Goodbye Julian

 When I was 16 years old I spent a year in Australia as an exchange student. I loved my time there and always hoped one of my boys would also like to go on exchange. When the twins were the right age for a high school exchange Covid-19 shut the world and all travel down so they missed out. When Julian came to me his Freshman year of high school and said he wanted to go to Japan I was so excited! I encouraged him, I spoke with his school counselor to make sure it would not interfere with his graduation. I drove him to Portland once a week for a private Japanese tutor. I was so happy one of my kids would get this life changing opportunity.  Then I took him to the airport to say goodbye for the last time and I thought, "Wait, whose idea was this? My baby is leaving the country and living on his own with a different family and I won't know what he is doing or how is feeling every day?  I'm not so sure I like this anymore." But I let him go anyway. I watched as he walked toward his airplane to fly away from me for a year and my heart broke a little but mostly I was super proud of him. Proud that he wanted to take this hard step into independence. We love you Julian and miss you every day but we know you are capable and will have an amazing time!

I got a little group of friends together so they could hang out one last time. Some of these friends have known Julian since kindergarten. He is lucky to have such a great group:)

Julian took his friend (that is a girl...not girlfriend) to get bubble tea. I think he has a little crush on Malia and I think it's mutual and I also think it's super adorable. 

A goodbye hug from Townsend

Love from Emerson

Heading into the airport

Our little bear is going to Japan!

I'll admit I started crying when he gave his dad a hug for the last time.

Love you Lou Bear 💕

One last photo with Mom

Goodbye my sweet boy, we love you so much and miss you lots but you will have an adventure of a lifetime!

March: Baby Elephant at the Zoo, A Visit from Paige, Spring Break, Hamilton for My Birthday

 I love that my birthday usually falls during Spring Break for my boys schools. I love that we can all be together for my birthday and that I get to choose what to do and no one is allowed to complain because it's my birthday! This year I wanted to see Hamilton and so I bought 4 tickets (because Julian was supposed to leave for Japan on March 17th) but his Visa got delayed and as soon as I found out he would be here for my birthday I checked tickets and there was still 1 ticket left right in our same row for the show!! I was so very happy!! Luckily his Visa got sorted out and so he is now scheduled to leave on April 2nd, so it's all good. I actually loved that my boys could all be together for one more Spring Break:)

Hyrum, Julian and I went to the zoo to see the new baby elephant...she was so cute!

I could have stayed and watched the elephant for hours...Julian was pretty much done after about 10 minutes:)

We went to the golf course on a sunny day to hit a bucket of balls.

Hyrum's happy place...on the couch with the ukulele

I hosted a dragon themed book club for "When Women Were Dragons" Hyrum made creme brûlée and we had mini torches so people could "breathe fire" onto their own brûlée. It was lots of fun!

We saw a wonderful Irish music concert. Hyrum had heard about this group, "Altan" from a teacher in high school way back in the 90's and he finally got to see them in person. It was a wonderful concert.

We went for a walk on a cloudy rainy day...

...someone had put this creepy doll up in a tree!

Paige came for a visit! It just happened that she flew into Portland right around the same time a long time friend of ours was also flying into Portland for a work conference. It was so fun to get together with Sarah Carrington for a few hours to catch up and have some lunch.

I took Paige down to Corvallis to see the boys house. She is helping me design a remodel for the kitchen down there. We took the boys out for an ice cream treat:)

Twinsie pedicures with Paigey

The twins came home for Spring Break and we had dinner and some fun games with the Doxey's 

Snowshoeing around Trillium Lake. This time there was actually snow on the ground so we could use our snow shoes!

Paige's first time ever snow shoeing!

It was such a beautiful day

So much snow! Unfortunately one of my snow shoes broke so Hyrum gave me one of his and then he had only one snow shoe. So he would take a step and sink up to his thigh in the snow and then the next step would be on top of the snow with his snow shoe. It was very slow going and I was exhausted by the time we were finished...I'm sure Hyrum was also pretty tired!

Relaxing our poor tired legs in the hot tub at Collins Lake Resort

Inside Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood

Hot cocoa at Timberline

It's always fun to eat at the Rathskeller when we are in Government Camp

Playing games at the condo. We dropped Paige off at the airport on our way home from Mt. Hood the next day. It was so nice to have her come out to Portland for a visit.

Fun game of pickle ball with the boys

Spring Break family bike ride

We spent an afternoon walking around the Japanese Garden in Portland

Our last family photo...Julian will be leaving so soon!

We went back to the Oregon zoo...

...That baby elephant is just too cute to pass up another chance to see her:)

We got together with the Doxey's and Jason for an early birthday dinner for me. 9 Dang Thai is so yummy:)

So excited to see Hamilton for the 4th time!

We are in the "room where it happens!"

Such a wonderful show. This was my favorite cast I have seen so far and they did an amazing job. I loved every minute! My boys even admitted they liked the show in the end. Everyone was hesitant to see the show because they aren't really into musical theater but they all ended up liking it!

Happy birthday to me!!!

I love when my boys are all together and they are having fun and being silly. I think the twins were trying to squish Julian in the middle seat!

What a great Spring Break! Made even greater by the fact we still had Julian with us. I love my boys and spending time with all of them and Hyrum makes me so happy.

February: Concerts, Cool Bug Art, Rock Museum, Julian's Birthday, Snow Hike, Seaside, OR

 February was a hodge hodge of events. Julian quit going to high school around February 4th because that was the start of 2nd Semester and since he is leaving for Japan his counselor told him he didn't need to show up for just a few weeks of 2nd Semester.  So we have been hanging out, eating lots of lunches out just to have an excuse to leave the house! He goes to bed around 5 AM and I wake him up about 1 PM. He is trying to adjust his body for Japanese sleep times. We had a few fun adventures while he was out of school and I'm glad I had these weeks with him before he left:)

Went to a concert downtown Portland in this beautiful church.

A walk along the water from with Liam and Melissa Ashby

Hyrum pulled out our old slide projector and we watched slides from his mission in Austria, it was really fun to see him as a young guy.

We went to OMSI and saw a really cool art installation made out of bugs and other creatures in nature. I loved it!

So many colors and sizes and shapes:)

I think Julian and Jacob thought it was interesting. I'm glad we could get these boys to hang out before Julian leaves.

The twins came home for the weekend to celebrate Julian's birthday. We had a  fun time at the Rice Museum seeing all the cool rock collections.

This rock reminded me of a certain President of the US (whom I despise!)

Korean dinner in Portland

Concert at the Schnitz with all the boys

Birthday dinner request: Salmon and Sweet Potatoes

This boy is now 16!!

Finally got his own phone, he was very excited about this

We lost power for about 5 hours...Hyrum made a delicious feast using our propane fueled hot plate!

We went to the DMV the day after his birthday so he could get his Drivers License!

A group of friends made plans to go snow shoeing up near Mt. Hood. Too bad the snow didn't get the message!  Not enough snow for snow shoeing but we still did the 7 mile hike around Trillium Lake and that was still lots of fun.

I hate hills!!

Being silly

It was a fantastically, amazingly beautiful day! Mt. Hood did not disappoint!!

Julian drove us out to Seaside, OR for the day. You can't resist a sunny day on the coast!

We took a nice walk along the beach...

Then spent some time playing "fascination" Julian won a game!