Well this weekend was another fun one and it's that much better because we have another day to have fun too, Memorial Day!
Dave and I apparently can't get enough of Saturday's Market. Yesterday was another nice day and we were planning on going up to Portland to this HUGE book store called Powells, (wow, it literally takes up a whole block) and this time Mark, Tracee and my father in law George came with us, so we figured we could stop at the market again for lunch. It was a lot busier than the last time we were there but it was still a lot of fun, and still all those eclectic people! Dave and I ate theses Gyros with lamb and chicken....mmmmm sooo good! We stayed for a couple of hours enjoying the music of all the bands playing and there was this one guy who played the harmonica and he was awesome!
So after we went to Saturday's market, and Powell's books we decided to go and see the new Indiana Jones Movie!!......uh, it was a bit weird, and hoaky! I mean aliens? really? What happened to all the religious story lines? George Lucas is getting to be a bit weird. I mean I didn't hate the movie, but I expected more out of it. For those of you who have seen it, I am interested in what you thought. There were good parts, and let's just say today I was cleaning grapes that had fallen under the table and I turned one over and a TON of ants came crawling out of it and I thought they were gonna eat me! :) Anyway I would give it 3 out of 5 stars, and that's generous.
Today we celebrated my brother in law Alan and Jeff's birthdays! Yes...more birthday's! It's been a big month for birthdays. It was fun and as if the house wasn't full enough, Kristin and Alan came for dinner with their four kids. But we had a great time eating ribs, steak fries (from the frydaddy of course), seven layer salad, and chicken. And of course we had to roast marshmallows and make smores over the fire from the grill! It was the first time I have used a Reese's peanut butter cup instead of hersheys...it was yummy!
As for tomorrow I was hoping to go to the beach but I don't think the weather will be good enough, but I'm sure we'll think of something fun. Happy Memorial Day, and thanks to all those who have sacrificed for our country and who are fighting in the war now! Peace out!

Birthday Weekend

What a fun weekend it has been, and what better way to top it off than to celebrate Dave's grandmother's 87th birthday!! She is such an amazing lady. If I ever live to be 87 years old, I don't think I would ever look as good as she does. Her name is Harriet Greenwell and she is the cutest grandma. I remember when I married Dave I thought how excited I was to finally have a Grandma again! I never knew my mom's mom or my dad's mom (unfortunately) but I did know my Great Grandmother Leslie Nadine Mcaphee Dickson who was my mom's grandma, but only for a very short time. I think I was four or five when she died so the memories are few. There were however a couple of other ladies that came and went (through divorce) but I didn't know them much either. So needless to say I was very excited at the prospect of grandparents again (especially a grandma) and Harriet is the bee's knees! She is hilarious and still has her quit wit at her ripe old age. Happy Birthday Harriet!
So we brought her over for dinner and then enjoyed one of Nancy's famous turkey/mashed potatoes/magic peas/awesome sausage dressing that everyone fights over dinners that was so fabulous. We were saying how excited we all are when we get to have that dinner and how it can't possibly get any better, but somehow Nancy outdoes herself and makes it better. It was yummy....Then we hung out outside in the nice weather enjoying each other's company and talked for a couple of hours. There are just some things Samantha does that make me realize she is really my daughter. For dessert we had chocolate cake and I gave her a couple bites of mine. Well I couldn't finish mine (only because I ate so much at dinner) and I put it behind me. Well my camera was to the right side of me and Samantha crawls over there like she's interested in the camera. So I get distracted with talking and a minute later I look over to see if she's still playing with my camera and she wasn't there. She had creeped behind me and was stuffing her face with the rest of the chocolate cake! She is a smart girl and definitely related to the Brewster side! :)
So since I like to take a lot of pictures and I like my family to see pics of Sammy I am becoming slide show happy because it's the easiest way to post a bunch of pictures together, so here's another slideshow for you!
This whole weekend was full of birthdays. Thursday was Lacey's birthday, Friday was Mark's, yesterday was my niece Ella's, and today was Harriets. And here I thought July was a busy month for birthdays! Anyway I ate entirely too much cake, so maybe it's a good thing it was all over the weekend, because starting tomorrow I will have to run every single day this week.

Fun Saturday

First of all I can't tell you how long it took me to figure out how to get a stupid slideshow going on my blog so that I could post pictures from today. But Dave helped me figure it out. I wanted to post a bunch of the pictures we took up the Santiam River today because we had so much fun.
So it was another very hot day and we decided that we didn't want to suffer through that without eing close to water so we packed up and took a beautiful drive up to the Santiam River which is just 25 miles out of Salem so not too far. Wow was it worth it. We had so much fun. Although since it's still early in the year there was so much run off from the snow so the current was so fast! And the water was freezing cold! But after some hiking we found a good spot away from the fast current and under some trees that we could play in. It was perfect! For the first hour it was mostly squirting each other with squirt guns and then finally I decided it was hot enough to endure the freezing water that we all needed to dunk ourselves. Wow did that take your breath away but it felt so good after all that heat. We were all brave enough to dunk ourselves under, even all the little kiddies (with the exception of Sam of course) but she sure had fun playing with her papa in the dirt which she thought tasted good too. The moment we put her down by the water to play in her cute new swimsuit, the first thing she did was to grab the dirt/sand and stick it in her mouth! Dave is excited to change her next diaper :) She is such an outdoor baby! She could have stayed out there all day if she wanted to, and the cold water didn't bother her too much either. We ended up going with Dave's dad George, his sister Tracee and his other sister Kristin and her husband Alan with their four kids Adam, Natalie, Ryan, and Jake. They were hilarious and so much fun. It was definitely a great beginning to what I'm sure will be a fun-filled summer!
Also today was my niece Ella's 2nd birthday. We were sad that we couldn't be there to celebrate it with her but wish her a very happy birthday! We love you Ella!

HOT MESS!

Holy Cow is it hot today! I bet all of you on the West Coast are feeling the same way, but I'm in Oregon. The place where people don't even have central air because they don't need it. The place where at any moment it can start raining! Right now in the middle of the day it is 97 degrees! We have every single fan available running at full speed and one of the nice things about living in the basement is that it is always cooler down there, so that's where we've been spending a lot of our time. And, I wasn't really expecting this kind of heat this early yet. I mean it's only the middle of May. I am used to this in Utah, but I thought here I would get a break!
So we decided that since it's going to be hot tomorrow too we are going to a place that has a lot of water! We first thought about the beach but figured it would be really really busy and I've seen it before. I wanted to go somewhere I hadn't been, so we are going to go to a place called the Little Northfork on the Santiam River. Sounds a lot of fun! And a lot cooler. I went and bought Samantha a cute new swimsuit at Old Navy and a floating device at Target so we are set. It will be the first time she's ever been swimming so we are excited!

All Things Stephanie Meyer

So I am really excited for this Christmas because as all you Stephanie Meyer fans know, the movie "Twilight" comes out December 12th. Well for those of you who just can't wait to see the movie, which I can't, they finally posted a preview for it! It looks very exciting. Ok so Edward isn't as big and bulky as I had hoped but I think he is very good looking, and they cast the part of Bella perfectly as well. After watching the trailer it makes me want to drive the 3 hours up/or down the road so I can watch them film it! For those who want to watch it just go to IMDB.com and type in Twilight! It's only 60 seconds long but it gets you excited!
The other exciting thing about Stephanie Meyer is that last week I was at Costco and noticed she has a new book out called "The Host." Of course I snatched it up right there, although I haven't been able to start reading it yet. It's a different story from the Twilight books but it looks as interesting just from the cover of the book. I'm not sure how long it's been out but it looks new and I'm excited to read it. So you Stephanie Meyer fans should read it too. Once I start reading it, I'll let you know how it is! Of course if it's anything as catching as her Twilight books I'm sure I'll love it.

Happy Mom's Day!

Well of course today was Mother's Day and it was the first time I got to celebrate it as an actual mother. I have learned so much since becoming a mom and I only appreciate my own mother that much more. I don't know how all you ladies with more than one kid do it! I have a hard enough time with one, but she actually is a really good baby just very busy. She is to the point now where she is really starting to develop a personality and wants to get into everything and put it in her mouth. She just started climbing the stairs too! But she is so much fun. I can distinguish between her cries of hunger and when she's happy. If she's hungry she goes "nanananananahhh!" and if she's happy she goes "dahdahdah!" It's pretty funny.
But I have really enjoyed spending these last almost 10 months with her. I am so blessed to be able to stay home with her everyday. I love spending time with her and teaching her new things. She teaches me new things everyday too (sometimes a lot of patience :) But I am truly blessed and am grateful to Dave letting me stay home with her.
Along with the joys of being a mother to Samantha I am very grateful for my own mother. I miss seeing her all the time and getting to spend time with her. She is a wonderful mother and has taught me many life lessons. She is beautiful, caring, and is always looking out for her kids, and grandkids! I love you Mom and hope you enjoy your scrapbook. Happy Mother's Day!

Saturday Fun

Well today finally after three Saturday's here, Dave has finally taken me to Saturday's Market up in Portland. Granted, the last few Saturday's didn't work out, but today was a great day to go. We were planning on going up anyway because we wanted to drive around Portland and try to find an apartment somewhere downtown to live in and since we would already be there, we might as well go to the Market as well.
We had a lot of fun up there! I was worried that we would get rained on the whole time, but it was just overcast so we were fine. I just love how eclectic Oregon is. There were soooo many different types of people there but granted there were a lot of hippy types with the dreadlocks wearing crazy clothes. And definitely a lot of people of different "persuasions" I guess I could say. It was interesting just to look at all the people alone from what they were selling. It was all very granola, but I liked it. The other cool thing were those street performers. Wow, there was this guy that didn't have a right arm, but where the stub was he had duct taped this pick so he could play this little guitar-like instrument. It was awesome, and he was so good! There were also a bunch of different bands playing and there was this other guy who stuck a knife down his throat and then swallowed one of those long balloons that you make into animals, it was crazy! Now that's talent. He mentioned some trick about pulling it out the other side, but nobody really wanted to see that part (and we probably would have been waiting a while :). But while we were watching this guy was staring at Samantha the whole time and finally at the end came up to Dave and said, "I just have to tell you your daughter is so beautiful. I have four kids and I wish one of them was as beautiful as she is!" We thought that was really nice but I felt bad for his kids! Anyway, we ate these huge elephant ears (or as I call them scones) and this big spring roll that was very tasty too. Sharing that between Dave and me filled us up for lunch. Besides the people, entertainment and the food, the little shops were pretty cool too. There were a lot of interesting soaps that people spouted could cure cancer and a lot of aromatherapy stuff, hemp bags, pipes for...something, cool hats, cute ruffly skirts, and so on. So pretty much everything Oregon! We had a lot of fun. Maybe someday after I've been here long enough I'll become a true Oregonian and make my own soap, use cloth diapers, and know the difference between the regular garbage can, the recycle garbage can, and the compost garbage can....yes there are three. Oregonians are good at recycling. Of course that's one thing I don't mind learning about.
So after Saturday's market we drove around downtown trying to find a nice apartment to live in. We got hose apartment guides and called on almost all of them, but didn't get a lot of luck. There was a one bedroom available that was right at 23rd avenue though, and I thought I could sacrifice the space just to live close to all that shopping. The square footage isn't too bad. Anyway after all was said and done, at least we enjoyed driving through downtown because it was really pretty. If only we could afford a 2 bed apartment for $2300! Uh yeah, a bit expensive. But those are definitely the higher end types of places which I really don't need. I'm sure we'll find someplace sometime. At least we're not rushed to find somewhere.

A Couple Things

Well I've been meaning to write about this for a couple of days but there a two things that I am particularly happy about today.
Number 1: We finally closed on our house in Bountiful! What a stress relief that was. Although I must say the whole process of selling our house went pretty smoothly for the most part. We were very lucky to sell our house by owner within 2 1/2 weeks! That was definitely a blessing for us. It has been nice not having to worry about selling a house while you were in a different state. The only frustrating thing about it all was we were supposed to close on Monday and I had to go all the way up to Portland from Salem (which is about an hour drive) and my sister in law Tracee drove me because I had no idea where it was. So we left a couple hours earlier to shop for a little bit and right when we get to Portland I got a call saying the documentation wasn't ready....grrrr! But at least we did get to do some shopping which was fun! So the plan was to go the next day on Tuesday at the same time which was 4:00 p.m. but this time my father in law George came with me. So we get to Dave's office at 3:45 (and the title company was just a block up the street) and I get this call from this lady saying that they couldn't do it again because the escrow people had left for the day! What???? It was only 3:45. So after a few choice words that I said including the fact that this was the second day in a row that I had to drive over an hour to get to the place, they finally were able to get someone to do it and said we could do all the notary documents but that there were a couple other papers we could sign separately. So that was good....but then we had to find the office. Well we walk up the block where they said we should go but there was a sign on the door saying it was back in Dave's building, where we just came from. So we walk back and go the floor of the title company....and they have no idea who we are. Well after 10 minutes of waiting and trying to figure out who we are, they said that we were supposed to go back to the office up the street that we just came from but it was in a different suite! Ugh! Well, at least we got some exercise, and we did eventually end up in the right place and got it all done!! So after all that at least we got our money to put away for a new house...someday. Which brings me to another point. Dave and I have been talking about the housing issue and thought maybe it would be fun to rent an apartment right in the middle of downtown Portland just for the summer and maybe fall (because I hear it's really pretty then too) just so we can be walking distance from all the fun stuff, and downtown is really beautiful too! So depending on what we can find (and if we can afford it) we thought it could be a fun experience for us for a while. Plus it would save a bunch on gas too, and only having one car right now as well makes it great for us as well. So for those of you who still might be thinking of visiting us up here (and I hope you are!) you are still welcome, and we would have so much fun!
Number 2: So the other thing (after all that) that I am also excited about was when I was up in Portland on Tuesday night we went to Nordstrom Rack right downtown and I bought my first pair of Seven Jeans! Wow, I have never spent that much on one item of clothing before and I don't think I ever will again. This was definitely a splurge. And of course I bought them will birthday money too, that I was having such a hard time spending. I don't think Dave would have been too happy either if I would have spent his hard earned money on one thing, so I didn't feel too bad about it! But they are beautiful and exciting to wear!

Happy Day!

Well as many of you know, today was my 24th birthday, and what a fabulous day it was! First of all I couldn't have asked for a better day as far as weather goes. It was so beautiful here so this morning Sam and I went running and it was so nice. I received messages from family members and I got the opportunity to talk to both of my parents this morning too. It was nice talking to both of them, and the rest of my family members who called me throughout the day. It was wonderful talking to you all!
For lunch I went with my awesome mother-in-law Nancy, my sister-in-law Tracee and my other sister-in-law Lacey and her baby Eric to this great steakhouse called The Best Little Roadhouse here in Salem. It was soooooo tasty! I had the ribs with this watermelon sauce on top which was really good and a bit spicy. The meat just fell off the bones, mmmmmmm! Samantha loved it because she had her first taste of ribs too, and she loved it! Nancy gave her some of her garlic potatoes which she enjoyed as well. Everyone who sat around us were just laughing at how funny she was. So lunch was great but it tired all of us out, so when we got home we all crashed and took naps. But before we did, I received some beautiful flowers that Dave sent me. Daisies of course! Dave came home early from work and we decided to open presents before we went to dinner. Tracee gave me the movie "Willow" which I was excited about because I love that movie and Dave has never seen it so I'm going to make him watch it with me. Nancy and George gave me an awesome gift. I got this Willow Tree Nativity Set that is huge! I'm so excited to decorate our new house (wherever that may be) at Christmas with our nativity piece! What a great gift. And then there was Dave...I am writing this blog tonight on a nice big comfy chair on my new and beautiful LAPTOP!! Holy cow, Dave always seems to outdo himself! I love him so much and he totally spoils me too much! I have officially become a true Demcak now! If ever you hang out at the Demcak household, at any given time there is someone working on a laptop, so now I can join that gang! I am so excited. Dave reads my mind, just yesterday I was pining away for a laptop thinking how convenient it would be to have one. I can use the computer anywhere now, I am so happy!

So after opening presents Dave took me to dinner while Nancy and Tracee watched Sam for us and we went to a place called The Ram which was really good too. It was kind of like a pub and Dave used to go there a lot when he was younger. Afterwards we went to the mall just to walk around for a bit and do a little shopping. When we got home, we had a mint ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins which was yummy and sat and talked for a while. I found another gift on the table that someone sent to me. It was a mug that had a bouquet of chocolate candy in it, but I have no idea who sent it to me! Whoever it was they know me very well! But if you're reading this and you sent that nice gift to me let me know because I have no idea who sent it, there was no note but I want to thank you! Whoever sent it, thank you very very much!!
Anyway it was a wonderful, fabulous day that I got to enjoy with both sides of my family! Thank you everyone (and thank you Natalie for writing those nice things on your blog....I don't even remember that story about the bra! :) I have had a lot of fun today!