Way back in late May (yes, we are a bit behind in our posting), we drove down to Washougal, Washington (just across the river from Portland, Oregon) to visit my extended family and meet up at “Auntie” Joanie’s house.  My cousin Gina, her husband Paul, and two son Caetano and Felix, were in town from Portland, Maine, visiting her folks in Portland, Oregon.  Anyone confused yet?

Anyway, this was a perfect opportunity to see if 1) the boys could survive an extended road trip (3.5 hrs) and 2) if Joel and I could survive an extended road trip with the boys (in preparation for going to Michigan in September).   Needless to say, we all survived but it was very tight that last 1/2 hour.  Oh, I wasn’t sure who was going to break first, Nicky or me.  On the way down to Joanie’s house, we stopped at IKEA in Renton and let the boys run wild.  This is where we picked up the hippos you’ve seen in other blog postings.  We were then lucky enough to have the boys sleep for the next 1.5 hours.  That left us with around 1.5 hours of entertaining and like I said, it was a close call at the end.

Joanie lives on a farm with cows.  This was the first time Nicholas and Dexter has seen a cow.  The fence you see behind me in the picture below was a barbed wire fence.  Nicholas was bound and determined to crawl under it in order to get up close and personal to a cow.  We had a series of “NO” conversations.  I won in the end.

Of course, the boys tried every trick in the book to get to the cows.  One of their tricks was to throw the ball into the pasture.

Pictured below from left to right is Paul,  Caetano (who will be 3 in November) and my brother Ryan.  The golf clubs were presents from Grandma French to the boys, but the “big boys” (Ryan, Paul and Scott) spent most of the afternoon trying to make a chip shot into the water fountain.

Here you have my uncle Jon helping out Cae with Nick and Dex looking on with interest.  I wonder what he was showing them?

Nicholas wonders what is that weird circle thing that cousins Scott and Susan are tossing around, and why can’t they catch it.

Seriously, it is really a big necklace.

Cousin Gina and Ryan take Joanie’s 4 wheeler out for a ride.  I think everyone took it for a spin except Joel and I.

Nicholas definitely wanted to take it for a spin.  He cried every time someone drove by and rushed to get on.

Here Susan is teaching the boys how to blow bubbles which is always a favorite activity.  You’ve got to watch out though – if Dexter’s hand gets wet from water, food, soap, etc…. – he will immediately start to wash his face.  Soap + eyes do not equate to a happy Dexter, mom or dad.

Gina and Felix (mini-Paul).

The 4 boys together.  I think we had 20 cameras going and no one captured all of them looking the same direction at the same time.

Case in point……

It was a fantastic one day trip.  (Yes, we drove home that night – the boys slept through the return trip peacefully.) Everyone had a great time.  I loved meeting Felix for the first time and catching up with Gina and Paul, along with everyone else.  Hopefully, one day, we can meet and take a trip together like our parents did.  That would be so much fun.