I love Brett!

You’re probably tired of hearing this, but I’m not – Wednesday was another beautiful day. We checked out of the hotel, leaving behind (unbeknownst to us) Haley’s stuffed horse that she’s had since she was 3 years old. We’ll pick that story up in a little bit.

Our first stop was Powell’s City of Books. And by “our”, I mean Haley, Ashley, Emily and me. Sherri had an emergency (nails needed to be done) elsewhere in the city.

I have always loved books.  Hardcover, paperback, physical, digital…it doesn’t matter. The girls love books, also. This place was definitely right up our alley. I’ve never been to a bookstore where the sections are color coded and you need a map to find your way around.  If you’ve never been to Powell’s, it’s a bookstore that takes up an entire city block and has over a million books. A little slice of heaven on earth.

The girls and I spent about two and a half hours perusing the aisles. It was awesome. The nice thing about Powell’s is that it has a mix of used and new books. I let them pick out a book or ten each.  Our favorite area of Powell’s was the “Rare Book Room.”  In this room, there were…..well, rare books. The girls marveled at some of the prices of the books ($14,000 for one of them!) and I was very, very tempted to buy myself an early (early) birthday present:

I managed to get past my moment of weakness and get out of the place without dropping two grand.

Up to this point, we have done a ton of sightseeing and touristy stuff, so instead of seeing the World’s Largest Ball of Mud, we surprised the girls and took them to see “Despicable Me 2.”

We planned on meeting Scott (who was one of my best childhood friends and the best man in our wedding), Gigi (his wife) and Brett (their son) at their house at 4:30pm. The movie ended at around 4pm, so we thought we’d swing by Voodoo Donuts (which shows up on Trip Advisor as one of the Top 10 places to go in Portland) and bring them some donuts.  After we circled the block a couple of times, we finally found it. Sherri dropped me and the girls off and we walked around the corner to a massive line. I figured it had to be a movie or a Broadway show or something. Get out of my way, peeps, I’m headed to Voodoo Donuts. I finally realized that this line WAS for Voodoo Donuts. WTF?!  Those must be some really, really good donuts. We figured it would take an hour just to get through the line, so we bailed and headed to Scott and Gigi’s house donutless.

We arrived at their house and Brett, seven years old, busted through the front door and yelled, “I love Wes!”  Now, in our 19 years of marriage, Sherri has never done that with such exuberance. I could get used to this kid! Brett has to be one of the most adorable kids (and not because he said that. Really. Really!) on the planet Earth. We introduced the kids and said our hellos to Scott and Gigi and then Brett showed us some of his toys and an awesome story that he wrote about Disneyland.

Scott and Gigi made an fantastic dinner of steak, salmon, asparagus, pasta, and salad. We have been very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends who have visited with us and taken us in with open arms, and this night was no different.

Haley, Gigi, Brett, Scott, me, Ashley, Sherri, Emily

 Scott and I spent time reminiscing about our younger days, when we were both perfect angels and never did anything mischievous or stupid. Gigi and Sherri and the kids spent time listening to stories they have already heard (and which have probably become more exaggerated or dramatic over the years).  The kids played and played, and Brett would come up every so often and say, “I love Wes!”  Someone must be telling this kid some tall tales about me…but I’ll take it!

At some point, Haley realized that she didn’t have Spirit, her horse that her Aunt Shell brought her back from Ireland about 9 years ago. We searched all over the car and didn’t find it. Haley suspected that she left it in the hotel, so we called the hotel and they didn’t have it. I left our number and asked them to call if it turned up. We were very sad about this, and were really hoping that it would turn up and that the hotel would call.

One by one folks started to head to bed. Scott and Haley and I stayed up and Scott and I continued to talk. It was really nice to be able to catch up with someone that I have been friends with for over thirty years. We finally hit the sack at around 11pm. It was very neat to look around the room of this house, which was over 100 years old, and think about how many people have passed through these doors. Also, it was great to be in a place where they do not need air conditioning.