cop out

Here's my cop out of a post for today:

I did it. I went from an average of 12 posts a month since this summer to a whole 30+ posts in November! Yay! We'll see if this actually keeps me in the habit...

See you in DECEMBER!

savannah said it best...

when she made the observation of how many houses we went to yesterday to visit people

• we woke up at gramma and grammpa g's house
• went to aunt heidi and uncle gabe's house for breakfast and pictures
• went to grandpa dave's house
• went to darrell and sonya's house to spend time with great grandpa bob, grandpa dave, grandma janet and uncle don and some neighborhood friends
• went to kevin and annie's house for dinner and to play with our old friends
• and spending the night at gramma debbie and grammpa andy's house

whew! now that is a busy day.
we need a vacation from our vacation.

falling back into habits

I feel like I keep repeating myself here, but I just love these friends we have that we can get together and it's really as if we haven't skipped a beat. It's like absolutely no time has passed, except that we all have more stories to tell and the kids have gotten taller...

Also something that keeps coming to our attention is how much we do and don't know where we're going when we're driving around here. We know where we are and where we want to go and we can see pieces of the way there in our head but don't always quite know how to fit it all together. It doesn't help that they keep changing roads and landmarks around here. :)

It is so good to be "home" though...

blessings, Ryan's version

• hanging out with friends who are family
• beer
• beer that is not made by Budweiser
• remembering how to navigate our old turf
• walking amongst fellow duck fans
• fred meyer
• liquid sunshine
• tax-free Christmas shopping
• grandparent babysitting
• picking up where he left off with old friends
• and still three more days to go

blessings

I'm thankful for two kids that fill my heart to the brim each day

*****

for the health of my family

*****

for answers to my prayers in every shape and form; even when I don't see them as answered or at least as the answers I'm asking for

*****

for a husband who doesn't let me pump my own gas, who keeps my sink mostly cleared of dirty dishes and who makes sure we go to bed together each night

*****

for amazing friends who are such an encouragement to me

*****

for clean water, hot water, heat and a roof over our heads for shelter

*****

for this country, it's freedom and the faithful people that stand behind it

*****

for my Father in Heaven who cries when I cry, and smiles when I smile, my Savior who gives me my choice, and who saves me and teaches me when I make the wrong ones.

Count your blessings today and share them with those around you...

here we go

Our other half is on their way here...

Sawyer and I have had the nice relaxing week here, spending whole days with friends, just hanging out, doing whatever we want.

Now Ryan and Savannah join the picture and we will be non stop scheduled to the brim for the next six days:

Today: they arrive, Jenn and Greg will be here for the afternoon and then Ryan's parents will join us all for dinner.

Thanksgiving: Early dinner with this side of the family and then over to the west side for a second dinner with mine.

Friday: hang out with the family a bit more (maybe some shopping?) and then head out to the beach for the afternoon with some good friends.

Saturday: drive back from the beach early for a family picture with my family in the am, spend the afternoon with Ryan's dad and his family, head to a friends house that evening for a game night with all our old friends from church.

Sunday: church, lunch with friends, back for some more time with both our families.

Monday: spend the last day with Ryan's mom, sisters and family.

Whew!

Then we're back in the air on Tuesday.

And will probably need another vacation at that point!...

now

I know our families are probably saying, Enough with the old cousin pictures, where are all the new ones? Especially new ones of the newest cousin?!

Well I'm currently pretty empty handed when it comes to new pictures. Number one, I've been extremely lazy with my camera -even abandoning it across town for a couple of days-, and Number two, when I actually did get it out I had two very unenthusiastic, uncooperative boys...

See?!


This is about the best I got for cousin shots.










Oh wait, we have eye contact! From one of them anyway...


















Sawyer finally decides to have fun with it and it appears Levi wants nothing to do with fun...



















I did snap some pictures of Sawyer baking cookies with his Aunt Heidi...





























and they didn't get messy at all!

not me monday

It certainly wasn't me who never got around to copying my pile up of pictures to the laptop to take with me to work on on vacation...
It was definitely not me who pawned that job off, last minute on her poor husband who had not a clue what specific files I wanted copied OR where they were located.
And it was sure not me who didn't even check before I left to see if said poor husband had guessed right.
Uh-uh, not me.

*****
Well, if you can't tell, I'd had lofty goals of posting all my back-logged visitor and vacation stuff from this past summer... and it turns out the (hundreds) of pictures I posted last week are all I have on this computer with me. The rest are cataloged at home. :(

So instead of more last August pictures, here's just more again from the Smith's trip (because I know you didn't get enough before); some outtakes of our trip to the park for pictures.

Scroll down for a double dose of cute kids.
And my son's public urination interrupting a nice family photo shoot.

sunday survey

this one's been floating around and I've been feeling left out, so here it is :)
fitting since I'm back in my high school neighborhood right now...

Back in the Day...

1. Did you date someone from your high school?
yes, formally Mike Dellerba briefly during my jr year and Chris Keldsen pretty much my whole sr. year. other randoms in there before that I dated but not dated.

2. What kind of car did you drive?
didn't... we lived down the street from the highschool and all my friends had cars so they carted me around most of the time :)

3. What was the most embarrassing moment of HS?
one afternoon a few of us ended up (obviously were very bored) sitting in a circle punching the person to the right of us in the arm seeing who would quit first. Oh, did I mention it was me and three guys? But I outlasted two of them, finally succuming to the last one. Who happened to be my boyfriend. Oh, did I also mention that I bruise easily? Didn't think twice about it, but woke the next morning with an ugly mammoth bruise on my upper arm. Which I didn't notice until I was already at school and wearing short sleeves. Needless to say, the bruise was ugly. Big and ugly. I had teachers sending me to the office to talk to counselors. Had to explain that YES my boyfriend did it, YES my boyfriend hit me, but NO it wasn't abuse, it was A GAME and NO I will never let it happen again. YES, in hindsight, a STUPID GAME. But honestly it didn't hurt (too much) at the time. And honestly people who bruise easily should not play such games. So poor Chris was grilled and embarrassed (and got kind of a frightening talking-to from my father when he got wind of it). I have to say that's about the most embarrassing thing I remember from high school.

4. Were you a party animal?
um, no. We did hang out till all hours of the night (morning?!), but the group I hung out with consisted of a majority of LDS good guys and gals, so it was a completely innocent hanging out. I went to my first "party" spring break of my sr year and had a shot of root beer schnapps. Woo-hoo!

5. Were you considered a flirt?
kinda

6. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
band (flute) and choir freshman year

7. Were you a nerd?
maybe the first year or two
Wait. Saying i was a flirt and a nerd... isn't that contradictory??

8. Were you on any varsity teams?
no

9. Did you get suspended/expelled?
no. Well, in-school suspension for skipping school and forging re-admit slips, yes.

10. Can you still sing the fight song?
no, don't think I ever really knew it.

11. Who were your favorite teachers?
Mr. Dellerba, Mr. Kearsley, Mr. Duran

12. Where did you sit during lunch?
in the cafeteria with friends. Or an extended lunch at McDonald's... we had a closed campus but skipped a lot!

13. School mascot?
Warriors.

14. Did you go to homecoming, and with who?
just one year. With Mark Tomseth... from another school, ooh-la-la!

15. If you could go back and do it again, would you?
yes, I LOVED high school! Well, not the school part I guess, considering I was harldy there, but we had great times!!

16. What do you remember most about graduation?
not much about graduation itself... I more remember the last days of school and all the celebration stuff for the srs... having lunch out at pizza with so many great friends all together... and I remember fighting with my boyfriend all day.

17. Where did you go senior skip day?
it happened to be Cinco de Mayo so we went downtown to the celebration/carnival at Riverfront Park.

18. Were you in any clubs?
no. Except for our own Let's Ditch Everything After Lunch and Head Out to the Beach In Your Mom's Prelude club. That met bi-monthly or so.

19. Have you gained some weight since then?
oh, just a tad :)

20. Who was your prom date?
Chris. And even though we dated for almost our entire sr. year, our going to prom together was a last minute long story...

21. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion?
done. (five years ago already?!!?)

22. Looking back, what advice would you give yourself?
maybe actually go to class a little more? Be more confident, more outgoing, relax. Oh and little tiny yellow Datsun pick-up trucks?... aren't meant to hold 8 people at once. Especially if it's raining.

not so social saturday

I have an ache in my head
and my eyes just want to be closed
and I cannot get warm
and I miss my bed
and my husband
and my little girl
and I hope I'm not getting sick.

So I'm really not in the blogging mood today.

Tomorrow we'll see more old friends
and lay low with the family
and get some Christmas gift projects done
and maybe I can give myself a manicure
and hopefully the sun will come out
and I'll be caught up on sleep
and in a better mood
and then it'll be one day closer
to hugging my husband
and my little girl
and being with our families
together as a family.

[Miss you guys. It's just not quite as fun here without you...]

the week of the smiths

Otherwise titled:
Things I Never Blogged About, part 1
Also otherwise titled: The most pictures posted in one post. Ever.

So even though we're spending time with the Smiths now, in Portland, in November, I'm trying to spend some down time this trip finally finishing up all these pictures and posts I'm behind on from this summer. You know- when the Smiths came and started our marathon of visitors and vacation in July?!

(this was actually written at the end of the week it all happened, -um, JULY- but never put together with pics or posted due to lack of internet on our following vacation)

Wow, this week flew by! The fam arrived last Friday and then I blinked and it was already Thursday and they were piling into our car and heading to Chicago. (they were due in Chicago for the weekend for Dan's brother's wedding, borrowing our 4runner for the road trip from here)(about two minutes after we waved them off and they had pulled out of our driveway Sawyer came to me with a quivery lip saying "I miss our 4runner!". Yep, not his cousins, just his car!)

But we had a full week of fun.
I especially miss hanging out with this little part of our family... I loved spending a year living by "just" the Smiths way back when, when we lived in Salem, Oregon, and it was hard to move away from that when we left the state. I forget they're "family" because they are just such great friends and we have so much fun together.
It was also sad to leave because these have been my kids' only cousins so far. It was so fun to get to know our little nieces... Taegen and Sawyer are just four weeks apart in age, making her only six months old when we left. Since then they've added two more cuties and so we had a lot of little girl catching up to do!

We spent as much in between time this week as we could at the pool... (which should probably be a post of it's own in the amount of pictures I'm slapping on here!)(sorry!!)






































































































































































































































































We spent a day at the zoo of course...





































































Played in the rain together...






























We had a mini family photo shoot after a picnic...













































































































We explored a new nature park...









































































































The cousins skyped Grandma together...





























We got together with lots of college friends (Ryan and Holly went to the same school) and all their kids.
Here's all the young'ins that day. Minus Tatum cuz she was napping...














We played lots of games, made lots of food, had lots of laughs, lots of fits, lots of hugs and just a great, great time with our visitors...
































So sad we won't be here when they return for a day before flying home.

Thanks for hanging out with us for a week, guys! Can't wait to do it again!!
(or all the time when you move to St Louis....)