Catch Up

Recent events from the Mereness household:

1. We celebrated Thanksgiving in Portland with our awesome friends, Robby and Lynsey Wells. I failed our TX friends and family and forgot to take a picture of pregnant Lynsey...though I do have a couple cute ones from my phone of Anna Kate.

I asked her to say "cheese" and this is what I got

She looks so much like Lynsey in this one!

2. We were going to buy a house. Then we were going to build a house. Now we're back to buying a house. The best part of it all is that we have an amazing realtor who doesn't pressure us at all (even though we were going to be buying a lot for the house from him!) and always prays with us after each meeting. It's exciting to think about having a house sometime soon, but we're also really happy in our apartment now.

3. Speaking of apartments, we have great couple friends who live a couple doors down from us and have quickly become our best friends. They have been married about a year and a half and don't have kids, so we're in the same life stages as they are and get along great. We're so thankful for friends our age in our town!! It's a big deal once you have gone without any for a couple years.  

4. We're going South for Christmas which means we get to meet our niece, Lucy!! I can hardly wait. I'm SO excited!! Look at her precious face and you'll see why.

5. This post has turned into pictures of other people's kids. Weird. Guess that is what happens when you don't have any of your own to brag about.

Lately...

We've been pretty busy around here with a lot of Fall things going on!

1. We're looking at houses to buy/build, so that's very fun and exciting (and a little scary)!

2. Kory is preaching at all 3 services at church this week (his first time preaching at Redeemer's) and also filmed a sweet video that goes along with the lesson, so that's been very time intensive.

3. We had a (stinking cool!) Halloween party for the youth group last week, which I hope to blog about soon. It was amazing!

4. I'm doing the lesson at youth group this week since Kory's preaching and been busy with that preparation.

5. Next weekend is our Fall Retreat and with everything else going on, it's kind of hit the back burner so it all has to be planned next week in about 4 days.

6. Youth group kids have athletic events we have been attending, Kory does a Bible Study for the boys every week, oh and I have this full-time job I also do 40 hours a week. And that job sent me to Salem for a couple days this week.

7. Good problem...but we have a lot of friends here and it's kind of hard trying to figure out when we'll have time to hang out with all of them. I am not complaining at all because I'm SO happy to finally have friends our age :) BUT, I feel kind of bad when a girl from church asks me to hang out and I have to tell her tonight that I'm scheduled two weeks out and we should be able to get together after Thanksgiving. That sounds kind of arrogant like I'm SO cool and popular. That's not really it...I'm just the new girl in town and so I'm trying really hard to build relationships and get to know people. With no family here, friendships are uber important.

8. We got our membership at the YMCA yesterday in an attempt to start working out again and get back into shape. It is not a myth that you gain weight after getting married. Sheesh! It happened far too quickly so we're going to work out instead of buying new, bigger pants! Though I do wonder when we think we're going to fit all these workouts into our schedule? Ideally we'd get up at 5:30 and go work out but that's insane in the membrane. Not happening in this household!

So yeah, that's our recent life. I know everyone is busy, (especially you who have kids!) but thankfully our busyness is FUN and we're loving life in Roseburg :)

David Crowder Band

A couple weeks ago, we made a quick trip to Portland to see DCB on their final tour. It was on a Tuesday night, so we left work after lunch on Tuesday to head to Portland for the concert. What you are about to see are some really awful pictures from my phone. I still have an iPhone 3GS and the camera on there is pretty terrible. You'll see the evidence below. Nonetheless, I want to document the memories, so here is how the night went down.

We thought we showed up for the wrong concert when Brad Paisley's bus was beside us as we waited in line to get in the show.

Kory was supposed to be showing how excited he was for the concert...

We got into the venue and I quickly realized there would not be seats like I had imagined and we would be standing for the next 6-7 hours. Oh boy.

I thought it would be a grand idea to take a picture of Kory and I while we waited for the concert to start. You can see how well it turned out.

The guys standing behind us asked me to take another one so they could be in it, so I took one of Kory and two strangers. At least they sort of have half a face in this one.

Next those guys offered to take one for us with us facing the chandelier so the light would be on our faces. Slight improvement. 

Finally, one of them held his phone right above our faces to cast light on us and then the other one took a picture with my phone. This is as good as it got that night folks. Our faces kind of look like we have a disease. Ew.

Although I was super frustrated with how bad the pictures were turning out on my phone, I decided to give it one more shot to get a picture of David Crowder. Goodness gracious this one is awful. I did try to zoom in so that was clearly a bad idea. 

I zoomed back out and it's definitely much better. Probably the best of the night, which isn't saying much. Should have brought my camera with me instead of relying on my phone...lesson learned.

The concert was incredible!! John Mark McMillan, Chris August, Gungor and David Crowder Band all put on a great show and it was one of my favorite concerts I've ever been to. However...we stood up for a total of like 6 hours, I had nothing to eat or drink, we were so cram packed together that I could barely turn around to talk to Kory without hitting other people. By the end of the concert, I seriously thought I could pass out from hunger/thirst/exhaustion. I'm obviously a whimp and not a hard-core concert attendee.

It was about 12:30 when we left and neither of us had eaten anything since lunch. We looked forever to find any place in downtown Portland that was still serving food and couldn't find anything. Thankfully, we located a Safeway that was still open and we grabbed some dinner to take back to our hotel since we had a mini-kitchen. We barely made it out of the store before we both dug into the bread and were eating hunks of it as we walked back to the hotel. Oh yeah, we rode a street car to the concert, not realizing it wouldn't be running when the concert was over...so after standing for all those hours and my feet killing me, we had to walk a couple miles back to our hotel.

It was probably because I was so hungry, but man that baked potato soup and hot bread were delicious! Before we got to the hotel, we passed a homeless woman and Kory suggested that we could give her the rest of our bread. I quickly told him we would not be doing that because I was still hungry and needed the rest of it...I'll just say it was the empty stomach talking. I'm not always that selfish.

The next day, we slept in and went shopping at REI and Crate & Barrel with gift cards from our wedding. We spent over $600 that day (all went on the cards) and ended up getting $3 back in cash in our pockets. That's my kind of shopping! We also ate lunch at The Flying Pie, which is a famous Portland pizza place. You can see that they pile a bajillion toppings on there. It was good, but honestly nothing beats good ole pepperoni in my opinion :)

Overall, it was a great mid-week getaway and I am so happy we got to see DCB on their farewell tour. It was worth every minute of standing and being hungry and thinking I was going to die. 

Family Comes to Visit!

Kory's parents came to see us last week and it was SO wonderful having them here! They had already put about 1,000 miles on their rental car traveling around Washington and Oregon visiting churches for Ben's work, so we opted to stay around here and have a relaxing weekend with them.

One of the most fun things we did was look at houses! This was the first time we'd gone to look at houses and we actually knew what we could afford and were looking pretty seriously. We were just driving around and looking at them from the outside, but we found quite a few that we want to revisit with a realtor.

Kory's mom is a phenomenal cook so we also took this opportunity to enjoy some of her delicious cooking and to learn from her kitchen wisdom. She and I made a home-made apple pie...oh my goodness, it was so yummy! Here is the pie after we'd already eaten about half of it. (I know, the photography on this blog is quite professional...can't even take a picture of the pie before we eat most of it!)

We did go to Eugene one day to do a little shopping. Kory & I got Apple TV for our guest bedroom so we can also watch TV in there now. I had no idea how small it was going to be!

Our other finds that day included one pair of pajama pants for me, a lamp, and a pair of pants for Kory. Pretty exciting day, I know! :)

Ben and Jackie were able to be with us for worship on Sunday morning and it was so fun for them to be able to meet our church family and see why we love Redeemer's so much! When it was time for them to leave on Sunday afternoon, I was the first one to break down crying and I really hadn't expected that to happen. I think it's because it finally feels real that we're going to be staying here and our home is going to be far away from family for quite some time.

When people would visit us in Myrtle Creek, I always knew in the back of my mind it was somewhat temporary and we wouldn't live there forever, so I was just excited to show off this cool place I live. Now, however, we're looking to buy a house and Kory is planning to be at his job long-term and we really feel like this is the place we'll settle down and have a family. When B & J left, I think it hit me that this is how it's going to be with family for a while, at least. My love for Oregon (and Kory, of course!) is enough to keep me very happy for now though!

Honeymoon Day 5

(So this is way out of order, but I'm just trying to keep you all on your toes!)

Day 5: Belize

Before this trip, in my mind, Belize was going to be the most tropical Paradise-type stop of the whole trip. Oh my, was I ever wrong! This was, by far, the most ghetto place we visited and resembled Mexico much more than Tahiti.

We booked excursions ahead of time in every stop but this one. Because I thought it was going to be so beautiful, we decided we could just get off the boat whenever we woke up and walk around and see the sights--no excursion necessary.

That morning, we did sleep in and head to shore mid-morning, but the next few hours did not turn out like we had planned! Of course, the harbor area was modern and well-kept and looked like most every other stop we visited. However, after walking a few blocks, we found ourselves in a 3rd world country being accosted by local cab drivers and tour guides who wanted our money.

There was a disagreement at this point between Kory and I because I wanted to keep walking in one direction and this old man told us everything in town was the other direction, so Kory wanted to turn around and go the other way. I could clearly see that there was more town ahead and pretty much every person who got off the boat was continuing to walk the direction I wanted to go...so I wanted to keep going until we ran out of town and then turn around and start back the other direction. After all, we had many hours to spend here, so I figured we should see all of the town and get some more exercise.

We ended up going the way Kory wanted and it was fine. Life didn't end. However, I was so frustrated that Belize wasn't meeting my expectations that I was probably taking it out on Kory. My bad. We walked and walked and walked and the further we went, the more shady the neighborhoods got. At one point, Kory said it was getting too bad and we needed to get out of there before we got kidnapped. I was still mad because we waited in line for about 10 minutes to get a Coke and never got one. The men in front of us were just chatting it up and had no concern for the 5 people in line behind them.

We decided that we would just go back to the ship and hang out there the rest of the day since Belize had not been kind to us. I was definitely mad that we were going to waste this whole day and that everything was going wrong. Kory was trying to make things better and figure out what would make me happy but I was just in a funk and couldn't get out of it.

Right as we headed back to get on the boat, we passed this tour shop and stopped for a second to see what trips they offered. A tour guide immediately approached us and tried to sell us one of his tours. I wasn't interested but Kory started asking some questions. The guide said the cave tubing adventure was easily the #1 selling tour and that it was the most popular tour. Back story: my co-worker told me they went cave tubing and she LOVED it and it was so fun and the best thing ever, blah blah blah. Well, I looked at the tour on Carnival's website and wasn't that interested in it before and was even less interested after hearing my co-worker go on and on about it.

So the tour guide told us he had a group ready to go on the cave tubing, but they had to have 2 more people before they could go. He told us he'd give us 50% off if we would go with him. This guy was most definitely local and quite hard to understand, but he was certainly enthusiastic. Anyhow, Kory thought it sounded fun and was much better than going back to the boat all day, so he wanted to do the tour. I figured I should let Kory do what he wanted since I'd been such a Debbie Downer all day, so I agreed to go. We reminded the driver we had to be back in time to catch the boat (we only had about 3-4 hours left) and he said it would be no problem and we would make it back with time to spare.

AND then the real adventure began! I'm very sad to say I don't have pictures to document the rest of this day...but the one picture I do have is of the van we took for the tour.

This van had no A/C and the chair I sat in faced sideways so I was looking right at the rest of the people who were in forward-facing chairs. We met a Canadian couple who was also going to be on this tour and immediately hit it off with them, so my attitude was quickly changing and I was feeling better about this day.

As soon as we got in the van and headed out of town, we had to stop by the Tourism Agency Board to let them know how many people were going on the tour and where we were headed, etc. In retrospect, I appreciate them doing this because the likelihood of tourists not returning from such trips is probably pretty high. This tourism board consisted of two women sitting in folding chairs at a card table on the side of the road with a notebook and pen. Our driver slowed down and rolled down his window to shout our numbers and destination at them and keep driving. Official business.

So then we drove. And drove and drove and drove. Oh my goodness it was taking forever to get to this place. It turns out that these caves are about an hour and a half out of town! We were speeding down this dirt road and passing large trucks at insane speeds and I was getting very carsick. We finally arrived at the cave tubing location and changed into our swimsuits and got our inner tubes and headlamps. The next surprise on this trip was that we had a 30 minute hike before we could get in the water. I thought we'd grab our tubes and be in the water within a couple minutes. After hiking (mostly uphill) for what seemed like forever, the guide told us we needed to start hurrying or we weren't going to make it in time. So now we were hiking even faster and I was getting more and more nervous we were going to miss the ship.

We finally got to the water and lined all our tubes up to form a train where we each held the next person's feet to connect the tubes. The tour allows people in these "tube trains" to float on the water through this cave system. Truthfully, I wasn't that impressed. Part of that probably comes growing up near Carlsbad Caverns. I have probably visited there 5 or more times in my life and after a while, it kind of loses it's excitement. Kory & I also visited the caves near Austin a few years back. The other people on our tour were from Canada and Puerto Rico and none of them had ever seen the inside of a cave before, so they were completely amazed.

Now, that's not to say I didn't enjoy the tour. There was a natural waterfall in the cave that was just incredible! The sun was shining in through an opening and it was beautiful. There were also a couple other formations that were really neat and it's always fun to just relax and float on water. However, there was not as much relaxing as one would hope for...the water gets really shallow in places and you have to lift your bottom up so it won't drag on the rocks. We also had to paddle in the still water and get out and walk at one point because the water was almost dried up in that spot.

When you finish floating through the caves, you are free to just float the rest of the way back to the vans and swim/jump off rocks/whatever you want to do. Well, by this time, we were REALLY cutting it close on time and we had to get a move on it. The Americans and Canadians were swimming back as fast as we could while carrying an innertube, but the Puerto Ricans were nowhere to be found. They were on a different cruise line and their ship didn't leave until several hours after ours. Again, I was really frustrated that they were just taking their time and were going to make us late.

We ended up practically running to the van so we could head back to town. I found out on the ride back to town that the really big guy from Puerto Rico weighed too much for his tube to handle and it was losing air and that's why it was taking them so long. Anyhow, I think we made it back to town in about 45 minutes. Oh it was a terrifying ride for sure, but we didn't care because we were cutting it so close on time! Thankfully we made it back with just a couple minutes to get back on the boat. There was a crazy long line to get on the boat, but we knew we were going to make it at least.

However, we had reservations for the steakhouse that night and by the time we got back on the boat, we only had about 30 minutes to get to the restaurant. That might have been ok but we each needed to shower and get ready and it was a fancy night so we had to really dress up. I ended up throwing my hair into a wet bun and we were a few minutes late to the reservation anyhow. We have no pictures because I was looking pretty rough and also we ran out of the room in such a hurry that I forgot my camera.

The meal was amazing, though! I wish I had my camera to document the incredible food we had...and, of course, I can't even remember what it was all called. So just trust me when I say it was delicious and we ate WAY too much.

Wedding Ring

So last night I lost the 3rd little diamond from my ring. That means 3 have fallen out in the past 5 months. I don't like this trend!

As you can see, there are two diamonds missing right now. I lost the first one just a couple months before my wedding, so I had it replaced and cleaned and shiny for the wedding. I lost the second one in June or July and now I lost the last one last night while trying to do laundry.

I'm kind of a clumsy gal and I somehow banged my hand/ring on the door as I carried a laundry basket to the washer. I was so sad when I looked down to see another diamond gone. I tried to find it in hopes of...well I don't know what I thought I was going to do if I found it really. Sell it on Ebay? Put it back in? I don't know. I just wanted to find it...but I did not. Then, I was feeling too depressed to do laundry so I just put the laundry basket back in the bedroom and went to bed instead. I told you recently I've loved doing laundry recently, so this loss just took the joy out of it.

My co-worker told me today that happened to her so much she doesn't wear rings at all anymore. I don't think that's the solution for me. I love my ring and want to continue wearing it, but I definitely have to get it fixed now that it has two holes. It's looking quite snaggletoothed if you ask me.

I'm thinking I might go to Wal-mart or Claire's or somewhere to buy a cheap ring that I can wear while this one is being fixed. That might come in handy if this is going to become a regular occurrence. I could try to be more careful and stop being so clumsy, but I really think it's a safer bet to just buy a replacement for when I have to get mine worked on. Thank goodness for the insurance!

Lucy Mereness

A few weeks ago, my first precious niece was born! Her name is Lucy Jayne Mereness and she's pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen. Unfortunately, I've only seen pictures of her because she is 2,000 miles away from me in West Texas.

I've stolen these pictures (with permission, is that still stealing?) from my sister-in-law, Brynn, because I obviously have none of my own and I want to document her cuteness on here for the world to see. I'm so thankful that I can watch her grow and change through pictures until I get to hold her in December. Oh I can hardly wait for that day!

2nd or 3rd day alive I believe



In some pictures you can tell she's rocking a sweet little mohawk, I love it!

These are my favorite pictures so far, for obvious reasons. I do realize she has 3 other aunties, but I bought this for her so I choose to believe she loves me most :) Also, I've never ever said "Auntie" before (pronounced on-tee), but I'm really loving the British vibe of it lately.

　

I think she looks a lot like her Daddy in this one.

She's just begging for me to pick her up!

I can't get over how much I love those little booties she is wearing! I always knew I'd be excited to see her, but I had no idea how much it would kill me to have to wait almost 4 months to hold and kiss her. Thankfully, 3 of my friends here will be having 4 babies in the next month so I can love on them in the meantime. In fact, one of them was born yesterday, so I'm excited to meet her soon.

Also, two of my BFF bridesmaids are also pregnant now (Shout out to Jacinda and Deonna!), so I'm saving up to buy lots of cute baby gifts in the near future. All this baby talk is almost enough to make me want to have a baby now too. Almost.

Unfinished

I could have sworn I finished my updates about our girls camping trip, but my mom just reminded me I never finished that...or wedding recaps...or honeymoon posts. Much like the rest of my life, I tend to start something on here and never see it through to completion :) Thanks for the reminder, Mom!

I really have been trying to finish the honeymoon posts but I can't get the pictures off my camera, as you all know from my last post. However, I can get wedding pictures off the CDs and I can get camping pictures off my phone, so I will begin working on those again.

I like the level of busyness in my life right now. Not overwhelmingly busy and not super slow and boring. We have something scheduled a few nights a week and then several nights where we are free and get to be at home.

Kory's going on the Men's retreat with our church this weekend, so I'll be home alone. That means I'll get to have lunch with one of my friends, Tessah. She and I hang out every time Kory leaves town, so it always gives me something to look forward to. She's getting married in November and that means I'll get to talk weddings with her again! I haven't been to a wedding since mine, so I'm pretty excited for hers.

I've kind of grown to enjoy doing laundry...never thought I'd say that. I don't feel the same joy for other chores in my home (cleaning toilets and doing dishes), but at least that's one thing I really don't mind doing and stay pretty well caught up on. I know that's easier to say with only two of us...but I'm going to keep enjoying it and vacuuming while I can! Anybody else find weird enjoyment in a chore?

Storage

So apparently all the pictures I've taken in the past few months are going to remain trapped on my camera for quite some time. I am sure the cord to transfer them to the computer is somewhere in storage...maybe I'll find it before 2011 is over?

On my laptop, there's a slot to just put the memory card in and get the pictures uploaded...but where is my laptop? Oh yes, in storage.

I bought a little converter thing that plugs into the USB port and then you put the memory card in and you can upload the pictures like they're on a flash drive. Well, I accidentally broke that that converter thing so I bought a new one. Now the new one (identical to the old one) isn't recognized on my computer at work or Kory's laptop at home...so that's $22 spent and still no way to get the pictures off my camera.

I think I'm going to have to go dig through all the boxes we put in storage and find the cord or my laptop. Whichever I discover first will be fine with me. You may have seen my status on FB a while back explaining how the two boxes labeled "Mandy's Winter Clothes" that I pulled from storage actually contained sheets, towels, pajama pants and formal dresses...so I have no clue where my actual winter clothes are now.

Well, I know they're in storage. It seemed like such a great idea to put all the things we didn't need to use in storage since it wouldn't all fit in our smallish apartment. However, several times a week I wish I had something that is in storage.

Also, when I say "in storage", I don't mean inside a storage unit that we rented. I mean in the church office basement. The church offices are in a huge 3 story building that used to be a department store. We were told we could store anything we needed in the bottom floor for as long as we needed. That worked really well for us.

Or at least it did until there was a sewer leak/flood in the church office basement. Yeah...so there's no telling what condition some of our stuff is in. When we went to pick up the winter clothes, I didn't really find anything that had been damaged but I did find one box that was falling apart and really dirty/smelly. (Yes, I know it's not close to winter yet, but I have no long-sleeve shirts or jackets and it's starting to get chilly in Oregon at night.)

So there ya have it. I guess I needed to rant about storage today. Thanks for listening.

Where Were You?

With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 coming up, most people are remembering that day and where they were when they heard the news. I love hearing other people's stories and memories from that day, so I thought I'd share mine.

I was a sophomore in high school at the time. I always woke up with barely enough time to get ready and run out the door to make it just on time before school started (hmm...not much has changed in 10 years). For some reason I didn't understand at the time, I woke up early that morning and went to the living room to watch The Today Show, which my mom always had playing while we got ready in the morning. I sat in the recliner and watched coverage of the tragedy, though I really didn't understand a lot of what they were saying.

I honestly had no idea what the "Twin Towers" were. I had heard the term before but wasn't even aware that they were located in New York. I got ready for school and took one last look at the TV before heading to my 1st period class. I think I saw the 2nd plane hit the tower at that moment...but I'm not 100% sure.

I went to weights, which was my first class that morning. We worked out as usual and I don't remember talking about the tragedy very much because I didn't know at the time what a big deal it was. "Terrorists" was not really a term I was familiar with and I didn't really have a clue how many people had died yet.

I remember getting to my 2nd period English class and by this point, it was all anyone could talk about. We turned the TV on (which NEVER happened) and watched the news coverage while our teacher talked to us about what had happened. I remember being scared. I remember everyone being scared. It was the first time in my life I felt like maybe the world was ending? Like maybe I was going to die? I prayed a lot that day. I don't think we really did much in school that day, or if we did, I didn't pay attention because I was so focused on feeling scared that we were going to be bombed or attacked in some way. Several of my teachers had us review our crisis drills (if someone brought in a gun or we got a bomb threat, etc.), which only added to my growing fear.

That afternoon we went to soccer practice, which was my 7th period class. I remember distinctly that it was cloudy and overcast and dark outside. It was eerie. It felt like the weather was expressing what we were all feeling. I wasn't able to drive yet, but an upperclassmen gave a couple of us rides out to the soccer field each day. I remember as we drove through town that every single gas station had a huge line. People were filling up with gas because it was rumored that either the prices would sky-rocket or that it would be rationed and unavailable starting the next day.

We got to soccer practice and much to my dismay, our coach insisted we have practice as usual. I remember feeling like I was on the verge of tears the whole time, even though I couldn't really put into words why I felt that way. During practice, a small crop-duster plane flew over the field and because we were all so nervous and on edge from the day's events, I remember everyone panicking. When we saw and heard a plane overhead, several of the girls hit the ground and I remember a couple girls screaming. I stayed on my feet but I remember feeling like I was frozen with fear.

When it passed by, we all burst into fits of laughter at how ridiculous we had all just been. With the tension finally broken, I think we all finally felt better. I can't remember if it was that night or the next night, but I remember going to church with my mom for a prayer service. Most of the service was centered around our country going to war. I remember a discussion my mom and I had that evening about the fact that I'd lived my whole life not really knowing what it was like to be at war...at least a major war.

Now, it's hard to believe that we've been at war for the past 10 years and some kids have never lived in a time when we weren't at war. It makes me incredibly sad. I still don't fully understand what happened that day and I probably never will. I understand that many innocent people died needlessly and I mourn that loss. I grieve over the loss of all innocent people--American, Afghan, Iraqi, or otherwise. Lord, heal us from our hate!

Cats

Here are a couple pictures I've taken of the cats recently. The first picture was taken when Kory decided we should sleep on the bouch (bed-couch, for those of you who don't recall taking the tour of our place) one night instead of our bed. 

The bouch is a full-size, while our bed is a queen. Basically, since getting married, Kory and I have had very few nights of good sleep. We spend all night fighting over covers and pushing the other one back to their side of the bed and getting too hot, etc. Pretty romantic, huh? :) I even decided that maybe we need a King size bed so we can get farther away from each other and not wake up a million times in the night. 

So I agreed to sleep on the bouch for one night. After brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed, I walked in to find this scene. The cats apparently really like the bouch also! Mr. Sir loves laying on "things" so he was cuddled up on the iPad and did not want to move. 

The weirdest part about that night was that it was the absolute BEST night of sleep we've had in months. Neither of us woke up all night. Maybe what we need is a smaller bed instead of bigger? Weird.

On a different random note, we tried to get Kabie to sleep in a cat bed forever when Kory first got her. She refused to sleep in any bed, no matter now comfy we made it for her. We recently went to Costco and after putting away the groceries, we put the empty box by the front door to throw it away the next time one of us went outside. Kabie LOVES this box and will hardly leave it.

We've since moved the box to the living room because it was in the way, so now she lays in the box by the fireplace. I don't understand why you'd want to lay in this box when you have couches and recliners and comfortable furniture all around, but then again, there's a lot about cats I just don't get.

Here's Kabie in her new home...if she isn't eating or visiting the litter box, she's chilling in her new bed. 

And the final random note of the evening...anybody else know Dole made mushrooms? I sure didn't. Well, I guess you don't so much "make" mushrooms as you grow them...you know what I mean. Or you don't. Either way, I'm outta here. 

Kory's gone to TX for a friend's wedding so I have the bed all to myself. Hallelujah!!

Labor Day

We're having a pretty relaxed Labor Day at our place.

Right now Kory is playing Tiny Tower on his iPhone...any of you play this silly, yet addicting game? I'm up to 45 floors!

I just finished doing our budget for September (a few days behind...we've been busy!) and now I'm playing on Facebook and Pinterest. And writing a blog, obviously.

Plans for the rest of the day include cleaning house, cooking up a delicious roast, playing with Mr. Sir and enjoying a day off from work!

Hope you're enjoying a day with as little labor as possible! :)

Busy Busy

With this being the last week before school starts, we've got a lot going on as we try to fit in last minute hang-out time with the students before they're tied up with school and extra-curriculars. One of the best parts of all this is that it's forced me to clean our home and keep it that way.

Summer weather finally arrived in Oregon in August, so a lot of our time has been spent outside. Last Sunday, we went to 2 cook-outs in one day. That meant no cooking all day and lots of delicious free food! I'll take that any day.

Tuesday night we had our high school swimming party at this AMAZING house:

Tonight we'll host our young adult small group at our apartment since the usual hosts are out of town. They're also about 7 months pregnant with twins, so we're praying about finding a new location to meet beginning soon. I'm very torn about whether we are able to host or not. I love having people over and my apartment will be cleaner this way, but with all the youth group activities we're already involved in, we're trying to decide if it will be too much to take on.

Tomorrow night we're having a couple over for dinner and then we're all going to watch Inception again. The husband is on staff at the church and works with Kory, so we were visiting with them at a church event recently and all decided we wanted to see that movie again because it is THAT incredible. It's worth watching many times.

Saturday, I have two baby showers to attend. One is for the daughter of one of my co-workers and the other is for our small group friends who are expecting twins. I have bought diapers and wipes for both of them because apparently the new trend is to ask people to bring those and then they enter you in a drawing to win prizes. The number of entries you get is based on the number of diapers/wipes that you bring. Then, you're supposed to bring a gift on top of that...very tricky, I tell ya! After seeing the price of diapers recently, I totally understand the need for other people to buy diapers for you. Wow they're expensive!

Sunday, we'll have the High Schooler's over to our apartment for dinner and Bible Study. We did this two weeks ago and had 25 people to fit in our little apartment! It was insane, and awesome at the same time. Here you can see all the people crammed into our living room...there are even a few people beside and behind me when I took the picture that you can't see here.

Redeemer's just purchased a new building for the youth group, so hopefully in a few weeks they'll be meeting there for youth group activities. I love having kids over, but the lingering stench of that many sweaty teens was a bit much for me to handle. All the Scentsy in the world can't overpower that smell!

Honeymoon Days 1 & 2

So a few months ago, when I returned from my honeymoon, I promised my dear friend Rachel that I would post detailed blog posts about each of our stops...I have been waiting until we had fast, reliable internet at home to do these posts and we finally have that, so I'll get started on these honeymoon recaps now.

The morning after the wedding (Sunday May 29th) we woke up at 4:00 a.m. to get to the airport and start our journey to Miami (after arriving at the hotel after midnight the night before). With the wedding over, I finally lost my adrenaline I'd been running on for the past week and was totally and completely exhausted this day. I could hardly stay awake in the El Paso Airport long enough to get boarded on the plane. I'm pretty sure we both sat down on the plane and went to sleep within 2 minutes, after taking a picture for the blog, of course. We were pretty much out until we arrived in Miami at 1:30 p.m.

When we arrived in Miami, there was a man from Carnival waiting at our gate to escort us to our bus outside. I'm not sure why we got the VIP treatment, but this guy carried our bags for us and when we got outside to the bus, there were probably 50 people waiting outside in the heat and they took us to the front and loaded our luggage and allowed us to get on the bus before they even let anyone else check-in. I booked our tickets for the transfer from the airport to the cruise ship a month or two ahead of time, but surely I'm not the only person who did that? Anyhow, it was a great start to the week of relaxation and fun!
 
When we first got on the ship and found our room, we were surprised by how small it was and were afraid that the lack of window would make it too dark and not fun to be in the room. We ended up booking a room without a window because someone suggested it would help with sea sickness. We left the room to walk around the ship and see what was going on.

Waiting for the boat to take off

Shortly thereafter, we sailed out of Miami and we hung out on the deck for a while before heading to dinner. The warm weather was SO nice after 7 months of rain in Oregon!

We went to a show that evening after dinner and it was so corny, we didn't stay long at all. We didn't even make it a seat actually, we stood there for a few minutes and quickly decided we had no interest in staying there for an hour or however much time was left.
 
We had an early morning excursion the next day and I was completely exhausted and wanting to go to bed early. I held out until 9:00 p.m. and could not keep my eyes open any longer. Kory went to the deck to watch Despicable Me and to regret the fact that he had married the most boring woman in the world!

However, that small dark room was JUST what I needed. I slept 13 hours that night and woke up the next day feeling amazing!! Monday was our first day at sea and we had a very relaxing day. We ordered room service, laid out on the deck, played in the pool, ate way too much at all the buffets, watched a movie in our room, ate some more ice cream and I know there was a lengthy nap in there somewhere also. It was such a perfect day!

Camping Day 2B

After we left the beach Saturday afternoon, we decided to drive about 1/4 mile to get back into town and see the sights of Ocean Shores. We hit up the first tourist shop we saw and filled up on delicious salt water taffy. After pondering which hilariously bad souvenir to buy, we decided our money was better spent basically anywhere else in the world.

Entrance to Sharky's

We had driven by Sharky's a few times and I was really pushing for us to eat dinner there Saturday night. It would have been a great idea, had Sharky's actually been a restaurant. It turned out to be just another tourist shop, so of course we ventured inside. These shark masks were pretty great and I'm fairly certain a few small children wanted to try them on but we were hogging all the masks and having too much fun taking pictures. 

The next items we found are truly disturbing. These are...baby sharks. Real ones. And, NO, I don't know why on Earth anyone would ever buy one. Maybe for dissection/teaching purposes?! I don't know...it's all I can think of. Anyhow, it was weird...and not cool enough to pay twenty-something dollars to buy one.

After leaving Sharky's, we found a few more shops and wondered around through the town. We spotted a Christian bookstore called "Mustard Seeds of Faith" (or something like that...) and decided to check out the goods. Oh my word, I am fairly certain less than 1% of those books were written during my lifetime. I considered purchasing the book pictured below, but again decided the joke wasn't worth the money I'd spend.

I did buy Kory a Holy Bible Crosswords book that cost me $0.81 because we've both really been loving Crossword Puzzles lately, but once I got it home I realized it was all King James Version and SUPER hard. Plus, a lot of the clues are someone's name and the clue reads something like "And the LORD said to M______h ..." so I'm pretty sure we aren't going to be having much fun with this book after all.

Saturday's dinner was an integral part of the "Weekend of Disappointment". Most every restaurant we saw looked pretty sketchy but we finally found one that looked like a winner. We had outdoor patio seating, which was great because the weather was in the upper 70's and perfect. However, the 3 of us immediately saw they served breakfast all day and were very excited to have breakfast for dinner.

The cook came out to see if we had questions and let us know they weren't serving all of the menu that night and breakfast was one of the things they wouldn't be serving. So, we picked alternate meals only to be told by the waitress that only burgers, sandwiches, salads and appetizers were available that night. We all found a yummy Panini sandwich that we wanted to try so we each ordered that. When the waitress turned our order in, she found out he (the cook) was only doing burgers, not sandwiches. So now we were all supposed to find a burger we wanted and that didn't sound good to any of us.

In the meantime, we overheard the cook (a male in his early 20's) ask his boss if he could make us a free plate of bruschetta (sp?). We were planning to order this already, but if he was going to give it to us for free, we weren't going to object. However, we really wanted to leave the restaurant and go eat dinner somewhere else by this time and it was getting tricky. We didn't feel like we could take the free appetizer and water and then leave without getting dinner. I think this guy was pretty desperate for female attention because when we said we didn't really find anything else we wanted, he agreed to make sandwiches for us.

He had turned off his machine to make Panini's however, so he asked if we minded if he just grilled them. At this point, we were starving so we told him that was fine. Basically, we each ended up with a $10 grilled cheese sandwich! It was a bit ridiculous, but the clam chowder and spinach/strawberry/bacon salad we all shared was delicious and made up for the terrible service experience.

We swung by the beach and got to watch the sun set there so that was beautiful, of course.

After dinner, we made a couple stops to get ice cream, firewood and ice and head back to the campsite for the evening. Oh, I must mention this disgusting flavor of ice cream they were serving. Maybe other places serve this, but it's the first time I've ever seen it. It was called "Everything" and it's literally the leftovers from every other type of ice cream all thrown together in a bucket. Ew. Ew. Ew! Strawberry cheesecake, on the other hand, was yummy!

We spent hours chatting around the fire that night. We told hilarious embarrassing stories on ourselves, opened up about real struggles in our lives, talked about our husbands (in a positive way) and agreed that they'd never spend so much time talking about us on a guys camping trip. It was so wonderful. I miss girl talk with friends like this. I am making friends here in Oregon and even have quite a few close to my age that are in my small group from Redeemer's, but there's just something special about college friends.

The weekend wasn't quite over, so soon I'll wrap up our Sunday adventure at the beach which involved getting a car stuck in the sand and refusing to seek help from a male to get out of it.

Camping Day 2A

Saturday morning we slept in until about 8:30 or so...probably the latest I've slept while camping ever. Those clouds came in handy as they blocked the early morning sun for us. When Jessica and I got out of the tent, Allison already had a fire going for us. Talk about good service!

After breakfast, we sat around the campfire talking, reading books/magazines and snacking on powdered donuts all morning. It was wonderful! I always appreciate time to just sit and do nothing and have no expectations of my time. Allison made us lunch (corn on the cob and baked potatoes over the fire--delicious!) and then we finally changed clothes and got ready to head to town/the beach.

We drove to the beach after lunch and it was still cloudy, but little bits of sun were starting to peek through the clouds. The rest of these pictures were taken on my iPhone while walking so the quality is terrible, but hopefully you can at least get an idea of what I'm talking about here.

There were a lot of crazy things happening in this town! First of all, apparently you could rent these 4 person bicycles and ride them all over town. I first thought you could get someone else to pedal you around but then quickly realized you all had to pedal to make the bike work. Pretty much everyone on a bike thought it was a great idea to go on the beach and in the sand. So, of course, pretty much everyone on these bikes got stuck and couldn't make the bike go and were in the road holding up traffic. It was not a great situation.

These mopeds (I think that's what they are?) were also available for rent in Ocean Shores. The main problem with that is that you did not have to have a driver's license to rent them. We saw children around age 10 on one by themselves. So these people were also falling off their moped/scooter things and almost crashing and hitting cars/pedestrians. There were way too many close calls and I was certain we were going to see a major wreck as a result of these things. Thankfully we never witnessed it, but that's not to say it didn't happen.

Probably the most bizarre thing of the day was that this beach is also a parking lot. What I mean is that everyone drives out to the beach and then parks right on the beach. Like pretty close to the water and right where you would want to relax and enjoy the sand. It's very weird. We had to walk quite a ways to get away from the cars and find a place to set up our chairs.

The best entertainment of the day was all the kites being flown everywhere. There were some really cool ones (jets/planes, Buzz Lightyear, Jellyfish, etc.) but of course I have no pictures of those. (Side note: the reason I don't have good pictures on my camera is because I gave it to Kory to take to church camp.) However, here are some kites so you can imagine we're in our lawn chairs on the beach, feet in the sand, books in hand...it was a wonderful afternoon!

Since Saturday was quite eventful, I've broken up this post into 2 segments. Stay tuned for Part B! I know you can hardly stand the anticipation.

Camping Day 1

I interrupt this wedding coverage to bring you an update of my super fun girls camping weekend!

I went camping in Ocean Shores, Washington this past weekend with two of my Northwest/Texas friends, Jessica and Allison. Jessica and I went to college together and Allison and I grew up going to church camp together. Allison also married a guy who I went to LCU with and who was the youth minister at my home church for a couple years, so we're all very connected!

Anyhow, Jessica now lives in Portland and Allison lives in Seattle, so it's great having them up here in the Pacific Northwest with me! Originally, this was supposed to be a trip with all of our husbands, but youth ministers get very little time off during the summer so it evolved into a girls trip.

We nicknamed this the "Weekend of Disappointments" by Friday evening, but it was still SO much fun! There were a lot of things that went wrong or didn't turn out like we hoped, but we made the best of it. After all, being together was the real goal and that turned out great!

Headed out the door with my huge pack...and crazy smile.

I took off work Friday and drove to Portland Friday morning to meet Jessica and head north to WA. We arrived in Ocean Shores about 4:30 and it was overcast and pretty cool. Not exactly the beach weekend we'd hoped for, but at least we were on vacation.

As soon as we got to the campsite and checked in, we realized we got the short end of the stick when it came to campsites. Some of the sites around us had entire RV's parked in them with 2 tents set up. This is what ours looked like:

Worst Campsite Ever

What you see here is a VERY small space that has been used as a course for off-roading, most likely by teenage boys. So this is the space we have to set up camp and live for the weekend. We weren't too thrilled about it so we headed back to the ranger station to find out why we had not only the smallest site ever but also one covered in mud. Did I mention that all the sites cost the exact same amount?

Well, Mr. Ranger informed us they were completely sold out and there weren't any other sites available. He did offer to get a tractor and drag the picnic table out of there for us. I let him know we probably didn't need any more tire tracks and mud, so we'd just leave the table alone and set up our tent right beside it on the only piece of flat land with grass available.

We checked back later to see if anyone had cancelled and Mr. Ranger's friend suggested we bring a tractor in to level the ground out. What is it with these people and tractors?? My guess is they got a new toy and they really wanted to use it. This was also the time we found out the entire campgrounds had been built on a wetlands/swamp area and that by modern standards, it would never pass code to be built. Mr. Ranger told us they never should have been built back in the 1960's...so have a nice stay! Weirdo.

Though we were never officially told so, we decided it was only fair that we didn't have to pay for parking since our campsite was so awful. So, we didn't pay and they didn't ask us to. We assume that means they agreed.

Jessica and I set up camp and then headed to see Ocean Shores and the beach. I thought we were camping on the beach before arriving, so I was initially disappointed to find out we'd have to drive a few miles to the beach. I would later be very grateful for this distance...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The actual town of Ocean Shores seems to be still stuck in the 1970's. The buildings have clearly not changed in 40 years and the whole place seems very retro/horror movie-esque/just plain weird. It's hard to describe and clearly I'm not doing a great job of it here. Anyway, it was not the cute little tourist trap we'd hoped for. It was a tourist trap alright, just a pretty sorry one.  I have much to say about the beach, but it's better described with pictures, so I'll wait for the pictures that come with Day 2 to explain.

After picking up some firewood, we headed back to camp to make dinner (fajitas! yum) and wait for Allison to arrive. She had worked that afternoon, so she made it to camp about 9:00. This is probably a good time to mention that Ally is almost 7 months pregnant and was camping. As in sleeping on the ground. She's amazing!

After Allison arrived at camp, we made a fire (big feeling of accomplishment! It was a first for all of us), ate some s'mores, talked until way past quiet hours and then finally went to bed many hours later than usual. All in all, a successful first day.

Coming up next...mummified baby sharks, beach front parking and a whole lot of doing nothing.

Dessert Buffet

One of my favorite parts of planning the wedding was thinking about this dessert bar! I spent many hours dreaming of the tasty goodness that would be found here. However, the reality was that I got one bite of my wedding cake at the reception and nothing else!! I know! More to come on that later. 

Anyhow, hopefully everyone else enjoyed these yummy treats at the wedding. Warning: you will probably be hungry after looking at these photos. At least I know I am right now!

This cake topper is one I found online and then got someone on easy to make for me. I think it turned out SO cute and I'm going to have to find a permanent place for it in our home!