Christmas Ships

We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant on the Willamette River in Portland on Saturday night with a teacher-friend and her family. We tried to break our "curse" of inviting people to local events with us.....you might say we have a history of things going wrong when we invite friends to such events. (For example: The year we invited several families to the 100th anniversary of the Grand Floral Parade - it POURED...everyone was totally soaked and huddled under tarps! We've had similar incidents with the 4th of July, the Tulip Festival , and other events.)

Anyway, we went with the Tashima's and their kids to eat dinner and watch the ships. As we were arriving at the restaurant along the river, we got a phone call from our friends that the ships had already passed. We thought for sure that this was going to be another disaster. Did I forget to mention that the hostess at the Spaghetti Factory told us that the wait for seating was 2-2 1/2 hours! YIKES!! However, it all turned out great. Our table was ready in an hour, and the ships came back just as we were finishing dinner. Hooray for breaking our curse! So, now that we are apparently on a streak of good luck.....feel free to tag along on any of our future adventures.

Here's the kids waiting for a table at the restaurant and for the ships to return. Jourdan, Melody, Torin, and Julia by the tree. We all had a good time, and (bonus) it wasn't raining!

Jourdan and Julia thought it would be funny to take a picture of them "licking" the candy canes on the tree. I question whether it's funny or gross, but I'll post it anyway.
Julia admits while I am in the process of posting this picture that she indeed DID lick the candy cane. I am officially horrified and disgusted. This will bring a new use for the phrase "washing your mouth out with soap"!