...::big girls::...

Look at these girls!

Abigail, our Goddaughter, turned ONE on the 28th of July. I can't believe it has already been a year. (I have to upload the pics from her party... more to come!) She was so funny with my huge glasses on! I love this little one, she is too cute :)


How adorable my friend Georgia's baby girl, Isabelah?! She was eating lemons at dinner! She is a doll and SUPER cute. It is always so fun to see Georgia, Micah and Bel...move back to Cali you guys, Arizona is too hot!!

...before and after...

ever since we moved into our condo...this september will be 2 years...our garage has looked like this:


EEEUUUWW! it was two households worth of crap merging and fitting into a much smaller space (our condo) and everything else was tossed into the garage, that was completely spider-infested...double EUW! we had talked about just breaking down and cleaning it all out and getting it organized...so this past tuesday was the day! one GIGANTIC car load of stuff to the neighborhood thrift store, a trip to home depot for some serious shelving units and bins, and a full day of work and...voila!



much better! those tv's and speaker on the right hand side are being sold, and other than that everything is pretty much stored and accessible. you can SEE the floor! my personal favorite is the tracking on the wall with hooks to hang stuff.

ps. kimberly brought it to me attention that from the pictures it looks like everything was just pushed to the back....NOT the case! There is shelving back there, we are just storing a bunch of stuff that we want when we have a house (the rocking chair matt was rocked in, an extra antique desk, a bench). i got mad at kim for discounting our hard work ;)

now for the cool part (not pictured)...matt had a brand new super nice dart board he had gotten as a gift and never set up...sooooo we put that up. the distance across the garage width-wise is exactly the distance you are supposed to stand from the dart board...perfect! so, last night we took the dogs down there and played about 72 games of darts...totally competitive, of course. so fun! now we want a ping pong table... :)

who needs a yard when you have a nice cleaned out space in the garage!?!! (ok, I still really want a yard, but love having the usable garage too!)

nephew time!

my nephew curran came to san diego with us and we spent a week having fun! it was so good to get to spend some quality time together. i adore this kid and he is growing up so fast. he is going into 7th grade, playing football and text messaging his friends! here are some highlights of our week:

soak city water park...so fun!


a day at california adventure (curran likes this park better than disneyland, so we just did this one!) kim knew we were going and decided to ask for the day off of work to come along! thanks for coming nimmer, it was so much fun to have you!


california screamin'...the best rollercoaster ever!


curran loves goofy ;)


more hat shop fun...i think we are pretty cute minnies :)


no comment...he's special ;)


me and uncle matt with meister


a refreshing adult beverage on a hot day


aaaaaand a refreshing treat!


the new toy story ride is awesome-so fun! it is 4-D and you get to rack up points by shooting at things...hard to explain, but go on the ride next time you are there! matt and i have a silly picture similar to this from disneyland about 4 years ago when we were dating!


meister and i being goofy waiting to go on the ride


belmont park at mission beach

(*please note, although curran's outfit is exactly the same in these pictures...this was not all done in one day! he put the same new outfit on again)

the bumper cars!


air hockey...i pulled off a win by a narrow margin


curran on some crazy spinning ride...no thanks!


mission beach


we went to our neighbor's house (who also happens to be my old student, jessica--on drums) and played some rock band. curran is awesome on the guitar! it was super fun! i got the hang of the drums and matt was amazing on the vocals :)


we put him on a plane back to portland on saturday. it was so much fun to have one on one time with curran, and i hope it isn't too long until we get to do it again. love you meister!

Oregon in the Summer

What can I say...I love the Northwest and I love my crazy family! Thank goodness Matt loves both too :) We have millions of pictures, so we can't possibly capture all the fun and memories and beauty in one post. It might take a couple. We spent evenings around fire pits sitting and chatting, making dinners, going out to dinners or a brew, a rodeo, camping in the middle of the forest along a beautiful stream, hiking, boys days golfing, girls day for massages and pedicures...the list goes on and on. Our days were filled. The time always goes too fast. We had a wonderful trip! I will try to do it justice.

St. Paul Rodeo (Matt's 1st rodeo...one of the best rodeos in the US)

sisters

sunset (don't mind the calf tied up there...the lil guy was released moments later-phew.)

a mama and her girls


CAMPING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

matthew and i hanging out

kels and i by the stream (there was an old broken logging bridge, we are standing on it)

this is kelsey's boyfriend derek...we LOVE him!!!!!

it was a good backdrop...why get original?

baggo (or cornhole)...bean bag game-super fun! we have only played the one with one hole. matt and i picked this game up at target, and it is fun with different holes worth different points! definitely a camping hit. i think kels hit a good shot ;)

matthew and his manly self choppin' some firewood

uuummm, our dogs chillin in the tent. they are sooo southern cali dogs. they LOVED camping but were major wusses at times! (a couple examples: matt had to carry zoe over logs when she was not about it, they limped around when they got sap on their paws)


Pops House for Dinner

matt and derek waiting for dinner

stephanie (step-sis), me, and kels...at our dad's house


Seeing Family and Friends...

we got together with Step-dad Mike twice and it was so good to see him! Here are kels and i, curran and mike at round table pizza

went to drinks with my good friend courtney, her new hubby sean and our other super fun friend jen...SO great to get together. i miss these people!


THE HIKE

tim took a day off work to take us to one of his favorite hiking spots. Eagle Creek is near Estacada... absolutely beautiful. we hiked in about 4 miles, at lunch at the creek, and hiked out.

salmon berry.

our cute hiking pups

curran and i

a man and his dog (tim and katie)

love it.

the trail

tim in a huge ol' hollowed out tree. there is tons of old growth in here...been around for centuries. he wanted to make sure you could see his gun on his hip.

the creek is below, at the bottom of this big canyon. we started higher, hiked all the way down, then out!

matthew making a wish

curran rode back down to cali with us, and we have spent the last week together. it has been so great to hang with the nephew...he is such a good kid and tons of fun! we will have to do with austin when he is curran's age. another post to follow soon! :)