Spring Break in Oregon

OK, so we didn't really go to Oregon.  We went to Vancouver which is still in Washington but telling my boys we were going to Washington for the weekend sounded really lame and confused them.  I told them we were going to Oregon and they were thrilled.  It was a last-minute spontaneous idea to visit our Oki friends, the Stinchfield's, for a quick weekend trip to kick off our spring break.  The weather was gorgeous and we had a great time with our friends.
The best part of the trip was leaving the kids at home with pizza and electronics to entertain them, while the adults went out for a night on the town in Portland.  {See, some of us actually went to Oregon so it wasn't a complete lie.} First, we went shopping at the Columbia employee store.  Obviously we aren't employed by Columbia but our friends have connections so we got to shop at the store where everything is half off, plus we got an additional ten percent.  Shopping has never been so fun!  After breaking the bank on lots of awesome clothes, we went to dinner in Portland at a place called Tilt.  The food was amazing!  Huge burgers big enough to dislocate your jaw on, and cheesy-bacon tater tots with the best fry sauce I've ever had.  I already checked out their website to see if there was a Tilt near me.  Sadly, there is not.  But the meal was so good and the shopping was so much fun I'm pretty sure we'll be driving down to visit Tom and Tracey much more often.

Randy flying the drone.  Tom has all things techy

the drone coming in for a landing

The girls have pet bunnies and they are even house trained!  Guess what my boys are begging for now?

true love

We spent the afternoon hiking around this gorgeous lake

Seriously it was so gorgeous and the leaves aren't even all the way out

Landon surprised us all by bravely crossing the log

Parker was fearless

Our hike ended at this gorgeous waterfall

Waterfalls are so romantic

After the hike we stopped by their Cross Fit gym to play

Ethan did a muscle up

Then he climbed this peg board.  He is built for this kind of stuff

For the record, the guys bought way more stuff than the girls

Our dinner didn't disappoint

Tilt, you are amazing and I miss you!

We browsed through Powell Books

Of course we had to pick up some Voodoo Donuts, which we were too full to eat

We tried to get ice cream at this place but the long line {at 9pm!} and our full tummies made us decided to try another time

These donuts are crazy good! 

And Rogue is the best dog ever.  I never heard him bark once and he's super obedient.  That's my kind of dog!

I took way too many pictures but we had such a good time so it had to be documented.  I love that we live in a place where a quick 3 hour drive provides so many adventures.  We are getting good at maximizing our vacation time so Randy misses as little work as possible.  We are leaving Wednesday night for Whistler to do a little spring skiing to finish out the rest of our spring break.  It's been great so far!

Skiing in Washington

We spent New Years Day on the slopes.  We've never skiied in Washington before but thanks to the huge snow storms in the canyon, it did not disappoint.  We drove up the same canyon I was stuck in for hours trying to get to Utah but this time the roads were clear and Randy was driving.  The beauty of the snowy canyon was unlike anything I've seen before.  The piles of snow were still enormous and it seemed like half the population of Seattle had decided to check out the amazing snow because there were cars parked anywhere they could fit with people sledding, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing along the sides of the road as we approached the resort.

I took these pics through the van window so pretend the snow is white

Walls of snow as tall as a bus

Check out the people walking along next to and above us.  Crazy!

I took this shot to get the sunlight behind the trees but that RV gives you a good perspective of how deep the snow is

We've found a family to be ski buddies with which makes our ski trips so much better.  Randy and I swap out skiing with our older boys while one of us hangs out in the lodge or on the bunny hill with the younger two.  Having the Walker family there meant I had someone to talk to when I wasn't skiing which sure made the time fly by.  Plus I got to snuggle their new baby girl which is better than skiing in my opinion.

Ethan and his ski buddy

Not that I would know, but I imagine if I had a daughter she would look like this.

We sat up camp at one of the tables in the lodge and pretty much had the place to ourselves.  People tended to take one glance at all the kids (anywhere from 5-10 kids at any given time) and all our ski stuff strewn everywhere and they were quick to find another place to sit.  Despite our late night partying the night before, we stayed on the mountain until almost 9pm which meant it was the second night of the boys collapsing into bed without any of the typical bedtime drama/chaos.  I loved it!

Like I said, it's no surprise we had the place to ourselves

The boys playing in the snow under the lights of the lodge

I loved this sign advertising the nearest hospital.  The "last run" is always a bad idea.

Veteran's Day

The sun came out on Veteran's Day.  Unfortunately the morning was half over before I realized it wasn't going to rain all day and I wished I had gone through with my original plan to take the boys into Seattle for some sightseeing.  Instead we ended up going for a bike ride to the grocery store for sushi and donuts.  I know what you're thinking.  Sushi and donuts do not go together.  But we eat sushi for lunch and donuts for dessert. 
This bike ride was entertaining for a couple reasons.  Marcus couldn't ride a bike with his cast on so I made him ride his long board.  Landon is the slowest, most cautious biker I've ever seen so it was a true test of my patience to allow him to bike instead of ride in the Chariot but when the chariot tire exploded (seriously) when I was pumping it up I had no other choice.  You better believe I'll be getting the Chariot fixed before our next biking adventure!  I ended up putting Parker on my back in our awesome 80s backpack because I had no other options.  Since Parker is a huge 3 year old this looked pretty funny and I'm sad I didn't get a picture.  Trust me when I say I'm glad we didn't see anyone we knew as we rode along.  Despite our slow-as-snails pace, we had a good time and it brought back lots of memories of our bike rides when we lived here before moving to Rhode Island.

 I found some pics from the last time we did this, four years ago I think.

Same booth, same food, bigger boys

Marcus and Ethan have grown up a lot in 4 years!

Moved In

I've said it once and I'm saying it again.  Moving stinks!  Of course I might not feel this way if we ever had the chance to simply move down the street or to the other side of town.  All our moves have been across the country or an ocean, so no big deal, right?  Even though we lived in WA three years ago, it's still a big move, just not as daunting.  I remember when we moved to RI and I was supposed to take the boys to school to meet their teachers and we got lost and stuck in traffic and had to reschedule the whole thing. We went home with tears in our eyes wondering how we'd ever feel at home in such an unfamiliar place.  It's been so much easier moving to a place we know!  I'm not lost every time I leave my house.  I've been able to call friends to take my kids so I could actually get some unpacking done which has been a wonderfully strange experience.   We are still sorting through the mess from boxes being dumped out on every surface available and when there wasn't an open spot, the boxes were emptied onto the floor.  We seriously had to clear pathways down the hall and into rooms because stuff was everywhere.  It looked like our house had been ransacked by burlgars.  Unfortunately this was also when we had family after family stop by to say hi.  I'm still embarrassed thinking about how many people have seen us at our absolute worst as they toured our new home.  I feel like I need to invite everyone back to walk through it again now that we've got everything mostly put away.  Oh well.

Now for a little update on how this house came to be ours.  The housing market here is crazy hot with houses selling within hours of going on the market and bidding wars making the prices skyrocket.  We knew it would take a miracle for us to find a house from the other side of the country but a miracle happened.  A friend told us this house was going on the market and put us in touch with the owners whom Randy met when he happened to be out here looking for jobs.  The home had previously been owned by some good friends of ours so we'd been inside several times which meant we weren't buying it site unseen.  Long story short, we bought the house without a realtor and without it being placed on the market, so we've moved back to the same area we were in before and even in the same ward.  We love the house although it is old.  I'm thrilled it has air conditioning, unlike most homes in the area, and we love the huge yard (which is slowly coming back to life as we water it in the dryest of summers). The boys have spent hours exploring all the different paths and steps, and swinging on the rope swing.  I can picture us growing old here and hope this is our forever home.

The boys seeing the house for the first time at the walk-through

Marcus was a little excited

There are TONS of built ins.  We don't have enough books and knick knacks to fill them

The tree house and rope swing that swings so high it took me a week to work up the courage to try it out

Marcus cleaning out the pond

The basketball hoop goes low enough that my boys actually feel tall when they play

Marcus loves his shower with all the {unnecessary} gadgets

The moving truck was too big to get up our steep driveway so they had to unload everything into a smaller truck and then drive that truck up and unload it which means everything was moved twice!

The 2nd truck

Taking a walk through the preserve across the street from our house

I love our street!  It's even prettier when the grass is green.