Here are a few pictures from the two weekends that we spent in Junction City, Oregon getting to know our newest kiddo, Tommy Lee. Aaron and I went alone the first weekend. I found the cutest little cottage for us to stay the three days in. Cheaper & nicer than the local motels too. We took Tommy to a bird refuge in Eugene. It was so neat to see so many kinds of birds. The snow owl, bald and golden eagles were my favorite. The the following weekend Dawson and Justin went with us back to Junction City. We spent five days this trip. At the last minute we had to change our over night lodging as the cute little cottage was going to be able to be rented for a couple of months. For the same price we got a two bedroom house. To not confuse Tommy that it wasn't our actual house we referred to the house as the 'pink motel.' Not a pink color fan but the Victorian house looked really neat being painted pink & gray. We were hardly out of Junction City heading home before Tommy started asking, "Are we there?" "How many more seconds?" "How much longer?" etc. etc. We actually had good roads all the way home until we got to our last mountain pass to cross. It was snowing and blowing very hard. Tommy says, "WHAT IS THAT?!" as he sees it snowing outside the front window of Aaron's pickup.

New Nephew

The latest member of the Hansen family made his arrival on February 22nd. Zane Lee Hansen is my brother's son. Thankfully Bo was home on leave from Iraq for his birth. The sad part was that he was only able to be with his new son for two days before he had to go back to the sand box.

This past Tuesday was the day that my brother and his battalion were deployed. Bo will leave in 40 days to go to Iraq or Afghanistan. Until then the soldiers are in training in Mississippi. It was the hardest thing to do is say good-bye to my little brother as I won't see him until at least October 2011. Even harder to see my parents and my brothers family have to say good-bye. My brother won't even be here for the birth of his first child. Guess that this Auntie will have to spoil the baby for the both of us =) Here are a few of the pictures from such an honorable experience that the kids and I got to attend.