Our Trip to Portland

Dear Gabriella,

I'm sorry I haven't written to you in a while, but June was somewhat uneventful.  However, July has been very exciting with a road trip to Oregon for your Uncle Chad and Aunt Ashley's wedding.  Below are some highlights from the trip to refresh your memory.

On Wednesday, July 6th we arrived in Portland.  That night your Nana, Auntie Jennifer, Auntie Ashley, Auntie Kari, and I all went to go see Mary Poppins.  (Your Auntie Alex had not arrived yet, and we missed her.)  I was so surprised by how much detail went into the production.  It had exceptionally talented artists, fantastic set design, and it was overall wonderful.  You stayed at the hotel, and your daddy took care of you so that us girls could go watch the show. 

The drinking fountains in downtown Portland were so strange that we had to stop and take a picture.
(Auntie Kari, Auntie Ashley, Nana, and Auntie Jennifer)

The next day, we drove to Seaside where your Nana and Papa had rented a beach house for all of us to stay in.  We stayed in the beach house from Thursday the 7th to the following Thursday the 14th.  You had so much fun playing with your cousins and getting attention from all of your aunts and uncles.  You should notice that your cousin Reese is in many pictures with you.  She just loved playing with you, and whenever she would come near, you would smile and get so excited. 

Nana, Ella, and Reese snuggling on the front lawn of the beach house

Reese, JR, Adelyn, and Nana

You and JR (Don't worry.  He's being gentle with you.)

Here you are playing with Reese again. 
I dressed you in this really cute cupcake skirt for your dad's birthday.

JR, you, and Reese

Adelyn and JR jumping on the bed.  These two are so cute!

What a cool chick!

We also spent a lot of time at the beach in Seaside.  It was really hard to push your stroller on the soft sand, but once we got to the shore, we had so much fun!  Your dad, Uncle Kurt, and Papa all went to dig for clams on the beach, but they did not catch any.  :(  You and I strolled along the shore and enjoyed looking at the waves and the seagulls.

Even Reese helped to push you in the stroller.

Thursday, July 7th was the Groom's Dinner.  We ate at a barbeque place in Seaside, and stuffed ourselves with fried chicken and ribs.  Your dad and Uncle Chad played ring-around-the-rosies with you and the other kids there, and you were giggling the whole time.  Ashley's little niece Alexa fell in love with you too, and she held you through almost the entire dinner.

Friday was your Uncle Chad and Aunt Ashley's wedding day.  I didn't get any pictures of you at the wedding, but you were the star of the show (next to Ashley of course).  Everyone wanted to take you out onto the dance floor, and you were loving all of the attention.  I was busy stuffing myself with these very delicious filled cupcakes.  They had chocolate peanut butter, caramel, and lemon filled cupcakes, and I had at least one of each of them.  Yum!

That evening, Ashley's family invited us to go swimming in the pool at their hotel.  You had a ton of fun swimming with dad and warming up in the spa with mom.  Your Nana even bought you these adorable pink water shoes, which you wore the whole time.

On Saturday, your Papa took us all out for a bike ride.  I thought this would be a nice leisurely bike ride down the road, but I forgot that I was riding with the Griffiths, and they rarely do anything in a leisurely fashion.  We ended up getting two bikes, which of course meant that we had to race eachother.  Papa, your dad, Uncle Kurt, Everett, Reese, you, and I were all on one bike.  Your Aunt Jennifer, Aunt Kari, Aunt Alex, Pa, Nana, JR, and Adelyn were all in the other bike.  You had a great time sitting on your dad's lap helping him pedal as fast as he could.  I gave up early on because I just couldn't keep up at all.

Trip to Indiana

Dear Gabriella,

Some day when you are older and married, you will find that it is much more difficult to have friends.  "Why," you ask?  Well, you will meet couples where you really like the wife, but your husband thinks the other husband is a tool, or he really likes the guy, but I find his guy friend obnoxious and arrogant.  Your father and I were blessed to have a pair of best friends, where all the husbands and wives got along . . . most of the time.  Brandt and Lindsay Adams became close friends of ours in about 2007, shortly after we moved to Yuma.  They even helped us with our adoption application before you were even conceived.  We consider them and their children to be like part of our family, and hopefully our friendship will continue through the years so that by the time you're reading this you will have your own personal memories of these great people.

In 2010, just before we adopted you, the Adams moved to Indianapolis, IN.  Brandt came out and saw you just two months after you were born, and Lindsay came to visit the December after you were born.  We figured it was our turn to go and visit them in their new home.  (P.S. They are planning on flying back to be there for our sealing to you and your blessing.)  You got to go on your first plane ride at just 8 months old.  Since you will probably have no recollection of this trip, here's a recap of all the cool stuff we did.

You and your dad on your first plane ride.  Even though we got off to a rocky start with a diaper blowout before we got on the plane, the rest was smooth sailing.  You were the best baby on the plane.  You never cried and were as happy as could be.  Your favorite things to do on the plane were chew on the bags of free airplane peanuts (not the nuts, just the bags), and getting as many people as possible to admire you and smile at you (which you were quite successful at doing).  Look at that face.  How could anyone not stop and admire it?

Before I continue with all of the fun things we did on our trip, let's start with some introductions:

Lindsay Adams: Coolest chick ever!

Brandt Adams: Almost as cool as he thinks he is.

Hailey Adams (11): Oldest child and your future babysitter

Brianna Adams (9): Second oldest and Fashionista

Brandon Adams (4): The only boy . . . to date

Samantha Adams (3): The baby and the toughest cookie around


We arrived in Indiana late on Wednesday May 11th.  The next day the Adams took us to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where the Indy 500 is held.  There is a museum there of the Indy 500 racecars over the years.  We got to see the stadium that it is held in which can hold 250,000 people (if my memory serves me right, which it often doesn't).  I do know that it holds more people than any other stadium, and the Indy 500 has the greatest number of live viewers.  Your dad really wants to go and see it next year.  We just missed it by a week this year.

Your dad insisted that he carry you in the carrier rather than in the stroller because he loves to have you close to him.  It was pretty cute.

You got tired of the museum.  (It was really for your dad anyway.)

Later that day we went to have a little race of our own at a go kart place.  Much to your dad's demise, Brandt won the first race.

Then Lindsay and I raced, and Lindsay won.  I blame it on Charlie and the fact that my helmet kept slipping over my eyes so I couldn't see.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Thursday night we went and ate dinner at a nice restaurant downtown called Harry and Izzys.  Brandt's brother and wife came with us to dinner and paid for the whole thing.  It was so nice. 

The next day we went to the Indianapolis Zoo, which was much bigger than I thought it would be.

Notice how you are in the carrier again.  So cute!

You and Daddy read the map together.

We saw penguins.

We pet some sharks.

 And of course, we waved at the Ella-phants.

And eventually . . .

You crashed again.

We saw many other animals too, but we are only on day two, and we are not even done with that!

That evening we went to Brandon and Sammy's T-Ball game.  You decided to choke on a blade of grass and puke all over your outfit and blanket.  (I swear I pulled many blades of grass out of your hands before you got that one in your mouth.  It was a riviting game, and I was distracted.)  I forgot to replace your emergency outfit in the diaper bag from the blowout two days before, so you watched the game in your diapers with a borrowed blanket.  You didn't seem to mind at all.  We didn't get a picture of you covered in puke, but we did get a picture of the kids playing T-Ball.

Sammy

Brandon

It was so fun to watch the kids playing T-Ball.  They are so little that they are just learning the very basics, and they look terribly cute in their little uniforms.

Saturday morning was fairly low key.  We went to another T-Ball game in the morning where you again choked on a blade of grass and puked all over your clothes.  (I realize that I have earned the "Mother of the Year" award for this weekend.)  You are not to be trusted around grass.  Later that morning, Lindsay and I went and got pedicures and your dad and Brandt went to go look at motorcycles.  That evening we were supposed to go to an Indians game (minor league baseball team), but it was raining, so we skipped it.  We did, however, eat at a place called "Steak n' Shake" which began in Indiana.  Your dad was annoyed with our server because she kept trying to get him to order a shake.  Another interesting fact, our server had never eaten guacamole before.  I guess I take the southwest for granted sometimes.

You should totally be the Steak n' Shake Spokesbaby!

On Sunday, we went to the Children's Museum.  (I know, we broke the Sabbath.  Hopefully you are reading this shocked that I would ever do such a thing.)  This was actually one of my favorite places we went in Indiana.  I loved all of the exhibits they had, and it made me a little sad that we don't have anything like this in Yuma.  I guess you'll just have to go and visit the Adams more often.

Here we are standing in front of the Bumblebee that was featured in the movie "Transformers."  Your dad loves transformers, so we had to take a picture.

There was a science exhibit that had rock climbing, health, slides, water & boats, and construction.  Each site had an explanation of the science behind it.  Here are Brianna and Hailey in the construction zone.

You had tons of fun at the "five and under" exhibit.  Here are some pictures of some things you did there.



You loved this ballet bar so much your daddy wants to put one in your room.

Next we went to the dinosaur exhibit, which I thought was very cool.  We got to look at real dinosaur eggs.  An interesting fact that I learned there is that dinosaur eggs when left buried underground for all those years absorbes the minerals surrounding it causing the inside of the egg to become stone.  The insides of the dinosaur eggs look like geodes.  I also got to touch a real femur of a T-rex.  It was very cool.

Your dad the archeologist.

It was at the dinosaur exhibit that you decided you'd seen enough.

There was also a pretty neat Barbie exhibit that all the girls went to except for you and Hailey.  I liked to see how Barbie had evolved over the years.

Brianna and Sammy playing receptionists at the Barbie Exhibit.

You should be happy that you missed the Barbie Exhibit because Brandt bought you your first souvenier from the gift shop.  He got you a little green ball that rattles, and you love it!

Sunday night your dad cooked dinner for everyone.  He's currently on a diet called Insanity, and he wanted to show everyone how delicious his healthy food was, and it was very tastey.  Later that evening he got hungry and ordered a pizza from Papa Johns with extra garlic butter.  I had to throw that in because we had been trying all week to get him to abandon his diet, and he refused.  We were all glad that he finally allowed himself to eat like he was on vacation.

Monday was our last day in Indiana, and we spent most of it downtown.  It was very chilly but deceivingly sunny.

That's the monument in the background.  They were working on it, so we couldn't go and see it up close.

This is City Market where they have lots of different food places, but we were on our way to lunch, so we didn't stay there long.

We chose to eat at Weber Grill where they cook all of the food on large Weber grills.  The decorations of grills were much better than the food itself, but it was fun anyway.



Our plane left later that evening, and so it was time to pack up and go.  The only thing that helped me leave was knowing that they would be back later this year to see us sealed together as a family for time and all eternity.  I feel so blessed to have such great friends.  A big thanks to Brandt and Lindsay for planning such a wonderful trip for us.  We love you.