Portland

Another Post! Crazy right? Clayton took a different position at his work that requires more time from him. (Is that possible?) I have found posting at night fulfills my daily requirement of adult contact on those day when I don't work and find my life consumed with dishes, laundry, homework, doctors apts, soccer, judo, fighting, teasing, screaming, laughing(at mostly BAD jokes) and all of the other duties that come with motherhood. I'm not complaining just looking for that link to the outside world!

These are some pictures from our tenth anniversary spent in Portland. The city where we met. I love this town and it is definitely in the running to be the permanent residence of this family some day. We only stayed for 1 night but we had so much fun. We stopped at 2 kitchen stores and were in heaven. Maui doesn't even have a Williams Sonoma, sad right?
We lost track of time in Powells books and emerged 2 hrs latter feeling like kids that had just had their run of the candy store! We're nerds I know but anyone that has been to Powells would agree. We took a tram ride up to the hospital to see the view and take a picture of the hospital. I was given explicit instructions from Breana to take a picture of where she was born. My favorite thing of course was diner. There were so many places to choose from we split it up. We had an amazing experience at Paley's place. The sweetbreads were awesome and the P.B.J. dessert was so good. We also ate at another place. I don't remember the name but it called it's self a dineraunt and was a throw back to 1950's era diners. It was pretty good and I really liked my fried cheese curds with green tomato jam.
We had so much fun I can't wait to do it again. We decided 1 night at a time might be a good way for us to travel. We didn't have enough time to spend too much money!

Christmas break at the beach.

When we first started visiting Hawaii I would get so mad at Clay. We would stay for a week or more and sometimes never make it to the beach. I always told him if I lived in Hawaii I would go to the beach all the time, at least once a week. Now that we live here I am often ashamed to admit how long we go with out making it to the beach. Obladee Oblada people. This Christmas break I am proud to announce we made it twice!!

The first day we went to Lahaina and stayed about 6 hrs. The kids did awesome for how long we stayed and learned the valuable lesson of, " the grass isn't always greener on the other side" after we walked back and forth in search of smaller waves.






The second beach day we drove home to this. We love Maui!

(Yes I took this picture while driving. I got mad skills!)

First post of 2011.

So I just browsed back over last year and realized I had a sad year of posts last year.
I blame it on the fact that we saw the 5 people who actually read this blog a lot last year. (yea for a job with the airlines). I do realize that it is nice to see new pictures and I love when my sisters post new pictures. (Hint, Hint, Heather). So here are a bunch of pictures from the last little while, mostly Christmas stuff.


Some recent pics of Kailee. The pink pajama picture is what I found her enjoying the morning after Christmas. Nothing beats chocolate for breakfast! The ever classic spaghetti face and the sleeping one is the night she couldn't make it to her room and she crashed in the hall way. It was so sad but of course I took a picture first.


Clayton's work Christmas party.

Sledding in Utah with cousins. After driving around for hours in a hot car all bundled for the snow we finally found some and only had to hop one fence past a no trespassing sign for our snow fix.

Christmas pictures taken for a card that never happened. Maybe next year.

Some family pictures at our 1st family Christmas party in a LONG time.

More from the party mostly white elephant fun.


We finally got to share our gingerbread decorating tradition with cousins in Utah and Oahu.

Kailee's Birthday party in Oahu.

Kailee's first birthday.

I do have to mention she had a rough day on her actual birthday. She was working on some molars and was a little congested. She fell down the stairs while T.J. was holding her. Kudos to T.J. who was proud to inform that he held her tight and rolled so that he would fall first and Kailee was fine although she got a good scare. She also got a hold of a habanero and took a huge bite. She then proceed to eat an ice cream bar in less than 60 seconds. It was a tough day and we joked she was lucky she survived her first birthday. Next year will be better. Right?