Happy 150th Birthday, Oregon

I took the whole family to the capitol for a huge birthday party for Oregon that the state was hosting. There were free hot dogs, soda, Kettle chips, Umpqua ice cream, and even birthday cake (if you were willing to wait in line for 30 minutes). I normally don't like big gatherings of people, but I feel a strong bond with Oregon and wanted to help celebrate the birth of the place I truly love.

We made it inside the capital to the rotunda and had (accidentally) front row seats to hear a choir (West Salem High School, I believe) sing Oregon, My Oregon. Even though I knew this was our state song, I can't recall ever hearing it sung before. And even more surprisingly, I shed small tears of joy at hearing the song--I had no idea I would get so emotional. The boys sat very quietly for the two songs the choir sung, and then we took off--good luck keeping them there and content to hear boring speeches from nameless politicians (at least from A-ron and The Word's perspective).

So how did we convince the boys to want to attend the event? First it was the idea that they might receive a kid's gift bag (but we weren't one of the first 500 to make it). That wasn't of much interest, but then I told them that we could go inside the blast doors at the capitol building. Last spring we walked around the capitol grounds, but the actual capitol was closed, and we pretended that the doors were like blast doors from Star Wars. Whatever works . . .

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