Beacon Rock - Memorial Day 2012

Last year for Memorial Day, we went on a beautiful nature walk/hike at Moulton Falls with a couple other families... Picnic lunch, friends, gorgeous scenery and a waterfall/bridge toward the end of the trail. Great day! This year, I suggested we do something similar - maybe even go to the same place. I was overruled. Beacon Rock was suggested and, in the end, that's where we went.

Beacon Rock is NOT a nature walk.

I repeat, NOT a nature walk.

It is uphill. ALL. The. Stinkin'. Way.

Not what we thought we were getting ourselves into. My triple-O body (1. Old [I just had my 30th birthday - more on that later!] 2. Overweight 3. Out-of-shape [I can't change the first one, but I'm working to remedy the last two!]) was yelling at me the whole way up! But I made it!

The view, 3/4 of the way up.

 Partial view of the waterfall, looking up from a footbridge. The footbridge had lots of names and initials carved into the railing and we found one that was "J [heart] S" and I forgot to take a picture!

 Ignore my beet-red face!

 LOVE this picture of my boys!

 View from near the top of the waterfall, looking down at the footbridge.

At the top there was this really cool pool of water, almost completely enclosed, that is called the Pool of Winds. The mist from the falling water sprays off the rocks and it is so calming. Hard to describe. But I totally closed my eyes and had a bit of a Titanic "I'm flying!" moment.

In front of the Pool of Winds. Ignore the awkwardness of me holding Ethan on my knee.

Colemans.

 Olsons.

 The Dahls were with us, too, but I didn't get a family picture of them.

 Ethan and Maddy sitting on a bench on the way down. Gotta love Ethan's cheesy grin!

 Looking at Hamilton Mountain - Sean climbed clear to the top of it with his Scouts and another leader a while ago.

After the hike and letting all the kids play at the playground (we had 12 kids all together!) and then our family raced home to take showers and de-stink-ify ourselves to go over to another family's house for a BBQ dinner (no pictures... I was beat!) and games. It was the perfect relaxing evening after a long afternoon of hiking. 

February Recap

Kinda hard to believe we're already into March of 2012... And that the official first day of Spring is tomorrow!! Of course, we're still getting snow here and there. Not much. Just a dusting that lasts a few hours. And the next day it is beautiful and sunny. And the next day it is torrential downpour. Typical Pacific Northwest valley weather. I just have to keep reminding myself that that's what keeps everything so green and beautiful!!

* No date-night-movie-of-the-month. We had other stuff going on every weekend and did several group dates with some other couples. We both had movies we wanted to see, though... Sean wants to see "The Woman in Black" and I've been wanting to see "The Vow." This weekend is already pretty booked, but hopefully next weekend we can finally have our date night!

* 50s Stake Dance: I still can't really believe that we went to this! It's not really our "scene" to go to dances any more. Not that I don't love to dance, but I know it's not Sean's thing. But we decided to go check it out and it wasn't too bad. Sean and I even dressed up. I wore my jeans rolled up, Converse shoes, cardigan, pearls and my old letterman's jacket [go SHS!!] and Sean wore jeans and a white shirt with a deck of cards rolled up in the sleeve - he caught flack for that all night! The decorations were cute and there was bubblegum blowing contest, limbo and couples dance promenade. They had root beer and orange floats, but it was ALL 50s music - not going to lie, that got old after a while. Check out our good-looking group from the ward, though:

[Picture of a picture - original courtesy of Picture Perfect Photography]

It was the after-party that was the most fun, though! We went back to Tellez's house with some other friends, cranked up the music and had a real dance party!! Ha ha! It was awesome. Nothing like a bunch of 30+ year-olds {with the exclusion of me!} dancing in the living room. :)

* New Stake Presidency: We had our stake conference the second weekend in February and got a brand-new stake presidency. Nobody we knew, of course, because we don't really know anyone in our stake outside of our ward. And we stayed for all of the Sunday session. We couldn't believe how many people got up and left after the announcement of the new stake presidency. Wow.

* Lizzy got glasses!: My sister, Lizzy, finally got her eyes checked which revealed that she does, in fact, need glasses. We had suspected this for several years so we were not surprised! Here she is in her cute, new frames. Very stylish.

* Girls movie night: Even though Sean and I didn't get out to see a movie, I was able to meet up with some friends to go see "This Means War" with Reese Witherspoon. Hilarious.

[http://teaser-trailer.com/movie/this-means-war/]

* Visiting Teaching luncheon: My visiting teaching companion and I are less-than-stellar when it comes to doing our visiting teaching. I have never been good about setting up appointments and I blame myself more than my companion - she has 5 kids with another on the way. So, to make it a little easier, we decided to have the ladies we visit teach come to us and we hosted a luncheon! We all have young non-school-age kids, so we let the kids play while we chatted and then ate lunch together. PB&J with fresh fruit for the kids and chicken salad on croissants, broccoli salad and fresh fruit for the adults - with lime tarts for dessert. We had a wonderful time and I think this will become a semi-regular thing.

* Coca-Cola Cake: I discovered this little gem on Pinterest a few months ago. Here's the cast of ingredients:It goes together really quickly and uses just one can of soda. Of course, any flavor of cola can be used. Just before it comes out of the oven, you make the icing and then pour it over the top of the cake while it is still warm. I think the icing portion makes more than you need, but it seeps into the warm cake making the cake very dense and moist and also giving the top a nice glaze. Sorry, no picture of the finished product, but you can get the recipe here: http://mayflaum.com/2011/06/08/the-chocolate-cola-cake/

* Oscar night: We had our Coca-cola cake while we watched the Oscars at the Colemans' house. We may or may not have put 20 cent bids on the major categories. We had fun seeing Octavia Spencer win Best Supporting Actress for The Help {read my review of the book and movie here}, couldn't believe how many Oscars Hugo won and decided to add Best Picture winner The Artist to our must-see list!

* Already covered:
- Valentine's Day
- Cinder-Ethan
- Rash Wednesday
- Leap Year

* Sorry, no random pictures. It was kind of a slow month on the picture-taking front.

December Recap

Last recap post for 2011! Almost caught up.....

I'm thinking this should be pretty short because most of December was already covered. I spent the bulk of the month doing this:
- Learning to Sew
- Finishing Jam
- Making Other Homemade Gifts
- Baking for our Goodie Plates

And Sean was busy with this:
- Portland Ensign Choir & Orchestra

While Ethan was busy with this:
- Preschool

And as a family we had fun with:
- Christmas Ships
- Christmas in Oregon
- Ice Skating

But still, here's some stuff I may have missed, mostly in order...

* Family Pictures!! We have not had professional family pictures since Ethan was just a baby, so we jumped at the chance to have semi-professional pics taken for free early in December. A friend in the ward posted on Facebook that she would have the backdrop/lighting up for her girls' Christmas pictures so if anyone wanted to come by, she would leave it up for a few hours in the afternoon. We just got a handful of pictures, but these were our favorites.
* Ward Christmas Dinner and Festival of Nativities: Sean's choir sang a selection from their upcoming concert at the Festival of Nativities so Ethan and I were on our own for the ward dinner. We had fun and sat with friends, but still missed Daddy. In fact, we only stayed for the program part and skipped out early when "Santa" came. Then we rushed over to a different stake center to meet up with Sean and look through the Festival of Nativities. My friend, Cassidy, was in charge of the center section of the gym and came up with the tiers you see in the top left picture. She put a lot of work into that display and did such a good job. And, just like last year, Ethan's favorite was the "Please Touch" room for kids - so nice for him to be able to play after all the "Please Do NOT Touch" signs on the displays in the gym. And the wooden blocks are fun in the room for Joseph's Workshop.
* Getting/Decorating the Christmas Tree: Last year we did the whole local-tree-farm, cut-down-your-own-fresh-from-the-Pacific-Northwest-tree thing. We had fun, enjoyed the experience and paid a little more than I would have liked. This year, we were hurting a little more in our finances and went with a more budget-friendly option - the Fred Meyer garden center! AND we had a coupon. I think we paid half of what we paid last year!And guess what? It looked just as beautiful as the tree we cut down last year. Not trying to diss on everyone who does that, it just doesn't always work out for us!

My attempt at a lower-lighting picture to get the soft glow of the lights....

* New ornaments: Every year we add new ornaments to our collection and last year and this year were no exception. Last year I finally posted a little selection of our ornaments and the story behind them, so I thought I'd follow up on that with some of our more recent additions.

#1 From my mom, for my love of holiday baking. #2 For Ethan, because he got a letter from Santa this year. #3 Rose Bowl, baby!! #4 Because it's a little blonde angel playing a violin and it just so happens that in our house there is a blonde angel that plays the violin!! #5 Ethan's ornament last year, because what little boy doesn't love Lightning McQueen and Mater?! #6 From my in-laws, because Ethan is the Southworth family frog. :) #7 From my mom last year, because I like to bake.

* 2011 Primary Class: Our last Sunday together, I took a class picture. Kinda bummed because I was missing three of my regular students! I can't believe how fast this last year went in terms of my Primary class. They were a great group. And now I am onto my THIRD class of 10-11 year olds. This is the only calling I've had since we moved into this ward {well, other than my in-addition-to calling as an activity days leader} and, I admit, I wouldn't mind a change... But, at the same time, I also have SIX younger siblings of kids that were in my class in 2010, so that's kinda fun. Plus, several of them are our friends' children and have supposedly been looking forward to being in my class. So I'll just keep on truckin'! Oh, these were their little goodie bags for Christmas - nothing too exciting, just a couple cutie oranges, hot chocolate and apple cider packets in addition to the candy cane antlers!
* First Annual Southworth Sing-Along!!: So, one of our favorite parts of visiting Sean's family at Christmas-time is when we're there for Christmas Eve, we're able to participate with their annual sing-along. Sean plays the piano, Loren plays guitar or banjo, I break out my violin {see previously mentioned angelic blonde violinist ornament comment} and everyone else sings along. We love it! Our own little Christmas carol jam session! Since we weren't in SoCal for Christmas this year, we decided to try our own little carols-at-the-spinet {name that Christmas song!} party.
Totally last minute, we invited (I think) 10 families from the ward to a sort-of open house for Christmas carols. We had hot chocolate, homemade eggnog (courtesy of Sean and his dad's recipe) and some goodies. And then we warned everyone of our small house and limited space and suggested people dropping by at different times so it wasn't overcrowded. Ha!! They all took that to mean "don't come right at 7pm" and by 7:45pm our house was jumpin'! At least one person from 8 of the 10 (or so) families we invited came and we had 32 guests (not including our little family of 3) show-up. Of course, no one wanted to leave once they got here because we were having so much fun! So, next year I will just do a reminder of our small house and leave it at that!! Sean played piano and then everyone just about died of shock when I pulled out my violin and started tuning it up. Apparently no one up here knew I played!! I guess I had kept that secret well {though some would probably call that burying my talent and compare it to the parable of the talents - hmm.....} and by the end of the night there were promises from all the wives of the Bishopric that there would be a sacrament performance in my future. Well, so far so good... knock on wood! The oldest Coleman daughter even had her Dad make a special trip back to their house so she could get her violin and music. Her Christmas music had parts, so she played 2nd violin, I played 1st violin and Sean was on piano - all harmonizing! We will definitely be doing it again this year.

* Ethan's Overdue Hair-cut: We had decided to leave it a little long last time, but I can only stand it like that for so long! I like his hair short and more wash-and-wear/sleep-and-go. There's way too much bed-head when his hair's long!

Before

After

* Ethan lost his Bumblebee car down the side of the couch, beyond just the cushions: And it's retrieval yielded many lost treasures!
#1: Broken CD Coleman kids brought over and were playing with while we watched a Ducks game in November or December 2011.
#2: Toy helicopter. Not sure how long it had been missing.
#3: Chick Hicks car, the original. Pretty sure this had been missing since before we moved in January 2010. It was replaced a while ago, so now he has two!
#4: Magnet for magnetic construction book.
#5: Marker lid that had been missing for several months.
#6: Sideways Transformer car that had been missing since August 2011.
#7: Cargo rack from Ghostbusters toy car. I think this had been missing for about a year.
#8: Sword for "Dragon Castle" knight.
#9: Megatron's weapon.
#10: The Bumblebee Transformer car we had original gone digging for!

We had no idea that our couch was such a black hole for small toys! And did we find any lost change?? Of course not!

* Movies-of-the-month: We didn't have any actual date nights, but we were able to see TWO brand-new movies!! We had been waiting on these and I was anxious to see both! First, we saw Mission: Impossible, Ghost Protocol with my mom and Christine.

[http://www.onlinemovieshut.com/online-movies/mission-impossible-4-ghost-protocol-poster]

The next day we saw an afternoon showing of Sherlock Holmes, Game of Shadows with just Christine.

[http://www.filmofilia.com/sherlock-holmes-2-character-posters-holmes-watson-50220/]

Oh my heavens, they were both SO GOOD!!! I couldn't even pick a favorite between the two. I would go see either one again in the theater AND will buy them when they come out on DVD/Blu-Ray. Thank you, Mom, for giving me a love of action movies!! :)

* New Year's Eve: I had pink eye! Ugh! But I was already using drops and it was mostly gone. So I went to the party anyway and was just really, really careful. We partied it up at the Tellez house with most of our friends and had a great time eating, laughing, playing games, counting down to midnight and watching the neighbors' fireworks!
* Random Ethan Picture: And finally, the real reason you read these monthly recaps, a picture of Ethan sleeping in a funny position!! Ha ha!! :)
Well, this post was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be! Apparently I had missed blogging about a lot of little events. Looking back at our month, it's no wonder I was so tired in January!!

Ice Skating w/ the Colemans

Over Christmas break we got the opportunity to go ice skating with the Colemans - they had four 2-for-1 passes and with six people in their family, they offered the extra two to us. Sweet! We only had to pay for Ethan. Sean and I hadn't been ice skating in years. And, well, Ethan had never been. We were all excited until we got to the rink - then Ethan wanted nothing to do with it! So Sean and I got our skates and laced up and so did all the Coleman kiddos and suddenly Ethan was singing a different tune!


Our first shaky lap was very slow-going, but we did it!
And we got progressively better and faster as the evening wore on. Ethan was even wanting to take a lap by himself - we let him... while we followed at a safe distant behind him!


Brian (the dad) is pretty good, Hannah and Brandon were naturals, Maddy and Ethan were pretty evenly matched and Michael and I bonded over our lack of ice-skating talent!!


We had a great time trying to keep our balance and not fall flat on our bums! Afterward we were thoroughly exhausted and rewarded all of our hard work with dollar sundaes and drinks from Micky D's!

Woody Allen & His New Orleans Jazz Band

We headed home from Oregon on the Tuesday after Christmas for two reasons: 1. Sean had to help out at a service project Wednesday morning and 2. Our friends gave us free tickets to see Woody Allen & His New Orleans Jazz Band!!

We rolled into town just before the concert started {thank you I-5 traffic!!}, dropped Ethan off at the sitter's, ran home and changed and rushed off to the concert. We were a little late {SO unlike us when it comes to performances} but luckily our seats were on the end.

Now, neither of us are huge jazz fans, but we are both fans of music and going to shows {I love tickets! Name that movie....} and we had a great time.

Check out the Woodster's {Ha ha ha!! Yeah, like I'd really call him that!} solo in the video below...

Thank you Browns for thinking of us {it probably helped that Sean is their son's piano teacher!} and for the tickets!

Christmas Goodie Plates 2011

Christmas goodie plates for 2011 were very similar to last year's....

We had the traditional sugar cookies (about 7 dozen), gingerbread softies (about 8 dozen and a change from last year's gingersnaps), chocolate peppermint crunch cookies (about 8 dozen), orange-cranberry cookies w/ orange drizzle (about 6 dozen) and raspberry shortbread cookies w/ almond drizzle (about 9 dozen). Then Sean did a double batch of Buckeye candies (chocolate peanut butter balls) and a batch of homemade caramel.

This year I put icing into a bag for the drizzling - so much easier!! And looks so much neater than when drizzled with a fork. I let Ethan do the orange icing for the orange-cranberry cookies and I did the icing on the raspberry shortbread.
We made up almost 20 goodie plates and delivered them to friends in our ward, a neighbor and the landlord's family. Depending on the size of the family, I think most plates ended up with about 2 dozen cookies (give or take) and then a handful each of Buckeyes and caramels.

I love the combination and variation of goodies on our plate, but I think this year I'll be ready for more changes. I don't know what, but I'll be on the look-out for cookie recipes this year....

Christmas Ships 2011

So the Christmas Ship Parade is one of those events that we heard about from quite a few different people last year, but being new to the Portland area had no idea what they were talking about! This year, though, we paid attention - I cut out the schedule from the newspaper and when some friends said they were going, we volunteered to meet them there! We ended up with four families and watched from the outdoor patio of Joe's Crab Shack - a seafood restaurant just east of the I-5 bridge and right on the river.

We had hot chocolate and seafood appetizers - though I steered clear of the appetizers because my insides were still having issues from the previous week's stomach flu and I'm not a big seafood fan to begin with.

Anyway.

It took a little while for the ships to get down to where we were, but it was pretty cool to see the boats all decked out in Christmas lights. The fire truck boat w/ sirens was a big hit and the CO HO HO Salmon boat got a laugh.

The video's a bit long... and shaky... but it was the only way to get any "pictures" because trying to take pictures of the boats out on the water, in the dark was not working out for me!
Overall, we decided the Christmas Ships weren't quite a must-see every year, but definitely worth it if you have the time and some friends to go with.

Learning a new skill: Sewing

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was not a sewer. Second, there was a part of me - and I didn't know how strong that part might be - that despised the thought of learning to sew. And third, I was most certainly and undeniably friends with the wrong people if I was going to continue to be a non-sewer.

I blame it on Jenn.

She is my most crafty friend. And super-talented. And determined to teach me to sew.

I did my best to resist.

In October we made stuffed pumpkins - they required a single line of stitching to attach the two ends. Her machine was all set up. Easy-peasy. Her machine even has a button to cut the thread when you're done. I sewed up my pumpkins - a little begrudgingly, though.

Then, in December, I went to wrap up a dish towel/oven mitt combo I got for me, my mom and Christine {last year, on mega-clearance} and decided to wait because surely my friend Jenn could help me spruce them up just a bit. I was right. Her machine does embroidery. She helped me set up the first towel and we added snowflakes and my sister's name. Surprisingly, I was ok with this part of "sewing" - the machine was doing all the work! I just had to supervise. I finished up the towels and got ready to go when Jenn threw out more ideas...

Ribbon? Buttons?? Bows???

Ah, crap. Decisions.

I went with ribbon and some buttons. This meant actually pinning the ribbon into place and {gasp!} sewing it. I went slooooooow, but got it done. Then I hand-stitched the buttons into place. This was the final product.
And then it hit me.
Ah, crap.
I was learning a new skill. Sewing. And I was actually kinda liking it.

It's been downhill from there.

The next time I was at Jenn's, {and really, let's be honest, it was probably the next day because she helped me with a lot of my Christmas presents this year - even if it was just use of her paper cutter or getting some vinyl} she had her flannel fabric stash out and was helping another friend pick fabric out for her kids' pajama bottoms. She pointed to a cute navy plaid she had pulled and let me know that there was enough, you know, should I want to make Ethan a pair of pajama bottoms.

I told her I'd think about it.

That evening I got a text. Sewing party at Vicki's. Jenn would wash and bring the navy plaid fabric if I wanted to make Ethan's pajama bottoms.

Ok, fine!

So that night, totally from scratch, I made my very first article of clothing. Jenn helped me with directions every step of the way. I pinned the pattern to the fabric, cut it out, {I'll skip the part about how I almost cut out two left legs - I swear I had flipped just the pattern. Apparently I flipped the fabric and the pattern. Jenn caught my mistake though!} pinned the pieces together and then it was GO time. I sewed. First one leg. Then the other. And then put one inside the other {who knew you had to do that to sew the two legs together - not this chica, that's for sure} and suddenly my creation was more than just some random pieces of fabric. I had pants! After some hemming and with the addition of an elastic waistband I was done! Yes, it took me two hours. But that was with chit-chatting with my friends, stalling and learning the whole process start to finish. I felt so accomplished!! Jenn had to take pictures to document such a momentous occasion.
And here's the finished product! I promise, it's just the pictures that make the length of the pants look uneven. In real life, I think there's only about an 1/8th of an inch difference.

I think it was about a week or so later that I got the email that the quilt idea for Sean's grandma was a GO and each family needed to make a quilt square. Back to Jenn's I went. I added the green border to the dark denim fabric and then let the machine add the embroidery - with a little set-up by me (and Jenn). After I got home I decided the square need just a little more color, so I added a button for each of us. A dark gray, suit-coat-looking button for Sean, aqua flower button for me and small red one for Ethan.

I haven't done any more sewing since then {a little too busy getting everything else ready for Christmas}, but I know it is just the beginning for me. Well, that and the fact that Jenn has a spare sewing machine that just needs a new part to be up and running...