Embarrassing Moments

Remember the popularity of the water parks in the 80's? One sizzling hot day we drove our boys up to Federal Way to cool off at the water park. It was our first experience and we wanted to try everything. The guys talked me in to joining them on the Python Bonzai Giant Waterslide. Having issues with anything claustrophobic I timidly agreed. There were opportunities along the way to turn back ... but I wanted to share the experience with my family. At racing speeds I was hurled through tubes ... up, down, spiraled around and around. It was so disorienting and feelings of vertigo were surfacing in my brain. I was relieved when I finally hit the pool at the end of the ride. HOWEVER ... I could not determine if I was swimming up or down. I couldn't get my bearings and I was a bit panicked. Much to my surprise I heard a lifeguard saying, "Stand Up!" I was in four feet of water. A little EMBARRASSING! Oh, well ... one of those family memories that surfaces every so often around the dinner table. Every time I think about it I laugh ... and "laughter doeth good like medicine."

Pioneer Courthouse Square Bricks

While downtown on Christmas Eve Brian wanted to show Calleigh his brick.

Pioneer Courthouse Square was built in 1984 and my mom purchased bricks for our family as a gift in 1981. Matt was born in 1983 ...so he is the only family member without a brick on the Square. The bricks were permanently placed in alpha order by first name so our family is not together in one area ... there are 71,165 named bricks in the Square. Seems like each visit to downtown Portland we plan time to look for our bricks but without success.

While researching for this post I discovered a brick locator online. Wow! I guess it never occurred to me to look for a map on the internet! So far Brian is the only family member to find his brick ... when the weather is warmer we'll need to take our map and locate each of our bricks. Sounds like a fun spring outing!