The Oregon Post

NEW BLOG ADDRESS

2009-06-15T13:12:00.001-07:00

So I think some people get confused by my blog address so I just decided to switch it over to www.Demcak.blogspot.com because it really is so much easier (if you know how to spell Demcak). The other one was more of an inside joke anyway and I guess a bit confusing.
Anyhoo, hopefully I will see you all at my new blog address!

Parents plus Portland equals Great!!

2009-06-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

Well what a great week we have had here in Portland! For the first time since we moved here, my parents came to visit for a week! And it was good timing for them to come. We had mostly great weather, and my dad has some..extra time off work.
They were able to stay an entire week, and I feel like I may have made them work more than relax. We did a lot of walking, but hopefully they got a lot of rest too. They say they did. I am pretty sure we met my Mom's goal of 10,000 steps on her pedometer each day. But I think we balanced ourselves out by how much we ate as well!

We did a lot this week! Some stuff I have never done or places I haven't seen yet living here! So it's good to have visitors, because then I get to go and see fun places I haven't been to!

The very first day, I picked up a Culture pass from the Library and we went to the Japanese Gardens downtown with my parents. What a beautiful place! And even better? We got in free with the culture pass! Love the Free!! It was so beautiful and felt like we were in Japan. It was a very peaceful place, and luckily Sammy was happy and peaceful too, so we didn't get kicked out. That's what I love about Portland. You drive through downtown, and all of a sudden find a beautiful garden!

Wednesday we drove to Cannon Beach to see beautiful Haystack Rock. It was a sunny, warm day so it was great to be on the beach. Later that day, we drove down the coast to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Did you know it takes them 250,000 cows in one day to produce the milk that goes through that factory??!! That's a lot of sore nipples!! :) Seriously though, it was cool to see how all the packaging and processing works. We got to sample some cheese and had fresh Tillamook ice cream. Yum!

Thursday morning, we went to the Waterfront because the Rose Festival was going on and they were supposed to be having tours of a USS Navel ship. Well apparently they couldn't come because they were put on high alert. Probably something to do with Korea. But they did have a cool Coast Guard ship that we got to tour, and that was fun. It was really nice too because my parents got to come and see one of my Indoor Socce games that night! Something I thought would never happen again. And, it was even better because we won...by a lot! A great start to a new season!

Friday we drove to the beach again, but this time to Lincoln City. It was a cooler day and a little rainy but still beautiful. Of course we ate at Mo's and then walked along the beach and took pictures. We also drove to Depoe Bay and tried to see some Whales at the whale-watching area. But, to no avail. That's okay though, we still had fun. I feel a little bad though, because we did have to do a bit of driving and with 4 adults, a baby, and a Hyundai Elantra?? Not so much room. You could pretty much hear the joints cracking as we got out of the car after an hour and a half drive. And that was just from Dave and me. My parents were probably dreading getting in the car by the end of the week. Sorry mom and dad. :)

Saturday, of course we went to Saturday's Market where we did a lot of walking and enjoyed the ambiance of the Marketplace. They also had this cool boat race going on all day where they had different heats of teams racing up the river in these awesome Dragon decorated boats. There was a team called the Dragon Buttz, and mom liked their slogan "Battle me, Paddle me, Hard!" In Portland we didn't get as much of a reaction from my mom saying that walking down the street as we would have in Utah.
That night we saw "Up" in 3D! It was a cute movie, and luckily for us, Samantha lasted through the movie! It was great, except for poor Dave throwing out his back! Poor old man! :)

These last couple of days we drove to Multnomah Falls and hiked the mile up what felt like a 70% incline up the mountain to the top of the falls. Another good workout! This morning on the last day my parents were here, I made my Dad do hard manual labor by taking a chainsaw to a couple of trees in our Apartment community. He took those babies down in record time, it was amazing! Thanks for your help Dad!

It was great having my parents here for a good week! I love being with my family all together, but having my parents all to myself was espcially nice. And they had some magic touch with Samantha too. I think they may have been nervous she would be too shy, but from the day they got here, she started talking a whole lot more. She can now say at least half the alphabet and count to 5. And she says "Ganpa" and "Ganma". She absolutely loved hanging out with her grandparents and getting so much attention from them. I think tomorrow when she wakes up and doesn't see them here, she might be a bit grumpy and say "ganma, gampa, R you???" And then we'll play a big hide and seek game until we find them and see them again in a month when we head to Utah.

Thanks again Mom and Dad for coming to visit us! We had a great time and miss you already! We love you!

"Cuz it's the start of something new!!"-or something Zac Efron sings

2009-05-24T21:56:00.001-07:00

Well I feel I need to post something new since it has been a long time!
Yes there have been a few changes we have gone through this last month, hence the reason I have not posted anything. I have been a bit consumed trying to figure out my new job of being an Apartment Manager!
I just finished my last day of training on Friday. Super fun, 3 days 8:30-5:30 p.m. in Salem which is almost an hour from here. But at least I didn't have to stress about someone watching Sammy for me since my mother in law and sister in law were there to help me out.
I forgot how much I kinda hate starting a new job, and really who doesn't? Not knowing what you are doing, feeling a bit stupid? especially when it's totally new and you don't have any experience with it? Yeah that's kinda how I feel, but really it hasn't been too crazy, just a lady wanting her carpet and linoleum replaced because "I have been waiting for months for this to get done!" and a few other small things. So I think the biggest thing that I'm stressed about it something happening that I don't know how to deal with, and just generally trying to figure things out. Besides that, so far so good! It was sooooo nice when I was collecting and writing down rent, and we didn't have to pay it!! Ahh so nice!

So we are moved in and have most of our stuff organized. Moving really stinks! You'd think I'd be used to it by now. In the last 2 1/2 years, Dave and I have moved 6 times!! Yeah it sucks. Most of our stuff has been boxed up for at least half that time! But at least we know we will be here for a couple of years. And I will say it would have totally been worth it moving here just to have our washer and dryer again! Sooo great! And we have a patio where Dave can do all his BBQing, and the other great thing? our Garage! and it's big! Love it!

So I think it will take me a couple of months to start to feel more comfortable about all the managing stuff, but we are happy in our new place, and we are especially happy because Dave finally got a promotion and raise!! (which we are surprised about with our current economy) he actually wouldn't have gotten a raise otherwise, but since he was promoted too, he was able to get a pay increase! He definitely deserved it, and we are very proud of him.

The next few weeks we will be enjoying the company of my parents for a week (yay!) and possibly my sister (to maybe look for a house) and the wonderful weather we've had lately up here, it's been great!

Free food!

2009-05-05T16:03:00.000-07:00

Don't we all love free stuff especially when it's food??
Don't forget to go here to get a free meal from KFC! You can get 2 pieces of their new grilled chicken, with two free sides, and a biscuit. And...when you print the coupons out, after they are done printing push the browsers back button (you might have to push it twice) then they will print again, so you get 4 coupons! woo hoo
Do it quick because they are only doing it for 24 hours!

A Rough Week

2009-04-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

Well I haven't had too much going on to post about lately.
Let's see, I guess the big thing this week is figuring out why Samantha has been Sooooo grumpy and not eating anything. She is getting her last molars in on the top of her mouth. She has had a hard time with all her teeth, I guess it's just really painful for her and then she gets fevers from it as well, so she's been a little sick. poor kid.
The week has gone by pretty fast but it's also been a little frustrating. Dave's bike got stolen right outside his office building. Of course, right when it's about to be summer, and right when we get Sam a helmet....grrrrrr! So the very next day I look on Craigslist just to see and there's a posting from Milwaukie, which is a bad part of town for a cannondale for $500, no picture, hardly any description. Dave called on it first and it was some kid, and he was really short with Dave, "I already sold it"....hang up. So later that night I called the kid and asked about it trying to sound like an interested buyer, and he told me the same thing and after asking a couple of questions I pretty much told him about Dave's bike being stolen and if he knew anything about it, and of course he said no. So I said, "yeah whoever would put a stolen bike on Craigslist the day after he stole it WOULD be pretty stupid!" I mean this kid was really awkward on the phone. So I got off, but after a couple of hours I was still festering about it wishing I would have asked him more about it. So I decided to call him back.
me: "Yeah I'm just calling back because I wanted to get the number of the person you sold it to so they can give me a description of the bike so I know it wasn't stolen."
kid: "Uh, well no I can't do that"
me: "Well why not? Why does it matter to you if it's not stolen?"
kid: "Why are you harrassing me?"
me: "Uh, I'm not harrassing you, I'm trying to figure out who stole the bike so why should you worry about giving me the information if YOU didn't steal it? (trying to scare him) The cops will probably call you anyway about it since you didn't post a picture, and it's the same type of bike, so if you give me the information then THEY won't have to call you."
kid: "well, uh, I don't think, uh, well my brother gave me the bike, and, uh...." and then he tried to accuse me of other things and wanted to know what my name was and where I lived......yeah right!
Well needless to say I didn't get anything out of him and I was so frustrated, because I know we'll never see that bike again and it's not really "TOP PRIORITY" for the cops......again I say, grrrrrrrrrr.
So that was the drama of the week. Very frustrating between that, Sam being in pain, and Dave having to put up with his boss, who has a temper, and Dave gets to be the one he takes it out on, even though it's usually always other people's mistakes, but yet he is still the one to get yelled at.
But at least it ended on a good note. We drove down to Salem as a spur of the moment thing to visit Dave's parents. And I got to sing on Mark's new album, which was really fun. He is a very deep, poetic person and a great songwriter so I felt priveleged I got to sing on parts of one of his songs.
I think this week will be quite busy, with me starting the apartment managing on Wednesday, and there seems to be a few issues I will immediately GET to deal with. But it will be good.
And I was going through a couple of pictures I have taken in the last few weeks, so here are some more Samantha pics.

This picture was taken while she wasn' feeling well and thought the floor would be a comfortable place to lie down.

She's my Baby Spice!

another "I'm not going to smile" face

Happy Anniversary

2009-04-17T16:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a Year!!!
Holy cow, one year ago today was a very very very hard day for me. It was the day I moved to Oregon from Utah.
I don't think I cried so hard in a very long time....well not since Samantha was born.
I was staying with my parents for about a week before I came up here, and I remember trying to relish each day I was there because I really didn't want to leave. On the last day I was there my parents, Natalie, and I went to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch, and I was really hungry but almost couldn't eat because my stomach was churning because I knew whenever we left would be that much closer to me leaving.
Just thinking about that day makes me sad a little because it makes me wish I could be with my family. It's hard missing dinner every Sunday where we all get to just hang out, and it's hard missing all the family parties, and birthdays, and some holidays, but I guess that's part of growing up and being an adult. But it's a hard part.
When I was walking off the plane in Oregon with Sam and my tear-stained face, some nice (but very flamboyant) gay guy took pity on me and came over to talk to me because I think he felt bad. I must have been a huge mess.
But as hard as it was moving here, a lot of good has come from it. Oregon really is a great place to live and I do really enjoy it, even though I may get sick of the rain sometimes. If we were still in Utah, Dave probably wouldn't have a job because they pretty much closed down his entire department he was previously working at there. And right now he has a good job that he enjoys (for the most part). Plus we've been able to do a lot of fun things up here, and have been able to spend a lot of time with Dave's family, and Samantha has been lucky to still be close to at least one set of Grandparents, and has gotten to know them very well, and loves them a lot!
So Oregon is great, but I love any chance I get to go back and visit my family, which will become harder and harder now that they are all moving as well. So we are all spreading out between Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. But at least it will make those times we do get together, that much more special.
Happy Anniversary to me! I guess I'm a true Oregonian now!

I AM A HUNG BUCK!

2009-04-16T20:00:00.001-07:00

Okay don't let that title scare you, it's just the name of my Indoor Soccer Team! And yes they do have t-shirts with a mascot but I don't think it would be too appropriate for me to wear :) And yes, the name was thought of by a few guys!

So tonight was our first game! I was really excited because it really has been too long since I have played soccer, let alone Indoor. And wow, I kind of forgot how fast-pace and tiring it is, especially if you're not completely in shape, and there is only one sub for the girls. There were about 8 guys or so on our team, and 3 girls incuding me. And the rules of the game require that 2 girls are on the field at all times. So by the end of the game, we were all pretty tired! But it made me remember how much I love soccer, even if I wasn't as good tonight as I was a few years ago, at least endurance-wise!

As far as the game went, it was pretty even back and forth scoring for each team, and we were tied 4-4 up until the last 12 seconds of the game when we scored to win the game!! So the Hung Bucks Hung in there to win it! woo hoo! Not bad for a first game. And the guys were all pretty nice, but when you get a bunch of guys together and it involves sports, and winning, a few choice words are spewed from their mouths in repetition. But nothing I didn't really expect.
Anyway it was a fun game, and nice to be playing soccer again.

And here are a couple pictures from Easter. We had a little candy hunt (we didn't have eggs) for Samantha after church, and she's already been able to do a couple of Easter egg hunts, so she knew exactly what to do with her basket, and where to find the candy. It was a fun, and a low-key Easter for us. We didn't go anywhere, we just stayed home and ate our Ham and funeral potatoes meal!

She was soooo tired at the end of the night!

More Eggs please!

2009-04-11T20:23:00.000-07:00

Last night Dave went on a campout to the Coast by Tillamook with the YM/YW in our ward so Sammy and I had a fun girls night together. Today I took her to a Healthy Kids Fair at one of the Hospitals in this area where they had TON of stuff, information and free samples about keeping kids healthy, and an Easter egg hunts for little kids, so Sammy got to pick out some candy and eggs.
There was also a guy dressed up in a bunny suit which she thought was very exciting and we were planning to get a picture with, but he was gone by the time we finished the Easter egg hunt..oh well.
The other main reason we went was they were selling bike helmets for $5 so I had to go get one for her because Dave and I are wanting to do some biking soon with her, and we'll definitely need one. The funny thing is I was at Target couple of hours ago and saw the same helmet for $21!! Ridiculous.....so I'm glad I got mine for a good price. Although I did have to stand in line for a half an hour to get it, and trying to keep a toddler entertained for that amount of time is not the easiest thing. Good thing I had chocolate, popcorn, and pretzels to keep her happy.

She did have a lot of fun wearing her helmet around the house before bed though. She used to take Dave's helmet and wear it, but now she's got one that actually fits her head and won't cover her eyes!

Advenures in Apartment Managing!

2009-04-08T16:27:00.001-07:00

Yes, it's a new chapter for us, but very exciting!
I know a lot of you are probably thinking, "she's stupid... getting excited over apartment managing?" But do you know what this means?
No more paying rent!! or internet....or utilities (for the most part)
And all that for a little bit of work?? I think I can force myself to do it.

And actually there are a lot of people who are trying to get into the business of managing apartments these days. Apparently there were at least af ew other couples or so that were hoping to manage the ones we got, but thanks to visiting teachers that put a good word in for you, we got lucky and get the opportunity to save A LOT of money! And my visiting teacher (the one who is doing it now) said it's a really easy managing job compared to most, which is another plus. There are only 16 units, and no one ever moves from there apparently because they like it so much and it requires less than 10 hours of work a week! (depending)

Just thinking about the possibility of how much money we can save is really the thing that makes me the most excited. And being able to save for a good down-payment on a house?? I mean that's what you need these days! So...within 3 weeks we will be moving just up the street!

Just a little Disclaimer: managing these apartments doesn't mean that we are in the poor house and can't afford to live anywhere (although some places we sure canNOT afford) we are doing it to save money, pay off bills, build up food storage, etc. So I don't want anyone to think they have to send us money because we don't have any.....although donations are accepted! :) hee hee totally kidding

Also in the land of excitement....I joined a Co-Ed Indoor Soccer League! Woo hoo! It's been quite a long while since I played, and even longer since I played Indoor so this should be good!
Oh how I've missed playing, it will be nice to get out there to get some good exercise and show those boys how to play!

Easter Fun!

2009-04-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

Well it's Easter week, and the festivities have already begun! (Of course I don't know that we'll be doing much more because I haven't found a good Easter Egg hunt to go to yet this weekend).
Anyway on Saturday we headed down to Turner to watch the afternoon conference with Dave's sister Kristin and her family, and afterwards she put together a wonderful Easter egg hunt for the kiddies. (I didn't have my camera with me so I will have to get copies from someone who did) It was a really warm, wonderful day perfect for hunting candy and chocolate, and unfortunately some of the chocolate did melt. But the kids had a lot of fun, and I know Samantha really enjoyed it a lot.
Later that night, all the boys were able to go together to Priesthood session which was nice for them that they could all be together.

And then today I went up to Vancouver to hang out with my friend Becca and her kiddies. Since it was another beautiful day, we went to the park and had a picnic. And Becca being the cute mom she is, put together her own little Easter egg hunt right there in the park for Juliana and Sam. They loved it and it was funny because they were very picky about which eggs they wanted to pick up and what colors. So after a few minutes they had still left a few candy-filled eggs on the ground so Becca let the two other kids on the playground come over and get the rest. They were very happy about that. We had a good time basking in the warmness of the day! I figure any day that it's nice weather, I have to take full advantage of it because lately they have been so few and far between!

Fun in Utah

2009-03-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

Well just got back from another exciting trip to Utah! This time my sister Angie flew me out there for the week to watch Caden while she went on a trip. The only thing I was sad about was not getting to hang out with her for that week.
It was a lot of fun and really great because since it wasn't a holiday, most everyone had to work during the day except for Natalie since she usually works on the weekends, so I got to hang out with her everyday and her little kiddies Annie and Logan. Dave was also there with me for just a couple of days before he had to go back to work, but it was nice to have him there especially since he wasn't there for Christmas. We slept at Angie's house, but spent most of our time at my parents.

I also got to see some of my friends which was very nice since I didn't really see anyone at Christmas. It makes me miss them so much more when I get to hang out with them for a little bit, because I remember how much fun I have with them. It's nice to see what people are up to and how their lives are changing, for the better!
And I got to hang out with my MOST FAVORITE cousin LARA! I haven't seen her since last summer and I miss her, but we had fun hanging out together for a little bit! I have so many fond memories growing up that involve her! :)

It was really great hanging out with my family for a week too. I got to Utah on my Mom's birthday, so it was nice to be there and celebrate with her. We did a lot of fun things all together like bowling a couple of times, and we went swimming at the South Davis community center which was really fun, and the kids had fun swimming with Grandma and Grandpa and going down the waterslide! On Wednesday my parents, Natalie and I went to dinner at Market Street (yum) and then went and saw the play "Dial M for Murder" at Pioneer Theater Co. which I'd never heard of but I really enjoyed it. Apparently it's also a movie too and it's supposed to be good.
I think everywhere I go I must bring the bad weather with me, because the Sunday I got to Utah the weather got bad and snowy, but especially on Wednesday night it was horrible and so Caden and I had to stay at my parents we were completely snowed in!

On Friday my parents, Allison, Natalie and I along with the kids rode the frontrunner train up to Ogden to look around a bit up by Union Station. It was my very first train ride and very enjoyable! Of course I leave Utah and Legacy Highway opens and they get a train.....and an In-n-Out Burger! not fair!

So it was a really fun trip to break up the monotony of everyday activities, and to see my family was great. It was fun to see all the kids playing together too. Samantha LOVED playing with her cousins and was a little grumpy last night because I'm sure she was wondering where they all went, because she wanted to play and dance with them to the "Spring" song.
I love my little nieces and nephews. They are all hilarious and unique. Caden is a sports boy and loves to help play and take care of the younger kids. Annie (and Ella) know all the words to all the High School Musical songs. Annie is a good swimmer and loves to repeat herself when saying things like "everytime I go to swimming, I go to swimming!" It's funny. Ella is a drama queen! She knows the words to every song from movies, musicals, and the radio, and she sometimes speaks like she's an adult. And she sure knows how to dance. Logan..misses his daddy, but is so funny. He loves "Kung Fu Panda" and runs around going "Hi Ya!!" The last night we were there, Natalie had to work at the hospital that night so she was gone, and Logan found a picture of her and Ryan together when Annie was born. He grabbed it and walked around pointing at the picture as if to ask "where are these people?" and then he lied down on a pillow by the fire cuddling the picture!

It was so heartbreakingly cute! He and Samantha had fun playing together.
I always love my Utah trips!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2009-03-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

First of all, Happy St. Patrick's Day! I love St. Patty's maybe because I have a bit of Irish in me, which I'm totally proud of, and even though I don't drink, which is why most people celebrate this holiday so they have an excuse to drink, it reminds me of those fun school days when I was in elementary. Remember those kids who did one of three things? Either they wore the green with the fun shamrock earrings, or they wore green underwear or something not visible so they could pinch the person ten times that pinched them, or...there's the little boy that deliberately hides his green, or doesn't wear any, just so he can get attention and pinch a bunch of girls! Grown-ups can't really do those things, and if they do, it's weird, or they're weird! And I also miss the yummy Shamrock-shaped sugar cookies my dad would bring home on St. Patty's day. They were so good!
SO HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Lately Sammy's big thing has been playing hide and seek, and her favorite place to hide is in the hall closet, even though there's so much stuff in there she can't close it all the way. She'll hold it closed as much as she can until you walk by and say "where's Sammy?" and then she jumps out and says "Booooooo!" She thinks she's pretty hilarious, and she is, so of course I had to take a couple pictures of her.

Wickedly Cool!

2009-03-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

Finally the night I have been waiting for for so long finally came on Friday. Dave and I went to see "Wicked" in dowtown Portland!! I loved it! Or I should say, we loved it.
I really wasn't expecting to love it as much as when we saw it in New York a few years ago, because hello, it's New York....but really it was just as amazing! And the lady that played Galinda, or Glinda as she is known as later in the play, was hilarious! And everyone had amazing singing voices! I always get the chills when Elphaba sings "Defying Gravity" and "No Good Deed".....awesome! It is such a fabulous play and if you haven't seen it and it's coming to your town, you have to go!! What made it even better was the fact that we sat on the 3rd row! We could see everyone's facial expressions and the spit coming out of their mouths while they were singing!...so great
Before the play, Dave took me to dinner at this place right on the Waterfront called McCormick and Smicks! Wow, it was so yummy! I had the stuffed salmon, with the stuffed part being lobster, and Dave had the Marlin, and for an appetizer we ate these cocunut fried prawns! It was amazing and the ambiance of it all, made it that much more wonderful. And it didn't hurt that we had a $20 coupon too. That was nice.
So all in all, it was the perfect date night for me. Good food, and Broadway Musicals!

Good Deals

2009-02-23T21:05:00.000-08:00

So tonight for dinner, Dave and I went to Quiznos and enjoyed two free subs! No, Buy one get one free, but actually free! They are giving away 1 million free subs, so if you are interested, click here to get yours!
Also, Fred Meyer is having really good sales this week. They are having a %70 off clearance prices on clothes, and I got some good stuff, especially clothes for Samantha. Plus, they have a good sale on Cottonelle toilet paper. There is an in-store coupon for .79 cents for a 4-pack, and then stack that with a .50 cent off coupon and you get 4 rolls for .29 cents!!! I ended up getting 5 packs for under $1.50! If you don't have a MF coupon, just look online and you can find and print one! Even without the extra MF coupon, it's still a good sale!

Taking the plunge!

2009-02-22T17:30:00.000-08:00

Well he did it!!....but not in a speedo. He was going to wear one even though he didn't reach the $300 goal, but Dave was not able to find a speedo in time. But he did dive into the water! And he was up all night....shaving....his hair off the night before! And if you look at the pitures, you can see he shaved a lovely handlebar (chester molestor) stache which I made him shave off soon after! For those who know Dave, that is a hefty task shaving, and I've never seen him with that little amount of hair!
There were a ton of people there and luckily for everyone that was diving, it didn't rain, but the sun kept hiding behind the clouds, and the wind was a bit fierce.
The way they did the dive, because there were so many people, they had to go in groups. Dave was in group #29 out of like #33. So he had to stand in the huge line mostly naked for quite a while and was quite chilly. He could have poked someone's eyes out with those nips! But luckily for him, our friend Kent came to his rescue and gave him a sweater. But by the time he jumped in to the water, it wasn't as cold for him because he'd already been freezing his arse off.

He had a lot of fun doing it though, and plans to do it again next year. Thanks to everyone who helped out and donated. He ended up raising $220!! And as a whole, they raised $116,000 for the special Olympics! It was awesome!

After the plunge, we went to a Rugby game! Our friend plays on the Portland Pigs Rugby team, and let me tell you, that is a confusing sport. But it was really fun to watch and fun to watch him play!

Valentine's weekend

2009-02-18T16:13:00.000-08:00

This last weekend was obviously very fun because it was Valentine's Day and a Holiday weekend! I love those Monday's that Dave gets off work, it feels like a vacation! But it stinks when he has to go back to work.
This Valentine's Day, I was totally sure that Dave wasn't going to do ANYTHING except take me out to our annual restaurant of choice, Benihana (mmmmmmmmm) and I made him promise, because we are trying to save money right? Well, since he is Dave, he wasn't going to not do anything for Valentine's (that's just the way he is) he is very good at spoiling me, as all of you know. So he did take me to dinner, and gave me some cute Valentine's p.j's, some Moonstruck chocolate (yum) and an awesome spa pass to get a facial! I guess I should tell him more often to not do anything, because he ends up going over the top. It was a very nice Valentine's Day!

Then on Monday, since he had work off we went on a hike to Forest Park up here in Portland. It's huge! I think Dave said it was one of the biggest parks in an urban area or something. It was a really pretty day, perfect for hiking, and a lot of fun! Now this weekend, I have to look forward to a fun girls day out celebrating Tracee's birthday at the Cheesecake Factory, and Dave jumping into the icy Columbia River in his swimsuit!

The Polar Plunge!

2009-02-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, Dave is participating in the Special Olympics of Oregon Polar Plunge on February 21st. It is a fundraiser for the Special Olympics and those who participate, get to jump in the ice cold water that is the Columbia River!! It will be fun to hear Dave shriek like a girl, again!
He has already done well, and by the gracious goodness of many family and friends and their donations, he has raised $155! And he has promised that if we get to $300 then he will wear a speedo and a lovely mustache, that takes him probably 3 hours to grow!
So that mental image might not motivate you to donate, but please, think of who he is doing it for, and that makes it worth it right? And I will make sure to take plenty of video and pictures of the event, so we all know the wonderful cause that our money went to!
There is no obligation to donate, even if it's a couple of bucks that would be awesome! Thanks everyone!

Personally, I think he will look more like Mark Spitz :)

Jim is that you?

2009-02-02T20:18:00.000-08:00

"Jim Halpert, price check on fabric softener!"...........it might not be the greatest picture(it was taken with my camera phone) but I'm standing in the line to checkout at the grocery store and there he is. I was like "Dave, Dave it's Jim!" This guy walked past and saw me taking pictures of him and probably thought I was a weirdo, but seriously, he looks just like Jim (byetheway, Jim is a character from "The Office" for those of you who don't know.)

And this picture is a representation of pretty much how all of us have felt in the past few weeks. Dave, Sammy, and I have all been sick with the cold/flu thing, but now it's February, January has gone away and we are on the upswing of things! Okay January wasn't that bad. First of all, a few weeks ago we went to this school that has been converted into a restaurant/movie theater/a lot of other cool things, and one Saturday they celebrated J.R.R Tolkeins birthday by serving hobbit-inspired food, having costume contests, and playing all 3 Lord of The Rings movies in succession in there restaurant-style movie theater with big sofa couches and tables for your food. It was awesome! We even had a toast for him before the movies started, and right before elevensies! :) If we didn't have Sammy, we would have stayed allll day, but kids have to take naps. We went with our new friends, which was the other big event for us in January! WE HAVE FRIENDS! It's so nice to hang out with people again, especially when they have a child that is your kid's age.

My friend from High School Becca and her husband Kent with their two kids Juliana and newborn Kayla just moved up from Coos Bay on the coast up here to Portland!!.....well Vancouver, but it's still close!! And we love to hang out with them. Becca in her generosity has provided me with an almost entirely new wardrode, and Juliana has done the same for Samantha! I forget how awesome friends can be, because they are all in Utah and I never get to see them! We have been able to hang out with them quite a few times now, and we just hope they don't get sick of us. They, along with Tracee came over for our Superbowl Party last night!! We had a really fun time, but I must say I was not impressed by the commercials and I was hoping Arizona would win. Oh well.

So now, onto February with more grocery-saving, friend hangin, Valentine loving, birthday celebrating adventures!

It's Comcastic!

2009-01-29T12:39:00.001-08:00

First of all, like I have said before, I hate January because it is the worst month of the year! Incredibly boring, so I have had nothing to blog about and I've been too lazy.....But, I just saved almost $200 yesterday and I thought it was worth sharing!

So most people these days have cable and probably internet and phone through some company whether it's Dish, DirecTV, Comcast, Qwest, etc etc.

Well I have Comcast, and yesterday I decided to call them hoping I could swing it to bring my bill down. I just called and asked about how I go about cancelling my service with them, and that I have found a better rate elsewhere. The lady then came back and said, "well what if we lower your monthly bill for 12 months so you don't have to go through the hassle of switching companies?"
me: "Really? That would be great! Let's do that!"
So I saved $16 bucks a month on my internet and cable bill which over 12 months adds up to almost $200! Awesome!

So if you have those monthly cable and internet bills, it is worth calling them, because more than likely they will lower your bill because they want to keep you as a customer! If for some reason they don't offer anything, just say "I don't want to schedule a cancellation today, I just wanted to find out what I needed to do." or something like that, and then call back later!!

It works, and it's worth it!!

The Good, The Bad, and the Scary!

2009-01-13T16:40:00.000-08:00

Last night I had probably the greatest coupon savings ever! I got all of this stuff for just about $12!

Now I would have spent that much on the one pack of diapers! WOO HOO! I was excited. I got all this stuff between Walgreens and Rite Aid. Two of my favorite stores. I spent about $10 at Walgreens for the cleaning stuff, and then for the two packs of diapers, and two packs of wipes, I spent about $2.50!!! It was awesome! Especially for the diapers since they are expensive, I hope to find a good deal like that again.

For those of you who want to know how I got the diapers and wipes, I used 2 $1.50 coupons for the diapers, and 2 .50 cents off coupons for the wipes. And then I get a $2 rebate back on the diapers and a $2 rebate back on the wipes. Plus I used a $5 off $25 coupon, and a $10 rebate from spending $25 on Kimberly Clarke items! And after all that, it only cost just about $2.50! You should try it, it's totally worth it. They should have the rebates throgh the end of the month.

After the high I was on last night, I couldn't go to bed, and Dave was sick. So, he went to bed early and I watched "The Shining" on tv...by myself....in the dark. I have no idea why I did this. It freaked me out. And it prevented me from falling asleep even longer after that because my adrenaline was pumping. I don't even like scary movies, let alone watching them alone. That was a crazy movie. I have never seen it before. Stephen King has issues!

Help for the new year

2009-01-10T15:11:00.000-08:00

Since it is the beginning of the year, and many people have made their resolutions, probably on the top of most of those lists has something to do with finances and saving money, and getting out of debt.
The other day I did...ahem...watch...Oprah and she had Suze Orman on, and they were talking about finances and debt for 2009. Honestly watching it I had two different thoughts. The first was "Holy crap! The world is ending and our economy is never going to recover!" I mean she didn't beat around the bush or anything, it was look, the economy sucks, we're in trouble. And then the other thought I had was "I am so glad I don't have a house right now!" Now in all honesty we can't even qualify for a home loan right now anyway, and that is due to the economy. But, I'm glad that we don't have a huge mortgage payment right now and that we can focus on getting out of debt. But if anyone is interested, and I already mentioned this to my family, Suze Orman wrote a new book specifically for helping our financial crisis in 2009 and you can download it for free for a week from Oprah's website. I have already read part of it and I have found it helpful. So if you are interested, go to www.oprah.com/download and you can get the book there.

January is soooo boring!

2009-01-07T12:17:00.000-08:00

So I know we are well past Christmas now but I was looking at some pictures from that time and some video that was just too hilarious not to post. This might be more for my family's benefit, but when you have such funny kids in the family, you want to share it with everyone. And looking at all this stuff makes me happy because I just love being with my family so much, and even though it makes me miss them, it also makes my day because I'm grateful to be so close with all of them. I know, the rest of you are probably like, "okay we get, you love your family, talk about something else!" and I say "no way!" It's pretty much all I have to talk about. Right now, with it being January, the most boring month of the year, the only other thing that I have going on is trying to follow through on resolutions.....and that's about it! Yeah not very exciting.... So..some funny video to watch This first one is from Annie's gymnastics program, which was awesome and she did a great job. They let the younger kids jump around on this trampoline and Logan was having a wonderful time running back and forth on this long trampoline. I have never seen him so animated. And then there's Samantha, who can barely stand up and keep her balance. You can see Logan running in and out of the camera shot passing Sam. It was funny.

Then there was the amazing laser pen! Samantha could have been entertained for hours by that thing. Yes...they are amazing!

Then there was the cue dance routine with my dad and the grandkiddies. They were all dancing to the movie soundtrack of "Mamma Mia." It was cute...and funny.

What happened to Dave?

2008-12-29T15:33:00.000-08:00

Well as most people who read my blog know, it was a very interesting Christmas season for our little family this year.
Sam and I left for Utah on the 18th of December, and Dave was supposed to follow us on Saturday the 20th. But, due to the insanely crazy, worst timing ever weather, he was unable to get a flight out of Portland from the Saturday before Christmas! That's 5 days!! And nothing!! He couldn't get a flight because everything was cancelled or booked. People were camped out for days at the airport. His flight had been rescheduled from Saturday to one on Monday. So I thought "well that kinda stinks, but at least he'll still be here." So on Sunday, Dave spent at least 3 hours digging the car out of the snow and trying to get the thick ice that was layered around it off as well, just so he could get up early on Monday and head to the airport. This he all did without a shovel, but a plate because no one has shovels in Portand. So the next morning he got up, went outside, and it had snowed again with another thick layer of ice surrounding the car and on the ground which prevented him from even moving it. And to top that off, the popular mode of transportation in Portland, the Max line, wasn't running, there were no buses, and there were no taxis to get him to the airport. So he was stuck again, but he did find out a little while later that all the flights were cancelled that day anyway. So he was stuck again with little hope of finding a plane ride dwindling. The only possibility of any plane ride would have cost $550, and he would have arrived the night of Christmas, assumming his flight would have been on time.
After that realization we explored every single option: drive to Utah? No rental cars, roads froze n with ice, freeways closed down going north to south, and east to west, towns declaring state of emergency. Train? no tickets, and nothing going out of Portland. Bus? no buses coming in or going out. Ya know, at least on the movie "planes, trains, and automobiles, he eventually makes it home." But that wasn't the case for Dave this year. His dad ended up driving from Salem to Portland in what usually takes 1 hour, ended up taking 4 hours to pick Dave up and bring him down to at least be with his family. After the 4 hour trip back to Salem, and after 5 days of being alone, he at least was with his family.

Yes, it was weird and sad waking up on Christmas Day with no Dave to watch Sam open up presents. Hopefully this crazy situation won't ever happen again. I was sad we didn't get to see many of the people we'd hoped and planned to, but hopefully next time!

But in spite of all that, I was still happy to be with my family. We had a great time with everyone! Sam loved playing with all her cousins and spending time with Grandma and Grandpa. We miss everyone already. Thanks Mom and Dad and Al for taking such good care of us at home while we were there. And to the rest of my family. I love you all!

just a couple of pictures from Christmas!

Celebrating with/without family

2008-12-25T22:05:00.000-08:00

Well it's Christmas night and it has been a very enjoyable fun-filled day....with one, BIG, exception!!!

NO DAVE!!!
I still can't believe I didn't get to spend Christmas with my husband this year! Stupid weather. The bad weather could not have happened at a worse time.
It's hard to see how much fun your child is having opening presents from family and playing with cousins on Christmas, and her daddy isn't there to see it.
It's been hard, but the one comforting thing is that he at least was able to get down to Salem (barely) to spend Christmas with his family.

So we will just have to have our own post-Christmas celebration when we go back home on Sunday.

Miss you Dave...a lot! Sammy and I love you!

What the?....are we in Utah?

2008-12-14T13:41:00.001-08:00

We woke up this morning to this:

So apparently the State of Oregon shuts down when it snows. Although it does only snow like twice a year here, so they are not as prepared for snow as what I am used to in Utah. Not a ton of snow plows that are working hard at 4 in the morning to keep the roads clear up here.
I was so excited to see the snow though! It is good preparation for me getting ready to come to Utah this week! But even though there is only a couple of inches, the freeways are shut down, church was cancelled, and you are not allowed to drive unless you have chains on your tires! It's like people in Utah drive in the rain there, just like people drive in the snow up here....not well.
So even when the snow does stop, (it's almost 2 and it's still going) it's only going to get worse because everything is going to freeze and there will be black ice all over the roads and freeways. So.....it is a good thing we went grocery shopping last night, and I have my shopping done before going to Utah, and Dave will not be driving to work this week, it's either the bus or stay home. They keep saying on the news "Do Not Go Out and Drive Unless You Absolutely Have To!!"
The only thing I am a little worried about though is what the weather will be like on Thursday when I leave for Utah...hopefully no flight delays!

Also I have to add a couple of pictures of Sammy's curly hair. It's just long enough to put curlers in, but when you take them out she kind of looks like she stuck her finger in a socket. It looks cute for a few minutes before going crazy!

Hold me closer tiny dancer...

2008-12-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

So lately Samantha has really been into dancing. I think she really started getting into in after we took her to nursery a couple of weeks ago and she was dancing to the fun music with the other kids. But she also loves dancing to the music we listen to at home. Her favorite song to dance to is Doris Day's "Perhaps" song. The way she dances involves turning around in circles, waving her hands around, and stomping her feet a little bit. But then again, isn't that how we all dance? I decided to take a video of it because it's funny to watch!

p.s. if you watch the video, make sure to pause the music on the sidebar before doing it! :)

Funny kid!

Al says I'm a frugal nerd!

2008-12-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

Something to be proud of I think! But then again, aren't we all becoming this way??

So I think if I didn't have Samantha with me at the store today, I would have done that much better, but I was pretty happy with how my shopping trip went anyway.
Between going to Walgreens and Target, I got a lot of free stuff today that was awesome! At Walgreens I saved $39.74 and only spent $23.17! I got the two maybelline lipsticks for free, the reynolds foil free, the Johnson's soap for free, the Intuition razor for $1, the electric toothbrush for $1.99, the two Colgate toothpaste tubes for $2, the Huggies for $7.50, the juice for $2.50, and the two flameless airwick candles at Target for free! I had to buy some other things while I was there, but if I had only purchased those items, I probably would have only spent $5!!
The funny thing is, I am totally still kind of a newbie at this couponing thing and there are some ladies I know that have 4 kids and only spend $40 a week on groceries for their whole family!! Yeah....I have no idea.
Anyhoo, I have to keep myself busy finding new things to do or to learn like saving money, or learning crafty things since I don't have Family Christmas parties to go to, and none of my family is around. But speaking of crafty, my sister in law taught me last week how to make ornaments, because she is the queen of crafty, so I learned how to fold strips of paper in an intricate way to make it come out looking like this!

yee haw!

Black is the new **tch!

2008-11-28T19:01:00.000-08:00

I was one of those people that went out shopping today.
At first I wasn't going to do it because Dave had to work, and that meant I'd have Samantha with me. But I thought since I'd be driving Dave to work early enough, that she would still be in a good mood to last through a couple of stores. So I planned it all out. Where I would go first, what I would get, and the fastest route in between stores.
Surprisingly we did pretty well! Fred Meyer, Joanns, Target.....and then......Macys!!!
I wasn't going to go but I didn't find the cutest clothes for Samantha that I wanted at Fred Meyer and I knew they were having a huge sale on kids clothing. And, it's at Washington Square that has about a million stores, so I would have to fight for parking, and I didn't have a stroller. But I did it anyway.
Well of course it was crazy. Luckily though, I got a parking spot quickly. I carried Samantha through the store and found the kids dept. At this point after the previous stores, she was a little ansy so I let her walk a little bit. And when I found what I wanted, I looked at the check out line in the kids area and it was forever, so I thought "hmm...maybe if I go to the men's section I can get out faster!" So we trodded over there and the line was considerably shorter, and I thought "great! I got in, and I can get out real quick!" Well the line went pretty fast....until it was the guy in front of me's turn. He was this short, bald, greek guy that was dressed all nice and kept turning his nose up at me because Samantha and I hadn't gotten all dressed up that early in the morning to go shopping like he did.
After the 5 minutes it took to ring up all his stuff, the lovely old woman ringing him up said, "and would you like to open up a Macy's credit card with us today and save 10%?" And I thought, "oh no, he wouldn't. On Black Friday, with a million people trying to get in and out quickly, he wouldn't do that." Well of course, the guy said yes and from that moment to the time when it was my turn took 20 minutes!!! Literally, I am not exaggerating! One by one people in the line behind me started leaving and I tried to keep patient and keep Samantha happy by singing her Christmas songs over and over, I kept saying to myself "it's not worth it to leave and get in line somewhere else!" And the guy, didn't even flinch. When it was about finished 10 minutes into the credit card application, he wanted to add his discount to a previous purchase he made on shoes a few minutes before! So they had to get back on the phone, call the company, the employee talked to them, then the guy got on the phone, I mean it was ridiculous!! And I'm sorry but after 17 minutes in, I'd had enough, and I looked at the lady and was like, "uh, can you give me a time limit to how much longer this is going to take??"
Old crochety: "It should only take a few more minutes. Our customers reserve the right to participate in store offers such as credit cards."
Angry mother who has lost her patience (that's me): "Well that's fine I understand that! But there is something called common decency!" At that point I didn't feel bad that Samantha was crying. I just moved her closer to the guys head!
He never apologized, the woman never apologized. It was pretty ridiculous........*sigh*.........I love the Holidays!!! :)

The Trailblazers!

2008-11-26T14:08:00.001-08:00

The other week Dave and I went to a Portland Trailblazers basketball game against the Houston Rockets. I have never sat so close to the floor before! We were on the 5th row! Those tickets were pretty pricey! But it was really fun sitting so close. I was a little nervous though. For those of you who know Dave really well, he likes to yell at players during the game. Well one of the players on the Rockets is Ron Artest, ya know the guy that got in trouble for assaulting a fan last year??? Well needless to say I was sure he would hear anything that Dave had to say at him since we were so close, but luckily Dave toned it down......a little. He would get close, and you would hear Dave go "Ronnie!!.....Ronnie!!" ugh..embarrassing. Just don't throw a cup of water at him! But besides that, the game was really good. It was the game where we won in overtime with .08 seconds left with a three pointer! But during half time they had this awesome entertainer guy that played a floor piano instrument with tennis balls. It was cool!

A night with great flight, that's right, with 'Twilight'

2008-11-22T09:26:00.000-08:00

Last night Tracee, Lacey and I had a fun girls night out, which is I am sure what a lot of women, girls, ladies did last night, or the night before at midnight.
We left the kiddies at home with the boys, went to dinner, did some shopping, and went to see the movie!
We had so much fun! It's great to have things in common with your family, and you can have fun doing things together. And of course we enjoyed the movie too! Thanks for the great time ladies!

Also this last week, I was excited because I finally finished my Christmas Quilt! I've always wanted to make one, and I got this really cute Moda fabric. I didn't have a pattern so I just randomly put squares together, and I think it ended up turning out pretty cute. It was my first quilt that I quilted on a sewing machine as well, and so I was a little nervous, but it worked out okay too, and was pretty fun to make!

2008-11-19T08:40:00.000-08:00

This last weekend we went and took some family pictures since it has been a really long time from the last time we did it when Sammy was 5 months. We thought it would be a good time right before Christmas and we didn't have to pay anything. No session fees, and we got a copy of all the pictures, it was great. I thought some of them were pretty cute.

I am a Money Saving Mom!...Or least I try to Be

2008-11-17T12:32:00.000-08:00

There is something so satisfying about saving money! I love saving money especially now of course we all know about our awful economy, and since we can't get into a house until we save more money and pay off more debt, we are working harder to try and save a bit more.
Lately I have been trying a lot harder about clipping coupons, and I love it! It's dorky I know but I get really excited when I get Sunday mornings paper, where I get to go through and clip all the good coupons. In my shopping today I thought I did pretty awesome.

I bought all these products for the grand total of about $3.50! Between the clearance of the shampoo, and the manufacturers coupon I had for it, and the free after rebates, and my other coupons, I think I did pretty awesome. I just hate spending full price on anything and to me it's worth the extra effort!

I also just found a link to a website called Swagbucks--an online search engine that rewards you for searching online. You can earn enough in Swagbucks points to receive hundreds of dollars in gift cards!! I'm all about that.
Swagbucks is very simple to sign up for so if you are interested please click on the link! It's worth taking a look, and doesn't everyone love free stuff??\
Click here

Happy Birthday!

2008-11-16T15:06:00.000-08:00

Today is my Big Sister Natalie's Birthday!!! Happy Birthday Nat! The big 27 today right?
Natalie has always been the older, "cooler" sister that had all the boy friends in High School! I remember thinking when she was in 9th grade and had all these boys over at the house all the time, I thought "wow, I hope someday I can have as many boyfriends as Natalie does!" :) Natalie always seemed to draw the attention of more guys than girls throughout her 9-12th grade years, and well after that. But of course now, there is only one that really matters, which is Ryan!!! Out of all the boys she brought over, he was the coolest! And now they're married and have two awesome kids that are just like their parents, and who I miss a ton!!
And of course anyone who knows Natalie, knows she has the most personality in the family...her and dad are pretty close. That's why we'd call her PersonNatalie! When she was little mom and dad would give her the phone to talk to telemarketers for hours, she caught a fly with her bar hands, she was the only one who would have ever been able to handle what we refer to as the 'snaggle tooth'...her teeth are quite pretty now..okay even with that she was still cute, and I loved the big bangs!
I was always jealous of Natalie's long, thick, flowing hair, and still am to this day. I wish I had her courage. I loved being able to play soccer with her in High School, even if I was referred to sometimes as "Natalie's little sister" but actually even back then I was still taller than her. Everyone on the soccer team all thought she was awesome and I was proud to be the sister of the coolest and best player on the team, (even if our coach didn't acknowledge that....he doesn't like people standing up to him....and Natalie stood up to him, as she should have..long story)
She of course was also an SBO officer and was in every AP class. So she has the smarts, the looks, the talent, and many more fabulous qualities. I mean she makes her kids Halloween costumes from scratch with no pattern! So she is very creative as well!
I looked up to her back when we were in school together, and I look up to her today at how wonderful a mother, nurse, wife, and sister she is! I love you Natalie and hope you have a very Happy Birthday!!

This was Natalie at our cabin this last summer. Hee Hee Of course I had to put an incriminating picture!

These are some of my favorite pictures of Natalie!

Happy Anniversary!

2008-11-13T15:49:00.000-08:00

Another day of celebration! This time 4 fabulous years of marriage! Woo hoo. I remember thinking when we first got married, "I wonder what it's going to be like in a year" and now it's 4 years later, and here we are in Portland with a little girl!

I also remember talking to some of my friends after getting married telling them how awesome it is and how "everyone should get married and be as happy as me!" and 4 years later, I still feel the same way! And I'm sure 40 years from now I will have those same feelings.

I also remember the night before our wedding we had a dinner at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in SLC and I was so nervous I could only eat a couple bites of the delicious chocolate cake we had for Dave's birthday, but mostly that was because I had to get up and speak. Speaking of cake....I also remember (and everyone in my family remembers this too and still makes fun of me for it) I made the smart decision of wearing my corset thingy that sucks everything in all day, and when it was time to cut the cake, I mustered up as much strength and smiles I could, ate a piece, and then went running out of the room and threw up in the garbage can in the back room! The cake lady was offended...she thought I just didn't like her cake. And..it wasn't because I was "nervous" either, it was because one, that thing was too tight around my waist and chest, and two I ate coconut shrimp for lunch! Yep, that all came up! My wonderful mother was there making sure I didn't get any on my dress. After my....evacuation...and after taking my corset off and wiping the mascara off from under my eyes (ya know how throwing up makes your eyes water) I went back out a little red faced but feeling a bit better. My mom suggested taking some medicine but said "it makes you a bit sleepy." Well, I didn't want to get that rush of nausea coming on again after we left for the evening, (and make Dave feel bad), so I decided to take that pill and by the time we got to the hotel I was so drowsy that I pretty much fell asleep right there, while Dave watched some sports games....for the most part....

After saying all that, it kinda sounds bad but really it was the greatest and most fabulous day of my life that I will never forget! The humorous parts just add the greatness of the day! The ceremony was beautiful, the reception was beautiful, even the weather was beautiful in November! We got lucky!

So Happy Anniversary Dave, I love you and look forward to many happy fun years together!

Happy Birthday Dave!

2008-11-11T16:26:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Dave!!

Yes today is Dave's 29th Birthday! One day I will never forget because it preceeds the day that is our Anniversary on the 13th! A couple of fun days to celebrate. Actually this whole week has been nice so far because Dave didn't work Monday or Tuesday and then we get to celebrate today and tomorrow as well!

Anyway Dave, Happy Birthday!! I love you very much and am grateful everyday for the wonderful husband and father you are to Sammy and me. We both love you, and how could you ever doubt Sam's love for you especially! I try to give you a kiss, and she freaks out! Yes, a huge daddy's girl. And I know you love it!

The other day we were getting in the car to go somewhere and I was in the car with Sammy and Dave was outside doing some stuff and Samantha kept watching him saying "I u! I u!" (I love you in her language) becuase she thought he was going to leave her, so she thought if she could be cute enough he wouldn't!

HAPPY 29TH BIRTHDAY DAVE!!!

(this is an older pic :)

Thank You

2008-11-10T22:16:00.001-08:00

Thank you to all those super smart lenders that gave way too much money to all those really smart people (ya know, the ones who know everything) so they could buy their big ginormous houses. Thank you for thinking so big, that a modest 1300 square foot or even a 2000 square foot house just isn't good enough for you and your pet dog. Yes, you do deserve as big a house as your parents have. You deserve more, like 5000 square feet right? Is that enough for you? Thank you so much that because you had to have your big expensive house so you'll have more friends and they'll think you are so cool, is making it so the rest of us who actually want a modest house, need to find a house, even a fixer, can't even get a loan from the banks because they, who are so smart, and you who are even smarter decided to spend all the money so they don't have any more to give to anyone else! Thank you so much. Actually I do want to live in an apartment for the rest of my life! And I guess that's where you'll end up too.

I'm not bitter or anything :)

something funny!

2008-11-06T12:14:00.001-08:00

Yesterday morning I was doing laundry trying to fold clothes. Lately Samantha has been trying to mimmick everything I do including trying to help me fold clothes, and, putting them on! Although I'm not sure she got this one right. She grabbed my bra and put it over her head while talking to herself as if she was giving herself instructions on how to do it. She then went parading around the house with it on very proud of herself. I thought it was too hilarious not to post a picture!

Halloween Fun!!!

2008-11-02T19:14:00.000-08:00

Well of course I have to post pictures of Halloween this year especially since my family doesn't get to see Samantha all dressed up.
I thought that maybe this year I would try to make a costume but I couldn't think of something creative enough and I got lazy so I just bought a princess dress for Sammy. And she made a very cute princess!
We decided to go down by Salem to Dave's sister's house and go trick-or-treating with her kids. They have a nice small little town where all the houses are right in a row making it easy going from one house to the next. We weren't sure how Sam would enjoy the outing but we thought it would be fun to at least try and see how she liked it. She made it around one neighborhood. For the first few houses we carried her, and then she got really excited and wanted to walk the rest of the way. She loved walking with the kids but after a while she couldn't keep up and kept falling down and tripping over her dress, which made her frustrated. And she wouldn't let her pail of candy go either. She would trip and then all her candy would fall out, so we'd pick her up, pick her candy up, and 5 seconds later it would happen again. So we finally gave up and went back to the house, which she wasn't too happy about. But the time that we were out there was fun. It's fun to celebrate Halloween with kids (especially when they are too young to eat their candy, so you have to eat it for them!:)

Pretty much the whole weekend was spent down in the Salem area. After Halloween on Friday, we went back down on Saturday because Dave and I went to an Oregon State football game against Arizona State with our brother in law and his son Adam. It was an hour south of Salem and the game didn't start until 7:30, so instead of driving back home after the game and getting there aroud 2:00 a.m. we slept over at Dave's parents. Which was good anyway because we had to get up and go to church at 8:30 to be there for Dave's dad George to become the new Bishop of the ward. So it was a fun-filled family weekend. Byetheway, OSU beat ASU in a nail-biter finish, and we sat at the top of the stadium next to some drunken fans. It was great! But I do still know where my loyalties lie in regards to football teams. Utah will always be my number one team, and I will go for OSU when they are not playing them. But seriously, I don't have any orange clothes to wear...red is much easier. :)

More Pumpkins please!

2008-10-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

So last week Dave was sad he missed out on going to the pumpkin patch with us so we decided to go again yesterday since it was another beautiful day to one that was up here by Portland. We went to a place called Sauvie Island (which byetheway is in the area where they filmed "Twilight"-which byetheway, I saw a posting on Craigslist and on the night the movie opens the place where they filmed the 'dance' scene and the 'fight scene' at the end is having a sleepover party and it's close by! I think I might have to go...okay I'm not that big of a dork...maybe)

Anyway, so we went to this huge pumpkin patch outside of Portland and they had all sorts of fun things to do. We hung out for a couple of hours and Samantha had a blast petting the animals, eating caramel apples, taking pictures, riding on tractors, etc.. It's been nice being able to enjoy some nice weather still. It's been amazing the last couple weeks and I'm not ready for the winter yet.

I love this picture of her! She loves the dogs!

I thought this was a funny picture of Dave while he was doing the pumpkin slingshot!

Pumpkins!

2008-10-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Sam and I went to the Jefferson Pumpkin patch south of Salem to pick out pumpkins. Dave went golfing with one of his friends so we went with my sister in law Kristin and her kids.

We had a good time and the weather was very nice. Oregon in the Fall is very pretty. Since there are so many trees you see a lot of different colors. Poor Samantha had a bit of a rough time. Within the first few minutes we were there, she fell on her face and was bleeding everywhere and got a huge fat lip. Poor kid. She's tough though. After like 2 minutes she stopped crying and was fine. I would try to take her picture and she would smile and there would be blood all over her lips and in her mouth! And earlier on this week she fell and hit her lower lip on the edge of a table and was bleeding so she was just evening things up I guess with hitting her upper lip. Now she just has a couple of scraps on her upper lip.

All the pumpkins were only a dollar so we got one for each of us. We were hoping they might have some white pumpkins but if they did they were all snatched up. So now we have pumpkins I just have to figure out what to dress Sam up for Halloween!

A Woman's Touch!

2008-10-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

So anyone who knows me knows that I love musicals and movies with music and dancing, etc...Most of my family is like that, enjoying singing and sometimes dancing to the songs...ok maybe not Ben....but maybe.....:) Anyway, I grew up loving the movie "Calamity Jane" and I remember watching it with my family a lot among the many other musically-inclined movies. I haven't seen it forever and saw a clip of it on youtube and thought, "ya know, that song 'a woman's touch' is so like my life. Most days I prance around my apartment singing and cleaning, wearing corsets, and painting my front door a pretty yellow that says, 'Dave and Katie's little cottage' (or I guess apartment)" ahhhhh...........I love musicals. So like real life. But wouldn't it be fun if our lives were musicals? I think you could make a perfectly good song out of the words, "I just changed Sammy's diaper and now have to go buy groceries!! la la la!"...maybe that would be the chorus....ha ha. Anyway, it's a good movie, and a good song, you should watch it, and then watch the whole movie!

Winner!

2008-10-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

Well it's nice to know when you are right, especially when it concerns a football game when your team wins against your husbands team...barely! Yes Utah beat Oregon State last night in a nail-biter finish. Yeah it was pretty much awesome. I especially loved the part where my sister Allison almost got run over by a couple of the players towards the end of the game. (she was on the sideline for some journaling thing, and I was watching them go out of bounds and was like, "Hey that's Allison they almost ran into!") Pretty funny....anyway Go Utes! (And sorry Dave :)

Also, I have been Tagged and these are my answers!

One word answers to the following questions:
1. Where is your cell phone? kitchen
2. Your significant other? Upset (football)
3. Your hair? Change?
4. Your mother? busy
5. Your father? cabin
6. Your favorite thing? couch
7. Your dream last night? scary
8. Your favorite drink? Dr. pepper
9. Your dream/goal? happiness
10.The room you’re in? living
11. Your ex? Um…
12. Your fear? failure
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? house
14 Where were you last night? couch
15. What you’re not? black
16. Muffins? donuts
17. One of your wish list items? cricut
18. Where you grew up? Bountiful
19. The last thing you did? sew
20. What are you wearing? clothes
21. Your favorite TV? flatscreen
22. Your pets? someday
23. Your computer? broken
24. Your life? Fab
25. Your mood? tired
26. Missing someone? duh
27. Your car? blue
28. Something you’re not wearing? ring
29. Favorite Store? cheap
30 . Your summer? family
31. Like someone? Yes
32 . Your favorite color? Purple
33.When is the last time you laughed? morning
34. Last time you cried? sunday
35. Who will/would re-post this? someone
37. Bath or shower? bath
38. Holiday? Christmas
39. Writing utensil? pen
40. Vacation activity? swimming
41. Bedding preference? cuddling
42. Pet peeves? tons
43. Cookies? chocolate
4. Eggs? sometimes
45. Favorite thing to do on a rainy day? dance
46. Your biggest strength? friendly
47. Favorite thing about school? P.E.
48. Most awesome gift received? motherhood
49. Neighbors? nice
50. What do you collect? scrapbooking
51. Oldest kept item from childhood? books
52. Greatest indulgence? chocolate
53. Your house? sold
54. Fruits or vegetables? both
55. Quiet or loud? loud

I tag Al, Savannah, Sarah, and Hilary

2008-09-30T14:02:00.000-07:00

The past couple of weeks or so I feel like I have been living in the dark ages. No tv, and no internet make Katie go something something....(get the reference??):)

Yes, two and a half weeks ago we moved up here to Portland to be close to Dave's work. It's great because instead of driving an hour to work, he rides his bike in about 15 minutes! And it's a nice area. Probably too expensive to buy a house in, but for renting it's perfect. I hadn't even seen the place until the day we moved in and I was pleasantly surprised. Two big rooms, big living room, and new carpet, all for just under $700 a month. For the area, it's a great deal. We were able to find it through one of Dave's friends sister's who manages the apartments, so it worked out for the both of us. Hopefully house prices will come down more so we can afford something in the area. That would be nice.
So, since we moved up here we haven't had any television or internet hook up at all until today! We tried to get it hooked up the first few days we moved in, but I guess it's a busy time of year, because they couldn't squeeze us in until today, but at least we have it now so I'm happy. Poor Dave has been suffering probably the most, missing out on all his football games! And from what I hear he missed out on quite a few upsets over the weekend! And Oregon State beating USC! He was bummed about that one. But at least he'll get to watch Utah beat up on Oregon State this weekend! :) snap.

So in the past couple of weeks a few things have happened. Right before we moved one of my best friends Savannah came to visit me! It was so nice! And she told me about some wonderful news! (Hope you are feeling better!) We had a nice visit, and it was good to see someone from Utah!

And then last weekend, I finally after only 4 years of marriage, finally got to meet Dave's grandparents from California and one of his uncles! It was great being able to visit with them for a couple of days. They are wonderful, nice people and hopefully it won't be 4 more years until we see them again. We spent Saturday at George and Nancy's house visiting all day, and then on Sunday we met them up in Portland.

George's parents George Sr. and Betty, and his brother Frances

A Futile effort trying to get a picture with the grandkids

listening to Mark play

walking all over!

So now life up here in Portland is different, but good. I am a little frustrated with trying to navigate the area. I don't know where anything is and couldn't possibly try to follow directions at this point. Downtown is full of one way streets, so you try to get somewhere across the street but have to drive around the block a few times till you find a street that will go down that way. So it's a bit difficult if you've never driven downtown before, and I fall into that category. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon. But really....it's hard. I'm not just stupid. And you can't park anywhere in the city for free. You have to pay, everywhere! And if you try, they'll give you a ticket, even if you are in visitor parking at your sister in laws apartment that is supposed to be free but they give you a $70 parking ticket instead! Yep, even then. So although it's a very pretty city, I'm not entirely in love with it yet. I just hope I don't get distracted trying to find my way around driving that I plow over a biker, because they are also everywhere in the city. Portland's the most bike-friendly place! And they sure love their dogs too! If you walk a mile from our apartment you will see at least 5 businesses related to dogs, whether it's for grooming, doggy-sitting, doggy-walking, doggy restaurants, etc etc.....I don't mind so much because I love dogs myself, but it seems people in Portland love dogs more than children. That's alright by me, just not what I'm used to coming from Utah where, well, you know, there's just a lot of kids!

So anyway a lot to get used to. I like it, and I'm sure I'll like it better when I can drive somewhere without getting lost!

some of my first steps!

2008-09-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

I finally got a video of Samantha taking a few steps! She was having a ball walking back and forth between the couch and Dave, and I got her to do a couple of her animal sounds, although you can't hear it very well. She was doing the lion and the fish! So Grandma and Grandpa Brewster this is for you!

Carousels, Birthdays, and Anniversaries!

2008-09-05T15:30:00.001-07:00

The other day Tracee and I took Samantha downtown Salem to the Waterfront park to ride the carousel. I figured that instead of paying $20 at the fair, I would spend $1.50 to ride on these beautiful hand-crafted, hand-painted horses. It was definitely worth it. I wasn't allowed to sit on the horse with Sammy so I strapped her in good and tight, and of course she loved it, right up until the very end when she decided she'd had enough.

I didn't do a very good job of taking a picture of myself! :)

She was happier than she looked in these pictures!

Also I have to give a couple of shout outs today. First of all to my sister Angie who's birthday was yesterday, Happy to You! I should have done this yesterday but I am grateful to have a sister as wonderful as you are to me, and I miss seeing you every week! I think of all my sisters, Angie and I are probably the most alike. We look the most alike, we both like shopping a lot (although I think Al and maybe Natalie are coming around) and for the time being, our hair is the same color, blonde! (but I guess Al's is too now :)
Angie has always inspired me, and she has accomplished a lot especially in the last eight years with being a single mom, going back to school RIGHT after having a baby and getting her degree, buying her own house, knows everything about everything, and knows that family is #1. I love her, my family loves her, Caden loves her, and some guy that I've heard a lot about but never met and spends a lot of time with her who is lucky enough to even be around her.. and Caden for that matter....I'm pretty sure he loves her too...what a lucky guy I should say. All in all she's pretty special to all of us, and is one of the hardest working people I know juggling a busy life. I get tired just reading her blog about what she has to do everyday!
Anyway I love you Angie and hope you had a fabulous birthday....shaved legs and all!!:)

now what kind of sister would I be if I didn't put a funny picture of Angie up??

me and Angie

And to my parents....whose Anniversary is today! Happy 34th Anniversary!! I'm pretty sure my math is right. 1974.....yep. My parents are awesome and complement each other so well. My dad has crazy humor and outspoken, and my mom reels it in a bit more conservative and is very sweet! I love them both. And I can't imagine a better way to celebrate your anniversary than going on a long cruise with the Harris's!! But I guess that's still what a month away?? Fun stuff. It must be nice to be old(er), and get to go on cruises all the time! :) Love you guys and Happy Anniversary again!

I believe that this is their engagement picture back in 1974!!

What does the piggy say??

2008-09-01T20:36:00.000-07:00

Happy Labor Day!
Today Dave and I went to the Oregon State Fair! Ya know, Fair's are fun to go to and look around without kids, but when you have kids it makes it that much more enjoyable. Samantha is an observer and likes to look at interesting people, so you can imagine the fun time she had at the fair! There are always a lot of very interesting people at fairs to look at.
Her favorite part of course was going to see all the animals. We went and saw all the cows where she got to pet a couple of them. And then we went into another pavilion that was full of goats. Of course! And they had pigs too, but you had to navigate in between all the goats to get to them. It almost wasn't worth it to me. And then they had a petting zoo that was free and it was mostly goats they had there, with a couple of sheep, a pig, a llama, a chicken, a deer, and a baby kangaroo. Luckily the goats were small enough that I could take Samantha in there to enjoy the rest of the animals. For those of you who are wondering why I dislike goats so much......I had a bad experience! So I'm not a fan.
We ate the biggest elephant ear I have ever seen, and also enjoyed a fruit smoothie and cotton candy! On our way out they had this Johnny Cash impersonator guy singing and he was awesome. He looked just like him and sounded just like him as well too. I love going to the fair and the fact that we could take Samantha and she enjoyed it made it more enjoyable for us as well.

2008-08-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

So last night Dave and I went to eat at Red Robin for dinner and Samantha had been a bit cranky during the day, mostly because she's getting some molars. So she cried the whole drive to the restaurant and I brought a bottle of juice and a bottle of milk just in case she wasn't happy with one or the other. I guess she couldn't decide between the two because while we were sitting at our table, she kept trying to put both bottles in her mouth at the same time. It was pretty hilarious! And if she could only drink one at a time, she kept the other bottle cradled in her arm just in case she changed her mind quickly! Luckily, it kept her appeased while we were there eating.

Samantha loves to be outside, as most babies do, and she has a swing in the front yard that she could sit and swing in all day if she could. I had to take a picture of her the other day because she was so relaxed drinking her juice and wearing her sunglasses.

A Beautiful Little Lady

2008-08-24T16:50:00.001-07:00

The other morning I was dressing Samantha for the day and thought I would put this cute white dress on her that my mom had bought for her. It was really cute, so I decided I should take some pictures of her because she is a year old now and I really should get some pictures taken of her. But since I am a cheapo I didn't want to pay someone to take the pictures for me when I have a very nice camera of my own. So I took her in the backyard by Nancy's pretty flowers and took a couple of pictures of her myslef. I think they turned out really well considering it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. Of course being cute helps, so it wasn't too difficult to get a good shot. So here are a couple of the pictures that I took of her.

This week hasn't been as exciting with Allison gone, but it did cool down a bit at least. Instead of 100 degree plus weather, we've been enjoying high seventies for a couple of days. Also the Oregon State Fair started and on opening night they had Bill Engvall perform, and we really wanted to go but tickets were too expensive so I thought, "hey maybe we should go to Vanessa Hudgens concert tomorrow instead!" yeah!! Fun! :) (But only if she brings Zac Efron) :) not so much.....so I think we are going to go sometime next week. Actually on Wednesday they are having Garrison Keillor perform with his Prairie Home Companion group which I would love to see, I guess it just depends on how much tickets are. Either way it will be fun to go and eat a lot of food, and take Samantha to the petting zoo, but not to the goats! I don't like goats.

At Last.......

2008-08-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

Silver Creek Falls

This has been a week I have been looking forward to but wasn't sure was going to happen. Allison was the first person to come and visit me up here in Oregon! (I know who really loves me!:) She brought her friend Marissa with her and they drove the approximately 13 hours to get here last Wednesday, and they actually made very good time. But of course of all times to come up, they are here during our heat wave of over 95 plus degrees or more each day without the air conditioning! I feel a bit bad for them but I guess they are pretty used to it coming from Utah.

We have been doing all the Oregon fun things. Since it has been so hot, of course we had to go to the beach so that is what we did on Thursday. The weather was great, probably the best of any time I've been to the beach. We pretty much relaxed on the beach for a while, ate at Mo's, and drove to Depoe Bay to TRY and see some whales. On Friday we went hiking and Saturday we had to go to Saturday's Market of course and spent some time looking around downtown Portland. It was very very hot but fun! Tomorrow we will probably go do some shopping at one of the outlet malls up the road. It's been fun having them up here and besides the heat, I think they have been enjoying themselves too!

Sammy at the beach

Marissa and Al at Mo's

One year ago today...

2008-08-10T15:52:00.001-07:00

Today I feel very grateful because one year ago today was the day we got to bring Samantha home from the hospital. It was the longest 3 weeks of my life when she was there, and I just remember that day bringing her home. We were supposed to get a special carseat where the baby can still be in a reclined position, but they were all out of them! Seriously? But they cleared us to go home anyway with our carseat. I have never seen Dave so nervous driving a car before. We took the LONG way home and didn't go on any freeways because Dave said it was too dangerous. But we did make it home safely and found the outside of our house decorated, thanks to my sister Natalie, and I think Allison too. My family came to visit that night, and we ate Chinese food! The rest of the night Dave and I were a wreck trying to decide how and where we should put her to bed. She ended up right next to my head in the bassinet for half the night, and the rest of it next to me so I could make sure she kept breathing. It was a bit stressful but after that first night, we felt a lot better aftwerwards.

A year later I think of all that has happened and how healthy she is now, and I feel very grateful to have been blessed in so many ways and had many prayers that were answered.

I am a "sucker" for her books!

2008-08-06T10:03:00.000-07:00

My life these last 4 days has been ruled by 2 things: Samantha, and Stephenie Meyer....well her book...Breaking Dawn.

Yes I am a Stephenie Meyer geek! And if that is wrong, I don't want to be right! I am an uber nerd when it comes to her books, but at least I know I am not alone in this respect! Thankfully my two sister in laws Tracee and Lacey are right there along with me. To the point where in the last few days, Tracee and I have adopted to sitting together in a room, reading each chapter and discussing it after each was done so we could contemplate on what was going on, and what will happen! Yes, I know...we are teenage girls! But it was fun!

Last night we stayed up till just after 12:00 so we could finish the last of the book because we couldn't put it down and it was sooooo exciting we had to know what happened! Was Bella finally going to end up with Edward forever? What about Jake, and the Italian vampires, and her dad Charlie, and Alice and Jasper......I told you I was a dork. And I will say, it did not disappoint! And my favorite book of the series! There were a couple of...."awkward" "mormony" parts, but if you had read the previous books, you knew it was coming. The reason I liked this book over the others was that in this book, it wasn't like you were leading up to one very dramatic point, much like the others, but there were a lot of dramatic parts in this book! Wow! Tracee and I were talking and I don't think I ever got this excited over Harry Potter! (I know blasphemy!)

Even the rest of our family was making fun of us for how nerdy we were. Instead of saying, "dementors, dementors!" Nancy was teasing, "Vampires, vampires!" Yep, even she was teasing us too! Like I said, everyone! But it's okay. We still had fun. At least we didn't build a fort with cushions, and put a sign on the front saying "no humans, or boys allowed!" I was close though!

So if you are a fan of the books and haven't read the last one yet, do! It was good!

2008-08-02T18:28:00.000-07:00

I finally finished my big quilt project yesterday! I started working on it about 2 months ago or so and I got it back from the quilter just this week. I was very happy with the way he quilted it, it looks really good. So yesterday my sister in law Tracee and I sat in the living room watching movies and she worked on her new quilt for her new apartment, and I worked on trying to finish mine by cutting off the excess fabric and slip stitching the fabric to the ruffle. I love the way the ruffle turned out but it was a big job to do making a ruffle for that big a quilt. I am very happy the way it all turned out though, and I've never made a quilt this big before. I plan on using it for Samantha's bed when she gets bigger. Now with the extra fabric I can make a pillow to match her blanket!

We decided it would be a fun idea to put a strip of squares on the back to make it more exciting than just the white muslin. (I actually got the idea from my sister in law Lacey). It turned out very nice.
. With as big as a quilt it was, I was glad we took it took a quilter to do, because if I would have tried to quilt it myself, it would not have looked as good!

A 3 Hour Tour! A 3 Hour Tour!

2008-07-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

So it was kind of a last minute thing but this weekend me, Dave, and my father in law George went on a camping trip to the coast. We left a little after 6 p.m. on Friday night and were a little bit worried about finding a place to camp. At the coast it's first come first serve and of course everything was full, but luckily we were able to get into the overflow at Beverly Beach, which actually worked out really well for us. We had a good spot and still had a fire pit to use as well. It has been almost 3 years since Dave and I have gone camping together. I don't mind smelling of campfire and getting dirty so much as I dislike being cold and uncomfortable on the hard ground. It wasn't too bad though. I had Dave to keep me warm and lesson learned, next time I go camping I am investing in a blow up mattress. It was still fun. George was brave and slept under the stars.

We woke up really early Saturday morning at 5:45 so we could get to Depoe Bay in time to go DEEP SEA FISHING!!! Oh my gosh, that was so much fun! It's a good thing I don't mind being dirty, because after deep sea fishing, you have fish guts all over you, you smell just like the fish, you might be a bit cold depending on the weather, and you might have some bird poop in your hair or on your clothes to top off everything. But I totally recommend it to everyone because it is a lot of fun!

Our fishing boat, named "The Morning Star" left around 7:30 ish and we traveled about 15 miles to our fishing destination. It was so pretty and perfect because the water was so smooth and there was a lot of fog around the harbor and going out to sea. It's a good thing for compasses because at one point we didn't know where the land was just by looking. On the way we dropped 10 crabbing nets that we would pick up on our way back. We spend about 4 hours fishing, and you can only catch up to 5 fish, but you can catch 2 lin cod as well for a total of 7 all together. In the end, George had caught 5 fish, I got my 5, and Dave......well let's say he had a lot of fun! He wasn't very lucky, but he wasn't the only one who didn't catch anything. I think myself and this other lady that were fishing at the back had the most luck with catching stuff. Of course it was the ladies that rocked the fishing! In the middle of our fishing the deck hand came around and put another hook on some of our poles to use as a teaser to help some of us. So I'd had it on for a while, and I start reeling my line in and at first I thought I had snagged it on a rock or something else because it was heavy and not moving, but then I realized I had a fish! I had already caught my first two so I was really excited to get another one. So I start reeling him up and the deck hand kid comes over to bring it up with the net and I had thought I got a really big one. Well once it got to the top I noticed the one fish was pretty big, but the other one beneath it was too!! I had caught two fish on one line! It was awesome! The guy told me he had never seen that happen before.
My two fish I caught on one line!

Most of the fish we all caught were different kinds of rockfish, which are similar to seabass but different. George caught one that had poisonous spikes, which was still a keeper we just had to kill it quickly just in case he decided to jump out and stab us in the eye! :)

Unfortunately we didn't catch any cod though. Only one guy on the boat did, and he was huge! They have sharp teeth too! After we were done fishing we were going back to get the crab traps and all of a sudden the boat slows to a stop. We look over to the right of the boat and not even 20 yards away, out of the water comes a big graywhale! It was really cool to see that. I have never seen a whale in the wild before so it was nice to have one come so close to out boat. He came up and out of the water a few times.
When we got back, they have people at the dock who will filet your fish and cook the crab for you. It is like an art form the way those guys work and how they are able to cut up those fish so quickly! It's a bit primitive how they smack the shells off those crab too. Yikes!
What a great experience that was to go deep sea fishing. Dave has told me about it for years saying he would take me someday, so it was great to finally be able to go and have such a great time doing it. There's another incentive to come to Oregon family!!!

Why do family vacations have to end?

2008-07-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

I just love family reunions. The prospect of getting together, enjoying company, playing volleyball, water skiing, and reminiscing about family experiences and funny stories makes for a great vacation. Including the one about aunt Marilyn (my Grandpa's sister) who never could say the word "breast." She would go to the store and ask the butcher, "can I have some chicken chests?" Or when singing the hymn Joseph Smith's First Prayer, she couldn't bring herself to sing the words, "oh what rapture filled his.....(bosom) :) such a lady! But that's how all my Grandpa's family was, including my Grandma, so proper!

Our family reunions on the Taylor side happen every 3 years and we've always gone to Aberdeen, Idaho to my Grandpa's sister's house Carolyn and her husband Frank. Most of us camp out in tents around their big yard, but some of us who can't go without showers and beds opt for the hotel option, which is what we did. The F. Willis Taylor family had great representation this year! All but 2 of his children were there. Of course we were all planning on continuing our own vacation/reunion in Island Park. After our Frank and Zetella reunion, the Frank and Louise reunion convened up there. We split up into 3 cabins with about 49 people!

We had a lot of fun doing things like floating down Big Springs which is very calm water, and then later in the day floating down Box Canyon, which had some very rapid waters. And, it was Samantha's first floating trip! The worst part was really just the first 10 minutes and she cried most of that time because everyone was screaming from getting wet. We were in a raft with my uncle Alan and all his family, most of them clinging to the side of the raft in tubes! Samantha didn't much love having to wear her lifejacket either. I think I may have surprised a few people by taking her out on the water, but it ended up being a fun adventure and after those 10 minutes, she fell asleep for the rest of the trip. :)

Each night we would get together for dinners and we all took turns cooking for everyone, which worked out really well, and each family made great food! The rest of the week included activities like golfing, West Yellowstone, Old Faithful, Mt. Sawtelle, and swimming at Buttermilk Reservoir. We had a lot of fun with all the Taylors. Samantha loved all the attention she got from everyone....well most everyone! :)

We also celebrated Samantha and Annie's birthdays while at our cabin too, which was great to be able to do so with my side of the family. Her official first birthday was on the 20th, so she is now officially a year old! Where has the time gone???

The very last night we were there with just my family, and we did something that we have never done as a family before. We floated down Big Springs in 3 rafts at 10:30 at night! it took us about 2 1/2 hourse but it was so fun! We thought it would be fun to listen to the sounds of nature at night, but mostly it was sounds of laughing, talking (loudly), screaming (loudly), and singing (very loudly). The screaming came because we thought the big moose we had just seen was going to eat us because Ben pushed us into the side of the river where the big animal had just been and was probably waiting to attack! There was probably a bet among the bears and moose who could eat us first just to shut us up! So after that moose we didn't see much else, because of the fact that we were so loud! We did hear trees cracking and bushes moving which was just as scary though. It turned out to be a lot of fun though, and will hopefully be a yearly occurrence after this year!

It ended up being a great vacation with all of the family. I am definitely proud to be a Brewster, and a Taylor! Thanks for all the fun fam!

SOOOOO excited!

2008-07-08T21:17:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow I am off to Utah! Hooray! Back in April when we moved here I thought that July was forever away and that it would never come, and now it's finally here and it actually went by very quickly! Of course I won't be spending most of my time in Utah. Idaho mostly. But at least I'll be with my family!
But before I go, I have to mention our wonderful birthday party we had today. It was a girl princess party, and we celebrated Samantha, Natalie (my niece), and Kristin (my sister in law's birthdays. We had a party outside and ate some of Nancy's homemade quiche, listened to the Enchanted soundtrack, and stuffed our faces with birthday cake (literally)! Nancy bought this huge pink buttercream frosting cake! So good! It was fun celebrating with just the girls and opening up presents!

Nancy made this beautiful quilt for Samantha!

More and more pictures!

2008-07-06T12:19:00.000-07:00

After posting pictures of my mom, I thought it would be a good idea to post some pics of my dad. Going through his pictures growing up, he was the cutest kid, and I think his sisters were even jealous of him because how likeable and cute he was, and still is today of course! Seeing pictures of him as a little boy, I definitely see a lot of similarities in a few of his grandchildren.

This one looks exactly like Logan to me!

I can see a bit of Caden in there too!

Dad hunting easter eggs as a boy.....very serious business!

Dad's birthday thinking "Am I really that old?"

Happy 4th!

2008-07-04T19:03:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July!
What a fun day to celebrate our freedom by setting off fireworks and eating as much as possible. It's been a fun day.
We hung out with the family at the Demcak's house in the front yard all day eating food, riding motorcycles, playing with waterballoons, jamming on guitars, and enjoying each others company. The best part of the day was when Nancy (my mother in law) rode on the back of Mark's beamer scooter with Alan driving. None of us thought she would actually take a ride on it because it scared her enough watching other people taking a ride. Go Nancy!
Also with the pictures I've been working on, the 4th of July makes me think of my cabin because most of our 4th of July's were spent there, so I thought I would post a pic from our cabin days.

More Pictures

2008-07-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

Here are my pictures of the day. I was going through more pictures and there are so many pretty pictures of my mom, that I had to put some of them up.

Pictures I love

2008-07-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

One of the things that make me feel close to my family is looking at pictures from growing up and all the Taylor family pictures.
For the last......while, I've been working on family pictures for my mom. First, gathering all her slides (at least 3,000 of them) and converting them to the computer one by one. For those of you who have a lot of slides, you need to buy the machine that my mom has! It's cool because you put one of your slides in this little machine, it copies it and puts it on your computer! So I did that a few months ago, but now I have to go back through them all and convert them one by one to jpeg files instead of tiif's because they are huge files! And that along with photoshopping, cropping, and trying to fix all those extra special pictures makes for a long job, and a bit tedious. But honestly I love doing it, because those pictures are so special. I love to go through the pictures of my grandma Louise Taylor and my grandma Naomi Brewster. I never knew either of them and going through their pictures and seeing them with their kids gives me a connection to them. It probably sounds weird but working on those slides for so long and seeing them over and over makes me feel like I know them a bit better. There are so many pictures of Louise that I love with her small kids, and the trips they went on, and with Grandpa Taylor that makes her seem so real to me because I never knew her as a person. So I wanted to post one of the many many pictures of her that I love.

I love this picture of Grandma Louise because from what I was told, she loved her horses and horsebackriding, and she is so beautiful!

I love this picture of Grandpa Taylor because he was such a great doctor and I think this picture is a representation of the hardworking doctor he was, making house calls (back in the day when doctors used to do that) and still having his family close by (pic on his desk of the boys)

More pics to come!

Our First Family Vacation!

2008-06-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

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! :)

2008-06-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-15T14:23:00.000-07:00

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'

2008-06-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

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!!!"

2008-06-07T21:12:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

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! :)

2008-05-25T18:04:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-17T23:31:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-05-16T16:40:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-11T20:11:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-08T21:54:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-02T21:43:00.000-07:00

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!

My Running Buddies

2008-04-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

Today Tracee, Samantha and I went to Minto Brown Park to get some exercise! Tracee rode a bike and Sam and I ran. It was a lot of fun! And what a pretty park it was. It was a couple miles around and there was a lake and a couple of ponds along the way. Plus the best part was that it was such a beautiful day. I think today is the first day that it hasn't rained during any part of the day. The high today was somewhere in the 60's which was great for running outside. It's one of those days that I'm not too sad I'm not in Utah right now where I hear there was quite the load of snow yesterday. I'm sorry family! And it's almost May! That's Utah I guess...

Getting So Big!

2008-04-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

Since having Samantha in the same room as us, whenever we put her down to sleep, sometimes she'll cry a little but we stay far enough away from the crib so she won't see that we are still in the room with her which would make her cry more. Well last night that all changed. She is learning to pull herself up, which brings us a step closer to walking. Dave and I were lying on the bed watching tv and Sam was fussing a little bit (mostly talking to herself) and all of a sudden we heard this little squeal! So we look over and see this little head popped up over the railing! She was so proud of herself that she had pulled herself up that she wants to do it all the time. We put her on the floor for a while yesterday and she was doing the same thing with the diaper bag. So last night I was worried that she would pull herself out of the crib so tonight we are definitely lowering the crib so she can't get out. She sure is growing fast though.
So the other thing I was excited about while I was surfing the web this morning was that I found out they are filming the movie "Twilight" right here in Oregon! And it's not that far away. They are filming the movie in St. Helens and when I was reading the article they were talking about the weather how it changes so quickly, and that's one thing I have really noticed about Oregon. In one day it goes from Sunny, to cloudy, to rainy, to hailing, and back to Sunny. So I go into the store while it's sunny but by the time I come out it's pouring rain. That's why I have given up on doing my hair because in the rain it gets so frizzy so I've just left it curly because at some point in the day I know it's going to rain.
So maybe I should find out if those movie makers neede any extra vampires because I think I could pull off that vampiresque look...maybe...right? Okay so maybe I just want to go and look at all those beautiful people. Anyway I thought it was pretty exciting, especially for those of you who have read those books!

We're A Big Happy Family!

2008-04-21T19:05:00.000-07:00

Well we have officially moved everything of our's and Jeff and Lacey's stuff in, so we have a full house! I never thought we'd be able to fit all of our stuff in the garage but we did it.
Life in Oregon continues to be interesting. Today I drove up with Dave's sister Tracee and my sister in law Lacey up to Portland to have a girl's shopping day out. It was amazing because I actually have birthday money to spend on clothes or whatever I want, and after spending almost 5 hours at the mall, I hadn't spent a single dollar! Why is it whenever you have money you don't want to spend it, but when you don't you think, "oh it's okay it's so cute!" But I guess maybe it could be a bad time of year to buy clothes or something because I really didn't see anything woth spending money on, even though it was tax free! There were too many bright greens, pinks, and yellows. I actually saw an outfit at The Gap that had bright green pants with a light blue long sleeve shirt with and bright blue sweater over it and a bright yellow scarf! Uh, people actually wear this stuff? I guess I'll have to wait for summer or something.
I asked Dave about his job and afer almost a weeks worth of work he loves it which I'm so happy about! He works for the Real Estate Industry's Division over the Northwest. He gets to do construction, and financing for developers and contractors. He likes it because a lot of what he went to school for he actually gets to apply to his job. We are both very happy that after all the trouble of moving out of state, at least it was to a job that he enjoys. He works in the very posh Coin building right downtown in Portland. It is the 3rd largest building in Oregon and it overlooks the heart of the financial district, and the Willamette river. Sounds like a great hookup, so Sammy and I are excited to visit him at work once we figure out how to get down there!

Blogs

2008-04-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

Deciding on a blog name last night was a little difficult. The blog name I really wanted was Bobloblawslawblog.com (for those of you who get the reference I salute you....for those of you who don't it's from ony of my favorite shows Arrested Development) But I can't believe it, it was already taken! So I thought I would use something a little easier to say and write. I don't know much about this blogging thing yet but I think I'll have plenty of time to figure it out!

Time To Say Goodbye

2008-04-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

Well I finally did it! I started a blog. The only reason I haven't started one sooner is because I didn't have the internet at my house. Now the only reason that I am starting one is because I'm far away from my family and I have to keep everyone in the know of what's happening with the Demcak's in Oregon...That's right I have officially become an "Oregonian." (whether I like it or not). I think it might take me a while to love my new life. One of the hardest things I've ever done before I did yesterday. I left my family behind in Utah while I jumped on a plane with Samantha to meet Dave here in Oregon. I didn't anticipate it being that hard for me. I haven't cried that much since Samantha was born. I already miss my family soooo much. I got to spend my last few days doing "fun fun" things with my parents. On Monday I went shopping in Park City with my mom and Samantha and Ella and it was so nice spending time with my mom for a while. My mom is so wonderful and caring, and I am going to miss her a ton! On Tuesday I went with my dad to this banquet in Salt Lake that was honoring Bill Nelson, the CEO of IHC at the Grand America Hotel! Swanky! So the entertainment was the Beach Boys which those who know my dad, they are his favorite band of all time! I got to dance with my daddy right by the stage to the tunes of "God only knows what I'd be without you," "409," "Hawaii," "Kokomo," and so on. We danced for a long time! I couldn't have asked for anything better to spend time with my dad than dancing with him to the beach boys. That was a highlight of my life! We even got a high five from Mike Love!! That was pretty awesome! I love you dad! To all of my family, I hope that you call me often and know that I will miss you all more than you know. And all the little kiddies...Caden, Annie, Logan, and Ella, please don't forget us, we will miss you too!

For the rest of you who don't know, we moved to Oregon because Dave got a new job with the same company Bank of the West up in Portland. It was a great opportunity and I am very excited for him. He has always wanted to move back to Oregon because this is his home. So now we are living with his parents George and Nancy and they are the single reason that is making this move somewhat bearable. I couldn't ask for more wonderful in-laws! So they are putting up with us while we find a house to live in whether that be in Portland or one of the surrounding cities. The funny thing about it is Dave's brother Jeff and his wife Lacey and their baby Eric are moving in too! By some crazy ironic coincidence Jeff got a job up in Portlad too! So we are going to be one big happy family with two babies under the age of one under one roof! It is pretty amazing that it worked out this way but it will be fun to spend a lot of time together! Again, George and Nancy you are saints!

Everything seemed to work out perfectly for us when we decided we were moving. We sold our house amazingly by owner in 2 weeks! So now we don't have to worry about paying a mortgage on a house that we're not even living in. Now I hope we have some luck in finding a good home for us here. What a great adventure (or as I like to think of it as an extended vacation) this will be. Unfortunately I won't be dazzling you all with my literary genius (like my sister's are able) but I will keep you informed about our exciting life in Oregon...with lots of pictures! Since I haven't taken any yet, I wanted to share the fun pictures from Easter with the family and grandkids that was so much fun! More to come.....