I love Birthdays!! (and spring break and the Velasquez family :)

Last week was a blast! Wendy, Jose and the kids came up for part of their spring break. It was so much fun. I miss them a ton already. We went out all day on Saturday (the 19th) for Jose's birthday. We tried to go to the Temple that morning, but we found out that you don't even want to attempt going to the Portland Temple on the 1st Saturday of spring break. All the schools (College, High School, Elementary) throughout the entire state of Oregon have spring break on the same week. I am not sure why they do this exactly, but they do. It just meant for a whole lot of weddings and youth groups being at the temple. It was cool to see it so busy, but not so great for finding parking or doing a session. So we just drove around and looked at the temple for a little bit and decided to go off on our second adventure of the day - down town (I never get tired of going there :). Of course my pictures kind of stink (what else is new), but I am just happy I remembered to use my camera every now and then. We saw this cool pirate guy right out side our lunch spot. The boys really got a kick out of it. I thought he was pretty sweet myself.

We had lunch at this fun little place called Qdoba. Believe it or not, I had never heard of it before. It was awesome, the food was so good (thanks Wendy and Jose - We loved it!).

And of course we had to stop in at Powell's books. You can't come all the way to Portland without checking out one of the nations largest book stores, right?

Here we are at an out door Market (and of course I didn't get any pictures of the actual market - sometimes I really wonder wear my brain is). The market was great. They had lots of little jewelry shops and art, and clothes, and food, and soap... etc. It was something new to me and lots of fun. I got a cap, Nick got another.... whatever those are called that he is wearing in the picture... some kind of head covering :). Wendy got some cool soap and Jose got some awesome spices. I don't think Josh got anything there..... He did however get a great book at the bookstore that he read (and probably finished) while they were here. It was called.... "A Zombie Guide" or "A Guide to Zombies" or something like that. Whenever I went looking for him, he was always reading it. I hoped he liked it. We only had these two older boys with us that day. It was really neat getting to hang out with them too.

We were out so long that we went to dinner as well. We went to this fancy Mediterranean restaurant that was so good. I can't remember the name of it because ....... I forgot to take a picture of it. But, we are all in luck because I do remember where it is located. So if you come to visit and you want so great Mediterranean food, I can get you there.

Then we headed home for some Costco "All American Chocolate Cake." The Best chocolate cake in my opinion. It was fantastic. I love birthdays and I am so happy that Jose shared his with us.

I am not sure what was being said here, but I love the looks on these 3 faces. I know they were talking about that cake. I wish I knew what they were saying :). We love you Jose! Happy Birthday!