Oregon Trip - Part 1: Planes and Flames!

This year the big trip to Oregon was to head to Medford to celebrate the wedding of Sean and Dana Preston. Sean is Uncle Jim's best/oldest friend and like a second brother to me, so we were so excited to go and share in this special time with them.

We started off the morning bright and early with Daddy dropping us off at the airport at 6:30AM. After a surprisingly smooth check-in and security process we headed to a restaurant by our gate for a little breakfast.

French Toast with syrup can make any little boy excited - especially when he is also getting ready to go on an airplane!

All ready to head out on the first flight of the day. The nice woman in the row with us offered to move to an empty seat so we had all three seats to ourselves for the 4+ hour flight to Denver! Hooray for flights that aren't full!

Babies who wake up so early get tired on airplanes. Thank goodness for the empty middle seat when she could nap a bit.

After a (too) short nap she was awake and ready to check out this air travel thing. Cool headphones.

We spent a good portion of our flight tearing up the Sky Mall magazine. I don't typically condone distruction of magazines, but whatever keeps the 11 month old from screaming or crying is good for me. The flight attendants laughed every time they came down the aisle to collect trash and I had a few more pieces of magazine to contribute.

Post-nap jet lag...it sucks.

But helping Pa Lar feed the fish in the GIANT fish tank helps a lot...especially when you don't have to wear pants.

We met up with Uncle Jim for dinner at Shoji's. We were very excited to see him - and have him see Riley for the first time!

Shoji's is a Hibachi restaurant so they cook at your table. And of course there is some showmanship and flames involved.

Parker was interested in the show.

Even thought it was funny sometimes.

Riley did not.

We were celebrating Ma Pat's birthday (a day late) so we all headed home for some ice cream cake. Of course Parker was more than happy to help with the candles.

Riley was happy to just play with Uncle Jim.

Parker helped Ma Pat open some of her birthday presents. One from Pa Lar was a new helmet for her bicycle.

He says he got the "adult" size helmet, but it appears that Uncle Jim and Pa Lar are not the only ones with big heads in the family - going to need to exchange that helmet for the "Ogre" size I think...