The best dinner EVER!!!

And it wasn't even because of the food!!  Around 4pm today my sister called asking what we were doing tonight.  Andy is in Bend so I thought she was just being a thoughtful sister.  Little did I know she was thinking of flying down to Portland!  For dinner!  She lives in Seattle!  It was awesome.  After checking on some mice (she's a smart scientist, you know) she high-tailed it to the airport to catch a 5:30pm flight.  Unfortunately just before take-off they had to deplane everyone for a repair.  When they still hadn't re-boarded at 6, I thought she might bag the plan.  I would have understood.  The last flight back to Seattle was at 9:20pm, so we were closing in on minimal visit time.  But, with a quick flash of her "I fly more than the pilot" badge, they booked her a seat on the 6:30pm flight.  And apparently the pilot caught wind of who was on board because the usual 50 minute flight took only 30.  Awesome.  So we picked her up and drove to a nearby Red Robin and then walked around to a few shops.  The girls were HYPER!  Mostly because they were so thrilled to see their Aunt Alli (I kept it a surprise until we picked her up) and maybe a little because they got chocolate syrup to drink with dinner.  There might have been a little milk in with it, but not much.  This is the best picture I got of the evening.  Most of the pictures had Abby clinging to Alli's leg and Ashley crawling up her back.  They couldn't get close enough.  Charlie was just enjoying the necessity of being carried. 

Thanks, Alli for a great evening!  The girls want to know if you'll come back tomorrow.  :)

Other fun pics

Here are a couple fun pictures from random adventures.  I took the kids on a beach trip and we stopped at Camp 18 on the way to split a cinnamon roll.  If you are in Oregon and you've never been to Camp 18, you need to go today.  And get the cinnamon roll.  It's amazing.  Here is a picture of the girls once it arrived.  Abby is in her "look silly for the camera" phase.  It's *so* cute.  (enter sarcasm)

Here is Ashley cutting the cinnamon roll.  Yikes.

And Abby pretending she was going to eat that glob of butter that came on top.  She actually would have eaten it, but we let her lick the plate instead.

In an unrelated event, this is what Abby did to herself with the stickers. 

Unfortunately (for her), she used Andy's sticky tape as well which hurts when you pull it off.  She decided the inconvenience of not being able to talk was better than the pain of removing the stickers for a good 10 minutes.  After that, she decided she was losing precious talk time and bit the dust.  I don't think it hurt as bad as she thought it would, but unfortunately probably bad enough that she won't try it again. 

We're getting closer!!

Well, I wouldn't go so far to say that Charlie is walking, but he has taken some steps, proving that the potential is hidden somewhere inside.  Ashley was dancing with him at church the other night and I looked down to see him walking over to her!?!?!  Ashley was as shocked as I was.  Andy wasn't there, so as soon as I got home I tried to capture it on video.  The girls find this very exciting and LOVE to *help* him walk.  This is the best I got.  (can you blame him?)

Charlie is very aware that he is getting lots of extra attention for this.  At this point, he will only walk for food.  If you hold a piece of food out, he will walk over to you, holding his mouth open the whole time.  I've tried since to video him walking (no food in hand) and this is all I get:

He's got some work to do to live up to his t-shirt.  (it says "speedy")