Snow + Cheesecake = Ryan's Birthday!

On Ryan's birthday, which conveniently fell on a Saturday, we took the girls to play in the snow.  We also brought along our beloved cousin, Sami and her awesome friend, Joy'el.  I think we could just sit on a bump on a log for a whole day with this group and still manage to have fun, but throw in some snow, hills, and sleds and it's just a whole lot of crazy fun!

Rori went down a few times but mostly had fun playing in the snow.  She liked climbing the big hills, making snowballs, then throwing them at us.  She also had fun just exploring.

Cadi had fun sledding with Sami and Joy'el... there was a lot of laughing involved!

After spending a day on Mt. Hood, Ryan, the girls, and I got cleaned up and went out to dinner.  We took the girls to The Cheesecake Factory!  There was a rather long wait, so we walked around the mall until it was time to eat.  We came across a stand that sold Pillow Pets and they had a Patriots Pillow Pet!  The stand was actually closing the next day, so all of the pillow pets were on sale!  Needless to say, Ryan got a Patriots pillow pet for his birthday! lol

When we were finally seated for dinner, we had a wonderful night.  Our server was great and the food was delicious!  Rori LOVED the bread and butter and felt so grown up doing it by herself.  We all tried a different kind of cheesecake for dessert and shared with each other.  When they brought the cheesecakes out, Ryan's had a birthday greeting written on the plate, and they sang a cheerful, robust version of Happy Birthday to him.

Between the beach trip, the snow, and dinner, Ryan had a pretty awesome birthday! :)

The post that was roughly 10 years in the making...

Last October, Ryan and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary.  For the last 9, we have lived here.  I don't remember the last time that Ryan and I "ran away" together.  I know it was before we moved here.  In Massachusetts, we were fortunate enough to have Ryan's parents who loved to have Acadia over for sleepovers, and we did take advantage of that at times.  Since moving here, we have had family vacations, but no romantic getaways.  Until a couple of weeks ago.

My wise aunt put a bug in my ear.  She and my uncle "run away" at least once a year for their anniversary.  Of course, their kids are all grown and can be left on their own for a couple of days, but she even offered to watch ours for us.  I found an incredible deal on a very romantic beach getaway package and booked ourselves a trip!  It turns out that it was during the school week, so instead of having my aunt watch my girls, my very good friend did instead.  It actually worked out perfectly!

So, a few days before Ryan's birthday, he and I drove to the coast to enjoy some alone time for 2 nights/3 days - JUST US.  We had a wonderful visit!  The room was perfect, complete with a fireplace, kitchenette, 2 person jacuzzi tub, king-size pillow top bed, flat screen TV, oh yeah, and an incredible view!  We were beach front, with a CUTE private patio that led right to the beach.  It was just amazing! 

We took walks on the beach everyday and even though it was cool, it was always beautiful.  Hello, it's the beach!

The waves were incredible!  And we had fun following them toward the sea, then running back as they chased us towards land!

On our first morning, we woke up to a rainbow over the ocean!  I had never seen that before!  Then the sun came out and we just couldn't resist another beautiful walk on the beach.

As we walked, we came across a pipefish that had been washed up on shore.  It was still alive, so Ryan picked it up and carefully put him back in the waves as they were rushing back toward us. 

The sunset that night was incredible!!!

Our last day at the beach was so bright and sunny!  The perfect way to end the perfect romantic getaway...

Moustache Mayhem

In January, we like to get together to celebrate some birthdays.  Within about a week, my aunt, cousin, and Ryan all have their birthday.  This year, the party had a theme: Moustache.

It was Moustache Mayhem!

There were a ton of photos and it would take me forever to put them into collages, so to save myself some time, I put them in a slideshow, instead. 

Take a look, some of them are really funny!



We had a really fun  night and I "moustache" you to take my word for it!

Acadia's Academic Achievement Awards

In January, we were invited to an award ceremony where Acadia would be recognized for her academic achievements.  She had maintained a high grade point average, even while taking all advanced courses and received a certificate and recognition for her excellent efforts.

Near the end of the awards ceremony, Ryan and I almost left.  Cadi had gotten her award and there wasn't anything else for us to do but stand in the back because they hadn't put out enough chairs for the parents.  But we didn't want to be rude, so we hung around. 

And good thing!

At the end, they announced that there would be additional awards handed out.  This was something new!  Each teacher was allowed to select one student from the entire grade that they felt stood out as an exemplary student, not just academically, but in attitude, behavior, etc.  We were thrilled to hear Acadia selected as one of these exemplary students!  We are so proud of her good efforts, not just with her grades, but also as an individual who associates with others around her. 

Oh door...

We moved into our home almost 9 years ago.  The people who lived here before us had the last name "Lee".  It was on their door.  And then, it was on ours.  Now, nearly nine years later, our door is finally our own.

Some "before"s and "after"s...

The "Lee" knocker was not the only problem with the old door. It appeared to have been kicked in at least once before, resulting in some damage to the door jam that made it hard to close the door. And the seal had worn so bad that you could see daylight through it, making it very drafty in the winter.

We had wanted to replace it as soon as we moved in, but it was just always "on the list" of things we wanted to fix up, and was never the most important. Just prior to Christmas, we asked a friend who is in the construction business and was out of work if he would install it for us. We got a new, non-Lee, non-kicked in, non-drafty door that closes nice and soft and has pretty door knobs. He got a few bucks to help with Christmas. Win-win. :)

Christmas Day

On Christmas morning, we woke the kids up early - yes, WE woke the kids up!  It was Sunday and we had church at 9am, but we knew it would be easiest to let the kids enjoy their stockings before church than to expect them to get ready with the stockings sitting there exposed and waiting. ;)  We had fun seeing what Santa had brought, then got dressed in our Christmas Sunday finest and enjoyed a wonderful Christmas centered Sacrament meeting. 

After church, we came home, changed into our comfy Christmas jammies and opened gifts.  We spent some time on Skype with some of our family, too.  Then, when it was time for dinner, we went to the Hills to spend the rest of the day/evening with them.  We had a delicious dinner, exchanged a few gifts, played some games, and had a lot of fun!

Chad played with this cool setting on his camera...

Chad also went around making sure he was in a picture with EVERYONE.  Well, almost everyone. :)

I do not know how it started, but at some point, we began having fun with magazines.  It was so great to have some of these celebrities come to our Christmas dinner/party.  We had fun interviewing them. ;)

Even Rori got in on the fun. lol

Christmas Hair

I'm almost 2 months behind, but I'm fixin' to do some catching up.  Are you ready?  Get set...  Let's go!

I contemplated for weeks about what to do for Rori's hair on Christmas.  Being on a Sunday morning, I wanted it to be gorgeous, but easy.  I was looking for that "WOW" hairdo, I admit it.  I decided to try a new way of curling her hair, using nylons.  We've used the sponge curlers in the past but they are not comfy to sleep in.  Using the nylons was much more comfortable, easy to take out, and gave us the same cute curls.  I took pics of the girls with Rori in her nylon curlers and them both in their Christmas jammies.  Rori got a little crazy... lol. 

Acadia rarely lets me do her hair.  She usually just likes it down and straight, and it is beautiful that way, so that's okay.  But after we took the pics above, she decided to let me put the nylons in her hair, too.  Her hair is very thick and heavy, so it didn't hold the curl quite as well as Rori's but it still gave her a nice, soft curl that she pulled up and I think she looked beautiful!  (While we were taking the pics, she kept blinking - every time!  It had us laughing as we tried to get just one decent pic of her with her eyes open. lol)

For Rori, we did something a little more fancy and I LOVED how it turned out!!!

The pictures don't quite do it justice, and I definitely did get the "wow"s that we were going for. ;)

Here are a couple of the girls together right before we headed to church...