Cannon Beach with Dad

We concluded another memorable visit with Dad with a day trip to Cannon Beach. With cold and windy weather in Hillsboro, we were excited to see that the beach was going to be sunny and not windy! We got there all bundled up expecting a typical cold winter day at the beach and were pleasantly surprised with mild spring like weather. I think the temp was in the 60's which felt quite balmy. There were kids in their swim suits going in the ocean (not mine of course!) and lots of people perfectly comfortable in short sleeves. It was such a nice break from the cold weather we've had in Hillsboro. After enjoying a couple hours playing in the sand we enjoyed a beautiful sunset by Haystack Rock. Dad couldn't remember the last time he watched the sun set at the coast. It was a gorgeous sight to behold. After the beach we had a yummy seafood dinner at Dooger's restaurant and headed home. Eric and his buddy Ricky stayed back to take some of the most beautiful night shots of Cannon Beach I have ever seen. The pictures Eric took are so beautiful with the Milky way, Jupiter and a shooting star visible behind a lit up Haystack rock, absolutely incredible! We're talking need to frame pics that are going to be taken to a nice gallery and sold for top dollar! Once we get them watermarked and sized down I will post a couple.
It's always sad to see Dad go back to Arizona but we had a great visit. Lots of nice lunches, coffee shop outings, board game playing and fun times with the kids. Hopefully we'll all make it down to Arizona this spring. I'm hoping for a nice fat tax refund this year so we can make that happen. Thanks for a great visit Dad, we love you and miss you already!

Dom & his LEGO creations

Dominic has been fascinated with building blocks since he was a little guy. He started out playing with Mega Blocks Pirate toys. From ages 3-4 years our living room was the caribbean sea full of pirate ships. Now as a six year old, Dom is creating elaborate scenes from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman and building all kinds of cool space ships. We have now been invaded by the Lego brick! It never ceases to amaze me how he is able to follow the directions on a Lego set and put these elaborate things together. I know how difficult these are to build (I used to build them all) and Dom makes it look so easy! Future engineer, architect, artist, creative genius on our hands!

Our Wedding, July 19, 2008

It's hard to believe that Eric and I have been married now for 6 months! Time flies when you're having fun! I thought I would recap the wedding for those of you who weren't there and maybe haven't seen pictures yet.
We got engaged on November 28, 2007. Yes, Eric finally proposed after 8+ years and 2 kids! And he did it on my birthday which made it very memorable. We didn't actually choose a date or begin planning the wedding till the last minute. I'm quite the procrastinator! We both decided that we wanted to get married in Arizona and felt that the hottest time of the year would be the best time to do it, lol! Not only would we get discounted rates, we were guaranteed some excellent photo ops of monsoon storms. Eric was really excited to shoot some lightning. We picked July 19th and planned our Phoenix wedding in a matter of 6 months.
Getting married in Arizona turned out to be a wonderful decision. I was full of worry beforehand about the weather, the church, who would make it. But all those worries were put to rest once we got there. We were married at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Tempe. We had a traditional ceremony in their beautiful little chapel. A cello and 2 ladies sung latin hyms before and during the ceremony. In front of 25 friends and family we exchanged our vows. It all went off without a hitch. The priest, Father Burfitt, was so very nice and made everyone feel very comfortable. The flowers were perfect! I relied on a woman from the church to help me with those. All I did was send pictures of what I liked and hoped for the best. Not only did we get a smokin' deal but they were the most beautiful bouquets and arrangements I had ever seen! We got a few outdoor photos in the 100 degree heat, wish we could have gotten more but yes, heat did factor in to that. We had our reception at a Western steakhouse called Rustler's Rooste. It sits on a bluff by South Mountain. We had their house band play one of our favorite George Strait songs, "The Chair" , for our first dance and then dined on steaks, bbq chicken, potatoes, salad and veggies. After a few trips down their long metal indoor slide, we had our beautiful wedding cake. Thanks to my wonderful sister Julie & her husband Andrew for making it happen! Barry & Kirsten gave very moving toasts and we finished off our evening with some nice sunset pictures. We had such a lovely day. Thanks to everyone for their help and their presence on our special day.
The days after our wedding we did plenty of sightseeing around Arizona. We travelled up north to Sedona and saw the beautiful red rocks as well as the ruins of Montezuma's castle. Eric and I both loved Prescott Valley where my Dad lives. The landscape and big sky is beautiful. We could certainly see ourselves making that area our home someday. We also spent plenty of time at Grandma Toni's relaxing in her pool and just hanging out and exploring the Superstition Mountain and it's surrounding mountains and lakes. There is truly breathtaking scenery everywhere. Eric had a great time taking pictures of the beautiful Arizona sunsets and luckily got to shoot a handful of monsoon thunder storms. The storms down in AZ are amazing! We hardly ever get a good storm in Oregon so it was especially fun for us to experience. Spending time with our Arizona family, family from Hawaii and Oregon family and friends was so wonderful. Thanks again for making our Arizona wedding so memorable!

Snow Storm December 2008

Sunday December 15th was the beginning of what would be the biggest winter snow storm in my life time and the biggest to hit Portland in 40+ years. The snow began falling early Sunday morning and dumped just about an inch and a half on Hillsboro. As with most previous snow events we've had we all assumed that the snow would melt and go away by Monday. However the weathermen were saying something entirely different. They were talking of the coldest weather in 10 years! I thought, yeah right. The weather people here were lucky that they actually predicted a snow storm that came! I never dreamed of what was to come in the days ahead.
Monday morning rolled around and the snow was still on the ground and the temperature was only to reach a high in the 20's. School was cancelled and the kids and I made the best of it playing in the snow and having hot cocoa. Tuesday comes, still cold, still icy and still snowy. Drat! I needed the kids to go back to school. I had a million things to do the week before Christmas. This is no good. I'm praying that the roads will be sanded and the school district will find it safe enough to get the kids to school for the last part of the week. Wednesday's here and what do we wake up to? More snow! It's coming down good. School is canceled yet again. The kids are totally stoked and I'm trying to figure out when I'm going to get any shopping done. Eric's work has shut down due to their trucks being unequipped to handle the icy and snowy roads. His boss Don invites us out to his house in Banks and we head out. We were lucky enough to have the use of Eric's Mom's Corolla which has studded tires on it to get us where we need to go. We make it out to Don's winter wonderland and watch the snow pile up in the hills of Banks. At least 5 inches or so over the course of the day. We head back home so I can go to work around 4. I head off to work only to realize that they are closed! I apparently didn't get the message. By this time the new snow of the day has begun to melt with a warm weather system coming from the southwest. The next couple days the snow would melt and then freeze at night. Saturday we were hit with round 3. This storm was the one for the record books. It started about 8 am and continued snowing all day and all night! We ended up with 1/2 inch of freezing rain on top of the heavy snowfall and then another 3 inches of snow on top of that. We topped off with nearly a foot of snow by the time it was all over! The days leading up to Christmas were spent sledding and cautiously driving from store to store to get our shopping done. By Christmas day we were beginning to thaw out. A couple passing snow showers came through on Christmas morning but quickly turned to slush. Today is December 27th and a nice warm rain is pouring down. I can finally see the grass and the snow is melting quickly off the rooftops and cars. Though I love watching the snow fall and gazing out at a beautiful winter wonderland, it's time for life to get back to normal. This was certainly a Christmas and winter storm we won't soon forget!

Christmas 2008

We had another memorable Christmas this year! Not only were the remnants of our big snow storm still on the ground (about 6 inches) but we actually had a little snow fall xmas morning. The kids slept till 8 which was a Christmas miracle! Malia came to wake up Eric, Dom and I (Dom crawled in at 3am) and drag us out of bed to the present opening. Dom of course didn't need any dragging.
Santa brought Dom a Lego Star Wars X-wing fighter jet and Malia a Littlest Pet Shop digital pet & planner. They were both really excited about their gifts. The big gift from Eric and I to both of them was Guitar Hero for our xbox. We got the complete band set which is a ton of fun! Eric and I are playing it as much as the kids. What's neat is that I can play the guitar, Dom can do the drums and Malia can sing. It's a super fun thing to do as a family. Dom got some new Lego sets this year and has been working on putting them together today. It amazes me that he is able to follow the directions and assemble these complicated toys by himself. He's definitely mechanically inclined and has told me he wants to design Lego toys when he grows up. :) Malia is into digital games and electronics right now. Eric got her a new mp3 player since he would steal her ipod shuffle all the time. I like the idea of mp3's because we can control the music she's listening to. The radio is so sleazy these days. We had an excellent rib roast with mashed potatoes, dressing & brussel sprouts for dinner with Eric's family, and then went to Kirsten & Gary's for round two which was a delicious roasted chicken with dressing and asparagus. Bettina & Kevin joined us at Kirsten's and we had a great time with lots of laughs. The roads getting around were quite slushy and slippery but we managed to get where we needed to go and have a wonderful time. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I know we sure did.