Ladd Photos

Connor’s performance took us all around the globe this year. The kids dressed up in the cultural attire of their ancestors and sang songs from around the world.

It feels like just yesterday that we were dropping off our little “Bub” Gavin at kindergarten. But he’s not so little anymore and is ready to go conquer Oak Valley Middle School.

We couldn’t be more proud of Gavin. He got a Presidential Outstanding Academics award, a Reading Olympics Silver award (for reading 5000 pages and running 75 miles), and was discharged from Safety Patrol as a Staff Sergeant.

Most importantly, Gavin is a good kid with a big heart, who is trying his hardest everyday to grow into an amazing human.

We love you Gavin! Congratulations!

We spent the afternoon at Cooper Mountain west of Portland, having a nice picnic lunch and a hike. We all started off on a little looping hike, but when the path forked, my parents and little brother decided they had had enough of nature. My boys, wife, little sister, and I decided to do the big loop, taking in lots of beautiful vistas.

After getting settled in Newport for a 3-day trip, we wandered around the bayfront. Only a single sea lion was around to great us, the others must have been out eating lunch.

The fish were too smart this morning, eating our bait but leaving the hooks. Gavin caught a striped surfperch but he was the only lucky fisher of the day.

We spent the afternoon at Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. There was a very in-depth interpretive center covering the marine life and history of the lighthouse. The lighthouse wasn’t open to visitors, but we walked around it and then went down to Cobble Beach.

My boys and little sister started off the morning poking various sea creatures in the tide pool at Cobble Beach. We even saw a gumboot chiton… renamed the sea enchilada by my kids.

We spent the afternoon at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, petting more tide pool creatures and learning about the local ocean habitats.

The Rice Museum has the most amazing collection of minerals and petrified trees that I’ve ever seen. Connor is really into rocks and was in heaven.

Later in the day, back at my parent’s house, I took some pictures of all the grandkids together, including the newest addition: Baby Braelyn Stewart.

The game was a good one, with the Mariners leading for the first 4 innings but the Angels tied it up in the 5th. They got a rally going in the bottom of the 8th and the rookie Matt Thaiss hit his first MLB home run, which was a 3 run shot!

For our first adventure in Chicago, we rode the “L” to visit the Willis Tower, the second tallest building in the US.

We visited the 103rd floor SkyDeck twice, once during the daylight hours and once at night. Both times we braved the Ledge, a glass box sticking out from the side of the building.

Between our SkyDeck visits, we had famous Chicago Deep Dish pizza at Giordano’s and visited the Bean in Chicago’s Millennium Park.

After a morning walk though the park, and a surreal sculpture garden of legs, we arrived at the Chicago’s Field Museum.

The natural history museum is one of the world’s largest, but we did out best to see as much as possible. We could have easily spent two whole days there.

The highlight of our day was Sue, the most complete T-Rex fossil in the world. Last school year, Connor learned about her in class, so was super excited to meet her in person.

Today’s museum was the Adler Planetarium. We explored exhibits about telescopes, the planets, the Gemini and Apollo missions, and the formation of the universe.

The highlight of the trip was the two planetarium shows we watched, one about the Moon and another where we were “tourists” visiting different locations in the solar system. Our brains were crammed full of space science by the time we left.

We went from outer space yesterday to being under the sea today, with our visit to the Shedd Aquarium. We all got to pet string rays and sturgeons, saw an awesome beluga whale show, and looked at more kinds of fish than you could imagine.

I also discovered that it is very difficult to take pictures of fish in their tanks.

Guaranteed Rate Field is the 11th MLB stadium we have visited as a family. It was a nice stadium, good parking and well laid out.

We had a great game, the tickets were super cheap, even on the field level, and our seats were in the shade. The boys and I even got up on the giant video scoreboard during the “Kids Cam”!

Unfortunately, the White Sox didn’t have as good of game as we did. The Mets shut them out with a score of 4 to 0.

The boys getting their pitch speeds:

We spent the day at the MSI, one of the largest science museums in the world. It was filled an amazingly wide breadth of exhibits, everything from exhibits about weather, farming tech, genetics, cars, space, and even a German U-Boat.

During the early afternoon we visited Fermilab, to learn about particle physics, the experiments they are conducting, and visiting their bison herd.

We visited two new states with our late afternoon and evening, driving along the bottom of the lake through Indiana and into Michigan.

The boys got to stick their feet in Lake Michigan, which was about the temperature of the Pacific Ocean.