I went to see the babies yesterday. What fun they are! Even Evander seems to remember me and starts to smile and make happy sounds. He's growing and developing more skills every time I see him. Lewis had to show me his "big boy bed" and even lay down on it. I brought him some sprinkler heads to get a headstart on summer and he knew exactly where they went, on the hose. He was all into "pwesents". He's talking up a storm, more phrases, more words, more thoughts. And he talks constantly. He's conversing all the time about things he sees and wants to do. He saw me and said, "Gramma's house". He saw the van and said, "Grampa's car". He said "Uncle Alec" as clear as a bell. Heather and J. won't be able to pull anything over on him. He's sorting out his world very quickly.

We stopped by the Salem Farmer's market to check it out, had lunch at Macedonia and then to Costco where Lewis had several important stops: chicken cooking, coffee roasting, music demo buttons and the dim sum stands. (We call them dim sum because they're little snacks being demonstrated and remind us of Chinese dim sum.) Heather couldn't leave until Lewis had visited all of his favorite things. Meanwhile, as you can see from the picture, Evander got his first ride in the seat of the cart with his brother. We propped him a little with blankets and the seat belt, but he was lovin' life. I took the picture on my cell phone.

When we got back home, we watched a big dump truck dump a load of bark next door to the house. Lewis loved that. He sang me his abc song, read me a few pages of "Brown Bear" and other feats of 23 month olds. Evander is content to jump on your lap and look in your eyes and maybe play with a toy or two. What little cuties. It's fun to watch.

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Last night, we lit a fire in the outdoor fire pit and cooked hotdogs for Chi Alpha and ate strawberry shortcake and a yogurt fruit dessert made by Ruth. Ruth leaves us to go home to Germany next week and we'll miss her. She's been a total delight this year. Tomorrow, FOCUS picnic and then a trip to the Molalla Buckeroo Rodeo on the 4th of July.

We're gearing up for super hot weather this weekend which always sends us Portlanders scampering to the mall or movie theaters to cool off. I'm glad summer finally decided to make an appearance. We had a cold spring. Usually, we can't count on summer here till after the 4th of July, then it's dry for almost 4 months. The ground gets hard as a rock and its difficult to pull any weeds out of the clay. Just some random global thoughts.... have a good day!

Here's a report on how the wedding photo shoot went:
Friday: Drive to Bellingham, scout out locations for wedding pictures and alternatives in case of rain, attend the wedding rehearsal, shoot pictures to check out the lighting in the church, hang out with wedding party and friends at the rehearsal dinner, go back to room and download pictures, feel sick because the sanctuary lighting is tricky, pray hard, have hard time going to sleep.

Saturday: Get up very early, make a plan for the ceremony lighting, eat quick McD's breakfast, head to church to take pictures of the girls and guys getting ready, take a few artistic pictures of the rings. At 10:00am, we're schedule to leave for the Ferry Dock for the guys pictures. At 10:00am, the tuxedos arrive and our schedule is set back a half hour.
At 10:30am arrive at the Ferry Dock and take way too many pictures of the guys because we're rookies, but had fun even though it was drizzling. At 11:30, head to Boulevard Park for group pictures, bride and groom pictures, and girls pictures. See two other wedding parties doing the same thing. At 12:30 arrive in downtown Fairhaven Village Green to take family pictures, and find some artistic spots for the bride and groom. At 1:30, head to church for last minute touch-ups, a quick snack before the ceremony.
2:00 start shooting the ceremony like pappa and mammarazi. Feeling nervous about the lighting, so use several settings. Camera now weighs 50 pounds. Finish ceremony, take pictures of signing certificate and the children in the wedding.

3:00-4:30 take a few photos at the reception. 5:00 take a few more of the bride and groom. 5:45 take pictures of hoopla leaving the church. Try to hang in there till the end. Neck, back and feet begin loud protest.

6:00 Find El Mexico Restaurant and eat something.

7:30 Collapse into bed, everything hurts. Scroll through the disks to see if anything looks good, feel encouraged. Don't care about pictures now. Vic downloads them anyway. Glad God helped and Vic and I were a good team.

6:00am Wake up feeling refreshed, spend two hours looking at pictures.