Day 824

Les' season tickets to the Portland Timbers arrived today - the first home game is a couple weeks away and Les and Job are looking forward to supporting the new team.

Day 823

Today was the day that Les had to go down to the Rose Garden and select his seats for next year's Blazer season. This year, for the first time, he was able to go down on the the floor of the arena. The excitement continued as he was able to secure better seats for next season.

Day 822

Since the new year, the crew at the PBJ has been gathering around the break room table at lunch time to play some Apples to Apples. It's the perfect game because you can have lots of players and people can drop in and out with ease. However, the best part is how it's help us bond as a staff. giving us time to laugh and decompress before heading into the afternoon stretch.

Day 821

One of the best parts of having friends with kids is hand-me-downs. I came home from Genevieve's house with two totes full of 3t and 4t clothes for Kaitlyn. She insisted on wearing her hand band with the flowers to match her groovy new outfit.

Day 820

After sleeping in until 11 (!!!!!), I packed up my scrapbooking supplies and was home by 4pm. We headed down to Linn City Pub for dinner and then it was bath time for the kids.

Day 819

Saturday was all about scrapbooking with the Ladies - while Les stayed home with the kids, I managed to get eleven 2008 layouts finished and I put photos in two mini-books. We all stayed the night at Genevieve's house so we stayed up late sipping our wine coolers, laughing and working on our pages.

Day 818

I took the day off work to spend some quality time with my scrapbooking ladies. We started Friday off by heading to the Convention Center to check out the Creating Keepsakes convention. It's always fun to browse through all the booths with all of the latest products - and I was especially proud of myself because I only bought one thing. After that was lunch at the Spaghetti Factory to celebrate Liz's birthday and then out to Genevieve's to work on our scrapbooks.

Day 817

Kaitlyn has insisted that baby Abigail ride in the car to school with us every morning for the last couple of weeks. And before she gets out of the car, she insists that baby Abigail be buckled into the car seat. It's pretty cute, but I wonder what people think of us as we drive around with a baby doll buckled into the car seat . . .

Day 816

The kids and I made some homemade pizza for dinner (or at least as homemade as I get). They were both so cute dressed in the aprons that Carrie gave them for Christmas. Parker's got to be only kid in town with a Spiderman apron.

Day 815

With Les once again traveling to Louisville, I invited Grandma over for Taco dinner. Then Parker called both Mike and Andy on their cells phones and asked them to come over and play - he insisted that Andy bring Maggie too. After playing with the dog in the yard for a while, they finished the "play date" with quality some Lego time. (I am not sure why Kaitlyn opted to keep her hat on once she got inside . . .)

Day 814

This is definitely part of my everyday experience, commuting home in the Oregon sunshine. The price of gas right now (average of $3.82 in Oregon) makes this almost a painful memory. At least most days Les and I are able to carpool to and from work.

Day 813

I spent the day up at Camp Mountaindale with Mom training Girl Scout leaders. Although I always dread the thought of getting up so early on a weekend, once again I had a great time with the other trainers and the group of leaders. The fact that the camp looks so alive and green in the spring time certainly enhances experience.

Day 812

It's hard to imagine when looking at this cute face that her most favorite noise to make lately is a high pitch shriek - one guaranteed to drive mom crazy.

Day 811

I took a half day at work so I could get in a little urban geocaching adventure while Mindy was on Spring Break. Jenn met us at the locally famous "Dr. Who" cache which turned out to be as cool as rumored. We picked up a total of 9 caches in the "Weird Oregon" series and then headed to Round Table for dinner with the kids.

Day 810

The Blazers beat Cleveland and to celebrate the victory and St. Patrick's Day, Les headed over to Kell's after the game.

Day 809

The Robin is back!!! For the third year now, spring at our house means that a slightly demented Robin spends hours attacking our front window each morning. I shouldn't be surprised, but I honestly didn't expect him back this year.

Day 808

One of the cool features on the new iPad is that it has both front and rear facing cameras - and comes with an app called Photo Booth. Les and Parker did some experimenting and came up with this kaleidoscope-like picture of Parker.

Day 807

I am pretty sure that Les has not moved from this spot since getting the iPad - not that I blame him. The 17 minutes that I got to look at it were really cool.

Day 806

Sunday was my morning to sleep in and Les made French Toast for breakfast - and even served me mine in bed. (And, also impressive, took a photo!). Did I mention BEST HUSBAND EVER!?

Day 805

With Les headed up to Mt. Hood for a team-building ski day with his department, Parker thought that he'd do a little "skiing" around the house.

Day 804

Les got the new iPad 2 - needless to say he is VERY excited. I am pretty sure that I will not get to play with it at all for a few months. And, yes, the original plastic is still on it.

Day 803

With my new position as manager (and only one employee to manage), I had to break out all the stops to celebrate Jan's birthday. So we gathered the gang and headed over to the Red Coach for lunch - where earlier in the day I had delivered her Costco birthday cake. Not only did Jan get picked on and teased by her co-workers, but the delightful staff at the restaurant too. Then she got a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" when the surprise cake came out. Considering she was laughing so hard she was crying, I will say that it was a very successful birthday party.

Day 802

My office mate Jeff as a new outfit. A co-worker brought me back a sarong from Aruba as a thank you for covering her desk while she was vacationing. That coupled with the office sombrero completed Jeff's new island outfit.

Day 801

To celebrate Grandma's and Uncle Andy's birthdays, we all got together for dinner at Linn City Pub just down the street. Did I take any photos of the occasion? No. However, Parker did snap this picture of his ever growing collection of silly bands. Oh well, it's just a remind to me that I actually need to get the camera out of my purse.

Day 800

Guest photographer Kaitlyn snapped this photo of Miss Carrie and Parker getting ready to eat our Hungry Howie's pizza for dinner.

Day 799

The official unveiling of the grill for Grilling Season 2011.

Day 798

At the last minute, Les got an extra ticket to the Blazer game so he stole Mallory away from family dinner at Chang's to head to the game. Not only did Mallory get to go to the game, but she also got a hug from the mascot Blaze!

Day 797

Once more it's Taco Night at our house - Parker is branching out from burritos to nachos. Although it looks like he is inspecting it for any vegetables that I might have tried to sneak in, he was actually blowing on it to cool it down.

Day 796

Kaitlyn got this Rapunzel wig from Grandpa for Christmas and just lately has she really been wearing it. She especially likes to wear it when she's wearing one of her princess nightgowns.

Day 795

With March in like a lion, we had to get some St. Paddy's decorations up. I got this subway art print as a free download on the Internet - I really like the text as decor style. So I ordered a print and a frame and Les was kind enough to hang it in the kitchen.

Day 794

Les and I took both kids to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall to see the Imagination Movers with the opening act of Choo Choo Soul with Genevieve. Parker and I were old hats at Movers concerts - we'd seen them at the Rose Garden about a year ago. Both Kaitlyn and Parker were really excited and got into dancing and singing along. Parker got high fives from Scot and Dave (which makes 3 out of 4 movers he's gotten high fives from, last time he got one from Rich). Kaitlyn was a bit more timid and didn't want any high fives. We, of course, couldn't go home without any sway - so each kid got a t-shirt and they got a wherehouse mouse stuffed toy to share.