MIA!

I know, I have been seriously MIA for a very long time! Its hard to believe as  much time has passed as it has! I have found myself extremely busy, and coupled with maintaining Facebook, my photography website, my photography blog and well, just life, that this blog had to take a backburner. Recently I came across one of my favorite blogs, Dooce, and noticed she has a post called iPhone pictures from the last week. There is a Blogger app finally, and I can upload pics right from my phone! I realize most of you are on Facebook, but I still like the idea of adding pictures with a little more info than just a caption. So I am going to try and do that on occasion. I want no part of playing catch up on here, but I'll see what I can do. For now, I am going to give you a quick little recap of our lives this year, in a very condensed version :)
January
-New Years' Day I was in Amy (Benjamin) and Anthony Aivaliotis' big fat Greek wedding! I had fun being a bridesmaid and Amy was a gorgeous bride!

February
-Celebrated my friend Nichole's 30th by wine tasting in a limo down in the Willamette Valley. It was my first time in a limo and it was a blast.
-We went to both the Monster Trucks AND the rodeo. Good times ;)
-A big group of us went to the Newport Seafood & Wine Festival which was a ton of fun. I definitely want to go back next year. Rick and I also went to the Newport Aquarium, which I hadn't done since I was a kid.

March
-I joined Rick's favorite hobby, kickball, on a different team. I play on "Catching Something on 82nd". Even with all the rain that spring brought, I really enjoyed it and stayed on to play Summer and now Fall too!
-We watched a lot of basketball all winter long and enjoyed cheering on the Wildcats and BYU during March Madness

April
-Rick and I spent 10 glorious sun-filled days relaxing in the Riviera Maya. We stayed 3 nights in Cancun and 6 nights about an hour south of Cancun and soaked in a lot of rays, as well as visited 2 Mayan ruins and got to swim in a cave! It was a wonderful, and much need vacation where we definitely caught up on "us" time. Sigh, I am ready to go back!
 
May
-On Mother's Day Rick broke his fibula playing kickball. Two days later he had surgery to put in a plate and 6 screws. Thousands and thousands of dollars later, and several months (and a wicked scar), he is all back to normal and feeling great. It was pretty nasty at the time though.
-Rick traveled to Indiana to visit his Grandparents and extended family that live there. His Grandma has Alzheimers and he really wanted to see her before she didn't remember him anymore. I think he had a nice time visiting with everyone.

June
-June always is the start of the crazy summer months. We filled our (cold, wet, rainy) month with kickball, yard work, celebrating Father's Day and my Mom's birthday, and visits from out-of-towners like Denene, and Nick.

July
-July got even busier. I quit my job and started a new job as a Materials Analyst for Daimler Trucks North America (Freightliner). Basically I'm in charge of getting parts from vendors to truck plants for all of our new projects. I really like it!
-We spent 4th of July weekend going to a Timbers game, playing Sloshball (kickball with a mandatory drink in hand), BBQ'ing, and the actual 4th on the top floor of the Marriott on the riverfront watching the display. It was a great weekend.

-Rick's Mom's side of the family had a reunion, which we attended. It was a lovely afternoon.
-Kelly, Brianne, Liz and I got to see Mary Poppins on Broadway which was great fun! Kelly and I also got to see Eddie Vedder in concert at the Schnitz, which was an amazing experience. One I will remember for a long time to come.
-Becky came to visit and we got to spend 4 days together doing fun things like manicures, going to see Harry Potter, eating, visiting friends and going to the beach with Stephine.
-I said goodbye to my friend Brianne, who  moved to San Francisco. We threw her an impromptu farewell party at our house. I miss her!
-We celebrated our friends Nik & Rachelle's amazing wedding on the Sandy River. It was a really fun night, and the location was stunning.
-We  had more out-of-town guests with Alison and Olivia Aguirre from Las Vegas and my good friend Lindsey from Salt Lake. Lindsey stayed with us for 2 nights and we had a really fun weekend full of lots of food, a Timbers game, and the Oregon Brewers' Festival.
-I went golfing for the first time with work at Edgefield. I didn't suck nearly as much as I thought I would ;)

August
-We spent a weekend working on the yard...we knocked down an ugly cinder block fence in our front yard, pulled a LOT of weeds and framed in the front of our shed.
-Enjoyed and lost at our kickball tourney and had a fun time at the end of season party at Blitz Ladd.
-We had Rick's team at work to our house for a team building BBQ. That was fun.
-Celebrated Jessica and Russell's wedding, which I also photographed. It was my first wedding and it was exhausting, but a lot of fun. I got lots of great pictures (only 1300!).
-My cousin and his wife visited from Provo and we spent some time with my family, and also got to go sailing on my Dad's little sail boat.
-We celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary at El Gaucho. It was amazing, and we had a nice night together. Rick got me a Kindle and he got a new watch! Fun!
-I had my latest round of lab work and Dr visits...nothing has changed. Seriously, its not even worth writing about it.
-I went to Spirit Mountain Casino for a weekend to celebrate my good friend Emily's bachelorette...it was pretty entertaining to say the least.
-I started on Medifast (its a diet-look it up!) and to date have lost 10 lbs. Its a pretty big accomplishment considering all my dumb health issues.

September
-We celebrated Aaron and MacKenzie Harper's wedding at the Queen Anne Victorian Mansion over Labor Day weekend. Another gorgeous wedding and location-this time 40s glam inspired...loved that!
-Rick and I spent Labor Day itself pretty low key and hung out on the "beach" of the Willamette at Kelly Point Park, our new favorite spot.
-This last weekend we camped with friends at Beverly Beach, which was a lot of fun, but not very warm. We missed out on the heat!

The next several weekends are super busy. Two more weddings, a trip to Vegas and an OSU football game! Looking forward to all of it. I'll get some cell pics up shortly!
xo
Lauren