What a Great Birthday!

I feel like it's been ages since I (James) have written the blog. Well, last week we had the awesome experience of celebrating my birthday - and yes, it was awesome! So we have a few pictures to sum up most of the excitement. Funny how most of the pictures are of food.

We had so much fun  finding ways to use the peppers we have been growing in our garden. This was one of my favorites! We made some yummy crescent roll delights with cream cheese and jalapeno peppers inside. 

We went out to this Italian place called Mazzi's for dinner one night and it was pretty amazing - as you can tell from my facial expression in the picture. I enjoyed both my fettuccine alfredo as well as Emily's raviolis.

I don't remember if there was anything particularly special inside Emily's salad, but they used a pesto dressing on top that was fabulous!

I know this doesn't look as good as it was, but I asked for ice cream cake for my birthday and we decided to make it. So we made some ice cream and then put it inside the cake we baked. It turned out better than I thought it would. Although it was super delicious, it was also very very very sweet so we could only have a piece at a time.

Among the cards and gifts and what not, this was one of my favorite presents... Legos! I'm such a nerd. I felt like I should collect a few of the City ones and started with the Coast Guard ship.

Emily made my pancakes for my birthday as well. Isn't she the cutest!

After work, we went up to the LDS temple in Portland and then went out to Fuddruckers. It was my first time going there and I must say that they have great burgers! 

Another cool birthday gift, Dr. Pepper flavored bubble gum! We had a bubble blowing contest.

As you can tell from the size of Emily's bubble, she won.

Our time since coming back from Hawaii has been super busy! I started working at my new job at Bridgeway House working with autistic high school students. It has its challenges, but has been much easier than working with the elementary level like I did last year. There are still plenty of things to learn! Emily started her new GTF (Graduate Teaching Fellowship) job this past week and has been enjoying that. She starts classes this upcoming week as well. Life doesn't really seem to be slowing down a whole lot and I am already feeling like we need another vacation. :D

Summer has gone and Fall is here. Hope we will get back on a schedule and post a few more of our adventures! Much love!

The Besties Come to Town

Monday was my (Emily's) birthday and I got the best gift I could have asked for - a visit from Lisa and Greg! Despite our sleep deprivation, or maybe because of it, we laughed all day - even to the point of tears a few times if I recall correctly (ahem, Lisa). Our visit was way too short, but I am pretty sure that no visit could have been long enough to satisfy us. We did manage to pack quite a bit of fun into our short day together though.

We drove out to the coast and spent some time on the beach taking ridiculous pictures and playing in the freezing cold water. Then we went to Mo's - a really great seafood restaurant - and out for ice cream. 

Greg found this little rubber lobster at the beach and thought it would be funny to scare Lisa with it. (For the record, it was pretty funny - lots of screaming, camera sailing through the air, etc.)

Possibly my favorite pictures to take - beach jumping photos.

We walked out on the jetty trying to reach the "shipwreck" at the end, which ended up just being a big pile of logs, but it was fun anyway.

Fish and chips at Mo's. Yum. Nothing beats their hot shrimp and artichoke dip though. Nothing. Come visit us and you'll see.

Ice cream on the dock. It was not as pretty as it looks in this picture - the wind was blowing and the sun was a little too intense for our ice cream. By the time we were done, we had ice cream on our clothes, feet, arms, everywhere. 

My husband is just so talented. I should put him in cheerleading.

Our awkward attempt at a jumping-kissing photo. We will soon have a collection of these. I'll be able to make an "Awkward Kissing Photos" photo album.

I love this one.

Oh this? This is Suzie, the all-American breast cancer awareness dragon that joined us for ice cream at the dock, right next to the prostate cancer awareness booth. Don't ask. 

On the way home from the coast, the boys dropped Lisa and me off at Goodwill (the local thrift store) for a "shopping spree" (think poor, starving college student splurge). It was so nice to have Lisa all to myself for a couple hours and we actually found some really fun clothes for super cheap. (Between you and me, I absolutely LOVE thrift store shopping and will probably continue to do it even when I become rich and famous ;) So much more satisfying than buying brand new at full price. It's like the difference between buying pre-packaged food at the grocery store and going out into the wild to hunt for your own food...I think. I've never actually been food hunting...just clothes hunting.)

We came home and had a fun little birthday party. We made dinner and cake, played games, and laughed even more - who knew it was possible to laugh so much in one day? 

We are so lucky to have such good friends. We miss them already, but are so excited to see them at New Year's...or earlier(?). In the meantime, we will have to be satisfied with Skype dates and phone calls. Thanks for a fun visit, Lisa and Greg! Love you guys!

My Mother-in-Law Is...

I (James) could never understand why people didn't like their in-laws. Well, this last weekend we had Emily's parents over. I think you can all see where this is going (and maybe some of you don't)... We have had an absolutely grand time (seriously, they are grandparents now)! I love them so much and am so thankful for all the awesome memories that we were able to create this weekend. Here are some pictures to highlight some of the the fun times!

Thursday night we went out for Teppanyaki at Kabukis for my father-in-law's birthday.

As you can see, we had a great time!

On Friday, we went out to the coast to Florence. This is my awesome mother-in-law (the Grandbobs) and my amazing father-in-law (the Grandpops) waiting for food at Mo's Seafood.

We had all sorts of yummy food... Like fish tacos!

And clam strips! and some other things like clam chowder, chili, and hot shrimp artichoke dip that we didn't get pictures of this time. But it was all delicious!

We also walked up and down Old Town Florence and looked at a bunch of shops. Like the hats?

We made it to sand...

And took some artistic pictures!

We walked out to the ocean.

Had fun taking pictures.

That's a beautiful flower created by the wonderful Grandbobs!

Emily and Grandbobs having fun jumping at the beach. It was just so exciting!

I really have no comment here.

Had a jumping contest... 

Looking at these two pictures, you can guess who won.

On Saturday, we went and ran at the Roaring River Run. The Grandbobs and Emily ran a half marathon while the Grandpops and I ran the 10km.

Emily tells me they had lots of fun.

And took plenty of time to take pictures at the 10 mile mark and other fun activities.

One of the cool things of the race... They had door prizes at each mile marker. I won't go into too many details, but we all got extra shirts which was just fun.

The weather was as perfect as one could hope for in February  in Oregon. Not too cold, no rain, light fog. We had beautiful scenery out in the countryside.

After the run, we decided to let our bodies rest and stayed home to play Settlers of Catan and watch Groundhog Day.

 Today, we are celebrating my father-in-law's birthday eating brownies, beef stew, chicken ole, and other yummy stuff. It has been a pretty awesome weekend packed with lots of fun festivities. We are sad to see them leave tomorrow morning, but are so happy to have had them stay with us for the weekend. We hope that this post finds everyone in good health. Much love from Oregon!