9 Years later

Mark and I have been married 9 years as of today. 9 years is pretty good, and everyone looks shocked when I say 9 years, because I get the question "how old are you??" and think I was married when I was 15 or something :) I was 19 when we married, and Mark 24. I think back now and realize how young that really is you know? I got married one year after I graduated from high school. Sheesh.

Anyway, we are loving life. Mark and I have been through some hard stuff, like having kids one year and one day apart, moving a million times, graduating from college with two kids, working full time through all of it. Life has been totally and completely wild! And I am never ever going to regret it. I am so happy with Mark. He is my rock.

He is out of town for our anniversary, and left me a surprise yesterday. I came home to this hanging from my upstairs hallway... I was like... "uh, what in the heck is that??"

And I get a little closer to see all of the pictures of us all over the flowers.

He wrote a sweet note about how the flowers represent the awesome times we've had together. I love Mark, he's so fun!

School Started... Nooooooooo! :D

So, school started for the kiddos on Tuesday. They were both ready to go back, and had been talking about it for weeks. Curren has been getting bored, and when he gets bored he gets creative... and a bit shall we say... annoying? You know what I mean :D As far as a 7 year old boy goes, he's busy and needs to be entertained in order for there to be peace in the house. He told me when he had done something that I didn't like "Mom, I will be so much better when school starts" We shall see.

I think the first day of school is not fun, for me, that is. I get so stressed out that they might have a bad day, and of course they don't. I asked Curren today what he thought of school today and he says "Mom, it was AWESOME!"

Right on Curren.

Curren the big 2nd grader!

And Jessie the old gal 1st grader.

I love my kids and am so proud of them.

Colorado!

We went to Colorado Springs to see my family. It rained while we were there, a lot! I thought we must have brought it with us from Portland, because Colorado boasts 300 + days of sunshine a year. I don’t believe that at all :D

We went to the Garden of the Gods, so beautiful…

Took some pictures of the kids, against the red rocks, they turned out so good.
Look at my super model daughter Jessie! She so cute :D

And here we are fishing in Colorado. We didn’t catch anything, but some lake weeds. The scenery was just so awesome up at the lake. I am glad we went there.

Wild, Wonderful, West Virginia

We went on our vacation earlier this month to West Virginia, and then to Colorado. Mark’s Mom and Dad, brother Mike and his family life in West Virginia.

We went fishing in West Virginia and caught lots of fish, but let them all go J We had fun doing that.
We all caught HUGE fish as you can see. Curren caught the biggest one out of all of us.
Uncle Mike got bored (you see the kids in the water in the background?)
Here’s Curren with Grandma and Grandpa.
The kids, Brigham, Jessie and Curren.
We were so sad to leave. We went to the fair, and watched the mud bogging trucks, we rode the 4 Wheelers, we saw lots of deer and firebugs, had so much fun with Brigham, and were not ready to go. We will be coming back as soon as we can.

I’ve been “tagged” by Miss Julie...

How To Play This Game of Tag: List: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 facts about yourself. Tag people at the end of your post by leaving their names. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

3 Joys

1. My family: They are what drives me to work hard and enjoy life, they are everything to me!
2. Art: Whether it’s painting, or making a quilt, creating things from my mind is so fun, and color, the color is what drives me.
3. Horses: I could just sit and watch them all day long, I love them.

3 Fears

1. Something happening to Mark or the kids, I can’t really comprehend.
2. Scary movies… seriously my mind takes over, and then I can’t handle it.
3. The dentist! I hate the dentist, I know they make my teeth clean and whatnot, but it hurts and it’s expensive… I don’t think you should have to pay to be put in pain like that, it’s just wrong.

3 Goals (short-term)

1. Get my bags packed tonight, for our trip.
2. Take a long walk every night with Sunny, I go about every other night right now…
3. Paint our bedroom. (Actually I am making this a goal for Mark I’ve decided)

3 current obsessions/collections

1. The Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn comes out Saturday and I am salivating at the thought, literally people.
2. Jessie’s drawings, they rock my socks. She is made of awesome I tell you!
3. Getting all of the bills figured out to an exact T, it makes me feel good to know right where we stand.

3 Facts

1. I detest peanut butter, totally gross to me.
2. I always have an “agenda” it drives me mad, my brain won’t turn off.
3. I used to chew my nails, you know so short they’d bleed (I know, yuck right?), and then I met Mark, and he said I should stop chewing them, my hands would be so much prettier, you know what??? I can’t even bear to chew them anymore, I have fingernail clippers with me at all times, and I have pretty long nails now! Crazy…

So, I get to “tag” 3 of my buddies to do this…

Jackie, Megan, Andrea F.

This is one of Jessie’s recent drawings…
I like how she wrote “ MOM E” for Mommy :)

Catching up!

Hey everyone! Mark is back in town after two full weeks of being gone. I don’t think it counts he came home for 10 hours of the two weeks, do you? Mark went to France the first week of July for work. He was in Nice, France. He said it was beautiful and he liked how unique everything was there. I hope we can go back there together someday. We need to go through his pictures and I’ll post some soon of the trip he took.

One June 28th Mark’s mom went into the hospital because she was having chest pains, she was having a heart attack. They had to do multiple surgeries on her, and it was a very long weekend. We almost lost her, and we were all so scared. She has pulled through though, she is so strong! Mark left the day after he returned from France to go and see his mom back home. He stayed for a week there. She is getting better every day now, and we are so thankful for that.


Since Mark was in France for the 4th of July, I drove up to see our friends Matt and Charissa in Anacortes, Washington. We went there in January, and I wanted to see them again. We had a great time, and I am glad they are willing to put up with us for a few days :) We were able to go boating with Matt’s dad again, and it is always so nice to go. We even saw dolphins :D

Curren is doing the chicken dance apparently for the camera.

You see that cut on Curren's nose??? Well, that is a lesson learned. We were at the dog park and he and another boy started throwing little rocks (and I tell him all the time not to throw rocks) well, the boy accidently hit Curren right in the nose. The lesson learned? The rock always wins.

Here is a view from the Rose Gardens here in Portland, that is Mt. Hood you see... Jessie calls it Mountain Hood.


We’ve been swimming a lot because it’s been so warm here, and our house seems to be 10 degrees HOTTER than outside, so I am thankful we have a pool… it kind of helps since we don’t have air conditioning. Even Sunny gets to swim! Doesn’t she look excited?? :D

Sunny is totally embarrassed and doesn't like me spreading these pictures all over the internets...

We also went to the hot air balloon festival a month ago, and it was so cool! The kids all loved it :D Here they are getting warm from the hot air filling the balloon up...

Feast and Festival...

Lots happening around here.

#1 School lets out tomorrow!!! The kids are totally excited.

#2 Mark is changing jobs at work, same company, different job, and we are all excited about this.
#3 It is supposed to be warm this weekend! This is a big deal. And I’m making strawberry jam on Saturday… this is awesome!

#4 Can’t think of anything else?

We are doing good in Portland. The weather has been a downer, cold, windy, rainy, doesn’t it feel like October? We have been having a good time though, and are looking forward to summer.

The kids had a feast and festival at their school a few weeks ago. We played a lot of games and won a goldfish… “Squirmy” lived with us for 2 whole days. And Curren had to learn about how to deal with the death of a fish and flushing it down the toilet…
We got our faces painted…

And Jessie showed off her monkeybar skillz

And Mark and our neighbor Mike tried to hide their identity and not be seen…

But if you zoom in on Mark… you can totally tell it’s him LOL!

However… Can you tell if this is Mark or Jessie???

And here we are ready to head for the barn.