Uncle Dan's visit!

Warning: there are a ton of pictures in this post. In our family, Lisa is the great photo-documenter, but since she wasn't here I was determined to take a few pictures to remember this wonderful week. Thus wherever Dan and I went, I asked myself, "What would Lisa do if she were here?" and it seemed that just about every time the answer was, "She'd take a picture...or two...or fifteen." So, that's just what I did.

We were so lucky to have Dan come and visit us for the week and we had so much fun. I wish we all lived closer.

Dan was able to be here for the first home baseball game in the new stadium and it was fun to share a part of our baseball life with him for a few days. Although he could still stump me on quite a few baseball facts, I think he was impressed by my new baseball savvy :)



Of course we had to take him out to our favorite Eugene places to eat, which include Laughing Planet (sweet potato, plantain burritos), Pizza Reasearch Institute (pear, potato, pesto pizza and the ecclectic Chef's Special) and of course Prince Puckler's (banana brownie ice cream). Yum!
This was the last picture we got with Andrew and Dan before Andrew had to go out of town for the weekend. We missed him so much, but Amelia and I tried to continue showing Dan the best of Oregon.

While in Portland, we made a trip to the famous VooDoo Doughnuts and Dan enjoyed his doughnut with crushed Oreo, peanut butter and chocolate on top. Weird, yes. Yummy, also yes.

Dan also showed off his newly developed cooking skills by making these delectable pieces of chocolate heaven. You may guess he used cocoa powder to make these double chocolate cookies, but you'd be wrong. They get their chocolatey goodness from a whole bag of melted Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips, plus another bag thrown in there for chocolate crunch. Wow.


On Thursday we went to the Raptor Center in Eugene and saw the amazing birds there. My favorites are the bald eagles. I know why they are our National birds - they are huge and impressive. They weigh as much as Amelia does!


Saturday was a gorgeously sunny day - perfect for a visit to the coast! So we headed out to Florence and visited the Heceta Head Lighthouse - my favorite - and enjoyed the beach.

We also spent a day in Portland. Here we are at Mount Tabor.

Awesome view of Mount Hood from the top of Mount Tabor.

Amelia LOVED her Uncle Dan, and really who can blame her? He is thoughtful and fun, he can make her smile and he can deal with her when she's fussy, he is patient and intuitive, he's smart and sensitive, he's the best big brother I could ever ask for and he's a great, great Uncle.

We miss you already Dan!