It was one of those evenings that sticks in your memory for no good reason other than it was a lovely time. We had been to the Oregon zoo that afternoon for the first time with friends to enjoy the amazing Portland weather in March (stay tuned for future blog post featuring images from the zoo). The sun was out and it was PERFECT.  Instead of sitting in rush hour traffic (estimated to be over an hour) I made the executive decision that we’d stick around the Washington Park area and play.  If you’re not from the Portland area, Washington Park is HUGE… it makes up a tons of stuff in the NW quadrant: the Oregon Zoo, the Rose Garden, a huge children’s playground next to the Rose Garden, multiple sports fields and winding roads flocked with random parks/fields tucked here and there. It’s really quite amazing.
We took some photos in a nearby tiny field littered with the cutest yellow flowers (weeds) adjacent to the zoo parking lot, which turned out to be some of my most favorite images of Brady, because the colors are so brilliant and we were just having fun playing with nowhere to be.

So much of the time a photograph is about the memory associated with it, not just the execution of it.

His cheeks were rosy from playing at the zoo and he photographs so well in that chambray shirt so, all in all it was a great combo of ALL things.

We drove down some winding roads and found a random pull-off for a field/park that looked a bit private and the evening sun was bleeding through some of the trees, which gave it a nice effect. I made a short video of our time playing with sticks and doing little boy things like digging and running.  Every time I make one of these videos I can’t help but imagine myself watching these over and over when he’s a teenager, and then again in college, and getting married, etc…  NOTE: The original video contained still images as do all my videos, but since recently upgrading operating systems on my Mac there’s been a big hiccup in displaying images in videos – with little to no work around. I’m super sad and will continue to look into it! Until then, here’s a simple video without the lovely still images integrated.

While this evening was filled with lovely memories playing with my son, this was also the same evening that the trifecta of three crazy things descended upon me all within the same minute… As I realized I had received a parking ticket (from a ghost cop, b/c we were RIGHT by the car and never saw it happen), Brady revealed we clearly played too long b/c he had quasi pooped in his undies (which RARELY happens), and I simultaneously realize that we’d both stepped in dog poop.  It was a poopie situation 😉 .

Here are some favorite images from the evening: