Almost Famous

On Tuesday, I received a thrilling phone call. I had been chosen to be an extra on the show Portlandia. You can imagine my excitement! A month or so before, I had sent in a picture after I had heard that they were looking for extras, but figured I'd be one of thousands doing the same and my chances were slim. But no - they wanted me! The frantic search for a babysitter began and I finally found someone on Wednesday afternoon, as I was expected on set on Thursday morning. I had sent my measurements to the wardrobe department and had confirmed things with the casting intern. I would sit and wait for my location and call time to be emailed to me late Wednesday evening.

The email never came. I was up until 1am, waiting to find out what time I needed to be up and out the door. I got up at 5am to check again. No email. Up again at 6am. No email. I gave up. Obviously, something had happened and I was not going to be spending the morning as I had expected. I received a text message at 7am from the casting director, asking if I was one of the people who didn't get an email. Yep, that would be me. He asked if I would be able to make it in 30 minutes if he quickly sent me the location info. Even if I had been dressed and ready to hop in my car at THAT moment (which I was not - I was in bed in my PJs), it was going to take me more than 30 minutes to make it into Portland during rush hour. I had to say no.

While it was a mistake on their end and not mine, I still felt frustrated and disappointed. I had really been looking forward to this very different experience, not to mention potentially meeting some very cool actors. But it wasn't going to change anything being frustrated about it, so I assume that what was supposed to happen, happened. Maybe I would have gotten into a car accident, or my purse would have been stolen while I was on set, or maybe something would have happened with the boys while they were with their babysitter. The on-set experience would have been fun, but oh well. There's always the chance they'll ask again since it was their fault, but even if they don't, the fact that they thought I looked Portland-enough to be on the show is awesome in itself.

Even if I didn't end up (sort of) famous, the boys made it this week. About two years after a "photo shoot" at the zoo with their Uncle Kevin during his internship, the boys' picture made it to the Oregon Zoo website. You can check it out here: West African Pygmy Goats.

You can just call us the photogenic, show biz Minthornes. :^)

A Moment

I would like to take a moment to ask my readers to keep some very dear friends of mine in prayer today. My friends, Liz and Rusty, lost their dad, Jerry Sugden, this morning. He went to Jesus peacefully in his sleep, but I know we all feel that it was way too soon. I have known their family well since I was very little - long enough that I can't remember ever NOT knowing them. I know their family so well and for so long, that I truly feel as though I've lost a member of my own family. My memories of him are filled with joy. He was a great support whenever I was struggling, and I struggled much as a teenager. I will never forget him taking me aside and telling me that he was proud to watch me grow from a tiny little girl into a beautiful adult. It was an honor to have him be proud of me.

I know the whole family's pain and sense of loss is great today. They've lost a wonderful husband, father, and grandfather. Heaven received a wonderful addition today.

As an additional prayer request, please keep Liz, her husband, and their new baby in prayer as they need to quickly obtain a passport for the baby and make emergency international travel arrangements, as they are living abroad at the moment.

Tumble Bugs

As much as it might simplify our schedules to have Aiden and Nathan choose one particular activity to get involved with and stay with, they tend to like to hop around and try everything once. Since they're still quite young, I don't mind this so much. This is where the parks and rec dept comes in very handy. Right now, they're taking a trampoline and tumbling class. Aiden loves it. Nathan refuses to participate for the first 30 minutes of class. This is typical of Nathan, but since he does eventually participate, we still sign him up for things. He'll probably grow out of it - he's just scared of everything for now.

Thankfully their classes are on the same afternoon, back to back. Nathan goes first.

There he is. Just sitting. Away from the rest of the children. Ugh.

Finally, one of the instructors tried talking him into actually doing something.

Then he just kind of made Nathan sit down and he flipped him over. And guess what? Nathan loved it. Go figure! But he still refused to do anything for the first 30 minutes of the following week's class.

Next class is Aiden's. Aiden throws himself into anything and everything full force. No fear, no anxiety. He goes into every activity with the assumption that it WILL be the most fun he's ever had. What a fantastic way of living life!

Look at all that joy and happiness on his face! And this was only two minutes into class!

Aiden certainly wasn't afraid to do everything on his own. No instructor needed!

Yep, that's Aiden standing on his hands. Again, no instructor needed.

And here's Aiden gleefully tossing himself through the air down the 40 ft trampoline. Hopefully this video works for all of you - I realized that I've never actually tried to upload a video to the blog before!

So what can I say? I have two very different children. But each activity will benefit both of them in their own way, I'm sure. Next up....another round of swimming classes!

Oneonta, Horsetail, and Scaring New Yorkers

Well, scaring one New Yorker anyway. Pardon the lack of blogging over the past week. Our friend Charlie has been in town from New York all week and we've been having lots of Oregonian-type fun with him. Charlie and John went to UPenn together and since I spent a great deal of time with the theatre crowd at UPenn, I got to know Charlie as well. He has visited us every July for the past three years and we look forward to it every year.

This year, we decided to up our activities a little bit and take him on a serious Oregon hike. He had never been hiking before, so naturally we chose a nearly 5 mile hike to wear him out for his time. We were going to hike up Oneonta Gorge (John's favorite hike), but the weather decided to cool down significantly and we decided that it just wasn't warm enough to go hiking up a creek where we would get quite soaked. Instead, we hiked up to Triple Falls and all around that way, then over to Ponytail Falls and down to Horsetail Falls. We ended the day with devouring Thai food at our favorite Thai restaurant in Lake Oswego.

The triple falls were quite pretty. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you'll see that there were people having a little snack on the edge of the falls! My acrophobia says a big NO THANK YOU.

If you look closely, you can see Oneonta Gorge in the middle where we would have hiked if it had been about 15-20 degrees warmer.

Mmmm, pretty. This is where we freaked Charlie out. Apparently New Yorkers aren't accustomed to standing on edges of cliffs to take pictures. And I thought I was afraid of heights!

The view from behind Ponytail Falls. 

We did take him over the Multnomah Falls to see it, but the place was again packed to the gills. We referred to it as the Disneyland of the Gorge. Charlie said it was impressive, but he definitely preferred the more hidden falls.

Later in the week, we had our annual dinner with Charlie and the boys (they were at grandma and grandpa's for the hike) at McMenamins Imbrie Hall, where we fill ourselves with yummy food and drink and then let the boys climb the crab apple trees towards the back of the property. The boys LOVE Charlie.

We've decided that we need to up the ante next year and take him target shooting. He also hasn't seen the Oregon Coast yet, so that's another activity that we must plan on. Having Charlie visit gives us the opportunity to see our beautiful state like a visitor might. But we also enjoy discussing our east coast living experience and comparing it to here - a conversation that we can really only have with an east-coaster. At some point, we're going to have to return all the visits and haul the family out to New York!