Portland Visit!

Upon my arrival back to Spokane, I was quickly told that I have not been keeping up my blog to the standard of those viewing. So, here I am. Sitting on my bed, in R apartment, listening to music with my bestie. While I'm not exactly sure where I last left off, I do have an exciting weekend to write about!

After helping pack and prepare my girls for their week vacation to Canada in a motorhome, I began my week long vacation from running cattle and playing mermaid. The sun was shining so I thought it was only appropriate to spend a little R&R time by our pool, with old housemates from both the corner and better houses.

By Friday, I was all sunned up and ready to begin my journey to the 503 to visit team Baylis. After a quite pleasant drive through the Columbia Gorge, I was met 30 miles outside of Portland with the reminder of city life. Having lived in Spokane for four years now, I am always reminded of real city traffic just about after Gresham. So, after going 20 mph in a 65 zone for about 25 minutes, I arrived into Torreyview, and was greeted by Dad himself, grooming the front yard. A quick hello to Charley Baylis was quite necessary before Dad and I hopped in BABS (dad's car) and took a journey to Costco. Now after almost getting kicked out of QFC (our local market in PDX) on my last journey home, we weren't sure what fellow shoppers of Costco on a hot, Friday afternoon would encounter. We did pretty well until we passed the Smoothie machine sample when dad found it necessary to shout "WHAT is this? the country FAIR?????" After many laughs we found ourselves in the check out lane, with more alcohol and meat than anyone may need.

Saturday was the big day. Now that A.J and I are both graduated, it was time for a little Torreyview lovin party time. Now anyone who doesn't know my neighborhood needs to know that the elite group of us who hang out, have been together for 20 years, in fact Team Baylis is celebrating our anniversary of keeping Portland weird this recent July. Anyways, our neighborhood is wild and we are family. So, Saturday consisted of cleaning, cooking, and shopping for the party on Sunday.

The party was a hit, spent some wonderful time with neighbors and family, even Aunt Dorie (84) was able to make it. Torreyview was successful in our consumption of all our costco purchases... some more than others... :)

Monday Mom day.
Mom had to take care of some things for a few clients on Monday, so we went into the travel agency for a few hours. Now, I have grown up with that being mom's work, since she quit nursing a few years after we moved here. However, when I walked into the agency kitchen (where there was always licorice present during my childhood) I did not expect to find a picture frame collage which I was present in. My mom's boss and I are the same age and have grown up together. When ever I go home, I am amazed how many communities I am a part of and have grown up in. Anyways, after mom got her work done, we headed over to our favorite French bakery in Lake oswego for lunch, followed by a favorite place of mine: the Columbia Sportswear outlet, where I have without fault, bought a jacket the last 4 visits. By 7 pm, team Baylis was reunited back at home, and after much deliberation, decided we wanted sushi for dinner, so we found ourselves, in our favorite booth, at marinepolis, where a majority of the sushi chefs speak Spanish. Gotta love Beaverton ;)

Today, was my last day home. It was a quick weekend, but well worth it. I have a wonderful family and I am so blessed by the relationships I have with each of them. We ended my time by meeting dad between meetings, for lunch at an old, restored "haunted" theater for lunch.

I love you team Baylis.

Thursday, I return to the farm.

Until then,
E