April

Springtime is my favorite time of year. The pace of life picks up tremendously for we Egberts in the springtime. Our P-Patch needs tending and planting and weeding. Kids start lining up for tours at the arboretum. Rob starts playing frisbee like a maniac (he's playing on two teams that play their games back to back!).

Today was a full day- Jasper and I walked down into Wallingford to go to our favorite cafe that has a big playroom for kids, played for an hour, hussled home to hop in the car, picked up our friends Max and Sarah, drove up to Shoreline to have a playdate with Andy and Anza, came home to take a nap, and we will be out the door to watch Rob play frisbee in an hour.

We got home from Oregon on Monday. We had such a fun trip! Jasper is such a fabulous little traveler. He just sat in the back seat and read books the whole drive down!

Just kidding. He didn't really, but he did travel really well. We went down the weekend before to watch our church's semi- annual General Conference with my folks. Rob could only stay for two days, which was a bummer. On Saturday, we drove out to the coast to hike Drift Creek. I'll be doing a tour there for the Oregon Academy of Family Physicians Conference in about a month, so I wanted to hike it and familiarize myself with the flora and ecology of the region. It was beautiful! The highlight of the hike is this 100ft suspension bridge that overlooks some amazing waterfalls. Here are some photos from Drift Creek:

Every year, my mom is in charge of putting on a rather large conference for women in our church. It's open to the public and there are hundreds of women from Corvallis and the surrounding area who go. This year, my mom got Chieko Okazaki to be the keynote speaker. My mom had so much stuff to do to get ready for the conference, so it was nice to be home and able to give her a hand. It's so different now, though, with a kid. Sometimes I felt like Jasper and I were more in the way than helping out, but we did what we could do.

I also got to hang out with Caroline and Tommy, which was so fun!! Tommy is adorable. I told Caroline that he's competing for my affection as cutest baby boy. I just love Caroline so much. She and I have so much that we share, from our ideas about motherhood, to our love for guitars and music, to our concerns about the environment and trying in our small may to help by cloth diapering, to our beliefs and faith. The list goes on. It's so special to have a best friend like her. I love her like a sister, which make our little Jasper and Tommy practically cousins.

Even when my mom is at her busiest, she always find time to play and have fun with me. We had a great time playing scrabble almost every night. I finally beat her the last night! We went to wildcat park and took a couple of nice strolls too.

On Thursday, Chieko flew into Salem and we took her to the Oregon Coast Aqaurium that afternoon. Here are some photos:

The conference was really great. I went to a class called "Relax and Revitalize" taught by a woman who has taught yoga for 17 years. She taught us how to do simple relaxation techniques throughout the day to help you feel less anxiety and stress. It was a really well put together and presented class. Chieko was an amazing speaker. She has so much to share from all her experiences throughout her life. I'm so glad I was able to hear her speak and spend sometime with my mom and dad. Jasper just loves his Tutu and Gumpa so much. They are so wonderful to him. My dad really spent some good time with Jasper, put him to bed two of the nights and babysat him while I was at the conference. I think Jasper got pretty attached to both of them and Pepper. The first couple days back were pretty tough for him and he seemed to be missing good old Oregon.