Oregonian Visitors

My brother Nate, his partner Ashley, my nephew Everett, and my mom all came to visit for Nora's birthday!  After looking forward to their visit for months, I feel like it came and went before I even know what happened, but I am so glad they were able to make it out to see us and spend some extra time with Nora as she reached this big milestone.

Nate came to visit us when Nora was a few weeks old, and we've been to Oregon several times in the interim, but this was the first trip east for their family.  Ashley had never been out here before and this was the first cross-country trip for Everett.  They came for just about a week and stayed with Vickie in her new place, while my mom was able to get away for a long weekend and stayed with us. I had to work a few days while they were here, so Nora got to skip school to spend one day with Nate, Ashley, and Everett and one day with Oma.  And, of course, they were able to join us for Nora's family and friend parties over the weekend.  This made their visit a complete whirlwind for me, and I think that next time they come back, I will make exactly zero plans so we can just hang out and do whatever tourist type stuff they are interested in.  Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the chances I did have to enjoy some low-key hang out time with my family members while they were here.

I love getting to see my brother in his still fairly new role of Dad, and Everett is such a delight.  He is learning to crawl and wants to be standing all the time, so I suspect this was my last chance to see him as a baby before he develops into a walking, babbling little toddler.  Nate takes such obvious delight in him that it makes my heart smile to see the two of them together.  I would have chosen Ashley for a friend if I'd met her under different circumstances, so I enjoy having a chance to get to know her better with each visit.

Although Nora continued to be jealous of attention given to Everett, she is very interested in what he is doing.  For his part, Everett was awed by his big cousin and watched her every move attentively.  I hope that as Everett gets more mobile they will quickly become buddies.  I continue to be amazed and comforted by how well Nora retains understanding of who her relatives from my side are, even though she rarely gets to see most of them.  When Mom arrived, she was instantly greeted with excited shouts of "Oma!"  As soon as Nora woke up each morning of the visit (and for a few days afterwards), she would immediately request to "see Evitt" or "see Oma."  She also tried to use this as an excuse to avoid bedtime, claiming she "need to see Evitt," "need to see Ashee," "need to see Unka Nate," "Oma read tuh me."  Thanks to Vickie's re-arranging of her work schedule, she and Tres were also able to join us for most of our family time activities, so it really was a wonderful week.  It's rare that Vickie and I get to enjoy time with our family, and even more rare to do so in our own element, so I really tried to savor the opportunity to have them here.  They even helped me celebrate the approval of my dissertation prospectus!

We didn't take a whole lot of photos during the visit, but here are a few of us hanging out together.

On the last day of their visit (Nora's actual birthday!) I had my friend Ena of One Art Photography take some pictures of us as a whole group.  We are looking forward to get the full set back, so I may have some more to share in a few weeks, but here are some of my favorites of the sneak peak Ena posted to facebook!

I love these pictures because you can see how happy we all are to be together.  Thank you Nate, Ashley, Everett, and Mom for making the trip!  We loved seeing you guys and having you share in Nora's birthday festivities.  We are all lucky that you're our family and we can't wait to see you again.