CRYSTAL'S TRIPLE PLAY

Crystal came to Oregon from May 8-18. Her purpose in coming was a "triple play"--Annie's 3rd birthday, Mother's Day, and Nicole's baby shower. She brought Payton and Owen. Alex had to stay home with Ryan because he couldn't miss school. But, Alex and Ryan had a good time at the "bachelor pad". They went golfing one weekend and camping the next weekend.
The first event on Crystal's trip was Annie's #3 birthday. Payton and Annie haven't missed each others birthdays yet. Annie's mom, Jessica has been Crystal's friend since they were young and Jessica used to come to Crystal's birthday parties. History lives on.
Brian, Annie and Jessica. Annie will be a big sister at the end of summer.
Annie's party was a carnival, under the big top, theme.

There was face painting, cotton candy, popcorn and all kinds of fun stuff.
Like a bounce house, bounce slide and

and a circus tent pinata.
Here's the 3 little buddies. Maddie, Payton and Annie, the birthday girl, acting silly.
The following day was Mother's day. Here we are dressed up and ready to go to church.
That evening we invited Darla, Crystal's mother-in-law to come for dessert.
On the Friday before Crystal left, I took the day off work. We went to Salem. But we took the back roads through North Albany and then took the Buena Vista Ferry across the River. We drove our car onto the ferry and were shuttled across. It was neat.
Here's Payton in the car crossing the river.

First stop in Salem was Jim's work. Crystal never saw where Jim worked and the country roads came out in Salem right next to Jim's work.
The lobby has the Titanic display, because Jim's work sponsored the exhibit. Jim and I went and saw it at the end of the day.
Pretty flowers, pretty girl. Rhodies outside Jim's work.
None of us had been to this carousel on the Salem riverfront. Beside the fun carousel, there is a huge beautiful park with a large play area for kids. I would definetly go back again.

At the end of our park time, Crystal dropped me off at the Titanic exhibit, where I met Jim. This exhibit travels all over the US and it was excellent. Stories and artifacts that were very interesting. The Titanic sunk in 1912. I have a special interest in this because I have a book written about the Titanic,the same year the ship sunk and it has my grandpa's signature in it. I also have a framed replica of a Titanic postage stamp. Needless to say, I was excited to go to the exhibit.

In the beginning, they issue a boarding pass, with the name of a real person that was on the Titanic. It tells the name, age, 1st, 2nd or 3rd class, reason for boarding and a passenger fact. At the end of the exhibit, there is a wall with the names off the 2,228 passengers and crew. It shows the ones that lived and died. So we checked to see if we "lived" through the voyage. The names Jim and I got were in 3rd class, so we figured they didn't make it, but they DID.

Pictured going into the dining room. This is taken in front of a backdrop.

Last of the triple play on Crystal's visit was Nicole's baby shower. This is little Lucy Jane, about 8 days old. Isn't she just the cutest little person? Payton sure thinks so.

It was a fast 10 days, but fun as fun could be. Here's some pictures of us enjoying Payton and Owen. Going on walks and on the patio, loving the blue sky. It rained about 1/2 the time Crystal was here.

Owen weighs only 4 lbs. less than Payton. Check out those "thunder thighs".

Silly faces.

Grandpa's favorite thing to do, belly buzzers.