Staycation

Monday and Tuesday we took off work to have ourselves a little "staycation". We originally had our Mexico vacation scheduled for last Friday but decided to reschedule out to November (6-13) for quite a few small reasons, mainly work. But we figured we should take a few days off now for the heck of it.

We stayed home and had Mark and Teri take Hunter overnight Monday night for a little trial run for when we are gone for a week. It was weird at first, but was really nice being able to talk loudly after 9pm, leave the house together by ourselves after 9pm, and get some sleep! We went out for dinner Monday night and then today we went to Bullwinkle's and played miniature golf. It was really fun. Thanks again to Mark and Teri for watching the bean!

I set my camera on the ground with the timer to capture this lovely shot. :) There wasn't really anyone there to take our picture.

Our putt-putt forms are spectacular!

This is the view the hole gets of us as we're dominating it!

Brandon ended up winning, but I have to let him sometimes. ;)

Roseola

Hunter was pretty sick over the weekend (Friday and Saturday) with a high fever (topped off at 103.5) and was super irritable. Then her fever was gone on Sunday but she suddenly had a rash all over her stomach and back. We took her to the doctor yesterday, turns out she has roseola. Apparently it's pretty common in children her age and it's normally nothing serious. Pretty crazy she picked it up. It's contagious to other kids, but not adults, once you get it your immune from it forever. They call it the "3 day measles". Fun!

But even though she's sick, she still is darn cute... Some pics from the doctors office. (yes, I do take a camera everywhere) :)

Ground breaking

I forgot to post about the ground breaking event I attended a couple weeks ago. The city finally purchased land and the building of a new shelter is actually happening! I've only been volunteering for a little over a year at the Newberg Shelter and the Shelter Friends organization has been raising money for the new shelter for over 10 years!! I'm excited to be a part of the shelter at this time and I know I have a lot to contribute. :)

(I'm not in the picture, it's the city officials and then all the Shelter Friends who have been raising the money. They rock!)

Perfect Sunday park afternoon

I was at the Oregon Humane Society yesterday for my monthly volunteering there and afterwards I picked up Jaleana to get some grub and hang out in the park. We went to Cathedral park, underneath the St Johns Bridge over in my old Portland neighborhood. It was the perfect weather for a picnic at the park!

We were having fun with the timer on the camera. :)
Texting, she's always texting!! But that's ok, I still love her. ;)

I need to learn all those hand clapping games again to teach Hunter.

You like my gang sign? Yeaaah, it's not really a gang sign, I was just being silly.

Gangs are bad, m'kay! (look, she's still texting!)

I tried to get Jaleana to stand and take fun pictures with the timer, but she's lazy. Hah. So I had to take one of myself.

Jaleana looking too cute with her new haircut and my styling shades.

It was a really fun afternoon! I went home and snapped some pics of my sunflowers in the backyard, they are still pretty. I <3>

Viva Dog Vegas!

The Newberg Animal Shelter Friends organization had a fundraiser on Saturday night for the shelter with a casino theme. You got 'scrip' and could gamble and all of the money went to the shelter. Unfortunately Hunter was sick (high fever) so Brandon stayed home with her, Thanks Brandon! But Mark, Teri and Jenn (another volunteer at the shelter) all had a great time gambling and hanging out. They had a silent auction too and Teri and I were bidding like fools. ;) We each won a nice basket of wines for a good deal. I can't wait til they throw it again next year, it was a really cool way to have a fundraiser.

Movie night!

Teri, Ruby and I went over to the Cameo tonight and saw Julie and Julia. Gramps got to do some babysitting because Brandon already had other plans to hang out with a friend.

Mark was excited for his duties and they were ready to have some fun...

And just in case of an emergency, he drove over one of their other cars separately. (not sure where he was planning on putting Hunter)


The movie was really cute and when dropping Ruby off I wanted to get a shot of all three of us. I had to include both of these pictures because it was HILARIOUS at the time. The flash was so bright for Ruby she blinked the first time but then overcompensated the second time to keep her eyes open.

Good laughs with great people!

Biking!

Long gone are the days that I get to bike into work (I think it'd take me a whole day to bike in with our commute now), but we still want to bike around Newberg. So, we got one of those bike trailer thingys a few months ago off Craigslist so Hunter can go with us and we all love it! We went for a bike ride up to the shelter tonight so Brandon could meet a cat that I really want. :) Got some cute pics of all of us.

Hunter patiently waiting to move...


FYI... Jean skirts don't work well with biking. Not sure why I forgot to check with my brain on that one before we left home.



Brandon gets "Is she ok?" duty. Ha. I'm so nervous about this bike trailer still, even though she can't climb out cuz she's strapped in, I want to make sure she's ok. :) Oh, and we can't keep her helmet on her, but it's at least in the trailer with her. With all my worry's I think I've clocked in at .009 miles an hour.



Tonight Hunter and I were playing around with the camera and when I was looking at the pictures I noticed I got a nice shot of her two top teeth and three bottom teeth to show off.

Top teef... (she has the dreaded gap that I had until I got braces)



Bottom teef...

:-)

Coloring

This is Hunter's second attempt at coloring. The first attempt was when she was way too young and just wanted to stick them in her mouth. She kinda does that still now, but at least knows she can do something else with them. The video is about two minutes long, but the ending is really worth the watch, her and Chopper have a little love fest. :)

First best friends!

Hunter got a play date with Lina last week. Tonia needed a babysitter for a few hours and I had the week off because of Mark and Teri on vacation so we went and hung out. They had a LOT of fun!

Lina being adorable with her huge bald head!

Hunter needs some more musical toys at home, she loves them.

Soon, very soon, Lina will be towering over Hunter and showing off her belly too. :)

Best buds!

Hunter's famous at Regence too!

My friend Kelly also works at Regence and she is one of our Wellness Coordinator's. She puts together great programs on managing a healthy life. She makes a monthly calendar with daily tips and employees can set it as their computer background.

Hunter is on the background of this month. The picture was taken when she was itty bitty and Brandon holding her. Too fun!

Tualatin River Refuge Date night

Last week Brandon took me on a surprise date to Nacho Mama's and then for a litte hike at the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge (one of only ten urban refuges in the US). Both of these places we drive by daily on our commute, but we'd never been to either.

Nacho Mama's was delicious, with ridiculously large portions of food and very yummy margarita's. Snapped this shot with my camera phone.

We were stuffed after dinner, but we got to the refuge just in time for the sunset. It was amazing, and great picture taking opportunities, I think I took a hundred pictures. So pretty.

We attempted to make a heart shadow with our arms, but in the picture you can't really see the top of the heart.

Thanks for an awesome date Brandon! And special thanks to Teri and Mark for watching Hunter for us. Thanks!

Matt and Angie's wedding 8/29/2009

Two weekends ago (yes, behind on blog posting) we went to my friend Angie's marriage to Matt. It was at South Beach on the Oregon Coast at a beautiful bed and breakfast overlooking the ocean. It was BEAUTIFUL! The dreary morning opened up the sunlight as they were getting married too, it was perfect.

I only got one ceremony pic, because Hunter was being a baby, so she had us preoccupied, but I got a few other pretty pics. This is Angie's brother, Zach, walking her down the aisle.


This was after they were just married, walking back up to the B&B and then they did their picture taking with their photographer. I snapped a few.



I had to cut this pic off to the side to get the other people taking pics out of it. :) But you can see, where they got married was amazingn!



If I had more balls I really wanted to stand up and give a quick toast to Angie, but it was a small window of opportunity and quick decision and I'm a wuss. I would have said how I love Angie dearly and I'm so happy she's found someone she is completely happy with. And while I haven't spent too much time with Matt, he seems like one cool guy! Hunter loves him, so he's a keeper!


Keeping Hunter occupied, taking pics of her at the reception. ;)



Cutting the cake...

Afterwards a bunch of people went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Thankfully they had strollers to rent, otherwise we wouldn't have braved that with Hunter. Brad and Brandon, entertaining Hunter while the girls go pee.



Hunter, looking absolutely adorable in the stroller.




Some of us didn't bring a change of clothes so had to walk around the aquarium all dressed up.



She loved the fish!


And so did I!! You can't see it really well in the picture below, but there is a cuttlefish, one of the most fascinating fish ever! We've seen some documentaries on them, they are awesome. I think that will be my next tattoo... ;)

It was a great summer day! We wish Matt and Angie the best and we were so happy to be a part of such a beautiful day! Love ya guys!