Today Sophia and I went to Portland to spent a few hours with Grandpa John and his staff Sonja & Joe and a few other friends around the courthouse. It is Sonja's birthday so we had a lovely pizza lunch. Strangely, we had lunch in the courtroom, as you can see in the picture to the right. But it worked and was good pizza. Sonja's daughter was there today too 
and she was very cute and had lots of fun playing with Dad's clerk Joe. It's not every kid that thinks a courtroom is a big playground, but Anna certainly did today! I expect that in a few years Sophia will think Joe is fun to play with and will be pretty comfortable in her Grandpa John's courtroom.When Sophia and I first got there Dad was in trial so we stood in the back of the courtroom for a few minutes and watched him at work. It's always interesting to see him on the bench because he is so different when he is working, so serious and in charge. Then when he's off the bench he is what I think of as his normal goofball self. I expect, however, that those who appear before him in court may not think of him as much of a goofball.
The big dramatics of the day came as Sophia and I tried to make it home. We left downtown Portland at 3 and made it to downtown Salem to get Paul at about 4:20. That drive should have taken 50 minutes. Unfortunately, due to a screaming and crying baby we made three stops on the way down I-5. The first two times she was hungry and I'm not sure what was wrong the third time. The 3rd time she started screaming we were about 3 miles from an exit off the freeway and I was not going to pull over to the side of such a busy interstate so I had to keep going until I could exit. It was very sad to keep driving while she got more and more upset. I never did figure out what was wrong, but after about 10 minutes of me walking around a parking lot and holding her she was calm enough to go back into her carseat and get back to Salem. When we finally got home about 5 she was exhausted and spent a few hours sleeping. I'm pretty wiped too! I think tomorrow we'll just hang out here. Going places is lots of fun, but it can be pretty tiring!
