Home Depot sucks!

Can anyone tell me if this is 2008, or I have somehow been transported in time back to 1982?
Rick and I have madly been trying to get our wedding invitations out, which of course have a little insert that say where we are registered. My friend Jenica is registered at Home Depot and I thought "What a great idea!". Rick and I have so much stuff and we are in desperate need for some home improvements, so we thought that was a perfect solution. I wanted to get all of our registering done before wedding invitations went out so if someone decided they wanted to look at our registries they would be all done and updated. We registered at Macy's and Target and did online honeymoon registry (which is awesome!) at www.honeyfund.com. So all that was left was Home Depot. So we went Thursday night and the girl at the counter told us that we were the first people to ask to do bridal registry in the 2 years she'd been working there. She took forever to get us all entered in the computer (they don't have a kiosk like everywhere else) and when she was finally done she said "ok you're all set!" and I said "ok, well how do we get what we want into the registry?" She was completely clueless and called a manager over, who printed us out a piece of paper and said we had to walk around the store and write down all the SKU's of the things we wanted and bring it back to them and they'd enter it into the computer. It wouldn't be available online and if we wanted people to be able to shop from other stores they'd have to know the store number of which store we registered at. So this is where I ask what year this is. Does Home Depot not realize the disgusting amount of money to be made for wedding registry? And secondly, who wants their customers to walk around and hand write down all the items they want? The whole thing was ridiculous so we just decided to bag it. So to make a long story short, we are not registering at Home Depot, because not only was that quite the debacle, but now they won't let you register online anymore at all either, which they used to do. And Lowe's doesn't do registry either. So please be aware that we aren't registered at Home Depot and spread the word if you happen to think of it. If you're really wanting to buy us a gift, and really wanted to go to Home Depot, we would be very happy with gift cards.
In other registry news: now Target will not allow you to exchange ANYTHING without a gift receipt. What is the problem here? These stores are making SO much money off weddings and now they won't even exchange things? So please, if you think of it, for us and for any other people you buy gifts for: don't forget the gift receipt!
Can I just say that I am SO over all this dumb wedding stuff that I have to do? Finals are killing me and I am definitely feeling overwhelmed.
Ok, I think I've ranted long enough.
We are off to meet Baby Eva Hall today, go to a going away party for some of Rick's friends and then Alison's 30th birthday tonight. It's always something :)

Bryce's 1st Birthday!

Today is Bryce's 1st Birthday! I can't believe a year has gone by since he was born! Jaime & Greg had a party for him last Saturday but I wanted to include a picture of Jaime a year ago, only a few hours after Bryce was born.

And here I am with a little bundle of Bryce


He's not even mine, yet I can't believe how fast they grow!
Bryce's Birthday partay!
Bryce's camo themed birthday cakes

Bryce and his first "feel" for cake

Ahhh that first sugar rush...

Becky, Stephine & I enjoying the sun

Bryce & Jaime opening presents

The gang hangin' outside

Eating and chatting...

That's it!
Jen's due date is today, but I haven't heard anything so I doubt that's gonna happen! I'm waiting patiently to meet Baby Girl Hall!
Rick and I are off to Target to register tonight...yippee!

Lindsey's visit to Portland

Howdy all! My dear friend Lindsey, from Salt Lake came to visit from Thursday to Saturday and I was so happy to have her! In all the time I've known her, she's never come to visit! I kept her pretty busy and she was really happy to have some beautiful Portland weather, since SLC has had a really ugly winter too. Most of you know we've been having record breaking heat here in PTown, and it's been great, even without the transition that we're used to. Oh well, the weather is back to it's normal self now.
Thursday Rick picked Lindsey up from the airport and when I got off work I took her to the Kennedy School for lunch (delish!), drove by the Jupiter, where I'm getting married, then headed downtown for the tour. We went to Rick's work, Pioneer Courthouse Square (where I could spend all day people watching), and along the waterfront. The weather couldn't have been lovelier.

Lindsey & I on the waterfront

The hot weather brings out ALL types to the Salmon Street Fountains. People treat it like a public swimming pool. There were even ladies in bathing suits with towels on the sidewalks sunbathing. Only in Portland :)
The (in)famous Salmon Street Fountains

In the evening Thursday we met up Rick, some of his buddies and Becky and went to Happy Hour and the Beavers baseball game. I still can't believe they don't have Happy Hour in Utah! What's better than cheap food at quittin' time??

Becky, Lindsey and I at the Beavers game. We didn't do much game watching. The scene at PGE park on Thursday nights is like a night club! People out to impress-we were FAR too underdressed!

Lindsey & I

Me and my fiance

Friday morning Lindsey and I went to this fantastic little restaurant in St. Johns for breakfast. It's called John Street Cafe. The food is delicious if you should ever need a place to eat in No Po. They have a lovely little patio out back with a really pretty garden

I loved how this little flower is growing up between the leaves of this plant.

The picturesque St. Johns Bridge & Willamette River

After breakfast we drove up the old Historic Highway to check out the gorge and waterfalls. Friday was our record breaking day-it was nearly 100 all over Portland. I was glad to be in the cool trees!
The view of the gorge from Crown Point

Latourell Falls

Lindsey & I at Latourell Falls. Do you see those nice Basalts behind us? That's my Geology class talking...

Wah-Kee-Nah falls
The water was FREEZING! I stuck a toe in. Word is that the river water in town is only 45 degrees. Brrrrr!!!

Lindsey & I at Multnomah Falls (our photographer was sub-par)

Friday night we went to dinner then headed to NW Portland and met up with Amy & Brent and our friend Kody to show Lindsey the Portland nightlife. Nothing better than sitting on an outdoor patio in short sleeves on a Friday night with your friends.

Lindsey & I watching the boys play pool.

Goodbye Lindsey! Thanks for coming, I had so much fun with you, come back soon!!

Oh and in other great news-just found out today that my good friends Jaime & Greg got engaged last night! Congrats you two! I can't wait to wedding plan together :)

Merrilee's Baby Shower

Hello everyone! It's been busy, busy around here! My friend Lindsey is in town from Salt Lake and we have been running all over the place, enjoying the record breaking heat here in Portland! Last weekend was Merrilee's baby shower on Saturday. It was really fun to see some of my old friends (and their cute kids). Merrilee was so grateful for all the things she got and it's fun to see her prepared for this new role she'll be taking on very soon.

This is Renee-Shellee & Adam Kriss' darling little girl

Merrilee, reading something she got at the shower

Cute as always, Sawyer Ricker

Me and Merrilee-coming up on 17 years of friendship! Pretty amazing!

We've also been working on that crazy pile of branches in the yard. Rick sawed them into smaller pieces then my parents came and hauled all the good sized wood off for firewood. We still have all the smaller branches in our drive way though. Oh, to have enough time to do it all...

My crazy chain saw totin' fiancee


And I thought I would give you a few pics of Penny. She does cute, funny stuff now and again :)
Penny so nicely watching TV

I set my old fish tank up and Penny just can't get enough of the fish

I love how she's practically dangling here...

Well that's it for pics for now. I have lots more to upload from the last couple days with Lindsey. Today is my friend Jaime's son Bryce's 1st birthday! We are headed over there pretty soon to celebrate :)
Enjoy the heat everyone!

Home Improvements

First of all, happy one day early Mother's Day to all you Moms out there. We had a very nice dinner last night with Rick's parents in Salem, then went out afterward with Rick's sister and her husband. We don't get down to Salem very often, so it was nice to be able to do that. Rick also purchased a new car yesterday! He drives a Tahoe and the gas (obviously) has been killing him. I actually had been thinking about trading in my Corolla for a Scion, but Rick swooped in and stole my idea :) That's ok, it makes WAY more sense for him to get rid of his car! So he got one of the boxy Scions, the XB I believe? It's black and really cool. He gets to pick it up on Monday, so he is very excited. He's never had a new car before!
While the weather has been giving us random nice days here and there, we've tried to get outside and do a few things to the yard (which needs a LOT of work). Back in the winter we bought patio furniture which has been sitting in the shed til last weekend when we finally set it up. I still need to plant some flowers in the deck flower bed here.

We bought a new BBQ last weekend which Rick is in love with. I love the idea of not having to cook inside all summer! Don't mind Rick's awesome wife beater :)

One of the best things about marrying Rick is that I get to be an instant home-owner :) Ok, so maybe this isn't one of the BEST things about marrying Rick, but I am definitely excited to be a home owner!
Rick has these CRAZY two White Maple trees in his front yard. They are huge! They're not native to this area so with all the rain they just keep growing and getting more foliage. They're so big that they make it so grass can't be grown in the front yard because it's too shady.
During that big wind storm last winter one of Rick's neighbors called him at work and said a huge limb had snapped off and was hanging between the 2 trees. This limb was gigantic but luckily had fallen at a strange angle and had intertwined itself real good amongst some other branches. It was wedged in there pretty good, but only one branch was holding up the entire weight of the thing. Rick put it off all winter and luckily it was never an issue because it would have taken out the whole front of his house probably.
We finally hired one of his friends in the tree business to come and cut the darn thing down. It took him all day long to get the branch down, and would have charged us extra to haul the debris away so we're taking care of it ourselves (in all our spare time). Here's some pictures of the crazy leftovers.

From the front door looking out

From the driveway looking out-check out how big around the scary branch was!

The house and driveway

Saw dust everywhere!

Oh and one of the bed in front of the wall. I planted some lovely trees and shrubs!

In wedding news we are still making good progress. We booked our entire honeymoon (Maui, here we come!). We started our registry, we also booked our caterer, have been working on invitations and I've been working with our florist. It's a lot of work!
Well I'm off to Merrilee's baby shower. Pics of that to come!

Preston's 28th Birthday

For those of you just tuning in on my life, Preston is my very best friend that is a boy. We've been best friends since Freshman year of High School, so about 14 years now. I just love him to bits, and it was so fun to go out and celebrate his birthday last night! He got VIP at Bettie Ford, a club here in town, so we all went and had a great time!
Rick and I before leaving the house. Why we are wearing shades, I'm not really sure.

Me, Megan & the birthday boy being a dork

Melissa & Preston-friends from high school

We made it on the Bettie Ford website! Me, Megan, Mark & Rick


Rick & me, I am not applying the big head photo trick that I know so well!

Me and cute Megan & Heidi

Rick can't get enough Red Bull!

Rickster, me and Megs

Well, that was our night! Thanks for having a birthday Preston so we could go have fun!
I drove to the beach to see my friend Emily today and have her do my hair. She is the best! Rick went out tonight but I haven't been feeling completely normal today so I stayed home. Tomorrow we are going to try and be productive outdoors on a nice sunny day. I have midterms starting Monday though, so I'll squeeze in some time for studying too.
Monday is my Grandma Layne's 90th birthday. I am looking forward to celebrating this amazing milestone with such an amazing woman.
See y'all soon!

Congratulations!

To my friends Travis & Emily Morgan: congratulations on your new baby girl, Elise. She is so beautiful and perfect! Sounds like Emily had a rough go in labor, but their baby is doing well and Emily is now too. I can't wait to meet Elise (Em and Trav live in Utah).
To my sister in law and brother in law, Denene & McKay: Congrats on finding out you're having a boy! So exciting!
Baby mania I tell you!
All is well here, working hard on wedding plans and school work. Midterms are next week already. Time is flying!