Engagement photos!

Hi Everyone!

We got our Engagment photos back recently, so I just though I would share a few of them with you. Invitations were sent out yesterday! Its so exciting because everything is falling together. I'm so excited. Its pretty stressful trying to coordinate everying thing with everyone coming in from out of town, so its nice to get things done, and when things fall into place.

Ocean's Birthday

Pictures from Ocean's 10th Birthday

She was so excited to have a cake with her name and ribbon on it, it was really cute.

Fun at the Beach!

The weekend forcast for Corvallis predicted sunshine but cold weather (well cold relatively speaking) so we decided to try our luck at the coast. It was sunny, with little wind and in the 50's. Yeah, it was nice. It was nicer there than it often times is in the summer.

Ocean's sand castle construction site

It was fun to watch what Raine and Layke were up to. This was a very serious projct. I offered to help and got told they were too busy to play and I was being a distraction. :)

The completed project, their boat. Complete with a mast, a sail, oars, and even a treasure box loaded with treasure

Joey constructed us a bench, table and fire pit. There is nothing like a bonfire at the beach.

I just soaked up the sun. It was a wonderful weekend! Yes this is the best picture of me...

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. We had lots of fun here. Christmas was very relaxed, and New Years was a blast. Having children around at Christmas time makes it so much more fun (actually they make life more fun and interesting all the time, but especially so at Christmas time). It was so much fun shopping for gifts, and watching them be opened.

This year I was excited to have stockings for everyone, a tradition my family always had.

All of us together - (I love my camera delay timer!)

Another tradition my family always had was Christmas Pajamas. Since my mom gave me her old sewing machine for my birthday I decided to make pajama pants for everyone as my first project. I was very proud of myself. They turned out very well, and even looked like they were supposed to. This is a picture of the kids with theirs. (and don't forget Ocean's cool monkey toe socks). Hey mom, Thanks for for the great present!

Here are a few more pictures:

As part of our 4 day New Years holiday with the kids we went sledding at Mary's Peak. (the strange phenomena here is that you have to drive to find any snow...) It was so much fun. I haven't been sledding in years. We also made a fire and had lil smokies and veggie sausage.

Raine and Ocean tried out "sled snow surfing" down the hill, they got pretty good by the time we left.

I think we went down at least 100 times...

Enjoying the fire and watching the kids play.

Snow in Corvallis!

Snow here in Corvallis is a fairly rare thing. Last year it snowed once about 2 inches (and melted by the end of the day) I went into work because to me it was no big deal, but everyone was surprised I would risk driving. Monday it snowed 3 inches and everything shut down. No school, no work. A real snow day! Besides all that, it has been very cold and we still have snow left, the roads are slick and we are scheduled to have another storm today. It is so nice to get a dose of real winter! By Utah standards the roads are clear, by Corvallis standards it is unfit to drive, which makes driving fairly fun because everyone is staying at home so I get to have the road all to myself to have fun and slide around all I want.

The kids went out and played in Sunday's mild snow (that melted by the end of the day) and made some cute mini snowmen. You can see how little snow we got ...

Oregonian Thanksgiving

I know this is kinda, (well a lot) late but I just loaded the pictures on my computer and had to share them. Joey and I and the kids went to Salem to have Thanksgiving at Jonna's house (Joey's sister). It was fun we had the kids for four full days. There was lots of tasty food, Joey made a whole bunch of vegetarian food, including my favorite - mashed potatoes. It was joyous!


Here are a few of the pictures we took:

Tasty Vegetarian Friendly Food

Desserts, Snacks and a cute lil Laykie


I love getting a chance to wear my favorite dress

Joey and Ocean

Rain and cousin Ricky

Ocean and cousin Brenna

Just recently several of his sisters and his parents came to visit and took this picture of all of us when we were at the Carousel in Salem.

Thanksgiving in Utah

This last weekend I visited Salt Lake City to visit my family for an early Thanksgiving. It was very a lot of fun I was able to spent time visiting with my parents which I haven't done in a long time.

This was a very monumental Thanksgiving for me. My mom made vegetarian mashed potatoes with soymilk and margarine for everyone, not just for me. It meant so much and I was so happy I took a picture!

I was also very proud of both of my parents who tried the tofu I made, the first time that either of them have had tofu.

It took a couple of tries, but I was very pleased with my success of using the timer on the new camera I got for Joey (and I use all the time...)

Back row: Clarissa, Rachelle, Mom (Yvonne), Aprille, Trafton, Adrianna, and RJ (Adrianna's Husband) Front row: Dad (Rawlen), and Me (Darby)