CASE IH

Grandpa Wilde got Adahleigh and Charles some Case hats to wear, so we got some pictures of them in them. Adahleigh was really excited for hers, both of them really don't mind wearing them. Now Adahleigh has to take her hat with her most of the time when we go outside or go somewhere.

Charles was more interested in playing with the tractor than getting his picture taken, so Adahleigh thought she'd be helpful and pull on his hat to get his attention. All this really did was make him mad because it was interfering with his playing.

Once he was left by himself to explore the tractor without help or interference he was a lot happier.

We did manage to get a good one of him smiling, but of course Adahleigh had to be right there in the middle of things. She has really been increasing her vocabulary lately, so while we were visiting Pete taught her to point out and name the different parts of the tractor.

We also went horse back riding on Tory. It was a lot more enjoyable for the kids since Tory is a lot better behaved than Willy, we were able to ride double without worrying what Tory would do.

Since Charles is able to sit up now and has fairly good balance, we let let him and Adahleigh sit in the saddle together while we led Tory around. He tolerated Adahleigh on his back, since she held on a little too tight once we told her not to hold onto the saddle horn because she was squishing him.Once she backed off a little he let her know who was really in charge.

Kitty

One of Adahleigh's favorite things to do at Grandpa and Grandma Wilde's is play with the kitty there. She spends most of the day chasing after the kitty, dragging it around, and holding it. To keep her happy (and mainly to keep the kitty from getting away from her) we put the kitty on a leash. He favorite hold for the kitty is the sleeper, she has yet to perfect it as the kitty has never lost consciousness just a loss of brain cells.

Unfortunately for the kitty, Adahleigh thinks that the kitty will follow her around like a dog would when she has the leash on it. This opens up a whole new form of torture for kitty, but so far the kitty hasn't complained to the point of scratching and bitting, although that would probably be little of a deterrent for Adahleigh.The kitty is never willing to give in no matter the duration of torture.
Adahleigh, however, was nice enough to take the kitty outside to jump on the tramp.

By the end of the visit this is where the kitty can be found with Adahleigh around (its behind the flower box, you can see its paws). When the kitty does get away inside the house it runs under the recliner. Adahleigh knows where it runs to and actually got her head caught under the recliner while going on a recovery mission the remove the kitty from under the recliner. One of the preferred methods of dislodging the kitty from its hiding spot is a firm grip on its tail followed by a firm and swift pull, surprisingly this method hasn't been extremely effective but still the method of choice.

Since Adahleigh has gotten better at talking she has no problem making her demands known.

Splash!

With how hot Oregon was the last week we were out there Albert kept begging to go swimming almost every day, so one day we went to Splash! (the wave pool in Springfield). Everyone had lots of fun for the time we were there. Adahleigh now has no fear of the water, she usually hates getting water in her face at all but here she didn't mind (she still doesn't like getting water in her face when she baths though, go figure). She spent the whole time running from one area to another to play in the water. She enjoyed splashing around with Charles and showing him how to play in the water.

She loved jumping off the edge of the pool into the water most of all. She sure can get some good air when she jumps, it must come from all the practicing she does. The only problem with her jumping off is she didn't realize that the water is deeper in different places. In the kiddy pool the water was only a foot deep, but Ashley was playing over in the four foot water and put her on the edge to have her turn right back around and jump back in, so she was fumbling with her to get her out because she didn't have the life jacket on them.
We even took her down the water slide a couple of times. She loved riding double, but wasn't too thrilled to go down by herself (she screamed most of the time). It didn't help that Bryon likes to keep his distance from where she hit the water, so she went under water for a bit.

Apparently playing in the pool for about 4 hrs wipes out even the biggest of kids. Albert and Bryon enjoyed snuggling with each other during their naps on the ride home, which isn't normal at all.

Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum

This post is probably the one Albert has been waiting to see, just a warning its another long one. For him it was the highlight of our visit to Oregon because he loves helicopters and airplanes, and he just couldn't wait to go here and look at them. We also got the most value out of our zoo/museum pass here, since they charge $10/person for the air museum and then the space museum. In all we would've paid $100 to visit where our zoo/museum pass was only $60.

The main exhibit of the museum is the Spruce Goose that Howard Hughes built. It takes up the length of the glass in the picture.

This is one of the models of the Spruce Goose that was used in the movie "The Aviator".

And this is the Spruce Goose behind us. Its amazing how massive the plane is especially since it was built back in the 1940s.

Adahleigh was excited for another adventure in Oregon, but I don't think it came anywhere near Albert's excitement.

Besides the Spruce Goose there were over 50 other planes and other aircraft to be seen in the museum like this BF109 from WWII. The Sea King recovery Helicopter of the Apollo Space flights.
And the Blackbird stealth plane.

Adahleigh enjoyed looking at the aircrafts and parts for a little while, but once the hands on exhibits were discovered she no longer had any interest in just looking at things.

We were surprised to see how coordinated Adahleigh was. This activities requires you to turn both cranks to raise a ball to the top hole while avoiding others on the way up. She was able to do this fairly easily.
She loved controlling the robotic arm, but didn't quite get the concept on how it worked. She liked it so much we had to drag her away from it kicking and screaming.

Of course, Albert enjoyed it even more and when it came time to go he had to be dragged away kicking and screaming also.

After he was done running around looking at the planes he found a way to spend some time the same way he spends his days at home, sitting in front of a computer playing games for extended periods of time. Him and his friend hogged the flight simulator from probably an hour while the rest of us went and looked at the planes.

Bryon even got in on playing when we got out to the play ground. Adahleigh really enjoyed the break to play on the playground for a while.

If you blow up the picture you can see where Albert's and Bryon's playing turned violent, and Albert is pinned to the ground under Bryon.

Charles even had his fair share of activities he participated in.His favorite by far was anything to do with a joystick.Here he took the opportunity to work two at once.

Although we went during Charles nap time he was a got sport and enjoyed hanging out with mom in the moby for most of the day.

Pollywogs

Adahleigh loves to be around all kinds of animals. (She gets it from her daddy!) While we were in Oregon, Adam took adahleigh out to the horse's trough to catch some tadpoles that she could watch swim around while we were there. She was all ready to go with her net and her tank. We told her we were going to get froggies because she knows what they are since we have a Bullfrog at home, so she kept saying froggies while getting them.

Sally followed her everywhere so of course she thought she had to tag along and try to be useful.

She was very excited, the excitement was smeared all over her face, to be able to go get some tadpoles.

Of course she thinks she's a big girl and can do everything by herself, so needless to say she had to hold onto the net and give it a try.

With a little help from dad she was able to net some. It's the black speck in the net.

She ended up with about a dozen and loved to look at them and show them off.

The tadpoles sat on gramdma kitchen table for a few days until Adahleigh decided she wanted a closer look......and that was the last of the tadpoles. Grandma only had to spoon one tadpole off the kitchen floor the rest managed to stay in there home. Adam returned them back to their home where their chances of survival was much higher.

OMSI

OMSI is one of the best places to take kids to play and learn. Since we stayed overnight at Miles and Erin's when decided to take the kids out to OMSI to let them play. Most of the exhibits there are orientated toward a little bit older group of kids for the most part, but everyone still had fun for the couple of hours that we were there. We spent almost the whole time in the kids area where they got to play with balls by dropping them in tubes and watching them go to different places and playing with the wind cone.

Kenya was excited to be there even though the picture makes it look like he wasn't. Adahleigh was so excited to be there that she didn't really know where to start having fun at.

Kenya was just as helpful here as he was at the zoo in pointing out all the fun things to do and how to play in the different activity areas.

The sandbox was one of the favorites of everyone (and not just our kids as you can see by how crowded it was). The worst part of the sandbox was it smelt like stinky feet, probably from all the kids being barefoot in there.
The water area was a lot of fun even when Adahleigh decided that it would be fun to splash people too.
The life science area was very interesting. The neatest thing they had there was a collection of human fetuses, from all stages of pregnancy, that have been collected from private or institutional collection over the years (before 1940) to make this one complete. Erin was able to show Azure and Kenya what their new sibling looks like right now. No pictures of this exhibit though because it wasn't allowed. The kids did like looking at the animals that they had in the same area. Adahleigh thought this gecko was pretty cool.

Even this strange cancer rat (Just look at that lump under its arm). We even taught Adahleigh to say rat there, needless to say she ran around saying "wat" (rat) the rest of the time we were there.

At the end of the day, once Miles got home from work, we stopped by a pond/water park by their hows to cool off. All the kids played in the water until they were freezing, but none of them ever complained about the cold.

Adahleigh even played in the water that was too deep for her to stand in, which is a little unusual for her. Since then though she has become a fish in the water, she just can't get enough of it.

Warming up with mom after the swimming fun was over. Charles spent the whole time sleeping while everyone played in the water.