Seriously?

This last weekend was opening Hunting season for Justin, so the kids and I (and my friend Katie from the valley) went school shopping for Ryder. He starts preschool in a week!! He is so excited and so is mommy. ;) He has been super excited to pick out his lunch bag and this is the one he picked. It's really cool and cost mommy $10 bucks.

Then later that day we went to a few garage sales. And he found this one. You could tell the couple were grandparents and they adored Ryder and Averee. She ended up giving this lunch pail to Ryder cause he fell in love with it and carried it around all over with him. Now he only wants to use this one for school. It cost me NOTHING....

So what have we learned from this? We keep all receipts to take it back! That's $10 bucks I can save!!! Who would have thought he would pick total old school Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles over a bran new Cars one? That's my boy though, he loves him some old school.

Etsy????

this is what I have been doing with my day. :) I have found in the last couple weeks my love for building blogs, websites all that kind of creative stuff. I decided to combine that with my love of weddings! ( if you don't know, what I'm trying to get to is becoming a wedding planner) I have put the two together for a fun little experiment and these are a few that I have come up with. Very simple BUT like I said I just did this today, so bare with me. I think I may post some on Etsy and see if I can start selling all kinds of invites but focus on wedding.

One of the joys of getting older. I thought?

I was always told that when you get older your acne goes away. Well, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME!! It seems to be getting worse these days. Now I will say it's probably due to stress and the hot weather but good lordy it is so bad I feel like a teenager all over again! I have been using my face stuff but I think it may be time to start hitting the heavy duty stuff... Talk about forkin out the big bucks for beauty!

Dance...

Today I registered Ryder for Hip Hop dance class! He is going to love it so much. All he wants to do is break dance so I figure I will start with this and see how it goes and if he enjoys it then we will get a little more in to it. Usually I would only think about Averee and dance but my Ry Guy has a calling for dancing I think. Even daddy gets a kick out of watching him bust out the moves and daddy isn't fighting me on putting him in dance class! lol... He will start in September, it's only once a week, this will be perfect for a little extra activity this fall and winter for him until it snows and we can start heading up to the mountain so him and I can learn how to snowboard! I'm trying to get him in to preschool, BUT he has been put on a waiting list so I don't know when he will actually start, hopefully soon!

Desicions to make....

As some of you have read we are having to make a pretty big decision on whether to stay here in Central Oregon or bite the bullet and head back over the mountain to good ol C-town. Work over here is pretty sparse and don't know if it's going to pick up anytime soon. Last Thursday the hubby got a call and a job offer back at his old work place in Corvallis. At first it was an absolute NO we are not going back, but after reality set in we decided we really need to sit down and talk about this. Neither one of us want to move back at all. This has turned in to our home and where we want to raise our kids. But if you look at the big picture the right thing to do would be to move where the work is (oh and a pay increase) BUT is it still worth leaving everything that we love??? We are making it right now it's not like we are losing anything or not making our bills. Gosh this is turning in to a lot harder decision then I thought it would be. My kids love living some where, where we have so much opportunity, and they get to go hiking, fishing, and play in the SNOW during the winter! I may complain when the snow comes but then I think about leaving it and I don't want to! Ryder keeps asking if he can learn how to snow board this winter. I love that. I want him to experience it all! So I'm leaning towards staying but this is still something that Justin and I have to sit down and talk about. I'm crossing my fingers we stay. The market to buy here is crazy right now and I would love to take advantage of it and I feel like if we move back to the valley we won't be able to afford it for a while. I hate this I just want to stay!!!

Had to get this out and feel like I need to scream!!!

Finally!!

WE HAVE FINALLY GOT A FAMILY PICTURE DONE!!

Photos By
Dream Up Photography

Mini Me

Both my kids have taken up the addiction of "coffee". This being after their mother of coarse. I LOVE coffee with a capital L! Even though Starbucks is "huge chain" I will admit it's one of my favs. Working at a local coffee stand for almost 10 years I do believe in buying locally, BUT you never really know what you are going to get and about 80% of the time it's a huge disapoinment! So with that said here is my little mini me.
(Just for the record it is just a smoothie)

How we roll.

For you all that fallowed our trip. Here is a picture of us "girls" loading up and heading back out on the road with our house on wheels. ;)

sleep. What's that?

I don't know what is going on with my little princess... She is deciding that naps are not for her. What? This is not OK with mommy. So I have turned in to the mean mommy (in her eyes) that is letting her cry and cry. The only problem with this. She isn't falling asleep! She has figured out how to bail, literally BAIL out the side of the bed. haha. Oh what do I do? Ryder stopped taking naps around 2, if I let him sleep he would not go to sleep at night. I though Miss A would be different but she is showin me. Right now she is asleep so I will thank the lord for that and go about my day. :)

Me and my kids.

We had some fun with the old time picture booth. I remember doing these all the time when I was a kid. When we walked in to the arcade I was so excited! lol.

Road Trip

Last Thursday Karri and I packed up ourselves, my kids and two of her kids (the other two stayed with daddy to go do horse stuff) and we loaded in the car with the trailer behind and headed up to Washington for my little brothers wedding. This was Karri's first time pulling the trailer any where and we were all ready for the adventure it was going to bring. And that it did....

We meet my aunt and mom at Multnomah Falls to pick mom up. We stayed there for a little to take in the sites, ended up getting in trouble for letting the kids walk in the steam apparently the fish are spawning and you can dip your feet but not walk around? After leaving there we headed for the long drive. We were headed to Whidbey Island this is where my little sister lives and where we would be calling home for the next 5 days. Now Brittney and Troy grew up in Port Townsend so that is where the wedding was at, and I have been there many times but to head the Island we had to take a different way so that Karri wouldn't have to drive the trailer on the ferry (this scared her) well as some of you followed our little trip on facebook you know this ended up putting us pulling the trailer in the middle of Seattle in 5 o'clock traffic! After we got out of this we decided that nothing can hold Karri back she is going to be a pro after we are done! ;)Not to mention just the ups and downs we had before we got there, like the idiots that blocked us in in the parking lot of Multnomah Falls and then Kaitlyn having to use the bathroom and getting stuck in the parking lot of that McDonalds, ended up having to block 3 lanes of traffic to go out the in. lol... I ducked it was a little embarrassing. Next we finally made it to Britt's house after it taking us 15 hours with all the stops and traffic and construction!! This is usually a 7 and half hour drive! Shockingly our children did wonderful and just took in all the sites. So that was Thursday. Friday ended up being the kids first Ferry ride that they LOVED, and we went out to the wedding site so Karri could get a feel for pictures the next day, other than that it was just visiting and roaming around. Saturday was a whole different adventure! OMG.... The wedding was at 2 that day, so we were going to catch the 8:45 ferry, and if by chance we had to wait for the next we would at least know we would make it on time. Brit and Karri took like the 7 o'clock so they would make it to the salon in time. They made it over but what is usually a 15 minute ferry ride turned into an hour and half due to fog, after this boat they canceled all morning boats. This left us having to drive to a whole nother town catch that ferry then drive to another ferry catch that and head to Port Townsend, Well due to all the traffic we ended up with a 2 hour wait just to get on to the second ferry, then when we finally got off we had about 5 minutes to make it to the ceremony on time. This ended up not happening, I got lost and took the long way around me my mom and kids ended up showing up an hour after the wedding started. It was so sad! I cried.... haha.. But it ended up fine and we had a blast and it was gorgeous. Sunday we relaxed took our time and headed in to Seattle for the day. We hit Pikes Place and ate down on the water. The kids have never been there and had so much fun. Came home and had to get things ready to head back home Monday morning.
Last minute we decided we would take 101 home (knowing it would be longer, but...) we could head in to Forks Washington, in to Twilight country. Kaitlyn was jumping out of her seat when we told her! Just getting there ended up being an adventure like Saturday had to take the other ferry's, and ended up taking about 6 hours to get there. By the time we got there all the adults were done.... We toured around, and it did end up to be fun but. then we headed home. We didn't end up leaving until after 8 from Forks so we drove as long as we could and ended up pulling in to a Walmart parking lot to sleep for a few hours and then headed home the next day. lol... I think this was the high light of the trip. How many people can say they have slept in a Walmart parking lot? lol....

Whidbey Island and Port Townsend are beautiful! I came home ready to move up that way. Thank you so much to my little sister for letting us park the trailer at her house. The trip was long and had some bumps in it (I'm sure I will be writing some more when little things start popping in to my head) OH like on the trip Ryder learned most of the words to "Beat It" and can bust out some amazing dance moves to it. haha) but it was all worth it! So much fun.

Here are a few pics just from the first couple days of being there. More to come when I get them!

these are pulling in to Port Townsend from the ferry

Little Brothers Wedding

Wow.... Where do I begin. As you can see by the photos, it was a beautiful wedding. It was a 40's themed wedding, the bribe and bridesmaids were gorgeous.
The wedding was up in Port Townsend Washington. The weather ended up beautiful, no winds and just the sun shining. Sadly me and the kids ended up missing the ceremony due to the wonderful fog and ferry rides... That made me cry but what do you do (we made it to the fun part haha.) It was small and simple, and wonderful.

Congratulations Troy and Emily!

(Ryder thought his hair was the coolest thing ever! lol)