a king bed and a couch bed. But this couch bed I think was brand new because it still had this plastic thing all over it. We didn't want to take it off - we were wiped out by the time we got into town so we put a blanket over it so she could lay on top of it. She said she wanted a sheet instead, but it was so late and we were so tired we told her that it was a blanket, and blankets are kind of like sheets. She laid down on it and everything seemed to be fine. Well five minutes later Cortney started talking to her honey bear. She said, "It's ok Honey, it is a blanket kind of like a sheet." Obviously she still had some issues with the blanket - but that made us laugh for a good five minutes or so.
We loved the trip - and I really needed the break, but it is so nice to be back home in the swing of things!
