To the Land of Endless Green

View of the Willamette Valley

The end of March Jude and I had the privilege of going to Oregon to visit my family for a week.  It was a wonderful trip, Jude got lots of chances to show off and get passed around to all the new faces. 

Jude with Uncle Stan, a dear family friend who has been a surrogate uncle to my
sister and I , and now to Jude.

This was the first time any of my friends and family, other than my parents and sister, had met Jude.  While we were there my parents had an open house for friends to come meet Jude and there was a dinner for the family that’s in the area to come over and spend some time with Jude.  

Jude and cousin Laura, she is about 6 months older.

Of course, they all thought he was wonderful and perfect, who would expect anything less from people fawning over a baby? J

Four generations

Jude with Aunt Elise

Jude with Grandpa

As always, it was refreshing to get a change a pace for a while, even though the trip was fairly busy.  Going back to “the land of endless green” never gets old, the dark cold rainy days, and the green, oh the marvelous green.  You have to understand if you have never been to Oregon (more specifically the Wilamette Valley), it is ALWAYS green.  The majority of plants and trees are some sort of evergreen that keep their leaves/ needles all winter and the remaining plants/ trees that are deciduous are covered in moss, so they are even green all winter.  That has been one of the hardest parts of living in Colorado the fact that instead of being endlessly green, the majority of the year everything is brown and looks dead. 

This trip I was able to experience all that an Oregon spring has to over, plus more!  On the 21^st when we headed toward the airport in Denver, it was sunny and 61 degrees.  On our way to parent’s house from the airport in Portland we were going 50 mph on the interstate because of heavy snow!  The rest of the trip varied from cold, dark and rainy to sunny cool spring days, it was wonderful!  

You may thing it is crazy, but I am totally in love with the rain, from the dark grey colds, the smell (yes rain does have a smell, especially if it hasn't rained in a while), the sound, and even the cold.  One of the sunny days (it might have actually been the only sunny day, it is Oregon after all J), we even took a trip to the Silver Creek Falls state park.  

Lodge at Silver Creek Falls, as you can see there was still quite a bit of snow here.

Grandpa, Mema (holding Jude), & Uncle Stan in front of the falls.

There we were truly able to experience the wonderful Oregon landscape, from the sloshy wet ground, to the evergreen forest that almost gives everything around it a green hue.  

Do you see the green hue? Granted this had a little extra green added in editing. 

I wasn't joking when I said even trees without leaves are green

Some people need to feel the vitamin D soak into their pores, I need to feel the cold misty air, and breathe in the fresh, damp, dust free air.

Since we left the day after Jude turned 3 months I didn’t have time to do an update post for before we left.  Now that I am almost three week behind, YIKES, I figured I would combine posts and do a little developmental post about Jude in this one.

Jude is now 3 ½ months old, in case you missed the math in the last paragraph J.  He really enjoys standing while you hold him and is quite good at it, and as much as he loves standing he HATES tummy time!  No joke he hates it.  He is getting to where he can lift his head for a while, when on his stomach, but after about 30 seconds (not exaggerating, promise!) he starts to fuss because he has had enough!  But, overall he is a happy baby he smiles constantly and is even starting to do a little squeal laugh, I can’t help but smile when he does it is so contagious!  

Sorry it's blurry, we were trying to get a picture of Jude smiling,
this was the closest we got.

He has been working on trying to get his fists in his mouth for a while, and in Oregon he mastered the “two finger suck” as I call it, though he does still like to attempt to put the whole fist in there.

Jude doing his "two finger suck" while he sleeps.

Jude you are such a precious boy and I love getting the privilege to watch you grow and change every day! What a wonderful gift God has given me in you!