FAVES

Stella's second birthday was Sunday, Nov. 19, so Nate and I drove out to Lincoln City to join Rae Ann & Tom, Ron & Linda (Tom's dad and stepmom), and Mom & Dad at the beach house where they were staying. It was wonderfully relaxing! The girls shopped the outlet mall while the guys stayed warm indoors and cooked Thanksgiving dinner. The girls took advantage of amazing sales at the Columbia outlet store, but we all wore out pretty quick and had to head home.

It was super rainy when we first arrived at the coast, but it eventully cleared up enough to provied an incredibly sunset. I don't have any pictures of the sunset on my camera since my silly card holds like 40 pictures and that's it. So, I used Tom's card, and once I get copies of the pictures from him, I'll post some here. It was fantastic! The beach house sat up on a cliff overlooking the water and the shore, so the perspective added to the photos, definately. Rae Ann, if you're reading this, could you please e-mail me some of those pictures????

Dinner was exceptional. Rae Ann and Tom made some great food! The turkey, man, I'll be hard pressed to do as good a job when it's my turn. Last year I accidentally bought a chicken instead of a turkey, but I cooked it the same way as I would have the turkey. It was okay, but Nate and I did alot of laughing. Actually, this year Mom is bringing the turkey to the table, you know, the friendly birds that she's been raising in her backyard. Well, they're dead now. Butchered. And weighing in between 30 and 33 pounds. That's alot of bird...

The babies were both oh-so-adorable. It's easy to make Ivy laugh these days, so I took full advantage of it while we were there! With all of the adults around, the girls had quite a fan club right at their fingertips. I admit, I'm easily manipulated by their pouts and smiles. I don't remember exactly what it was Rae Ann said no to, but Stella began to make her rounds asking for huggies and sticking out her lower lip whimpering. She found comfort in her auntie's arms! Even though she was so obviously faking it, I couldn't resist:)





This is Nate, distracted and mildly irritated that I kept sticking the camera in front of his face for a picture. Well, buddy, suck it up.



Mom, Dad, Nate, and I eventually made it down to the water before heading home. Nate and I started to walk out toward the water, but we found ourselves sinking in sad that was holding water even though the tide was out away from us. Ah, I miss living at the beach!

La Center is a boomin' town...

...It's always fun to visit Dave and Tiffani in La Center. Last Friday we went up and had dinner with them and then spent the night. Somehow I managed to take a bunch of pictures of Charlie and, like, none of his parents. Sorry, guys! But your kid is cute:]

Just so you know...

My blog is set so that anyone can leave comments on the different postings. Scroll to the end of the post and click on the "comment" link...And please feel free to do this! I know that there are people out there who visit this page and think I don't know it:] Let Nate and I know you stopped by--we'd love to hear from you!

Now, back to business! My internet has been less than reliable over the last few weeks. There were a couple pictures of the Banks' house that I wasn't able to post, so I'm gonna stick them on here now. Enjoy!

Stephen, this one's for you. We just had to get a picture to show you the "crawl" (hah) space under the house. It's enormous. Ricky and Nate spent some time down there, and I'm sure you'll gladly join them when you're up next! I'll tell you, though...I had nothing to do with taking this picture. I couldn't make myself get close enough to the little opening to do it. It was way too creepy. You're mom stepped up, though, and made magic!



Here is another crawl space that's accessible through a closet upstairs. Ricky took this picture for me. I'm a wimp!


And I just really like this picture of Karen, so I'm posting it:)


Here is my parents' house as seen from Rick & Karen's porch...


...and here is our neighborhood as seen from their back yard.


So again, please leave comments to let us know that you stopped by! We'd love to hear from you! Blessings!

New houses are lovely.

On Saturday, Nate and I joined his parents to view a house up on the hill off 152nd & Misty. It was so beautiful! And so BIG! And the view was incredible...On a sunny day it would be an uncompromised view of Mt. Hood. Because our camera has some odd quirks, I couldn't get the best photos of the place, but here are a few which are hopefully better than nothing.


The house has three floors and six bedrooms. The bottom level has one large room with a fireplace, and a back bedroom and full bath that adjoin both each other and the main room. Actually, there are three fireplaces throughout the house and the whole backside is covered in windows, all with an incredible view of Mt. hood. The house is on a peaceful street that reminds Karen and I of suburban San Francisco area. There will never be a house built behind this house; a patch of trees have been planted directly behind the house, and a pedestrian path passes by on one side. The street the house sits on pretty much ends at their house. You can tell that there are two sections where houses will eventually be built, but digging hasn't even begun. Oh, and a cool play structure is a short jaunt down the pedestrian path!



The main floor has a living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, full bath, and another bedroom. I forgot to mention that the bottom level has a deck which mirrors the deck attached to the main floor. The appliances are beautiful and oh-so-new and shiny. The island has the largest drawers I've ever seen...Very cool!

The upstairs has three bedrooms and a master, as well as two full baths. The master bathroom is enormous with a full window over the tub which, again, has a glorious view of Mt. Hood!







We're setting aside some time now in anticipation of helping them move!

Halloween!

If you visit my sister's blog (Bean and Sprout) you'll see a fun little video of Stella flying around, flapping her arms like little birdies do. This one is a little different. It's more focused on her show-off side. She's a definate crowd pleaser!





And she really was the cutest chicken out that night. As Rae Ann mentioned before, Ivy spent quite a bit of time with me, some really great snuggle time:) Stella was weather resistent and refused to let the blustering weather get her down. She freaked out at the site of a paramedic, but a firefighting dog couldn't get her down.



We spent a solid couple hours beating the pavement. Rae Ann was marvelous and bought me the best tasting eggnog latte ever, and from one of my favorite coffee houses to boot: Cafe Delerium on Main in Gresham. Good times!



Rae Ann and little Ivy Lou at the end of the evening. Well, our part anyway! If you take a look at Rae Ann's blog, you'll find that they did a lot more that night! She's (being Rae Ann) a trooper.