Denene & Emily in town

My friends Denene and Emily both live in Utah and came for a visit! Denene, Emily and I were roommates in Utah several years ago and I always love visiting with them. Denene is also my sister in law from my first marriage so we have all sorts of special connections! So we had a get together with some other friends and their kids last Monday evening.
Denene's little boy, Carter, who is also my nephew! Isn't he adorable! His eyes are such a pretty color of blue.

My sis in law Alyssa holding Carter. Love that cheesy smile of Carters!

Sharon's little baby Ella

Rick hanging out with Darwin and Hannah's oldest, Livia & Sharon's oldest, Amber.

Sharon's middle girl, Paige

Denene and cute Carter in pj's

And a terrible picture at the end of the night of Denene, me and Emily.

So glad we got to visit! Miss you girls (and your kids) already!
Well, Rick, Brianne and I are headed out in the next 20 minutes or so to Boise for the weekend! We are excited to spend time with Becky in her new digs and celebrate her birthday. The weather is supposed to be fantastic all weekend and we are very much looking forward to a break from the house.
Memorial Day always sadly reminds me of Adam, he was diagnosed with cancer 4 years ago on Memorial Day weekend. I can't believe how time has flown, but I think I will never be able to separate the two events from each other. Thankfully I am able to do something fun this year while still keeping Adam's memory in my heart. I hope you all have a happy and safe weekend!

Riley's 1st Communion

Last Sunday Rick and I went to Salem to attend church for Riley's (our niece) 1st Communion. It was a gorgeous day and the church service was nice, but mostly we were glad to be there for Riley on such a special day for her. The church was right across the street from our State Capitol building, so we took some time to walk around the grounds. I went to the Capitol on a field trip in 4th grade but haven't been up close to it since then, believe it or not. The grounds are beautiful and it's a pretty cool building.
The front and our golden pioneer up top.

The rhododendrons are in full bloom here right now and they are just so beautiful!

Rick relaxing in the shade while I took copious amounts of pictures :)

Yellow rhodies

Pink dogwoods are among my favorite too!

The side of the capitol with fountains

After church Kim and Mike had all the family over for brunch and we had a really nice time sitting out on the patio in the sunshine.
Riley in her 1st Communion white dress. Isn't she cute?!

Mike, Kim, Kailey and Riley

Riley and I

Rick and Riley

Rick, Kim, Peggy and Riley

Riley opening gifts surrounded by family

Cute Riley and her cake

And a silly one of Rocco to round it off :)

finishing up electrical

Dave and Eric came over last night to help us finish up the main electrical work. Just like everything else in our house, the wiring was a complete mess. Rick and I are clueless about such things, so we're glad we have friends who know what they're doing!

Dave and Eric running the heater control from one wall to another

Dave and Eric doing the dirty work and Rick approving

I was there too, on clean up duty, and handing things to people when needed, etc. Cool headlamp eh?

The kitchen/bathroom wall, all appropriately wired. I got the bathroom closet door off, we got a new one to put up. 

We figured while the back of the wall was off we should run all the TV wires through the wall so we can mount the tv and make it pretty. Rick's hard work...

The disaster that is currently our living room

And the kitchen/living room wall all wired up and done!

Thanks again for your help and hard work Dave and Eric! 

Next on the docket-buying the lights for the kitchen and dining room and installing those, buying floor tile, getting our appliances from the store to our house, many more Home Depot runs and hanging dry wall. Yeesh!

Mother's Day

My Mom was out of town Mother's Day weekend, so we celebrated the weekend before, when Dave and Erin were in town. Saturday evening we went down to Salem to have family dinner with all the Enochses so we could make sure and have Dick there with us (he works Sundays). We had dinner at Bentley's, which was delicious, and the company was great! Also, Peggy gave me a little herb garden for being the mother of her Grandcats :) Isn't that cute? it was my first ever Mother's Day present!

Rick and I at Bentley's

Mike and Kim

Dick and Peggy

And our darling nieces-Riley and Kailey

On our way home from Salem, Rick and I decided to stop by our friend Benny's house, he was having a BBQ and we wanted to check out his new house. We ended up staying til 3am, which is crazy late for us!

Misty and I hanging out in the garage

Rick was entertained all evening by Benny's awesome arcade game. It has 23oo old school arcade games. We would both love to have that machine!

We played a rousing game of Rock Band, that's what kept us busy til 3

Kaare, wailing on the guitar :)

Rockband, Amanda lead singer of the Glorified Gerbils. Thats Benny on drums, Kaare and Bill on guitars. What a fun game!

And lastly, Melissa and I, winding down the night

No new pics of the house. We worked on electrical for hours on Monday night, but didn't finish. So hopefully we'll be able to finish that up this week. I am starting to finalize some decisions on a front door, kitchen floor and countertops. Besides all the work, there is a LOT of decisions to make. This weekend not much will get done, Rick has kickball tourneys all day Saturday and a season end party Saturday evening, then Rick's niece Riley has her first communion Sunday and a brunch in Salem afterward. Memorial Day weekend we're headed to Boise to visit Becky! Hooray! I am really looking forward to it, and although we could really use a 3 day weekend to work on stuff here, we could also really use a weekend to not worry about it. So hopefully this weekend will mean finishing electrical and some shopping to finalize the decisions. I have no clue when we'll finally get to dry walling. 

So that's the scoop around here! Only 4 1/2 weeks of school left, including finals, which is awesome! 

One last thing-for all you budget minded people out there, Old Spaghetti Factory is running a special menu for the Tuesdays in May, where they offer 40% off. Last night Brianne and I went, and my meal was bread, salad, a giant bowl of spaghetti-have with meat sauce and half with butter and cheese, and a scoop of ice cream-all for $5.99! Granted we had to wait quite a while, but it was worth it if you ask me! So if you want to head down there, you have 2 Tuesdays left! Enjoy!

Dinner with the Linthorsts

The Linthorsts were in town for Dave's sister's wedding and they stayed at my parents part of the time so we were able to all have a nice dinner and visit on Sunday. 

All of us together

Erin and I

Rick and Royal running around in the backyard

Royal running to his Daddy

Cute Roy checking out my Dad's garden

Royal and his daddy

So glad we got to spend some time with you guys! Miss you already!

Here's a pic of our babies, cuddling in the moho

Austin finished all the framing in the house on Monday, and Gary, the plumber finished everything up today! Here is our newly framed/plumbed wall!!!

The state of things right now. 

Next step-some wiring and electrical work. In the meantime I am pricing out flooring etc. So many decisions! 

We celebrated my Grandma's 91st birthday last night and that was a lot of fun. Good food and a nice time with my family. I can't believe my Grandma is 91! She sure is a trooper! We love you Grandma, and we're grateful we could celebrate with you!

That's it for now. Hasn't this weather been miserable? I'm over it! Hopefully they're right with the forecast for this weekend. I don't know how much more rain I can take!!

That's it for now! Adios!

Preston's Bday etc...

As usual, we've been busy! Last Wednesday we went to Angelie Linthorst and Richard Staal's wedding reception in Gresham. They're living in the Netherlands, so it was fun to see them, along with all the other Linthorsts in town, plus some familiar old faces for me. 

Rick and I at the wedding, I didn't get any pics of Angelie and Richard.

Dick & Peggy came up from Salem Friday evening and we had dinner together and Dick helped Rick with the concrete work we needed for our floor. Dick is definitely a perfectionist, so he's the right man for the job :)

Here's where our old hole was, all nice and filled! Austin is coming tomorrow and he and Rick will get everything all framed up! Hooray!

In other great house news, this week I saw a commercial on TV for a builders appliance supply warehouse (BASCO) that was having a public sale yesterday, so I got online and checked out some of their deals. They had a package deal-microwave, range and dishwasher-all stainless for a good price, so we decided we'd go check it out. We got there about 15 minutes before it opened and there were probably at least 100 people in line before us, which really discouraged me. I thought there was no way we'd get anything good, since they had limited amounts of everything. We walked in, walked right over the aisle we needed, grabbed the tags for everything we wanted, paid, and walked out 15 minutes later with all new stainless appliances-including a fridge, for $1400!! It was a bit more than we planned on paying, because we were just going to get bottom of the line white IKEA appliances, but we know it was well worth it to get such a good deal, and it only means increased value for the house, so we are very excited about that!!!

Yesterday was also Preston's 29th birthday so we met up with him, his girlfriend Rochelle and our old friend Aaron Arnell at the Ambassador for some karaoke and fun.

Preston and Rick

Me, Rachelle and P

Aaron (the karaoke king) and I (and yes, that is a tambourine on his head)

Hope all is well with y'all! We have another busy week. Heading to my Mom's tonight for dinner for some quality time with the Linthorsts before they leave, framing with Austin Monday, Tuesdsay night is my Grandma's 91st birthday and next weekend is Mother's Day! Sheesh!