Trip Home and Baby Shower

In April I took a trip all by myself and left Nick all alone in Texas. It was very sad for him but I had a lot of fun. First of all I got to fly to Idaho Falls and stay with my sister in Rexburg while she finished up her finals and then I drove her back to Vancouver. It was a fun couple of days but I definitely do not miss Rexburg or college life at all. It made me appreciate a home of my own with no need to share a space with five other girls. (Sorry no pics from the drive or from Rexburg- there really isn't anything to see anyways). When we arrived back in Vancouver we promptly headed to the beach with Mom and the puppies! The pic below is taken on the beach in Newport where my sister in law's family has a beach condo that they let us stay in. Many thanks to them because it was the perfect little getaway!

After the beach we had a week of shopping, hanging out and right before I left I had a baby shower! Here are some of the pics from the day.....

Nummy food and treats

Fun games (above: Jen playing the pee pee game, below:the winners of the pee pee game)

Above: Matching game with fun prizes
Below: Me opening one of the presents!

It was great to see so many people! High school friends, college friends, family and more friends!

Jenn loves taking pics and more pics!

Thanks to everyone who came or sent a gift- it was great to see/hear from everyone. Hopefully I will be home again at the end of August for a wedding so I look forward to maybe seeing some of you again soon!

Baby Boy

So in case you haven't heard the news, Nick and I are expecting this little guy to be appearing sometime around July 23rd of this year. We are pretty excited and everything has been going well so far. No names have been chosen and might not ever be chosen at the rate we are going but we still have time since I am only a little over half way there.
Nothing else new is really going on around here except that I am very excited to be flying to visit Jenn at school and then we will be driving home to Vancouver and I will be staying for a week there!
P.S. Sorry I totally skipped Christmas posts but unfortunately my laptop has finally died and the pictures which are on there have yet to be retrieved by Nick. Basically we had a ton of fun visiting family in Sweet Home and Vancouver and even made a trip to Seattle for the day. It snowed in Vancouver and a snowman was made, pictures were taken and more fun was had! That pretty much sums up Christmas vacation. Since then we have been in Texas waiting for the weather to get nice, doing little house projects, and making summer plans! More posts to come as soon as I take some pictures!

Candy Making at Grandpa's

Our tradition of making Christmas candy and cookies with Grandpa continues! We made lots of yummy treats and had tons of fun taking pictures while waiting for things to cool or bake! Enjoy some pics....

Sugar and Spice Cookies and Fudge

Jenn and I playing with her camera that never seems to work.

Chocolate Caramel Pecan Turtles. We had tons of fun making cookies and candy and spending time with Grandpa. Hopefully we can continue this fun tradition every year!

Happy Birthday Jenn!

This year we got to spend time with Jenn on her birthday! We spent the day in Vancouver with her and her boyfriend and had tons of fun going out to eat at Panera Bread and playing our gift to her, Killer Bunnies Remix! Here are some pics of us around the table trying to kill each others bunnies!

After playing Killer Bunnies we went out to eat at Melting Pot to celebrate!! It was very good as usual- enjoy the pics and try not to drool!

Start with some salad.

Nummy fondue! With bread and veges and chips to dip!

Kalen and Audrey

Audrey and Dad

Now for the main course! Meat, veges, mushrooms, raviolli, seafood sauces and of course two cooking styles! Soooo good, filled me right up!

Can't forget about dessert! Jenn is showing off our dippers and below is our dipping chocolate! The kind waiter even let us have a refill!!

They lit this one on fire to burn off the alcohol- Jenn loves fire!!

Uh oh, almost all gone. Food comas commenced shortly after this picture was taken. Happy Birthday Jenn! Thanks for sharing your birthday celebrations with us!

Texas Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving my Grandparents, Uncle and Sister all came to Texas to visit. We had a ton of fun so here are just a few pics from the week. Clyde is getting into the Texas spirit with a cowboy hat at Sheplers in the pic above!

In this pic we are all playing Wii Sports Resort Bowling. Clyde especially loved playing the Wii and he was pretty good at wakeboarding. Grandpa dominated bowling and was thinking he might need one of these machines at home!

Here is a look at Jenn's Thanksgiving plate! We had a lot of food and good company!

Seaworld! No trip to San Antonio is complete without Sea World!!

Here we are in the Bird Sanctuary at Sea World. As most people know I hate birds but I was forced to join in on this craziness. Clyde and Grandma loved the friendly little guy who ate out of Clyde's hand and sat on our heads to rest.

Just waiting for the Shamu Show to start! We watched all the shows twice!

We were lucky enough to get a trainer to help us out while feeding the dolphins. Clyde and Grandma and Grandpa loved being able to feed, pet and watch the dolphins do their tricks for us. They had many many opportunities to interact with them and this guy is the favorite. I have nicknamed him Buddy. He is a famous movie star and was in Jaws 3. He is the at least 43 yrs old and is the most well behaved dolphin they have. So they are able to get him to lay on the side of the pool so we could pet him!

Just a random pic of Jenn and Grandpa enjoying themselves at Rainforest Cafe on the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio. We stopped here for appetizers and dessert so they could experience the Rainforest! We had so much fun and did a lot more activities but that is all I am going to post for now. I have to go get ready for the USAA Christmas party at the Alamodome. Free food and an REO Speedwagon Concert! Then next Tuesday we are headed back to the Pacific Northwest to visit family for Christmas!! So if I don't post until after Christmas then Happy Holidays!!

Swagbucks=Free Stuff

I joined Swagbucks at the beginning of September because they were having a promotion where you downloaded their toolbar and they would send you at least one free swag buck code per day for the entire month! Since then I been hooked.
Basically it is a search engine that gives you "swagbucks" for using it. It searches through Google so it is just like a regular search! You can then trade these swagbucks in for prizes. The best deal that I have seen is 45 swagbucks for a $5 amazon.com gift card. The great thing about it is that you don't have to do anything different and you earn free stuff! It is random when you search if you will win any bucks or not and it usually only gives you swagbucks once per hour at most. The swagbucks are usually one or two bucks but sometimes can be five and on "Mega Swagbucks Day" which is every Friday you can earn up to 100 in one search!
I started September 5th and I have already redeemed $10 in amazon gift cards (90 swagbucks) and I have 23 swagbucks left! My strategy is to use the search engine for simple searches like "facebook", or "yahoomail", "hulu", or "netflix" instead of typing in the dot com because with that one extra click I can get credit for my search. I found the more I use it the more I seem to get!
So, if you want to sign up then send me comment or message and I can email you the referral link! Don't forget to download the toolbar because it makes it really easy to search and allows you to get the emails that often have free codes attached! Also a great way to hear about free codes is to be a fan on facebook because they release free codes every so often that you just type in on the swagbucks site to redeem! The widget comes in handy when you want to know if there are any free codes around and the blog allows you to get swagbucks as well! So go ahead and sign up and let me know what you think! I wasn't too sure about it at first but it totally worked for me and now you guys can get free stuff too!

Ornament Wreath

So the wreath is almost done! All I need is a nice big ribbon for the top and a few more weeks until I can place it on the front door!

I got the idea from this blog post and this blog post who got the idea from this website! It was a super simple project that took all of twenty min and about $8 in ornaments from Dollar Tree. No glue involved! The instructions can be found on the original website but if you have any other questions just ask!

Sorry about the bad lighting in this pic, I will put up a new pic when it is actually on the door. It really does look a lot better in person. I just wanted everyone to see it so they could make their own in time for the holidays if they want! Since it was so easy (and I had to buy ten wire hangers so I have a few extra!) I am thinking I could make them for other holidays like the original website did. I will be on the lookout for different colored ornaments during the after Christmas sales this year!