Learning to like Portland

I have always lived in small towns in Eastern Oregon. Growing up in Echo was a lot of playing on the river whether it was finding swimming holes, floating down to the overpass, or just rock skipping. It was sledding in the winter with tons of your friends and 4-wheelers to pull you back up the long hill. It was the whole town cheering you on when you went to state playoffs for sports.

College in La Grande was similar. Bike riding everywhere, frisbee in the park, late-night walks, lots of BBQ's at friend's houses.

When we settled in Pendleton to begin our careers, I was a little worried but I shouldn't have been. After a few weeks it felt like home. Laughing around a fire, watching children play, taking the dog to the park.

I have always loved small towns and the slow pace they have to offer. Seeing my students at the Aquatic Center, visiting with other parents and friends at whiffle ball games, walking to work on sunny days. I like knowing lots of people and people knowing me.

With Dad in Portland now I have learned some new things about myself. They're not all good things either.

The biggest: I Really Don't Like Portland.

I Really Like Some of the People who Live in Portland, but the city itself, hmm...

I have been to Portland before many times. The Zoo, downtown shopping, the airport, IKEA, a Portland Trail Blazer game and even a Metallica concert. All things that are right off the freeway. I had never really gone into the city neighborhoods and in my first day of doing so I found out that big cities are not my cup of tea. Not at all. The traffic freaked me out (the sheer speed and then Wham! A traffic jam), the fact that no one says "hello" or even really looks at you as you walk past them (not that I wanted some of those people to say hello to me), the grafitti everywhere and public displays of vulgarity seemed crude and disgusting to me.

Since Dad is going to be spending quite some time in Portland, I decided I had better take a closer at Portland and find some things I can enjoy about it while I am there. Ignore the crazy people and focus on the good stuff. Overlook the people wearing "I HATE COPS" t-shirts and find things a city has to offer families. Not an easy task for some, but I am always one for a challenge!

Mark's cousin Jeff, his wife Erin and Jeff's sister, Jennifer, have a wonderful house only 15 minutes away from the hospital and once we are off the main drag and getting closer to their neighborhood, I always feel myself relaxing and I can let go of my death grip on the steering wheel and look around a little bit. The streets are tree-lined and shady, giving off a sense of peace and families. You can just picture people picnicing underneath these trees or children having a lemonade stand.

This sign warmed my heart! They were speaking my love language!

This last weekend we went back to Portland for 3 days and on our first night there all of us walked over to this huge park that lives in this tree-lined neighborhood. There were groups of people playing kickball, bike polo, and basketball, of course. There was a section of the park devoted to dogs and lots of equipment for kids to play on. Despite some graphic language that included some f-bombs and a lesbian menage-a-trois (we were in Portland after all) the park was a lot of fun. The boys discovered a real merry-go-round and played and played on that while making some new friends. I have some great video of that! There were huge pine trees throughout the park and it was so vast that everyone had lots of room to do their own thing.

On Sunday, we went to the Zoo. But first we took a special route there.

Do you need to ask if they were excited?

I think not!

This was the way to see Portland!

Erin and Jeff - our seasoned tour guides! She was just as excited as I was to see a

                                                Banana Republic - a girl after my own heart!

(I have never actually bought anything from Banana Republic but I have often fantasized about doing so).

Caleb stood grapsing the rail for a long time and then he decided to take a quick break and try and answer the question of "Where do you think we are going?".

After the Max ride we ended up spending hours at the zoo. I would have loved to taken photos but my faithless camera turned fickle again and quit working, but I do have a lot of video from the flipcam. We were a tired group of tourists on the ride home but very satisfied with the day. It wasn't even over yet!

We went to the hospital to see Dad and he was awake and out in the children's garden with Mom. The boys were able to see him and he had a huge smile for each of them. He even reached his hand towards them and the boys gave him big hugs. Since we didn't want to overwhelm him we played hide-n-go seek elsewhere in the garden so Mark could visit with his Dad. We were very encouraged by the progress we saw and I can't wait to see where Dad will be a week from now!

This blog post is so long, I have forgotten my point.

Oh yeah! I am learning to like things about Portland - the Max, the food, the zoo. But as I was sitting in the backyard last night visiting with friends around our fire pit and looking up at the stars, I realized that in my heart, there isn't anything in Portland that could compare with the things in Eastern Oregon. I guess the Lord knew exactly what he was doing when he settled Mark and I here!

One last thing: I got something in the mail today. Something I have been saving my sheckles many moons for! I will share it with you tomorrow! (or possibly the next day - you know what kind of blogger I am!)