This is a long posting.

Happy Easter! Here's Ezra proudly displaying the 14 Easter eggs he "found" at the Easter egg "hunt" we attended the day before we left Portland (Wednesday). I put the quotes because the eggs weren't really hidden. It was a small field with eggs every three feet. It was limited to only 2 and under year olds, so it was a real accomplishment if the kid could pick up the egg, much less find it. If they were hidden that would have been way too much work for us parents.

Here's a little video of Ezra scrambling for eggs...

Ah it feels good to have my computer, wireless internet, and a glass of train wine. What is train wine? Wine left over from our 30+ hour train ride. I didn't quite finish it last night when it was purchased for me by a man from Kenya who used my phone and payed me back with booze. He got Ezra a juice too. Unfortunately we had to abandon him mid sip due to Ezra's need to sleep.

Ezra made some friends on the train too. His favorite was Rory, a five year old who shared his tastes for football, shrieking, rough play, and drawing. I took the following short video of them deeply involved in creating their masterpieces during a lovely sunset. Ezra draws Mama, a balloon, and a boat as he is narrating:

Yes, the train ride was just fine, and has brought us to our current locale of Hackensack, MN. The ice on the lake went out today and we're talking about packing away Ezra's mittens. Did I really escape winter? At the beginning of April? I am really hoping this is not a cruel April Fool's joke. My recommendation is to just keep the spring ball rolling. No looking back!

We will sure miss our great Portland peeps. Here's a little assortment of recent shots of us in the land of Port...

Riding the worm at Peninsula Park!

Here's a little video of the "Car Park" indoor event at the park. I pulled those boys around in the wagon for at least a half an hour. I took over for Bat Boy and that was that.

Cruisin' round town. It's not sunny very often in Portland so we get confused.

At our March digs, Kristine's Killingsworth Spot. Ezra liked it there. Little chubby smile.



We went to see this matinee bluegrass band play a couple of times, and Ezra got his hands on a little guitar to play along. In the above video he thrashes it up.

Off to the Easter egg hunt in the tripler with the ladies. He likes it in the middle.
* * *

Then of course that trip to Santa Barbara to visit Aunt and Uncle must be reported. Many of these pictures were taken by Uncle Jeff. I hardly took any pictures the whole week because Jeff has a pretty itchy, clicky, talented finger. I admit it was nice to be off the hook for capturing everything all the time. Here's a smattering:

We got a little sunburned in the California sun. Jeff sure captures some nice moments : )

Santa Barbara has some very impressive parks. They almost compared in awesomeness to Ezra's pants.

He rode the carousel three times. Twice in a row and then once a few days later with friend Jim, who you will see shortly. He maintained a very low key facial expression, never bursting out with joy or exhibiting any sort of inclination that he was experiencing happiness. But he asked for more, so I assume he was just overwhelmed with loving it.

Out for breakfast I try to keep Ezra entertained until his pancake shows up.

Grandma's technique: spoonfuls of jam.

At the skate park Ezra was cooler than everyone, even the roller blade guy.

Havin' some candies at the seaside.

Ezra really wanted to achieve something with this ball...

and he did. Mission accomplished.

It's hard to catch an Ezra smile, which is why I am particularly impressed with this one:

A wallet size of that one for everybody!

Clearly I took that one. There's Jeff. I had to get a full shot of that balloon! It lasted about 20 minutes. Ezra likes to pop balloons by biting them.

The fantastic Jimmy came to town from Los Angelos and even let Ezra share his super deluxe sundae. Actually Ezra swiped his spoon and good luck getting it back.

That cup is as big as Ezra's head!

I packed up all of our belongings for the move to Minnesota, and had forgotten to keep myself out a pair of socks, so I had to get a couple from the mis-matched bag. The stripey one with the individual toes is apparently from Japan. It was a little strange to have my toes separated from one another like that, but I got used to it about 20 hours later, somewhere in Montana.

* * *

I wonder if anyone made it to the end of this one... sure was a doozy. In fact I started this posting yesterday but fell asleep before I could finish it. Hopefully you're awake.. and having a great Sunday! More from Minnesota soon...