Kayden's blessing & Beattie fam visit!

Whew! What a whirlwind..... Last Saturday the Beattie fam arrived! Sugar Mama, Bwana, and Aunt Poots! For those of you who are suddenly confused, that would be Zach's mom Vicki, his dad Todd, and youngest sister Kelsey. Older brother Jace (who has yet to acquire a strange nickname) also came down for Kayden's blessing. It was great! My parents and younger brother were here, and Zach gave Kayden a really beautiful blessing. I am so grateful for my husband and the fact that he is a worthy priesthood holder! The thing that stuck out to me from the blessing the most, is that he blessed Kayden to be a wonderful and caring friend to those around him. I think that is so important, especially in these days when the world has become so self-centered.
The Beatties stayed for a few days after, and what fun we had! Keegan absolutely LOVED having them here, especially his Bwana. Keegan is obsessed with firemen and all things related to them, so he was ecstatic when Bwana (who is a fire captain in Idaho Falls) brought him a REAL HELMET with his name on it! It even still smells like smoke.... Bwana also brought him a stash of fireman stickers and a smaller plastic helmet that Keegan would wear to bed if I didn't make him take it off!
We took them out to Tillamook and visited the cheese factory (mmm, such good ice cream!) and went to the Air Museum and saw some really neat WW2 airplanes. The museum is in this HUGE hangar that used to hold blimps that were used to search for enemy submarines off the coast. I think you could fit 11 football fields inside of it. It was really huge!
We also went down to the waterfront in Portland to show the fam Zach's school at the Center for Health and Healing. We road the tram up to the OHSU main campus and checked out the sky bridge before heading to OMSI to pick up tickets for BODY WORLDS. Body Worlds is this interesting display of bodies (duh). It is a display of people who have donated their bodies to science after their death. Their bodies are put through a process called "plastination" where basically the bodies are submersed in a resin and turned into a plastic. It preserves everything in the body perfectly, and then while it is still pliable, they pose the bodies in different positions. It was interesting to see all the bones, muscles, arteries, veins, etc. I even saw something that made me think of Mom... they had a knee destroyed by arthritis on display!
Well, we had a great time with the Beatties here, and we were really sad to see them go! We wish they could have stayed a little longer, but they headed up to Seattle to visit Jace - who I hear is taking them to a Mariners game!Thankfully now our lives will slow down some, at least in the category of "playing host and hostess." I'm posting a couple of slideshows of our adventures, hopefully they work and everyone enjoys them. OH and HOORAY FOR KRISTEN who FINALLY had baby Jack!! We are happy he finally made his appearance!