November

November started with Brittany and Holden returning home to Texas;

10 days later I left to go to Texas to stay for 10 days while Nick was training in another state. We spent the time visiting the PX, playing at the playground, seeing the sights of El Paso, visiting the hospital (for hours!) for Britt's doctor's appointment, and hanging around the house. It was so odd to leave here where it was cold and raining to go there where it was in the 70's most days. I went from wearing sweaters and coats to short sleeves and flip-flops!







Even more odd, when I returned home it was freezing and snowed the next day!;




Kelsey bought her first car, a 1965 Ford Mustang! It needs a little work like a new paint job and some minor repairs but it runs. The biggest issue is that it is a stick shift and Kelsey has to learn to drive it;




We had a nice Thanksgiving at my sister's house here in town. I really like only having to drive across town!

October Wrap-Up

October was a fun month!


The girls were out of school for a couple of days so Kelly took time off work and we went to Rilea for two nights. We took a walk around the camp, visited Fort Clatsop and took a long nature walk along the bay, went out to the jetty where the waves were breaking over the jetty, drove around Astoria, flew wooden airplanes off the Astoria column, drove across the bridge to Washington and back and introduced the girls to "our" new pizza place. We took the long way home down the coast stopping to take in the scenery at the top of the mountain looking down at Manzanita, drove through Sand Lake, checked out the Cape Mears lighthouse and octopus tree, stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and had ice cream, drove along the bay out to Netarts, found the house my grandparent's used to own, fed the fish at the hatchery, climbed the dunes from Tierra Del Mar to Pacific City and came home;

Kelly and I got to spend our "favorite" holiday together (Columbus Day, when he has the day off but the girls have school!);

took a couple of trips to the VA with a stop-off at IKEA;

Brittany and Holden came later in the month and stayed for a couple of weeks;

Kelly, Lindsay, Brittany and Kelsey went crabbing and caught ONE keeper. They gave it to some other people there since it was pointless to bring home one crab. Chloey, Shelby, Holden and I met them at the beach and went to lunch at Galluccis;

Kelsey made an awesome Halloween cake;

Brittany made Holden a lion costume and he trick-or-treated our block (much to the delight of the neighbors who've seen my girls grow up), stopped at Uncle John's and finished the night at my parent's house. (and I didn't get any pictures)

All in all, October was a good month!

Super September

September is all about getting into the new routine. I dread school starting at first because I hate giving up the relaxed, easy-going pace of summer. But, once they get back to school I love having my days to myself and being able to get the house clean and have it stay clean (for at least as long as the school day!).

This month we:

Took the boat out on the Friday of Labor Day weekend and took a two hour cruise (an hour each way) from Newberg (where we always put the boat in) to the Oregon City Falls (where you have to either turn around or go through the locks) and back;



celebrated my birthday on Sunday with a barbecue at my parent's and a beautiful cake made by my middle daughter (and future chef) Kelsey;



went to the beach with my girls, my nieces and my mom on the first day of school. Here only the freshman go on the first day and we don't have any of those this year (yay!). We went to the mall, spent time on the beach and ate at Gallucci's (of course);



had another barbecue and birthday party for Kelsey who turned 18 (!) and her only request was that someone other than her make her cake. Shelby did the honors! ;



found out that we are going to have a new grandbaby in May 2011! ;

celebrated our great-nephew's first birthday (well, Kelly and Chloey were the only ones who got to go). Shelby ended up getting sick that morning and then Kelsey had a meeting after work that ran way longer than it was supposed to so the three of us ended up staying home;

other than that, the month was spent going to the doctor, dentist and orthodontist and just getting back into the routine of school.

Our Crazy August

August is always a pretty crazy, busy month, trying to fit in camping, getting ready for school and trying to enjoy the last bits of carefree days.

We started off the month with a surprise party for my hubby. Last year he turned 50 while he was deployed to Iraq so that pretty much blew. So, I planned a party with the theme "we're gonna party like it's 2009", rolling back the calendar and having a "do-over" for his birthday. It was pretty funny all the stories I came up with for everything from two trips to Costco for the food (which I hid at my parent's house), to the reason for going to the park (where we had the party). He was completely surprised and it was awesome!




We had our annual block party with all the neighbors and got caught up with everyone;


Kelly and I celebrated our 27th Anniversary with a kayak trip to Smith Lake in Portland. It was a really fun day even though the lake was full of some kind of weed that made paddling challenging!



We went camping at Foster with my whole family and it was especially great having a boat this year. We spent many hours on the lake and I kayaked every day too. We even stayed an extra day this year and got home just as the 100 degree weather hit;

My mom and sister on the tube

Kelly and I and the girls spent a day at the beach shopping at the mall, eating at Galucci's and watching kiteboarders;




we had a birthday party for my dad who turned 72;

went shopping at the mall in Clackamas and met Kelly at Chipolte for dinner;

spent 2 hours (!) in line registering the girls for school;

I took my three of my girls (17, 15, 15) and my sister's three girls (16, 15, 1) to Salem for what turned out to be all day and we had a really fun time;

and again, we spent lots of days out on the boat.

And, that's August!

Life in July

July was a busy month.

To start off, our nephew and his wife added a new baby boy to the family;
Nick, Brittany and Holden were here for a visit;
the transmission went out on the Suburban on the way to the airport to pick them up so pretty much the whole time they were here we had the 4-Runner (which holds 4 people comfortably) for 8-9 people!

We spent a day at the zoo with all of us, my mom, both sisters, one brother-in-law, four nieces and two nephews (and my BIL's grandma). The weather was cool which was nice for a day at the zoo and we had a great time.

We celebrated the 4th with a barbecue and fireworks at my parents and celebrated my niece, Rilee's first birthday;

Kelly went back to work after being off for 11 weeks;
the Allen's returned to Texas;
we had a 40th birthday party for my BIL;
my BFF was here visiting from California and we got to go to lunch to catch up;
we had a graduation party for my niece, Sarah;
we went to dinner with some good friends from church and,
we spent MANY days out on the boat!

June Happenings

June was a busy month! Kelly was still on his leave and spent most of it working to get the boat running. Not exactly how I had envisioned spending his time off but, oh well, that's kind of the way life goes!

In June we went kayaking at Devils Lake,

Shelby FINALLY got her braces off,

we welcomed a new member of the family, my niece's baby boy, Karter, the girls got out of school and we took the boat out a couple times.



The month went by fast!

May Goings On At Our House

May was a lot of wonderful with a little not so much.

The wonderful was having my sweet husband home after a looonnng deployment to Iraq. He came home with 11 weeks of leave time so we spent the days together while the kids were at school hanging out, waiting for the rain to stop, bike riding (when it did) and he shopped for a boat. He ended up buying a boat that needed a new engine (what can I say, we love a challenge!).



Another part of the wonderful was the trip that Kelly and I took to Washington. We spent three nights in Seattle at the Silver Cloud on Lake Union. We had a great time checking out Gas Works Park, riding bikes, visiting Ballard Locks, Pike's Market and Fisherman's Terminal.








We left Seattle and took the ferry across the sound and stayed three nights at the Inn at Port Ludlow. We stopped in at a marina and found a guy that worked there that had an engine for sale that we ended up bringing home for our boat. We spent our time there kayaking, riding bikes, visiting Port Townsend and the Museum of Glass.





The "not so much" was my grandfather passing away while we were on vacation (see previous post for that). We came home from our vacation and had a nice going home celebration for him.

Grandpa

My grandpa died this morning. How do I begin to express how much I loved that man. One of my earliest memories of him was of a game we would play. I would sit on his lap and look at his watch and say, "what time is it, Grandpa?" and he would say, "it's kissing time!" and I would give him a kiss and then ask again and again and again... His looks were deceptive. He was a big man with a gruff voice but he was a total marshmallow with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He was always sweet and loving and I always felt that no matter what I did he loved me and was proud of me. He was proud to have lived long enough to be a great-great grandpa when Holden was born and his family meant everything to him. He had so many stories that I wish I had recorded. Stories about his childhood, history of McMinnville and areas around Oregon. He was humble, hard-working, a genius at math and loved figuring out the best time to invest or sell stocks. Even in his last months, whenever we would visit him, he would get a big smile and was happy to have hugs and kisses from us all. I miss him already!

He's Home!

Kelly returned home from Iraq (via Ft. Lewis) on Wednesday, 4/21. Up til the last minute the military was changing the date, time, location, etc. Finally we got the "official" word at about 10pm, Tuesday night that they would be arriving in Portland at 11am, Wednesday. So, the girls and my mom and I left for Portland planning to arrive by about 10:30 so we would be there when they arrived. Yeah, not so much. Kelly is texting as the buses are driving down from Washington telling us each city they pass and while we are still about 1/2 hour away, they have just crossed the river into Oregon. So, he got there before we did. I was really disappointed but, what can you do, it's done. We finally met up with him and held up his sign, got hugs and went into the Chiles Center to wait (3 hours!) for the ceremony to start.

We staked out our seats and sat and talked for a while. They made an announcement that lunch was available for the soldiers so Kelly went and got a plate to share with us. Later they apparently had a lot of food left so they opened it up to all the families so we got to have a nice lunch before the ceremony. Thankfully the ceremony was pretty short and after it was over we went to the armory, picked up his bags and headed home. We've haven't done much since then. We went to the Roadhouse for dinner on Friday and went to church on Sunday but the rest of the time has been spent hanging out. He doesn't have to go back to work until the 6th of July. He and I are taking a kayaking class and taking a week-long trip to Seattle next month and he's searching Craigslist for the boat he's been waiting to buy. Otherwise, we're just enjoying life right now!