Friday night Anthony’s 16-year-old nephew, Kristian came up for a weekend visit. He spent Friday and Saturday night over out our house and was the first person to try out the new bunk bed and mattress in the kid’s room. Anthony had not seen his nephew since Kristian was very little. So this was a very fun weekend of getting to know each other and reconnecting.
After a quick tour of the house, Kristian found the video games and Anthony cooked dinner, beef enchiladas. Since Sam had the night off we all 4 of us decided to go see a movie, Disney’s G-Force.
Saturday we got up early, had German Pancakes for breakfast, and then headed over to Portland State University because Kristian wanted to check out the campus. This proved to be a little difficult. First, they don’t run weekend tours and second the whole campus was engulfed in a hippy farmers market and Pro Iran event. (They don’t call Portland little Beirut from no reason!)
But luckily, we were able to avoid most of the craziness of the market and wandered though the Student Union and walked around the campus and where able to check out a lot of the buildings. Hopefully he got a good idea of campus life. He still wants to come back later and take the official tour.
After stopping off for Starbucks, we drove down to Pioneer Place Mall. Kristian wanted to pick up a Trailblazer T-Shirt. Unfortunately, the Mall did not have what we were looking for. So, we decided to drive over to the Rose Garden and hit the Blazer Store.
Before leaving downtown we did a walk though of the Nike Store, which brought a HUGE smile and big eyes to Kristian’s face.
After the Nike Store we drove over to the Rose Garden, only to discover that they were holding a Street Jam – 3vs3 Basketball Tournament. Which was kinda fun. Anthony found the Radio Disney table and picked up some stuff for Shawn. But, we struck out again for a Blazer shirt. They had the shirt Kristian wanted, but not in his size.
We walked over the MAX, rode it up to Lloyd Center, and found the T-Shirt in sports shop. T-shirt hunting as followed by lunch in the mall, as we were all hungry.
After lunch we traced back our path, took MAX back to the Rose Garden, picked up the car and drove home. Joshua and Anthony both took a short n.a.p. while Kristian played video games. We then all got back in car and drove down to PGE Park as there was a posted 5:00pm Timbers Soccer game. Which once we got down there and stood in line at the window, turned out the 5:00pm game was in Minnesota. That is what you get when you leave non-sports people in charge of the sports entertainment. There was a 7:00 Beavers baseball game, which no one in the group wanted to stay and watch.
We changed plans quickly, which we seem to be getting much better at. We drove back up I-84 towards home, stopped by Fred Myers for some groceries, and then headed home for a movie night on the sofa. Anthony headed into the kitchen and cooked up a big pot of spaghetti, green beans and sour dough rolls. Josh and Kristian worked on Resident Evil 5 together. After dinner, we watched Kingdom of Heaven.
The next morning, Anthony made pancakes and cheesy scrambled eggs for breakfast. Kristian’s grandfather was supposed to pick him up at 10:00, because we had to pick up Shawn before 10:45. So at 10:15am we said all our goodbyes and Anthony drove like a madman to Tigard to pick up Shawn. About 10 minutes later Kristian’s grandfather picked him up. Sara had an 11:00am appointment, and Anthony made it just in time to scoop up Shawn.
Just like Kristian, Shawn made a beeline straight for the video games. But, he only gets 30 minutes a day. So while I help him find a kid game to play. Joshua set the kitchen timer for 30 minutes. Then Anthony and Shawn when and played in the back yard for a bit with a paper airplane that Anthony picked up the day before at the Street Jam – 3vs3 Basketball Tournament at the Disney radio booth.
Afterwards we had lunch, corn dogs and tatter tots with apple slices. Joshua then took Shawn swimming again and worked on his backstroke and dolphin kick.
Before the movie, Joshua and Shawn boiled some eggs and made egg salad sandwiches together for a afternoon snack. Shawn had never seen a gas stove before and was a little in awe of it. At first, he thought there was something wrong with the stove when he saw the flames shoot out.
We then watched the adventures of Ichabod Crane. Which has the headless horseman in it. Joshua and Shawn had two different theories on the movie. Shawn felt the headless horseman was real while Joshua thought it was just someone trying to scare Ichabod.
After the movie, we noticed it was getting late so all jumped in the car and drove Shawn home. Arriving home we both plopped on the sofa like 2 bags of wet of sand. It was a long weekend!
One cool, yet expensive thing did happen Saturday night. We got the copy of our home inspection form in the mail, all signed and legal. With it came the $1,500.00 home study bill. And in a week or so we should get then $1,200.00 coordination fee bill as our home study should be done within the next 2-3 weeks.
Both of us feel we are getting so close to being done and the excitement level is getting hard to control. Which we keep trying to do as the next stage could be the longest and hardest to swallow, waiting for a placement. This could take a few months or a few years or never.