The final tango

Summer is winding down and we have been really getting out there. Having landed the apartment in Portland and having a whole week off we've had the chance to really get out there. It's been a fantastic week.

We attended the Monmouth Stake Temple night and it was a beautiful time. Being able to again strengthen our faith and renew our commitment to living the gospel brings so much joy. And the amount of people who responded to President Petersen's call to fill the chapel makes me so proud to see the saints heed the Lord's servant. So many came that we were able to witness the selfless nature of brethren who when seeing that we were filled to capacity and there were women without seats graciously got up and offered their own. It was good to see that gallantry still has a place in the world.

OMSI was amazing. We took Tyler, Connor and Trent to see the museum (Trent being a first timer). It was funny because we had never been to a musuem together as a couple (the only other time was when I arranged for Brynn and I to go with Trent to Willamette University's art musuem, Trent acting as my beard) so Brynn didn't know that i'm a slowpoke when it comes to looking at things. Especially when most of the exhibits are interactive, I can spend ages in each section. So as the others ended up zipping through I was moving as slow as molasses. This obviously didn't sit well with Connor because as I was nearing the end of the second exhibit she ingeniously (I think having had seen this technique practiced with Karli and Bill) invoked the wife clause ("Brynn wants to see you") and off we went to the CSI exhibit. All in all it was a fantastic way to spend the day seeing ourselves do the weather on TV, making paper airplanes, flying into space in a Gemini capsule. I think we were there for four hours and I hadn't made it all over the museum.



One of the biggest rip offs was the State Fair. We each hadn't been for years personally because of bad experience working there with the carnies. Ten bucks to get in and no way we are going to pony up three to four dollars to get on the lamesauce rides, we ended up going back and forth up the aisles looking at people's wares and food. Ended up finding a new exhibit to the fair. It was a Sea Lion outreach program that held shows every day to educate people about sea lions and it featured two sea lions that had been rescued. The neat thing was that you could buy a ticket to get a kiss from the sea lions and sensing that this would be the one redeeming factor of our outing we each got a ticket. The kiss was so cold and wet but not as gross as you would think. Each dollar also went to funding the program and the sea lions themselves.