Memories

So even though this trip was FOREVER ago, I thought I'd throw some on here just for good measure. Plus I'm ready to go back for more adventures:) Anyhow, my sister and I took this trip right after I graduated in 2005 from OSU and I can't believe it's been that long and how much life has changed since we took this trip. She has gotten married and is now 23 weeks pregnant. I survived 2 years of Nursing School and lived to tell about it. Lisa has switched jobs, I have 2 years of being and RN under my belt and both of us are trying to navigate the real estate world to buy houses!

I hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane:)


We flew in to London and forced ourselves to go check out the city all day long. We got in to London around 7am after our forever long flight. Let me just say jet lag along with a new city and the most confusing bus system ever did not equal a positive London experience. We can laugh about it now, but we struggled that day in a big way. We were SO excited to get to France where things were so much simpler to us! This is me acting awake posing in front of Big Ben and you can see The Eye of London in the background.

Lisa and I mastering the art of the smooshy face at the 3rd deck on the Eiffel Tour. This was our first full day of being tourists in France.

What a glorious day to visit Paris:)

Here is a photo of the National Cemetary over In France where a lot of soldiers from WWII are buried. The next photo down is one of the beaches in Normandy where the last battle was fought. We were on a tour bus for the day, thankful we weren't having to navigate the back roads and we learned so much more from our tour guides than we would have on our own. Money well spent.

Here we are at Sacre Coeur, another beautiful day, yet extremely hot outside. We had already climbed endless stairs to reach this point. Then Lisa thought it would be great to climb to the top of the building, below I look happy but I was so hot and sweaty and not excited to be climbing even more stairs. That was a good workout that day. Ahhh, good memories.

View from our little room at the bed and breakfast we stayed at in Cinque Terre.

Pretty sunset in Italy. Gorgeous country and town, but impossible train system. We were lucky to make it to our destination at all.
Back in Paris, in a different part of town, this was our last Hostel we stayed in where Lisa's friend Amy joined us for our last days in France.

We went on a tour of castles for Lisa's birthday! It started out as a pretty day but in true June 30th fashion, it ended in rain. But not anybody can tour a castle for their birthday! When we returned to our hostel that evening, Amy was there to greet us with 3 little chocolate cakes to celebrate.

This is museum day. All day at museums. I think we tackled the Louvre, the MOMA, and Musee d'Orsay. We used Rick Steves' travel guides to help us conquer these huge tasks and see the best of what was there and what we wanted to see. There was no way we could see it all. Below is a picture of how the day went. Amy read the directions to us of how to navigate the museum, it even tells you which way to turn and then we would stop, she would read to us about what we were looking at and then move on. This picture is classic of exactly what we did all day that day.

Lisa and I outside Versailles on our last day of touring! This place is HUGE!


So after a full day of walking through the castle and the grounds and eating ice cream ( I think we had ice cream EVERY day on that trip some time between 2-3 in the afternoon) we layed down in the grass, listened to the Victorian music they had playing throughout the grounds and people watched. Amy took a little nap and we just enjoyed relaxing and being in France
So that is it! That is my trip down memory lane. I wish I had taken SO many more pictures. It felt like a lot when we were there, but not so much any more. Someday I'll make it back to France and Scotland and Ireland and so many more places I still want to go:)

Planting the Garden

Well this year Mom's 2nd Grade Garden Party took place at school, rather than at our house. PRAISE THE LORD! Memories of the last year trying to round up tarps and create shelters all over our backyard last minute when we got a surprise visit from the rain and making raincoats out of trash bags for 30 7-8year old kiddos came rushing back. It was SO nice to not have to make the yard perfectly beautiful and make lunch for 50 people. This year, WE got to plant our garden.

Instead of having to stick to the garden map that my Mom used to make with the kids, we got to rearrange where we planted stuff and it didn't take us 5 hours to plant the garden either. So although it's been about 10 years since we have planted the garden without the help from mom's class, I think it will turn out well:)

Dad was already started by the time we arrived and had the pumpkins already planted.


Here I am helping with the carrots. I did better with these than those horribly small snapdragon seeds. They were so impossibly small that even with my best efforts trying to scatter them, I ended up just dumping them and hoping that the wind will scatter them to their proper places:) So we thought that having us plant the garden the rows may come out straight this year and it won't look exactly like 2nd graders planted it, but apparently with me on hand spreading seeds it will still be a surprise to see where things grow!

And here is the finished product! Our Japanese Maples are getting bigger and bigger and prettier every year, but they are creating large shading problems this year. Those new houses built right next door don't help any either. The garden still grows, just not quite to the extent it did in the good ol days when there were no houses next door and the trees were smaller.

Happy Easter!

Well, it's been some time since my last post. Nothing much happened in March. I woke up, I went to work (a lot, we got really busy for a bit), then I came home to sleep. I have been trying to think of something worth posting, and I decided to make Easter that event. I tortured the immediate family with pictures, but spared my aunts, uncles and cousins at the bigger family gathering. If you notice in the picture above, my parents are wonderfully tan as they are just back from a trip to Hawaii, and I am pasty white. Well Lisa is white too, but she is going to Hawaii in May, so I shall be the only ghost in the family then. Anyways, aren't we a cute Easter family. Mike is hiding behind the camera.

Since we are getting older Mom decided to retire the individual Easter baskets. Instead.... (here we are below looking eager and anxious for the surprise... kinda.


And here is the little basket of goodies we all got to chose from to share! LOL, fun! A community Easter present. Mom is the BEST and went on a hunt through several stores to find me some Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs. The most fabulously wonderful treat on the planet.



And lastly, here is my little Lemon Bundt Cake I made for the big family gathering brunch. It was a new recipe but I think it passed approval and everyone thought it was quite delicious! YAY! I'm becoming a little baker. I just wish there was such a thing as low calorie baking. Oh well.


I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter!

Luke 24

The Resurrection

¹On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ⁷'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' " ⁸Then they remembered his words...

⁴⁶He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹"

Mini Vacation

So since I had only taken 2-3 vacation days from work since I started (all of those which were not actual vacations, rather just days available to help with other projects) I decided to actually get away. I had been wanting to get to the beach forever and so I decided on Cannon Beach and headed out on my adventure. I had a good book, good food and NO agenda. I was expecting just a bit of good weather and the rest stormy beach rain, but instead (excluding a light rain Sunday night during the Oscars) it was BEAUTIFUL! I took some pictures to share with you all and since a photo is worth a thousand words, I'll stop typing and start showing you the pictures!


As soon as I arrived, I headed straight down to the beach while the weather was nice since I had expected it to disappear. I took a really long walk with just a gentle breeze coming off the ocean and the sun shining down. What a perfect day at the beach.











It was really bright and sunny. This makes it impossible to get a good picture since looking into the camera makes your eye water instantly due to the sun glare.











I am not a genius photographer, but I didn't think this turned out too bad. I was so excited to get this shot with NO people in it in the middle of the day on a Saturday.













Again, I am not a photographer, I wished I was this weekend. It was just so pretty I couldn't get over it. I walked all the way down to Haystack Rock and I imagine I looked something like this person climbing on the rocks looking for starfish and other cool tide pool creatures.












This is the coolest thing I found. I remember there being so many more creatures here when I was a wee one visiting Haystack Rock. Even still, I was still amazed with myself and my timing as I had arrived at low tide and hadn't even planned it.









Trying to master the art of photographing myself, here is a pic of me just after my mini adventure climbing on the rocks and being thrilled I didn't fall or twist an ankle or something in the process.











This is the view from the room I was in. This rainbow appeared Sunday afternoon as the sprinkles were just starting. This doesn't do it justice because in real life the colors were So vibrant. I wish I could have fit the whole arc into my picture, that would have been perfect.










This is a picture of the hotel I stayed at. My room was the one on the far right at the very end on the first floor. I was literally just steps from the beach and could lay in bed and see the ocean. My dream come true on this vacation. I spent a lot of time with the fire turned all the way up, the door wide open so I could see and hear the ocean as I was curled up in bed with my nose stuck in a good book. I needed this vacation.



This last one is of me on my little patio. The lighting is bad so my face is dark and the ocean isn't visible but I was relaxed having just spent 30min in the spa by myself which overlooked the ocean. I hope to visit my little room again soon.


It was a wonderful vacation!

Cocktail Party

Chrissy and I decided to have a cozy post-holiday season gathering. Our Christmas decorations got to be enjoyed by more than just us one last night before they all got torn down. It was a fun time seeing everyone and getting to play hostess. Many thanks to Jessica for being such a wonderful photographer so I actually have something to post!






Chrissy and I in our festive aprons pre-party trying to stay clean before the guests arrived.




























Here is everyone all dressed up and enjoying the delicious appetizers and beverages :)










Showing off our cheesecake pops that Sarah made... an AMAZING party idea and they tasted sooo yummy!












Nurse and future nurse posing for an over the shoulder pic. Clem lives such an exciting life all the way out in New York, NY and it was so fun to have her visit again :)










Best friends since I think somewhere around 6 months old. My memory is that great from that early on in life, but I bet even back then we had some good times.













Sisters picture!











The ladies all lined up on the couch










And on a very different note, here is proof of my hard work digging out my parents driveway during our recent snow storm. I made a lot of headway before dad came home from work to help me finish up. And for the record, I did not use the wimpy shovel the whole time, only when Dad got home did he make me switch the the girly sized shovel :)




















A job well done and some quality father daughter bonding time.

Winter Wonderland

This is going to be a photo blog. Just random pictures from my apartment building, my parents' house and my grandma's house. I think I was 8 the last time we had this much snow in Portland. It is pretty to look at and not holding me back! I have the chains on my car and I'm ready to drive at a moments notice (which is good since I'm on call until Tuesday morning.)

Anyhow, here's the photos of snow... and it continues to snow, so we now have more than what these pictures show.


View from the family room in the apartment.














The icy footprints I left after my trek to the grocery store.














Some accumulation on the ledge out front.











A snow drift built up against the back door, but now it's not so much a drift as the level of snow is only approx. 3in below this level.






Just a dusting on the trees at Grandma's house















A Japanese maple in Mom and Dad's front yard.













A lone rose plant looking very cold.














A cozy winter scene. It's too cold to sit out there on that bench, but in the summer it's a great shady spot to cool off!







Christmas cookies anyone? What else is a girl to do? I made some 7 layer bars and those little cookies with pecans in them that melt in your mouth and have powered sugar on top (that is what I call them anyhow). I got tired before I made it to the sugar cookies, but those are next on the list.







Look who came to visit! I got dressed up for the picture, I hope you can tell...










Me and Papa by the tree. This picture requires a special note about "The Sack." For those of you that don't know, it's a rectangle of fleece with sleeves and wholes in the bottom to pop your feet out. Hideous, and wonderfully warm and comfy when your apartment refuses to get warm. I cannot believe I'm posting this picture, it's self incriminating and embarrassing.



Anyhow, there you have it. The highlights from my part of the world during this Severe Weather and Arctic Blast of 2008!