The Oregon trail

We recently returned from a week-long trip to Oregon with Eric’s family! At 4:30 a.m., our own version of the Oregon trail started by flying 3,000 miles with a potty-training two-and-a-half-year old and a teething six-month old (and we lived to blog about it!). The girls did fairly well on the airplane for Anna's first flight (no passenger revolts) with the exception of a little panic attack by Emilia when we first took off. The girls had a blast spending time with Grammy, Poppy, Aunt Melissa, Uncle Bob, Owen (three) and Henry (almost two). There were lots of great memories made throughout the trip… here are the highlights:

On Easter, we went to Bob and Melissa’s church, ate lots of delicious food, decorated eggs, hunted for treats and found fun baskets from the Easter Bunny.

On Monday, we drove about three hours south of Portland through beautiful and snowy – yes, snowy – mountains to Redmond. We stayed there the remainder of the week in a timeshare thanks to Eric’s parents. We visited the High Desert Museum, where the kids were able to interact with animals and get a glimpse of life on the Oregon Trail.
We visited a local farm to ride some horses. Emilia must have gone 20 laps on her horse. Even Anna wanted to be a little cowgirl!

We went to the Sun Mountain Fun Center for some indoor fun, including Emilia's first experience bowling.
The big kids got to go on a fun bike ride with Uncle Bob and Aunt Melissa.We took advantage of one of the many pools at the timeshare for Anna's first swim!
We hit up lots of local parks and playgrounds. We attempted to hike and fish. No fish, but lots of deer!The big kids had a lot of fun hanging out together - especially at bath time. I didn't have an "appropriate" photo of them in the big whirlpool tub at the timeshare to include, but that was a big hit!The kids had a great time throughout the week... cooking with Aunt Melissa... reading stories with Uncle Bob... being fed by Poppy... snuggling with Grammy.

The trip was also a real turning point for Emilia on the potty. She was almost always in big girl undies without incidents and even went BM on the airplane potty multiple times (TMI, I know)! In the end, we were exhausted. Thank you to Grammy and Poppy for your generosity and to Bob and Melissa for being such great hosts and chefs!