Portland '08, part II

Back to the Portland trip. (Just scroll down if you missed part I. For those of you who are actually reading this. If there are any. Does anyone read this?)

So after the zoo, we headed over to the Jensen's house to see my sister Rebecca and her husband Jake and their four children, Mary, Eric, Scott and Laura. Jake manned the BBQ and made us a great dinner. I think it was pork loin or something? It was definitely pork, but I am not an officianado on the different cuts of meat, so just imagine something good and tasty.

After dinner, Rebecca and I left the menfolk to tend the children while we headed over to see my Aunt Betty and cousin Barbara. I hadn't seen Betty since my grandmother's funeral in 1999, so I was excited for the chance to visit with her for awhile. We had a nice visit--got to hear some good Betty stories and were entertained by the exchanges between Betty and Barbara. They're a fun pair.

Here's Betty and Barbara.

The next day we met up with Jensen's and went to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). I was born in OR and spent the first 8 years or so of my life there, so I had been to OMSI before, but not for many years. OMSI has changed locations since I was a child—they have a new fancy shmancy building, but at least one of the exhibits was the same, and it happened to be the exhibit that I had told my family about before our trip. It was...

The Invisible Woman! Duhn, duhn, duhn!

Check her out.

As a child, I always thought she was incredibly creepy. I still do. But my kids thought she was cool because she has a panel in front of her with buttons corresponding to her different parts and when you push the button that part of her body lights up. My kids especially enjoyed flashing the “headlights” on and off. Being from out of town, I didn’t bother to get embarrassed.

Also in this "body" exhibit:

That's Mary, Eric, McKenzie, Elise and Tyler. If only my children had listening capabilities of this proportion.

We also spent a good deal of our time in the ball room.

There's Eric, Scotty, Tyler, McKenzie, Elise and Nate with the camera.

Tyler and Mary at the launching table. The balls are sitting in this stretchy sack that you pull down and then let go to launch all the balls. It works considerably better with less balls.

We had a hard time coaxing the kids out of this room, especially Syd.

We also saw some dinosaurs.

Elise, McKenzie and Mary at the mercy of the ferocious Eric and Tyler.

And here's Scotty and Laura in the dinosaur dig pit. The "dirt" was little rubber-like gravelly pellet pieces. They did more dirt chucking than dirt digging, but they were having fun.

Tyler thought it would be fun to try to make an imprint of his face in the "dirt". He ended up accidentally inhaling while his face was down and got a few pellets in his nose. I told him he needed to be careful about inhaling that kind of stuff--he wouldn't want to snort it into his brain. That was not wise teasing on my part as Tyler spent much of the rest of the afternoon with a headache and a deep concern that he did, indeed, have dino pit pellets lodged in his brain.

Here's Eric, Sydney, Tyler and Elise.

But in the end, a good time was had by all. We hope to not let too much time pass before our next trek out to Jensen territory. Thanks for playing, Jensens!