After my incessant whining about snow last week, it seems the Portland weather gods decided to throw us a little love in the form of a couple of sunny weekend days. I could take a moment now to whine about crazy allergies, but I’ll spare you that trauma and, instead share a few favourite photos from a full weekend.

Saturday began with optometrist appointments for the boys. It seems that, although Thomas inherited very few physical traits from his mother, he was lucky enough to receive the X chromosome  from me that carries the deuteranope type of color blindness. Thankfully it will only affect him if he decides to become an electrician or wants to drive a car in Romania. Here’s what Thomas sees.

While Kei was at the optometrist with the boys, I was lucky enough to take a quick Zumba class with my friend LeeAnn. No photos to share from that experience (you’re welcome) but I did learn a few things about myself:

• Even when a class is fun, 30 minutes will feel like three hours if you’re unfit.
• I am much more coordinated in 4/4 time than in 3/4 time.
• The attitude of the Zumba teacher is directly related to how much you will enjoy the class and want to go back for more. My only other Zumba experience involved a middle aged male instructor who counted our steps throughout the class and chose Hava Nagila for his soundtrack (not that I have anything against the song – just doesn’t belong in a Zumba class)
• On the subject of music, every song has it’s place, and for this one it’s in a Zumba class when everyone’s shaking their booty. (And that’s the ONLY place it belongs in my opinion).

The sun came out on Saturday afternoon, so I sat on the front porch with this…

While the boys did lots of this…

Thomas also had an opportunity to try out the new bike he received for Christmas. One of the things I miss most about Australia is the great weather at Christmas that allows you to ride your new bike immediately. Thomas only had to wait three months…

Is it just me or does Samuel look like a teenager in this next photo? Moving on…

On Sunday morning, Kei and I were treated to a decadent (toy) brunch at the Thomas and Samuel cafe. Hmmm…wooden sushi…delicious!

Here they are deciding on the menu.

After brunch (and major cleanup) we decided to head out for a family hike through Forest Park, during which we saw:

• About 1000 dogs – with Samuel telling me how much he hates dogs as each one passed by and not for the reasons you might think. He doesn’t like it when they lick him. Sometime being irresistible is a curse.
• About 1000 joggers
• A couple of hiking hipsters.
• A couple of hiking hippies – complete with the lingering odor of an organic smoking substance that we then had to try and explain delicately to our six year old.
• A man hiking while reading a book at the same time.

And so, during that 2 hour period, all Portland demographics were well and truly represented.

Oh, and I’m not sure what Thomas was doing here but I really like this photo for some reason.

Of course we stopped for a snack along the way before checking out a few birds at the Audubon society.

And then Samuel posed for me in his sunglasses that came courtesy of the optometrist the day before. LOVE this photo – such attitude.

The end.

Well, not really but that’s all the photos I was able to upload at 11pm last night due to the return of Man Men (welcome back – I missed you).

This week is Spring Break, which means very little for our family as we save up our vacation time for a trip to Australia that I’m just a teeny bit excited about. Still, it looks like we might finally have a chance to enjoy daylight saving hours and perhaps some sunshine.