Our First Family Vacation!

So I know that we have gone other places together, but this was our first vacation with just us 3 and no one else. We went up to the beach and stayed overnight at a resort called The Salishan and it was beautiful, and right on the beach. Mo's was just up the street from us! Dave's sister Kristin and her family did come and hang out with us at the beach Saturday. It was the perfect day for the beach because it was soooo hot! In Salem yesterday it got up to 100 degrees, but at the beach it was probably in the low to mid 80's. It was definitely the busiest it's ever been there.

We drove to Newport as well, which was just a half an hour from Lincoln city where we were at. On the way we stopped at the Yaquina lighthouse which was the very first one in the northwest, and located right before the Newport Bay Bridge so it was a very pretty view. There was mist coming in from the ocean the engulfed the bay and it was really cool to see. And it cooled things down a bit.

We then went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium which I've heard so much about but was finally able to go and see. They had all sorts of cool fish, sea lions, giant crabs, sharks, octupus, etc. They even had an area where they had baby manta rays that you could pet and Samantha got to touch one! It made her so happy and it was so cute! They also had that cool aquarium that you walk through a tunnel and the water is all around you. There was a part of the floor where you could see the water but all the women were scared to walk over it, but then all the kids were jumping on it! Down the street from the aquarium was this pirate village where there were all these pirate shops and we had planned to go there because it looked so cool, but we were so tired after the aquarium we didn't get to see it, but it gives us something to look forward to next time we go.

We also took Samantha to the swimming pool at the hotel for the first time. She's been in the lake, and the ocean, but it's the first time she's been in the pool. She didn't love it as much as she does the other two, maybe because there's no dirt to eat! But we still had fun.

After all that fun it was hard to come back, especially since it's still so hot in Salem. Driving home, we kept having to turn up the AC because we could feel the temperature going up. But I think after today, it's supposed to come down to the
80's which will be a bit more comfortable.

At least we don't have to wait too long to celebrate again since the 4th of July is this week!
P.S. for more pics take a look at the slideshow! :)

The other day Tracee and I took a bike ride over to Sunnyside park that was actually just up the street a little bit. It was a pretty warm day and we thought it was perfect for going outside. They had a swing set there with the kid swings so I thought I would put Sam in there for her first ride in a swing. She loved it. And the funny thing is her hair kept blowing in the wind which made her look really funny. So of course I had to take a picture.

I was thinking the other day about the past and trying to remember where I was at even 10 years ago, or 5. It was interesting thinking of how time flies and how your life can change so much.
20 years ago: I was 4 years old, probably annoying one of my siblings, jumping off furniture doing my gymnastics, and talking with a lisp. Dad would say, "Katie, say this," and I would go "thith!"
"no, this!"....*sigh* but hey at least I can talk now, right?
12 years ago: I just turned 12 years old, and making that 'big girl' transition from Primary to Young Women's. I remember that being a very exciting time because I was getting just 'too cool' to be in primary anymore. And I think it was right around that time, (maybe I was 11), but I had also transitioned to triple A competition soccer! Mt mom got a call from someone telling her I'd made it, and I just remember her coming down to the basement where I was cleaning and she was so excited, and I was too!
9 or 10 years ago: I was 14 and probably going down to Cedar City for the summer games with my parents. I remember when we drove down in our little blue tracer, it overheated and broke down in some small city. So we had to call Natalie, and she drove my Grandpa's Blazer down to come pick us up. We waited for at least 4 hours, and I had read every single white trash birthday/greeting card in the cafe we waited in at least twice! I was guestplaying on one of the Devastation teams and they all thought I had gotten in a car accident or something.
5 years ago: It was the summer before I met Dave and right before I moved out with one of my co-workers Britney (yeah, that was fun). I was working at LDS hospital as a phlebotomist and participating in the LDSSA sororites (go Zeta!)
1 year ago: I was 8 months pregnant, huge, and working north of Pioneer Valley Hospital in an Outpatient Physical Therapy Clinic. It was very hot and Dave and I had just moved out of my parents house into our Townhome on Mill Street.

It's interesting how things change so quickly. I never in a million years thought I would be in Oregon living and looking for a house, just one year later. Well it will be interesting to see where I'm at 5 years from now. Who knows how many kids I'll have by then? And where will we live? Maybe back in Utah?? Who knows?

Our Jam Session

So recently I've been interested in learning to play the guitar. My brother in law Mark has like 4 guitars and has let me borrow one of them to learn on. He has also been a good teacher in showing me how to play some chords. The hardest thing for me about playing the guitar is switching from chord to chord and trying to stretch my fingers at different angles to reach those chords.
My father in law George is also learning to play the guitar too, so tonight we had a jam session where Mark tried to teach us different chords and how to do hammer on and offs, slides, bends, and basic chords and how they all relate with each other. It was a little difficult to understand, but I think a lot of it is a matter of just practicing a lot. Mark is a very good teacher though and very helpful. I know how to play the easy chords G, A, C, D, and E minor, so songs that have those chords I can play. But it does make you want to learn to play better when you can play the basic stuff. Maybe someday I'll be good at it, as long as I keep practicing. I can just see myself a few years down the road strumming the chords to kumbayah at girls camp! Wishful thinking!

Happy Father's Day!

Of course I have to brag about Dave today and what a great father he is! Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there!
I could not have asked for a better dad for Samantha than what Dave is to her. I have never seen a more whooped dad over his child. Since she was born, he has always been there for her. He is a very hands on dad where he gets up with her in the middle of the night to get her a bottle, picks her up any time she cries, feeds her food, takes her on walks, etc...and she is very much the daddy's girl! To the millionth degree! 9 times out of 10 she will always pick her dad, but he is a big snuggly bear to her! She gets so excited to see him everyday he comes home from work and always gives him big hugs! (and sometimes a kiss...we're still working on that:) Samantha and I love Daddy so much and we are so grateful for all that he does for us! We love you Dave!
And I have to mention of course my own father and what a great dad he has always been to me. I miss seeing him every week and being able to talk to him face to face. He always supported me in everything I did whether sports, music, or even moving to Oregon (even if he didn't like it). I look up to him in every way, and am so proud to be his daughter. He has always encouraged his children to make good decisions and gain as much education as we can. He is a good dad, husband, grandpa, bishop, etc...I love you Dad! Happy Father's Day!

Ripe for the Pickin'

I had to take a picture of these funny looking strawberries!

Today has been a good day. The weather here for the last couple of days has been very nice. Yesterday Tracee and I went for a bike ride with the bike trailer for Samantha and it was nice riding through the tree-covered streets, it kept us cool enough.
Today we went strawberry picking North of West Salem. It took us about 25 minutes to get there, and of course it was another pretty drive with all the open green fields.
We got there and had to walk down the orchard a bit to get to the strawberries. They had apple and peach trees, and pretty much any and all fruits and veggies, but only the strawberries were ready to pick. It took us about an hour to fill up two crates full. It was a lot of fun picking and eating, and eating and eating the strawberries. They were perfect and sooooo tasty! Some even had some very interesting shapes to them (above picture :) The whole time Samantha sat on a blanket eating a bunch of strawberries to her hearts content. She loves strawberries! And the great thing too is they only charge 75 cents a pound for them so with the two full boxes we had only cost $11. They were selling boxes out front too and for one small box was $22! I guess they can jack up the price if they're the ones picking it, but half the fun of it all was the picking part. That's the way to do it these days if you can, either grow it yourself or pick it yourself. So now we can make stawberry milkshakes, fruit salad, eat it as a snack with yogurt, eat it with shortcake and whipped cream, freeze some, or make jam, etc......I've never made strawberry jam before so that should be fun.
So last night, my two sister-in-laws Tracee and Kristin went over to Kristin's chapel along with a couple of her friends to do scrapbooking. They do this every so often and I was so excited they invited me to come. We were there from about 6:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. I was happy to actually get some pages done, and it was great because Kristin could open a store with the scrapbooking paper, and supplies she had that she let me use. And it was fun to scrapbook with other people to get ideas too. Even after Tracee and I left, Kristin was still there with her friend and who knows how long they stayed. I was glad we did it on a weekend so I didn't feel as bad staying up late.

"Hey You Guys!!!"

During this last week I was having a conversation with my mother-in-law about all the fun things to do in Oregon, and she mentioned the Sandcastle building contest in Cannon Beach is always so much fun but they always find out about it after it's over on the news. So I thought, "hmm, maybe I'll look online and see when it is because I would love to go." Well I found out it was today, so we were happy it didn't pass us by! Although last night I was a little worried we wouldn't be able to go because Dave had a nasty migraine and we didn't know if the weather would hold up, and who knew if Samantha would sleep through the night and keep Dave up all night. So I figured if he didn't get a full night's rest after a long work week then we wouldn't go, and if Samantha woke up at all during the night, we wouldn't go. I guess it must have been meant to be because Dave woke up happy and feeling good, and Samantha slept the entire night!
It took us just about 2 hours to drive to Cannon Beach which is close to Astoria, and it was a beautiful drive so it didn't feel very long at all. The only thing I was still worried about was if it was going to rain all day. It was just a little windy and chilly when we got there, but it warmed up quickly. We parked by Mo's restaurant because we knew we'd be hungry when we were done and walked on the beach about 1 1/2 miles to where all the sandcastles were. On the way was the historic Haystack Rock which was beautiful (and featured on the movie "Goonies") so of course we took a bunch of pictures. The beach was beautiful and they were letting cars drive up and down the beach for a couple of hours before the tide got too high, but we were happy walking. Wow! Those Sandcastle sculptures were amazing! I guess there are people that do stuff like that for a living, and you could tell by how awesome, and creative some of these were. I took pictures of all the really good ones. I loved the one with the lions, and alligators, and there was this cute "traffic jam" sculpture with cars and peanut butter and jelly. The Frankenstein sculpture was cool too. There were a ton of people there, and there was even a couple getting married on the beach. It was very cute but I think that bride was probably a bit chilly in her strapless gown.
So we stayed there for a couple of hours and then walked back to eat some good food. MMMMM....Mo's....famous clam chowder, blackened shrimp skewers, and fries! And Dave had the cod fish and chips which was also very tasty. Mo's is one of those places for me where once I find something I really like, I can't get anything else because what I have is so good! For all you Utahn's, coming up here just to eat at Mo's is worth the trip...and hopefully hanging out with us is too :)
After eating we drove through Cannon Beach town and it was a cute, touristy-type place with fun shops. I could have walked up and down those streets for hours if we had more energy, but it was fun just driving through. It was a very fun place to visit and I'm sure will be back there often.
Samantha started doing something new today too. This morning before we left to go to the beach, Dave had her up in George and Nancy's room. Nancy had this doll that she would give hugs to and say "awww, give the dolly hugs," or something to that effect and then Samantha would take the doll, give it a hug and say "awwww." It was really cute and very funny! She's also into this head shaking thing lately which I don't know where she learned. She loves to shake her head all the time. The other night she was having a conversation with my brother-in-law Jeff and his baby Eric who was sitting on his lap. Samantha was standing next to them talking to them and shaking her head at them expecting them to understand, and then out of nowhere Eric lets out this huge scream right at her, it was hilarious. It was like they were communicating with each other with Samantha babbling and Eric spitting and sticking out his tongue, but no one else knew what they were saying except them! Hilarious!

I hate Ipods!

A couple of weeks ago, Dave and I went to Best Buy to get me an ipod because I kept taking his to go running with. I was a bit skeptical in getting one because my luck with the last 3 ipods I've had has not been good. They've all failed me. Well I thought I'd give it one last chance and see if it would work after a week, so I got one of those small nanos....
Well it's been two weeks now, and I started having problems with it last week! It would not for the life of me connect to my stupid computer stating something like, "your computer has detected an ipod but can't recognize it" to some effect. And then it wouldn't play any of the music on it either. Well that was the last straw. I hate hate hate ipods! I have no luck with them at all. I took it back last night and switched all together to the zune, which so far is great! It hasn't broken after a day! Plus it has FM radio on it which the ipod doesn't! The guy last night told us that people return ipods ten times more than they do zunes! He thought the zunes were better anyway. So if you are thinking of buying an ipod....don't! Buy the zune instead!

Also, I decided to start on a new project. In trying to further my skills (or lack therof) in the quilting/sewing area, so I thought I would to another quilt. So the other day my mother-in-law and I went to Joann's to find some fabric to make a quilt. We started putting all kinds of fabric in our cart that we thought went together, and after a while I was wishing they just had a palette laid out for you of fabric that goes together that you can buy. So we went over to the home fabrics area, and there it was! Perfect patterns, colors, all together so I didn't have to choose them myself. They were already there waiting for me. Today it took me two hours to cut out squares. I hate that part! But I'm exciited to hopefully make it cute (and with Nancy's quilt I'm sure it will)!

Movies I love!

Since moving here to Oregon, I have had the opportunity to watch movies with Nancy that I have never seen before that I am now in love with! Some I have heard of but just never took the time to watch them but wish I had. I was thinking of some of the good movies that we have watched lately and thought I would share them with you, and please if you have seen any of these I'm curious to know if you enjoyed them like me!
#1. A Room With A View
Holy cow I love this movie! I mean how could you not? It is beautiful. It was made in the 80's and won several oscars. It's about a young woman named Lucy who lives in the repressed culture of England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century. With actors like Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Daniel Day Lewis, etc..you know it's going to be good. Not only is it a beautiful movie to watch, but the music makes it just as wonderful! If you have not heard Kiri Te Kanawa's version of "O Mio Babbino Caro" go listen to it now! That song opens with the movie and it's glorious! Nancy has the soundtrack and I've only listened to it 10 times! So...go watch it. I know my sisters and my mom would love it, if you haven't already seen it! There is a little nudity with men swimming in a pond, but actually it made me laugh!
#2. Strictly Ballroom
This movie along with "A Room With a View" is my new favorite. It was directed by Baz Lurhman, so you know it's gonna be good, and a little weird. Of course, another love story, it was made in the early 90's and it's about this ballroom dancer guy who tries new steps that put his career in jeopardy, so he has to look for a new dance partner. Well there's this other girl, who is in his parents dance class that has big glasses and a bad face that wants him to help her learn to dance. Well you can imagine where the story goes from there, but it is really cute and I totally recommend it!
#3. Amazing Grace
This one is also very good. It was made only a couple of years ago with stars like "Professor Dumbledore" and "the amazing stretchy guy from Fantastic Four" are in it, among others. It's about this guy named William Wilberforce who wrote the song "Amazing Grace" and he maneuvers his way through Parliament in 19th century England, endeavoring to end the British transatlantic slave trade. Very good movie about history and where that song comes from.
#4. To Kill a Mockingbird
Need I say more? I just can't believe I haven't seen this movie before now, at least not that I remember. Classic movie, and on the dvd they have good commentary about Harper Lee who wrote it and how the character 'Scout' is patterned after her. Also her dad died during the movie and Gregory Peck wore his pocketwatch and copied his mannerisms after her dad. Very interesting, and I didn't even realize that Boo Radley was Robert Duvall!
#5. The Painted Veil
Another one you must all see. I loved Ed Norton in this movie! It's about A British medical doctor who fights a cholera outbreak in a small Chinese village, while also being trapped at home in a loveless marriage to an unfaithful wife. Just watch it, it's good and another beautiful movie.
Other movies I have watched lately that I enjoyed include: "Wuthering Heights (which I heard they are making a new version of) "Willow" (love love that movie) "National Treasure 2" (also good) and on tap for this week......."Dr. Zhivago." How have I not seen that one yet?
So if you haven't seen any of these movies, do! Or watch them again. And listen to the music from "A Room with a View" love it!

Portland's Annual Rose Festival

Yesterday we went to the annual Rose Festival at the Waterfront Park in downtown Portland. It was so much fun. I didn't know that Portland was the 'Rose' city, I thought we'd be going to see a bunch of flowers....which would have been fine too. Anyway it was this huge carnival-like thing with all sorts of food and a bunch of rides you could go on. They had this really cool dinosaur exhibit where one part of the exhibit were dinosaurs and the other part was a bunch of snakes, spiders, turtles, toads, and a bunch of animals too. Samantha loved it! She loved looking at the animals in the cages, but the dinosaurs scared her a bit. It was such a nice day too right on the waterfront you looked out and there were all these yachts and boats on the water. Some of those boats were big! They also had these pirate ships that you could walk onto and look around, and people dressed like pirates! Those are cool ships!
We had fun eating lamb gyros and greek fries, with cotton candy! There was a huge selection of food to eat! The festival was right next to Saturday's Market so you could go from one festival to the next and back! If we weren't so tired from earlier on in the day we would have stayed for the cool light parade they do later on at night. I love everytime we go to Portland, it is so pretty. If it wasn't so expensive I would live right downtown on the Waterfront. That would be perfect!
So the other reason why we were so tired was because yesterday we helped Jeff and Lacey move to Oregon City in their new house! I had the easy job of watching the kids and Dave, George, Alan, Jeff, and Mark did most of the heavy lifting. They had to get a washer and dryer up a huge flight of stairs! That took a while. But they are finally there and they love their new townhouse! It's funny to realize just house full George and Nancy's house was because when we moved all their stuff out, there was so much more space! Especially in the living room because that's where Eric's crib had been along with lacey's piano. But it was a very successful day and we are glad they finally get to live in their house, and I'm sure they are too!
The rest of this week was pretty normal. The other day we bought Samantha a bike trailer that was on sale at Target so we could go on bike rides! So once we get our tires pumped up we can go to the park or wherever, because Samantha loves to be outside! In the last week or so she has learned to give kisses and hugs, but I think she thinks that when I say "kiss!" it means she can only give me a kiss, because the other day Dave was holding her saying "kiss!" trying to get a kiss from her and she turns toward me and gave me a huge slobbery open-mouthed kiss! She's been doing that for a while, but I think she's starting to give him kisses too. It's so cute because she just opens her mouth really wide towards you and after gives you a hug.
She's also becoming a very social baby too. Today at church after sacrament meeting, a neighbor came up to see Samantha and she went right to her and cuddled with her for a couple of minutes! I was a little jealous because she hardly does that with me. But I'm happy she's not shy all the time at least. She is also the busiest baby ever! That girl cannot sit still for a minute! Not even to drink her bottle. She always has to see what's going on and move all over the place, and she can't even walk yet. I don't know, but I wasn't expecting her to be this crazy!
Last week when we were driving back from Portland I was in the back seat with Samantha, and for a long time I've been trying to get her to say "mama" so I was practing it with her. And out of the blue she puts her lips together and very slowly goes, "maaamma!" Greatest moment of my life! It was awesome. It's definitely the little things like that that make you happy. I never thought I'd be so excited about her saying that, but it was great! Of course she's been saying "dada" for a while but only last weeks the first "mama" came out! :)