beaverton

Saturday, we made the drive back into Beaverton, a suburb of Portland. This drive is for the moment my favorite - I never tired of it.

After grabbing a quick lunch we headed over to the Nike campus. Branden worked there a couple years back and thought we'd enjoy it. It's a beautiful campus with giant trees, manicured gardens, a track, soccer field, paths to run on, walking trails, and on and on. Branden tells us it's an awesome place to work, where they encourage you to take a break and get outside and get active - maybe try out their newest Nike gear. We spent an hour or two just exploring the area. The kids were on the lookout for snakes, but found only slugs. Walking in the forest, they discovered wild berries and found them to be quite sour.

As we came to the Nike track, the kids lined up and had an impromptu race. It was close, but no one even followed through beyond the first turn. Gabriel watched them get into their starting positions and mimicked it pretty closely. His starting position was fab, but more resembled a stretch. Being the only runner, he took the early lead. He kept running and running. I expected he would quickly return, but he disappeared around the corner. I went after him and found him making friends with a group playing football.

As we continued around the campus, the kids did really well and seemed to enjoy themselves. I was surprised because really all we were doing was walking around - I wouldn't have had that much cooperation at home for sure. Let's see... go walking in paradise or in hell... it's a toss-up.

From there we went to the Rose Garden in Portland. It's in an interesting area with a park, zoo, train ride. Just outside is a darling neighborhood that I would love to call home. Inside the garden, there were thousands and thousands of different roses everywhere. I love this picture of Amber and Kamarin because it just screams: "I'm an ultra cool teenager and my mom is such a dork". I'm not saying I agree, it's just an accurate portrayal of their weekend. We finished up by allowing the children to wear themselves out at the park. I thought it was great that the play area was covered by a giant tree. (Yes, tree obsessed)