Holiday Cheer & A Happy New Year

So I was really terrible this holiday season taking pictures of all the fun things we did this last holiday. So I will give you a brief history of it, peppered with the few pictures I took!

Fred the snowman that Ryan built for me to wave good bye when I left for work in the morning. The ward Christmas party and the quickest primary nativity program ever done in the history of ward party programs. Santa Claus....hmmm he looks awfully familiar. The cute kids that sat on Santa's lap. Wrapping presents at my desk. The pain that a jammed sewing machine can be. The saving grace of a friend that makes your nieces & nephews gifts for you. Packing up the car for the holiday trip to Utah. Uncle Alvin & Aunt Bertie's comfortable beds. The driest roads to travel on. The Christmas Carol in 3-D. Finding out that Katrina is not a baby anymore. All the new words that Caiden can say. Wrapping presents. Sleeping in the craft room. Christmas morning. Gilmore Girls seasons 1 & 2. My favorite salsa. German pancakes with buttermilk syrup. Seeing our new niece Clair. Beatles Rock Band. The happiness of giving a gift that is truly loved. Learning not to wake up Parker if he's sleeping on the stairs.The sounds of a full house of family. The snow in the canyons. Sledding. Reading. Family parties. Witnessing a new generation of cousins. Free clothes. Avatar. "That sounds like a little boy named Parker". The Princess & the Frog. The "Parker Taco". Zupas. Good conversation. Family Feud & Slap Scrabble. Too much good food. Park City shopping. White elephant gifts (I won with the Edward poster!). The cutest quilt store in the world! The trouble with holding both sets of keys. Temple work. La Puente. Ryan & Tiffany's love of snow. Skiing. 10 second cereal bars. Barnes & Noble browsing.The Rose Bowl parades. Chinese buffets that serve crab. More sledding. Pretzel Chocolate Chunk cookies. New Years eve. Sparkling Cider. How old Dick Clark looks. Giggles & laughs of nieces. Explaining to Tiffany that she can't fit in the car (we were packed to the brim!!!). The long trip home. Walking into a warm house...& unpacking the car.

Welcome Winter & Wilmer!

As most of you know we have started a tradition of cutting a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving - and naming it! Welcome Wilmer, we are excited

to share the Christmas season with you. Wilmer comes to us from the
Malheur County Forest and is the kind of pine tree with really long needles ...a fir I think? Anywho, he looked great out in the snow & he looks even better covered in Christmas lights in our front room. We had some little helpers with us. The Johnson family came out and got a tree too. All of Wilmer's extra branches will be part of my first endevor to make homemade garland, so I hope it goes well. The tree is up the lights are on and now it's time for Christmas!!

Our Portland Weekend

This last weekend was the OSAA Oregon State Soccer Championships and Ryan was nominated by his region to be a soccer referee. His name was chosen and he got to be Ref #4 for the 3A Boys State championship match. The game was 0-0 until the last two minutes when a soccer player for Team A tried to kick the ball back, but landed in the goal of Team B making him the game winning player...for the other team. (I hope that kid had an alternate ride home because I doubt his teammates would let him ride the bus!)

We were able to catch up with some friends, the Wilson's, for breakfast & a trip to Fry's (every man's technology dreamland. It was really, really fun. After a beautiful breakfast of pumpkin pancakes with pecan syrup I decided to try my mix-master skills on DJ Hero

Guitar Hero & Rock Band are sooooooo much more fun!

Ryan left for his pre-soccer referee duties, Heidi ditched her hubby & two boys and we went shopping!! It was alot of fun! Going into any store we wanted to, looking at whatever, asking an opinion without a one-word answer and of course....not having someone breathing down your neck asking you how much longer you are going to stay there - it was bliss. We topped off our shopping trip with a visit to Target and each walked out with a purple dress of our liking that was (each) under $10 - how can you beat that!?!

After the game Ryan & I were able to go to the temple and do some family names. It was an awesome experience, a personal project of mine, and who doesn't like going to the temple!?

We were able to spend sometime with Uncle Ron while we were up there, which is always a hoot! And enjoyed yummy Panda Express (I'm telling ya living in a small town with out a temple, Target & Panda Express....you really take advantage of what you can get when you can get it!!)

It was a great weekend!! Now! Onto the TURKEY!!! (or if you are like me) MASHED POTATOES AND GRAVY!!!!!

Happy Halloween!

Ryan is sick, but still managed to carve two of the most amazing pumkins ever!

Our 5 Year Anniversary

So I am very, very late getting this up, but ...better late than never right? Remember our trip to San Diego that Ryan won a few posts back? Well we took it in celebration for our five year anniversary (has it really been that long?) October 14th-19th. It was sooo great!
The flight over wasn't my favorite part (I'm not the most comfortable flyer), but once we got there and walked into 75 degree weather - pure bliss!!
Our hotel room was awesome!! Definatley a place that we wouldn't be able to pay for ourselves. There were views of the marina from every room (bathroom included) & the hotel was perfectly situated walking distance to everything and anything. What we couldn't walk to the metro was infront of the hotel and ferry's were in the back.
Seaport Village was a short walk along the dock full of shoppes and restaruants & had many statues, memorials & ships (there was a cruise ship departing from a port every day - if we had had the time I would have totally jumped on!). Little Italy was alot of fun!! There wasn't too much to do there but eat - is that so bad! The streets were lined with restaruant after garlicy smelling restaruant. We stopped in a local shop and asked where the place to eat was. We were directed to go to Filipinni's. The BEST pizza in the world and not bad eggplant parmesan. It's actually an Italian grocery and the restaurant is in the back - the best place ever. We enjoyed time relaxing in the piazza's eating our very expenisive gelato and planning where to go next. Coronado is a special little place.We were able to ferry over there and spend the day. We walked around shops and went down Orange Street (the main street that goes from one side to the other of Coronado) which brough us to The Hotel Del Coronado. Now not only is this hotel the last victorian built hotel that is still working, but it's the site of one of my favorite films "Some Like It Hot" with Marilyn Monoroe, Jack Lemmon & Tony Curtis (if you haven't seen it - do!). I had so many plans with different pictures I was going to take from different scenes of the movie only to find that they have changed quite alot since the 50's. We had just missed Tony Curtis by a few weeks who was there celebrating the 50th anniversary of the movie. We took a few pictures and then we hit the beach. The ocean was soooo cooooold, but after all that walking I was ready for a rest! Gas Lamp is considered the hub of downtown. All the restaurants, shops, etc is there. It was really cool to walk around and see all the sites like Petco Park (home of the Padres), NBC Corp headquarters that had no idea what I was talking about when I asked if The Office was filmed there (it's filmed in LA) & a shopping mall that was so huge and so expensive it almost made me sick. We ate very well in the Gas Lamp district. We totally recommend Nicky Rotten's. They have the best hamburgers in the world (we forgot our camera or you would have seen a pic of the burger that was as big as my face) & one morning we had breakfast at the Broken Yoke Cafe. An oober swanky IHOP-like place that not only makes a killer breakfast, but gives the homeless one free meal a week. We then headed up to Old Town I orgionally didn't really want to go - the thought seemed a bit boring - but when a local told us that it was the best authentic Mexican in San Diego - we went (can you tell that we really travel more by food, than by places?). It was awesome. Since we were there in October they had decked the place out for Day of the Dead. Skeletons in sombreros everywhere. We ate some delicious Mexican food (it ranked a 6 in Ryan's Authentic Mexican list....we were starving so we went to the first restaurant in the touristy part of Old Town instead of searching outside) and walked around a lot of shops, old trees and tile....colorful tiles everywhere. We also went to an Olive Oil tasting. That's right little shots of different kinds of olive oil - it was actually really good.
It was a wonderful vacation and awesome anniversary and soooo hard to come back to rain and SNOW!!!!!

Ryan turns the big 3-0!

Ryan turned 30 yesterday & it was full of surprises (for him, not for me because I planned it all). The morning began with his favorite breakfast of biscuits & gravy. He spent the rest of the morning in the yard while his sisters, Rachael & Allie, drove up from Utah to celebrate with him. He was surprised, in his towel (he'd just gotten out of the shower), by their presence in the kitchen. (Really I was trying to get him to hurry up, he thought that I needed help in the kitched & started to walk towards the kitchen when he noticed the truck in the front yard & heard rustling in the kitchen......we still surprised him). We then had a big BBQ with close friends & a 30 question trivia quiz all on Ryan (if you would like your own copy send me your e-mail and I'll send it to you). Allie was the winner of that game with 21 points. We were so stuffed from the BBQ we just laid around the rest of the evening-oh wait that was me, Rach & Allie. Ryan was busy setting up the monster TV that his parents had sent us and then set up the other TV in the treadmill room (we just got our replacement treadmill, I hear that it's great - I haven't had time to try it). We took our traditional late night stroll to Safeway with Ryan's sis's and got some groceries for tonight's (Sunday) dinner of Taco's al Pastor (marinated pork with chili's & pineapple). And started to watch "Dark Night" at midnight - it's amazing how much louder the Joker's antics are when you are trying to sleep through them! We've had alot of fun & we are happy to have Rach & Allie with us!

27 is an odd year

I have been very remiss at updating our blog posts! But thanks to Candace & her sweet, gentle, reminders always gets me to post (as quickly as possible). Let's see...what is up with us? Well on the 3rd of September I turned the ripe odd age of 27. I say odd because it's a really odd number (both verbally & mathmatically) I'm fine with turning older, but 27 is different, it's late 20's....& I just can't wrap my head around the fact that I'm now in my late 20's.....odd, very odd.
Ryan made sure I spent my birthday weekend in style. Weds. we had a party with our friends
& I stuffed myself so full of food that I didn't even want to have breakfast the next day (Can you say Pecan chicken, dutch oven potatoes, corn on the cob -from the garden, pesto bread, garlic bread, cinnamon rolls, cheese cake & home made ice cream cake)!!! Thursday (my actual birthday) I had lunch with a bunch of ladies from the ward & that evening Ryan made me shrimp fetticunne alfredo & we watched Prison Break (if you aren't addicted to it yet, START NOW!). That evening my parents came up & we spent the weekend eating really good food & enjoying relaxing and having a great time together. I haven't had one on one time with my parents since I was two! So it was really great. I recieved numerous phone calls, e-mails & birthday cards - it was wonderful!!
Ryan's up next (September 26th) & this year it is the big 3-0!!! So watch out for that!
Other than getting older we have both been really busy with work. I'm working as a legal secretary for the defense lawyer in town and I'm learning a boatload!!! It's so exciting to do something new & learn more how our justice system works. I'm full time so my weeks are full & my weekends fly by!! Ryan is loving his job at the Ag Research Center. Currently he's been working on the upcoming land managment retreat this upcoming week. He's been creating their work packets & hand outs . His bosses are loving everything he's doing for them. We are still crossing our fingers that they will decide to hire him permanently!!
With my Dad here last weekend he & Ryan did work out in the yard (I think Ryan loved having the company) We have a new rock pathway & a fire pit - so once the burn ban is lifted we will be out in the back roasting marshmellows!! Ryan is also reffing again this year & just had his first game today, sadly nothing much has changed Burns lost 20-0.