Our Trip, FINALLY!

I know I am a little behind in posting, but I want to share my trip so that I can have this to remember it by later.

Our trip to Oregon/Washington for the family reunion was wonderful. We flew into Portland and had a day at Dennis and Trina's. We all met Sean and Marisela at a storage unit auction. This was a first for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Good job on those awesome buys, Marisela!

We headed up to Olympia for church on Sunday and had a nice day of visiting at the park. We spent our nights at James and Gale's. Monday almost everyone went to Mt. St. Helens. I was ready for some rest and Gale wasn't going, so we enjoyed a day of just hanging out. Good times!

The next few days were busy and full of wonderful visiting and catching up with everybody. A fish fry was a huge success except for the worm I found in my fish. I should have been prepared for it, this type of thing has happened to me many times, a maggot in my snickers bar, buggy graham crackers, and wormy sunflower seeds. But no, I was shocked and grossed out. Thankfully I was pretty much done anyway.

A surprise party for mom was truly a surprise and a lot of fun.
I got to love on my baby great nieces and nephews.
It just wasn't enough time to spend time with all of our brethern we would have liked to.

We drove down the Oregon Coast on Thursday with Bill, his boys, Reuben, and Tristin. The boys took Bills car the whole way and had a memorable time. After a pit stop for taffy and shopping in Seaside, we met John and Laurie and family at Tillamook cheese factory and then headed to Oceanside, our favorite beach. Walks on the beach, going thru the tunnel, watching kids "swim," and just sitting in lawn chairs enjoying the amazingly calm day, made it all wonderful.

Made it to church in Portland that night, along with other visitors headed to the reunion.

After spending the night at Dennis and Trina's we head to Salem to the reunion. I had so much fun just visiting and enjoying the people there. The auction was very entertaining, especially the guys in aprons!

Back to Portland for church on Sunday and dinner at Sean and Marisela's.

I SO enjoyed my whole trip. I have wonderful memories and pictures! I love and miss you all already!!

Trip Pictures!!

I totally enjoyed our trip and have 275 photos to remember it by! Here are some of my favorites. Some of them aren't fantastic, but they have a memory or a story that is precious to me and maybe some of you too.I hope to put all of them on walmart.com soon so that who ever wants to get copies can. I'll let you know when that happens, but please don't hold your breath.

The calm before the storm

I can't wait, only 6 days until we fly to the northwest! We have been pretty busy lately, which isn't unusual, but I talked Dale into having a nice lazy Saturday today. He normally can't handle just hanging out, but I reminded him that we have a few busy weeks ahead and he agreed to have a low key day. Here's the gist of it:

I finished reading my book, mistaken identity. It's an awesome book by the way, a real tear- jerker. It's a true story about two girls in a car accident. One is mistaken for the other. One of them dies in the accident. The wrong family cares for the girl they think is their daughter for five weeks before finding out she isn't. The book is about how the families coped.

We went for a bike ride. Believe it or not we went yardsaling on our bikes. Not on purpose, we just saw some and then tracked down some more. I found some more custard dishes, we use those all the time.

Read some gardening tips for our garden. Did you know that you can sprinkle crushed red peppers (the kind for pizza) to get rid of ants in the garden? Very interesting!!

Got some sun out in the hammock, while reading the readers digest. It got a little warm, but the experience was cool!

I created a blog for one of our sisters here, and now I am doing some blogging of my own.

Hope all of you have had as great a Saturday as I have and hope to see many of you VERY soon!!

Pictures and updates

We have been so busy the last month or so working on our yard. Here are a few pictures of the progress.

This is the before garden....

And this is the after. We are doing square foot gardening instead of rows. Everything is FINALLY planted and the soaker hoses are in place. Radishes came up after only 4 days, and I just found a zucchini sprout today! It has been 1 week since the major planting.

These 2 photos are of our backyard before, a work in progress. The concrete has been replaced by slabs of rock.

And after! We have grass planted and it's just starting to sprout.

On Memorial weekend our church had a day at the zoo. Here are some pictures of the brethren from that day.

Lonnie and Merissa

Traci and Martha (mother and daughter)

Here's the star of the day, Zoe. She is 9 months old and was born 2 months premature. She is tiny, but very healthy and friendly. Oh, then there's her dad Jerod.

Ashley and Sharon. Everyone went their separate ways in the zoo and then met back to have lunch. We hung out with Sharon and Ashley most of the day. I love Sharon's hat and am thinking about one for myself :)

A few yummy recipes

Cranberry Walnut Bread

This is a new creation I got from Lanise. It was a huge hit at church dinner! Try it toasted and drizzled with honey. You'll be hooked!

You can use any basic white bread dough, instead of the one here, just add the craisins and nuts to it.

1 1/3 c warm water
1/4 c oil
3 T sugar
2 t salt
4 c flour
2 1/2t yeast
1 1/4 c craisins or raisins
1 c walnuts coarsely chopped


I mix all the ingredients in the above order into my bread maker or mixer and mix well. Let rise for 1 1/2 hours minimum. Knead. Place into 2 oiled bread pans. Let rise in warm place for 1-2 hours. Bake 350 for 25- 30 minutes. ***For high altitudes, use 1 1/4c warm water instead of 1 1/3. Don't be alarmed, this bread doesn't rise super well, but it's still very good.



Arroz con Pollo

1 onion
1 bell pepper (I leave this out)
3t garlic minced,fresh
2T oil
2t taco seasoning
1T chicken bouillon
1 can peas (frozen works too)
1 can mushrooms (or fresh)
1 can diced tomatoes
4 cooked chicken breasts
3c rice

Saute first 4 ingredients.
Add all but rice. Cook until veggies are done. Add rice and heat thoroughly. This is a fast and easy one pot meal. This made 4 very large servings. Dale and Andy had 3rds, I had 1sts, and there was over 1 cup of leftovers for dales lunch.

Happy Birthday Dale

We had a suprise party for Dale and chose his favorite cartoon character for theme.
SPONGE BOB!!

This is what Dale's first view of the party was. We have a beach ball over head, water wings decorate the table along with the napkins, cups, gifts, and angel food cake topped with berries, cool whip, and a stuffed sponge bob.




Dale when he first realized what was going on.




Opening the presents.




Dale and I enjoying the gift Andy got him.

Our guest were Brycen, Ashley, and sharon (who requested not to be photographed). Our little party was a huge hit all the way around. It started at 4 when Dale got home from work. After the festivities, Brycen stayed and had dinner with us, thia green curry at Dale's request. We then played boggle and sequence, two of my favorite games. Next I fixed mango crepes, also Dales request. Afterward we played poker until almost midnight! It was a blast!

Take a look at my new glasses!

Amazingly it has already been 2 years since I last got glasses, so it is time once again. Some of you know how painstaking it is for me to choose which ones I want. (or how painstaking it is for me to choose anything I want for that matter, but that's another post) They never have the "perfect" pair. I finally found some sunglasses, but I am still on the hunt for regular glasses. The sun here in Denver is much more intense than in the northwest, so I needed my new sunglasses to be bigger than my old ones and yet still feminine. When I first put these on after purchasing them, I freaked out. They are much larger than I'm used to and I felt that my entire head was a giant pair of sunglasses. In the last few days however they have grown on me and I don't regret buying them. I still have 27 days left to change my mind tho.

These are my old glasses and the sun here just comes in over the top of them and blinds me. Please ignore the messy house in the background:)

Updates and Ramblings

I finally finished hand quilting my Olympia border quilt! I need to finish the binding and a few applique's I'm adding to the top. I'll try to post a picture when it's all done.

Sis Trista has been coming over for more than a week now to quilt on her quilt. We have had some very good and uplifting visits. It has also created a deeper friendship. I have enjoyed her.

We had a baptizing and ordinance supper on Sunday. It was so refreshing. It had been about 10 years since we had sat in an ordinance supper here.

A blizzard is supposed to be here now, but the 40 degree temps have kept it at bay. It has been raining steady for almost 24 hours. That is very unusual weather for Denver.

My fridge went out yesterday. Bro Justin N. is coming to fix it this afternoon. The colder temps have been nice for keeping the food cold outside in a covered laundry basket. Animals didn't bother it all night and today until I started writing this post and a chipmunk got into our corn tortillas.

Dale has been working some overtime. It's nice sometimes to have the money, but I wish he didn't have to work Saturdays. He had to start work at 5 am this morning!

I am looking forward to reading Laurie's blog. I needed our talk today. Thanks for the advice. Sorry I stole time on Skye's last day there.

Less than 2 months till we go to Oregon. Yippee!!

4 new posts with pictures

I am having issues with these pictures, so I'm just crossing my fingers that you guys will be able to see them.

This is our back porch that is covered and somewhat sheltered. The deepest snow back in the corner is 10 inches.

This is the view out my kitchen window of our backyard and the houses behind it. You can clearly see the big 2 story house and the brick one next to it, but just to the right of the 2 story is a little white house. It almost looks connected to the big one, in any case, at the worst yesterday we couldn't see the little one or anything beyond the 2 story. Our "blizzard", as the radio and news called it, was windy, snowy, and cold. In fact, Dale's job shut down yesterday, and the school has taken 2 snow days. The first ones of the school year. This is totally typical spring weather for Denver and another big storm is expected Monday. I thought it was odd that Andy's last day of school is May 20th and yet spring break is the first week of April. They will only have 6 weeks left when they return from spring break. But, now I understand, they try to plan spring break when snow storms are likely so that they won't have to miss to many extra days.

I reeeeaaaally hope these picures turn out!!