Rick + Lauren

10/3-10/9

2011-10-10T11:51:00.001-07:00

Here's another week's worth of pictures! Again, they're out of order, but here ya go!

Saturday we went down to the Beavers game against Arizona. We have several friends that are AZ alums, so we rode down on the alumni bus with them and it was a lot of fun. It was one of those perfect fall days-70 degrees, warm and sunny but that crispness in the air. Exactly right for football!

Reser Stadium

Channing Frye is an AZ alum, former Blazer and a current Phoenix Sun! The AZ alumni association arranged for him to come meet with everyone, which was pretty cool. Then when he went to sit down, he came right over and sat next to me. Awesome! He's a super nice guy!

The Rickster and I in our Beaver gear

Jenn, cheering for the Cats

This last week I finally switched my summer clothes for my winter clothes...goodbye sandals, hello boots. As usual, I had helpers...

I got my hair done on Thurs. Just the usual cut and color...

I met up with my friend Shannon at a ramen place called Wafu. It was opened by 2 guys I went to high school with-Kevin Carroll (who I've known since I was 5, and Trent Pierce. It was excellent, I highly recommend it! And I got to hear about Shannon's travel adventures. She'd been in Asia for the previous 4 months, so it was great to catch up!

One last one from Vegas that Ronn sent me

Wednesday we went to the Oregon Food Bank at work. It was really rewarding. We scooped 233 servings of rice, per person!

Serena and I looking awesome!

More Beavers game shenanigans

Friday night we went to Dante's for Jaime's birthday-to see Super Diamon, a Neil Diamond cover band! Here's Jaime on stage for Sweet Caroline.

Rick and Friday night's dinner-a Shawarma (just like a gyro, but better!)

Saturday's amazing weather...

Oh, another from Vegas :)

I was feeling a bit down on Thursday due to a Dr. appt. I have to get a bunch more testing done for Adrenal Fatigue, gut microbes and heavy metal toxins. I am so over this medical crap. I just want to be better.

To cheer me up, Rick got me these!

my cuddlers!

Leaving you with this peach!

Las Vegas

2011-10-03T13:21:00.001-07:00

We took a long weekend last weekend and went to Vegas for Rick's birthday. We got those super cheap tickets on Spirit Airlines and a great deal on a hotel, so we went with our good friends Ronn & Jenn. Aside from Spirit really sucking, we had a great weekend! It was hot, and a good mix of relaxing and go-go-go times.

Ronn's best friend Rob, and his wife Kristin, live in Vegas, so they spent a good portion of the weekend with us. Sunday afternoon they brought their adorable baby Addison out to lunch. She was a lot of fun.

Friday night we went downtown to old Vegas and played down there. It was a lot of fun! I love the people watching and all the "old" glitz and glam!

me, Jenn and Rick with our yards-a must-do downtown.

This is a picture of a picture so its not great, but Saturday night we went to Minus 5, in the Monte Carlo, an ice bar where they give you a coat, boots and gloves to go hang out in their 28 degree bar where every last thing is made of ice! It was very cool, and we had a good time!

Pool time at the Planet Hollywood on Friday

The view from Ronn & Jenn's room of the Eiffel tower, and the Bellagio fountains (my fave!)

a bacon chili dog from Pink's (yum)

The Bellagio!

This the H&M in Caesar's. Slightly cooler than our H&M.

I love the Bellagio observatory! Everything is made from plants!

View of the south strip from our room

pool time :)

Bellagio conservatory

Rob & Rick hanging out

Friday afternoon we got to see a thunder storm from the 52nd story. Too cool.

Brunch one morning-we split an amazing breakfast burrito and dorito crusted mac n' cheese. Needless to say I ate full gluten that weekend!

One of my favorite places-the Chandelier Bar in the new Cosmopolitan Hotel. It was awesome.

pre-sunset Saturday

Jenn and I night one

A very bare Mt Hood on our way out (bet its looking different today!)

The end!

9/23-9/28

2011-09-29T06:38:00.001-07:00

Another week of pics!

I got a whole afternoon to myself one Sunday. Those are RARE! Look at this snuggler!

Kelly and I went to the Hollywood Theater to see Pearl Jam's 20th anniversary documentary. It was amazing, fantastic, wonderful, inspiring...I may like Pearl Jam a little too much. If you even like the band a little, I highly recommend the movie. Its showing on PBS on Oct 21st at 9pm. Watch it!

PS How cool is the Hollywood Theater?

Sleeping babies

At work I have been spending a lot of time helping out with a brand new truck that we launched. The very first one was built this week, and we went over to go see how it looked! It was pretty exciting to sit in it and see a truck that you had a part in! We weren't supposed to take pics, but I did :)

Kickball that Sunday was Portlandia themed. Rick's attempt at a hipster outfit.

Dexter, in my suitcase, getting ready to pack for Vegas!

Boxerton.

Emily and Danny's wedding

2011-09-25T21:10:00.001-07:00

Rick and I attended Emily and Danny's wedding on September 22nd. Emily is my oldest friend in the world-we've known each other since my birth! Our parents are great friends, and I love that no matter where life has taken us, Emily and I have remained friends, and grown closer especially over the last several years. Emily is also my hair stylist extraordinaire. She is responsible for the over all color, cut and maintenance for my hair, as well as doing my hair for both weddings, and Amy's wedding. She is amazing, and I was priviledged to not only be at her wedding, but be the photographer as well. These are all from my cell, enjoy (they're out of order)!

Em and I towards the end of the evening

With Sarah and Rachael-Emily's cousin and sister

Thought these napkins were adorbs!

Emily's best friend, Bethel and I, being goofy

Emily's beautiful niece Heidi

Rick at the "afterparty", DJ'in it up!

Cool spiral staircase (and my TOMS) at the after party

Rick and Emily dancing the night away

Rick and I during the reception

Lyndsay and I at the after party

Emily all ready, waiting to go get hitched!

I got some great pictures at the wedding, some of which are on my photography facebook page. More to come on there soon, as I get some time to edit. If you ever want to look its just facebook.com/laurenenochsphotography

Love you Em and Danny, CONGRATS!

9/16-9/23

2011-09-23T07:54:00.001-07:00

Its been a seriously busy week. These are out of order, but I'll go with it.

Saturday was Megan Pacheco and Johnnie Paxson's wedding. I was the photographer, but got a few shots on my phone too. If you want to see more pics, you can look at my photography facebook page: facebook.com/laurenenochsphotography

Preston and I at the wedding...I also attended Preston's wife's baby shower this week. They got lots of good stuff! I can't wait to meet baby Griffin. I just can't believe he's going to be a Dad!!

There have been some amazing sunrises this week. This one is Mt Hood on my way to work.

Hard to tell, but this is a church steeple downtown in the rain last weekend. It was really cool.

Got me some new red shades for my trip to Vegas next week...

Rick playing waiter at Jake's Grill. We met up with our friends Ronn and Jenn for late night happy hour after Megan and Johnnie's wedding.

Saturday afternoon before the wedding...this is the site with the tent etc. It poured. All day.

Sunday I went to Salem to take our niece Kailey's senior pictures. This is their cat, Leo.

My buddies

Todd Paxson and I at the wedding

Rick DJ'd the wedding...I think we should go into business as a wedding package :)

Friday night's rehearsal dinner center pieces. Beautiful!

Kailey, our niece! So pretty!

I get up at 4:45 in the morning, and this is what I came out to the other morning.

My camera bag all packed and ready for the wedding. I adore my camera bag.

Another amazing sunrise

Hope you enjoyed!

9/12-9/16 iPhone pics

2011-09-16T13:12:00.001-07:00

Wednesday I went down to the waterfront for an appointment and shot this of the harbor and Marquam Bridge

Today we ran over to the Western Star truck plant here on Swan Island to see the very first Zodiak Truck being built. It is a brand new truck and nearly everyone in my department has been involved. It was fun running over there to go see it...our truck plant is seriously amazing!

My co-worker and trainer, Sue and I on our way there, twins today!

Fur-face Rocco

Jeana and Eleanor Wines (our neighbors), came over for a short visit this week. Eleanor is the prettiest baby. I love visits from cute babies!

Testing my new app!

2011-09-13T13:44:00.001-07:00

iPhone pictures from our weekend at Beverly Beach

L-R: Rachel, Liz, Jenn, Me and Kelly at Fogerty Creek State Park

The view from Mo's Restaurant in Lincoln City where we had lunch Sunday

Sunlight streaming through the campfire smoke at Beverly Beach state park

A creepy one of Kelly with a glow stick in her mouth

Our friend Ronn is very sun-sensitive and always has a parasol on hand

My S'mores concoction: chocolate covered granola squares, a peanutbutter cup and a giant mallow. Deeeelish.

Rick napping in a hole on the beach

A kite I spotted in Lincoln City.

MIA!

2011-09-13T12:05:00.000-07:00

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

Boise trip

2011-01-26T22:08:00.000-08:00

Back in October (my goodness am I far behind!) I went with my friend Stephine, to Boise to visit Becky. We had such a fun weekend-eating a lot, and just hanging out together relaxing. Becky found that there was a "Scarecrow stroll" that weekend at the Boise Botanical Gardens, so we decided to check it out. I'm so glad we did, because the plants and trees were beautiful with fall colors and the scarecrows were a fun addition! Plus there was a great view from there.

Funky crow

Lots of beautiful trees to see

Steph & Becky with the sock monkey

Plant life

A leisurely stroll...

Roses still blooming at the end of October!

I loved these plants with the black leaves

Cute scarecrow

My cute friends!

My bestest and I

Yoga time...

Fall frolicking

Mr. Potato Head!

Miss Lucy

We also had one other big adventure. For a long time Becky and I have talked about getting matching tattoos. We almost did it in Mexico, then decided not to. We both thought we'd get shamrocks to mark our Irish heritage, it would be a different but cool matching tattoo and I was hoping it'd bring me some much needed luck as well! So we headed to a random tattoo parlor in Boise. Steph decided she wanted one too. She went first so she wouldn't chicken out!

Steph, looking scared to get hers!

The outline

She chilled as soon as he started, it wasn't nearly as bad as she'd imagined!

Her finished product! Anna is her daughter :)

Next it was Becky's turn. Our shamrocks were the exact same shape, but we had different artists so they are in slightly different spots and have different coloration.

Becky's turn

All done!!

My turn!

All done!

So after all that, Steph decided she wanted a SECOND one! In the same day!

Her final product

Becky & I!

Thanks again Becky & Steph for an awesome weekend. It was so much fun and I hope we get to do it sooner than later! xoxo!

Another health update

2011-01-16T15:57:00.000-08:00

The week before last I went in to meet with my doctor for my first follow up appointment after being diagnosed with Hashimoto's and PCOS. I was sort of nervous to see what I'd find out, since I had been following the medication and diet she had prescribed. I hadn't even had gluten since Thanksgiving. I was expecting to see some change, but also didn't really know since I honestly didn't feel better. We ran a lot less tests this time since we had it much more narrowed down, but here is what I found out.
THYROID:
-Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) went down from 4.49 to 1.99. That's definitely good, but my doc wants it under 1, so we're getting closer.
-T3 (another thyroid aspect) went from 3.1 to 4.2. That's not so good. It should be between 2.3-4.2 so I'm too high there. We'll work on that.
-T4 stayed the same so that's good.
So I went from a half tablet of my levoxyl (thyroid meds) to a whole tablet, hoping that will lower my TSH and T3. I'm still losing a lot of hair, so I'm hoping if this improves, that my hair will stop falling out so badly.
HORMONES:
-Dihydrotestosterone went from a 13 to a 16. That is still within the expected value, so we're not too stressed about that, even though it went up a bit.
-Regular testosterone went from a 60 (which was high) to an 83 which is really high :( This was the one thing I was really hoping would have gone down. I haven't had a period since November, and that is definitely why. I think deep down I really knew this hadn't changed.
So for this we are lowering my dosage of Vitamin D, getting rid of saw palmetto and hoping that will help.

My Doc said I am the only patient she's ever had with both Hashimoto's and PCOS so I'm a bit of an anomaly and things will take a bit more tweaking than she's used to. Most of her PCOS patients are teenagers and she's able to easily tweak their hormones, but because I'm older and because I have the slow thyroid on top of it, she thinks I'm just going to take longer to get right. I had some gluten last week and noticed that I didn't feel bad at all from it. My Mom was recently diagnosed with a gluten sensitivity, so I know that I am prone to the sensitivity as well, but I think as long as I keep it to a bare minimum that it won't kill me if I have it once every couple of months, but I am going to do my best to continue eliminating it. I want my thyroid to get better and I want my rash to keep at bay, which for the most part it is doing right now.

I can't believe its 2011. 2010, even though we had a lot of great things happen--me graduating and getting a job, taking some great trips and spending lots of good time with friends and family, over all-it wasn't a great year for us. We are still mourning over my health issues and the inability to get pregnant. Christmas was pretty sad for us, as nearly all our friends have kids now, and all seemed to have such happy holidays surrounded by happy kids. I still love spending time with my friends' kids, but all of the talk of babies and kids continues to make me sad and I find myself unable to know what to do with those feelings. I realize that I turn 32 this year, and Rick turns 34 and we aren't all that young when it comes to having a baby. It may take longer than I think to right these health issues, and even then, I still may not be able to have a baby. So I am devoting this year to coming to terms with the fact that I may never have my own baby and learning to be ok with that. Rick and I are taking a nice 10-day trip to the Yucatan in April. 4 days in Cancun and 6 in the Riviera Maya, about an hour or so south of Cancun. We'll be doing lots of relaxation and exploring of Maya ruins etc. We are both really looking forward to it, because all of this has been really hard on us, and in a lot of ways we haven't dealt with all of our feelings the way that we probably should. Neither of us are entirely convinced we want to adopt, not that we're not all for adopting, but neither of us quite feel like we've fully accepted our current situation and are ready to move to that next step. Hopefully we'll get there are some point.
Thanks again for your love and concern and I'll continue to keep you posted-my next appt with be in 8 or so weeks.
Happy New Year!
-Lauren & Rick

Helicopter Ride!

2010-12-27T22:50:00.000-08:00

For our 2nd anniversary, back in August, I got Rick a helicopter ride. We redeemed it in September, on a super beautiful day! The ride was out of Newberg, over the Willamette and wine country. We had a great time, even though there was a lot of haze on the horizon.

Our chariot

Flying over the Willamette

Farm country

We got to fly down really low over the river, which we loved!

We even landed on a tiny patch of gravel

pumpkins for days

corn maze

Mt. Hood

We saw a bald eagle and got to follow it for a bit. Pretty cool!

Coming back around over the airport

A plane coming in after we landed

Our helicopter ride was so fun! It was the first time either of us had been in a helicopter and I'm so glad we did it! Happy anniversary Rick (only 4+ months later haha!).

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Ours was REALLY low-key. We both worked Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas so it didn't really feel like Christmas. Rick and I decided to not exchange gifts this year and instead put our money towards vacation in March or April. So now we're trying to figure out where we want to go! We were thinking Vietnam, but now we're thinking maybe something a bit more relaxing and not as go-go-go. Well that's it from me, for now!

Timothy Lake camping trip

2010-12-16T20:53:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of September, Rick and I went camping up at Timothy Lake with our friends Ronn and Jenn and their friend Brian (and his adorable black lab-Harley). We had gorgeous sunny weather, but it was FREEZING at night. It was the first real inkling that Fall was on its way! I think we had the best campsite there. It was huge, private and right on the lake! We woke up to dense fog. This was the view from our campsite out to the lake.

A nice peek of Mt. Hood

Fog burning off

I love this one of the fog and the people on the dock

This little guy was our resident muncher. He was so cute! I love his tiny claws!

In his little house

Rick relaxing and taking in the view

Ronn hanging out

Harley being a good dog

Saturday afternoon several horses came down to the lake front and I went over to get some pictures. I don't have much experience with horses at all, and I had never seen a horse with blue eyes!

Nor did I know that they have horizontal pupils! So cool!

Wet Harley-man

Sunday morning we visited Little Crater Lake, a sink hole with crystal clear and very cold water.

And that's it! I am kind of sad looking at these now that its December and cold! I am already excited for Spring and warm weather :)

Things are good here. I am keeping very busy with my photography business and have three shoots coming up in the next month or so. I hired someone to build me a website so that is in the works. Its all very exciting for me! Rick and I are looking forward to getting through the holidays and planning our next vacation. We are hoping to go to Vietnam in April!

My health continues to be a focus in my life. I will go in next week for my first blood work since my diagnoses. In the last 5 weeks since I was diagnosed with PCOS and Hashimoto's, I have strictly followed my Doctor's instructions. I have been gluten free and taken all of my medications. I haven't noticed any huge differences, but I feel less hungry throughout the day, my itchy foot is much less itchy and my face is less oily. Oh and it seems like I'm not losing as much hair either, which is great. Strange, I know, but that is all I have noticed so far. I will be very interested to see what has changed with my levels once I have the blood work done, and what my Doctor has to say about everything. I believe my itchy foot was due to a skin problem called Dermatits Herpetiformis, and that is ONLY attached to Celiac Disease. My Mom is fairly certain she has Celiac and is going to get diagnosed at the end of the month, and even though I have never had any stomach issues, I think I have it too. So, it sounds like I will likely be gluten free for the rest of my life. It hasn't been as challenging as I thought. The hardest part is when I'm eating out with other people and they're eating things that smell so good that I want! I crave a big juicy hamburger at Red Robin with a big fluffy bun or a Subway sandwich. Luckily, there are great substitutes out there and lots of restaurants in town have options too.

Christmas will be pretty low-key this year. Christmas Eve at Rick's parents with his sister and her family, and brunch Christmas morning with my family at my Aunt's. And that's it! No home Blazer game this year, which has become a tradition. So, not sure what we're going to do! It'll be nice to relax :) Well that's it for us. I'll let you know what I found out when I have my bloodwork done next week!

xo, Lauren

Karen & Brian's wedding

2010-12-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

I keep getting futher and further behind! Yikes! Back in August was Karen & Brian's wedding! Karen is my best friend Becky's sister. Her wedding was out in Troutdale and it was a lot of fun! It was great to see all of Becky's family and a few good friends too!

The bridesmaids, that's Becky on the right.

Karen and her daddy

The ceremony

Just married!

The reception

Becky's toast

Karen's Dad's toast

Karen's Mom's toast

The cake

Groom's cake

Becky, Steph & I

Cutting the cake!

Becky & her Pops

Becky and her adorable Grandma

My beautiful friends-Heidi, Jaime, Becky and Stephine

I can't believe this was over 3 months ago! I'll do my best to play some catch up!

Health follow up

2010-11-16T20:27:00.000-08:00

Last week I went back to my new Doctor after having extensive blood work done, to get my results. I was definitely expecting some interesting results, but I was NOT expecting such extensive results. My Doctor is awesome and really interesting. Her philosophy is to integrate normal Western medicine with naturopathy, nutrition, functional medicine (looking at things from a systemic point of view) and anti-aging therapies. She had my blood tested for many things, several of which I had never heard of, and had no idea what they meant. After flipping through my results she told me that I had so much wrong that we wouldn't even be able to cover it in one setting. Keep in mind I feel totally fine. I had some symptoms that were troubling-the infertility, irregular periods, hair loss, and eczema-but honestly I felt ok. I have my results sitting here next to me and I thought I'd go through them on here. I am hoping that maybe this can help someone else too. The best way that my Doctor explained it to me is that if you have a leaky faucet, you typically ignore it until it starts leaking heavily, or the pipes explode. She said my faucet is leaking pretty good and we need to stop this before my pipes explode.
I think the most troubling is my thyroid levels. Normal thyroid function (thyroid perioxidase auto antibody) should be between 0-60. Mine is 101. This means my thyroid is underfunctioning and creating too little thyroid hormone. Vitamin D levels should be between 30-150. Mine is 27 (and I take vitamin D as a supplement!). I tested positive for an autoimmune disease. These things together mean I have an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Essentially my body attacks my own thyroid, causing it to be inflamed and irritated and to produce less hormone over time. Thyroid issues cause infertility, hair loss, the inability to lose weight, and can cause lethargy, depression etc. Thankfully I don't have those last two. I've done a lot of research in the last week and have found that many people that have Hashimoto's also have Celiac Disease and vice versa. Celiac is an intolerance to wheat if you didn't know. I was not tested for Celiac but my Doctor put me on a gluten free diet anyway, because the gluten acts as an irritant to my thyroid. The low vitamin D is because with Hashimoto your body doesn't absorb nutrients the way they should, especially with vitamin D.
The rest of the testing focused on my hormone levels. It turns out normal levels of progesterone in a woman are 0-25 and mine are .4! Follicle stimulating hormone (what makes the follicle let the egg go) should be between 1-96 and mine is 6. Its still within the range, but obviously really low. Testosterone for women should be between 9-49 and mine is 60. Low progesterone causes infertility and low libido among other things. I don't have enough progesterone to even become pregnant, let alone carry a baby. Too high testosterone cause weird hair growth on your body, and hair loss on your head. All of this hormone craziness is called Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) which is the leading cause of infertility in women. Most women get cysts on their ovaries when they have it, but luckily I don't.
I guess the thing that baffles me the most is how on earth my OB/GYN and/or my fertility doctor never bothered to do blood testing on me ever. I went through nearly a year of fertility treatments, thousands of dollars, a whole lot of heartache, that all never would have occurred if one person had thought to take my blood and look at those levels. I have lost probably 3/4 of my thick hair over the last several years, and I have nearly none left.
I am VERY grateful that one of my friends recommended my new Doctor to me, and that she thought to have all this checked. I am grateful for a diagnosis, but all of this was really surprising to me. I was quite overwhelmed after my doctor appointment, but a week later, after doing some research, I am feeling much better about it and I'm glad to have some answers.
So here is my treatment plan...completely gluten free diet. No pork. No fried foods. No sugar substitutes (they mess with your hormones). Only hormone free meat and dairy. And these medications and supplements: a whole lotta Vitamin D, pro-omega (fish oils basically), L-tyrocine, chromium piconalate, NAC (apparently gets a lot of harmful metals out of your body), estro-opt (to get the good estrogen back up to normal), hormone balancing formula, saw palmetto (lowers testosterone), levoxyl & nature throid for my thyroid. Yikes! I am taking around 20 pills a day. The diet is hard to adjust to, definitely, but I am coping. The one amazing thing I've noticed is that I'm not as hungry as I used to be. I'm guessing I'm absorbing my nutrients much better now and not needing as much food. All this time I thought I had a dairy allergy, but turns out I don't! So I'm enjoying eating a lot of dairy, but not enjoying the price tag to this new lifestyle. My Doctor said it should only take around 6 weeks to start to regulate my hormones, but the thyroid will take longer, around 6 months, and since its an auto-immune disease, my guess is I will have to take the medications and have this diet for the rest of my life. Hashimoto is heriditary and I am fairly certain that my Mom has either Celiac or Hashimoto after reading more of the symptoms.
The good news is that I am hopeful that after fixing some of these things that I might be able to fix my infertility issues and that some day I might actually get to have a baby. I will keep you all posted as I learn more and things progress. I just want to say, if you have an inkling that something isn't right, and a Doctor is prescribing treatments or medication for you to fix the problem, without ever finding out what is CAUSING the problem, maybe you should get a second opinion. I wish I had.
Thanks for all your support and kind words about the fertility issues that we've had. I know that I can only be healthier and better off by fixing these health issues, and that I can't worry about having a baby until I am healthy, so I'm glad to be armed with this knowledge!
xo

Kelly's Beach Birthday

2010-10-31T13:38:00.000-07:00

I am hoping to finally start catching up on the last 2 months! I can't believe I have gotten so far behind on blogging, yikes!

In August, we went to Lincoln City for the weekend for Kelly's big 4-0 birthday! The house we stayed in was amazing. It was huge and had ample room for us to all spread out, have places to sleep and really enjoy ourselves. It was also up on a huge hill where we had amazing unobstructed views of the ocean and beach. We got there Friday night just in time for dinner. Jenn had planned very elaborate meals and we ate and ate and ate all weekend. I don't think there was a single minute that I didn't feel totally stuffed!

After dinner

DJ Rick, enjoying my key lime cupcakes, yum!

Liz, also enjoying a cupcake!

I quite enjoy coconut whipped cream frosting!

Hanging out

Cap'n Ronn

Jenn, looking cute

Brad & Angela

Poor Kelly, totally oblivious to the napkin on her head, but Ronn thinks its real funny

A love fest (and Ronn still entertained by the napkin)

Me and cute Emily Potter

Kel & Jenn

Jenn learning to DJ

Hanging out in the hot tub

Post hot-tub, ready for bed!

Walking down to the beach Saturday morning

Beach dance party...

Lincoln City beach

Cindy doing the splits!

Liz, Jenn, me and Julie enjoying the beach

The view from the house

Sunset...

We saw a whale breaching!

Jenn bringing out Kelly's cake

40 candles!

Emily and I hanging out

Everyone in our group, minus Brad!

Ronn's sweet outfit

Beach bonfire time!

The birthday girl and her fire!

Brrrr!

Haha, Cindy is so little!

Lizard and I, trying to stay warm!

Cap'ns on our way back to the house

And that's that! Thanks for having a birthday Kelly, we had such a great time!

In other news...I went to a new dr. the week before last, and I feel really good about my visit with her. She has a different approach to medicine that I really appreciate. She gave orders to have my blood analyzed for about 15 different things. Once we get the results we'll make a plan specialized for me that will include adapting my diet, equalizing my hormones with supplements and perhaps medication, as well as possible acupuncture. I'll keep you posted once I get my bloodwork results back!

On Infertility

2010-10-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

Its been quite awhile since I've posted last, and there are lots of reasons for that. I've been insanely busy, combined with the fact that I had to give my computer back to my old boss since it was his, not mine! So I am adjusting to life with a laptop, plus I don't have photoshop so I haven't been able to process my pictures. Really its been the busy part that has been more of a factor. So I have tons of pictures to get up, as far back as mid-August, so I hope I'll be able to start getting all of those up sooner than later.
I've had a lot on my mind lately, and in the past I have never hesitated to be up front and honest here on my blog, especially when things were hard. However, for the most part those things have just involved me and my life, and now that Rick and I are partners, I am hesitant to put OUR business out there, but for my own sanity, this is a post that I have been wanting to write, because its something that is constantly on my mind lately.
Last year, in May, I was having some hormonal imbalance issues, and just generally not feeling like myself. My Dr. suggested going off birth control to see if that would help regulate things some. Rick and I knew we were a few months out from wanting to try starting a family, but we both guessed it would take some time and basically agreed if we accidentally got pregnant right away that it would be ok and we'd figure it out, although we were both nervous, considering I had more than 9 months left before I was done with school. I have never had regular periods my whole life, and I was pretty sure it would be hard for me to get pregnant. So we went off birth control and I felt like my hormones figured themselves out and I was feeling much more normal. Rick and I went about our lives like normal. By November we knew we were really in the safe zone on getting pregnant, since I'd be done with school in less time than it takes for a pregnancy. It'd been 6 months since I'd gone of the birth control and I had only had 1 period in those 6 months, so I went and saw my Dr. again. She referred me to a fertility specialist right away. I started seeing my fertility specialist at the beginning of December and she put me on Clomid (a fertility drug-an ovulation inducer) right away. She said we'd give it 3 months and see what happens. She also said I needed to be taking my temperature every day to chart my ovulation and make sure I was ovulating etc. I did this religiously, and could clearly see that I was indeed ovulating, so I had high hopes that once the biggest obstacle was out of the way (me not ovulating), that it wouldn't take too long until we would get pregnant. After three months and no progress, my doctor decided to double my dosage of clomid and have me start doing ovulation prediction kits (where you pee on a stick to show when you are close to ovulation). She also started doing testing on Rick and I to see if there were any problems with us. After a few procedures Rick and I both got clean bills of health and told there was nothing really wrong with us. Keep in mind that the tests, ultrasounds, and Dr. visits were adding up quickly. And even though we hadn't been trying all that long, each month when my period would come, I would get sad and discouraged. After about 6 months of doing all this infertility testing etc, my Dr. thought it was time to take a more aggressive approach and we began doing IUI (Intra Uterine Insemination)-where the Dr. basically inseminates you with your husband's sperm. This was costing us about $400-$550 a month (luckily insurance was covering some-but not all of it). We did this for 2 months with no success, then switched fertility drugs to a non-FDA approved drug called Femara. My Dr. was really excited about me switching to this other drug, and so was I, since she was so optimistic. It cost a lot more and upped the cost to around $650 a month or so. We did one cycle of IUI on this drug, with no success again. She wanted to give it one more try in September, but unfortunately by this point we owed them about $1000 and they wanted to be paid before we did the next IUI. At this point I called Rick sobbing, just overwhelmed monetarily, emotionally, physically etc. If this last IUI didn't work, then the next step was to add shots to the mix. The shots and IUI cost $3500 a month and that is money we do not have. Not only that, but they want the money up front, before the procedure, and it requires 7-10 trips to the hospital for blood draws and ultrasounds to monitor your eggs, within a 2 week period. Not to mention what this insane surge of hormones would do to me mentally. That step is the last before the VERY last step: In Vitro (or IVF-which starts at $10,000 and only has a 50-50 chance of working). I just really felt like after trying for so long that changing one thing probably woldn't make a difference. After a lot of soul searching Rick and I have decided to discontinue our infertility treatments due to the money, and the stress that it causes. We just need a break. Getting my hopes up each month then having them crushed at the end of the month is devastating. I never dreamed that I might not ever get to have my own children and this realization has left me sad, confused and angry. People kept telling me to just give up and at that point it would happen on its own, or "I have a friend who...". Everyone has great stories about people that have overcome their infertility but I can't rely on other's stories to be my own. I have always wanted to be a mom, and the emotions that I feel knowing that I most likely will never have my own children are indescribeable. I have been through quite the rollercoaster of emotions lately and I am still trying to come to terms with how I feel. I can't say how Rick feels because I am not him, and as we all know, men aren't the best at communicating their emotions, but needless to say, he is hurting as well. It is very hard for us, as we have hardly any friends that don't have kids, and on top of that, i have THREE baby showers this month! I wanted to quit the infertility treatments while I was ahead-before I started hating babies, people with babies, myself, Rick etc. I didn't want to get to my breaking point. I am not willing to go $10,000 in debt to only have a 50/50 chance at having a baby. So, at this point, we are taking a break, taking inventory of ourselves and our situation and not putting any pressure on the next step. We are not discounting adoption, and we're not discounting the option of never having kids. We just don't know. We have a pretty great life with just the two of us, and as time goes on and we get older, we may decide to keep it just the two of us. I really can't say. I just feel that infertility is one of those taboo subjects that people don't talk about and I can't do it anymore. I need to have it out in the open so people stop asking me when we're going to have a baby and stop making comments like "You'll understand when you have kids".
After Adam died I went through a point where I had really negative feelings towards my friends who were in happy relationships and I couldn't feel happy for people when they were happy. I am borderline feeling this way now. I don't want to get all the way there. I want to feel joy when my friends tell me they're expecting, not anger and jealousy. Its hard for me to understand why this is happening to us, when there is nothing "wrong" with either of us, compounded with sometimes feeling "plagued"-feeling like I can't get out of a spot where bad things happen to me.
But at the end of the day, I have a great marriage and husband, a roof over my head, a job, great family and friends and a lot of other things to be grateful for, and I know it can always be worse. So for now I am going to take a lot of time to focus on ME and what makes me happy and make some changes that I really feel like need to be made in my personal life. I really feel that we are given friends and family in life to rely on and give us support when we are hurting the most, and it seems silly to keep all of this to myself and suffer when I don't have to. So, in advance, thank you for being understanding about our situation, and being sensitive to it etc. My next step is seeing an internist that a friend recommended to see if she can't help me sort out some other weird issues, like my eczema and losing oodles of hair. To me it just seems like those two things might somehow be connected to not ovulating and I'd like to get to the root of it instead of just trying to fix it. I will keep you posted as time goes on and we know more.
xoxo
Lauren

Lady Gaga!

2010-09-04T21:46:00.000-07:00

We bought our Lady Gaga tickets ages ago and had been awaiting the show for months! 8 of us went and the show was great!

The girls at Rialto beforehand-

Heather, Emma, Misty, Tina, Liz and me

Liz and Tina-BF's

Liz and a stranger on the MAX, also headed to the show

Tina & Rick on the MAX

These girls were only a small hint of the costumes we saw the fans in, at the show. It was almost as entertaining as the show itself!

Lady Gaga and the first set

The girls in front of us and what they were wearing (we didn't know them!)

Gaga in all her craziness!

Emma and Heather

Rick and his very sweaty wife (it was HOT in there!)

Gaga's fairy outfit. Even the things on her head were moving!

Oops Emma wasn't ready, and I didn't get the shades memo!

Liz took a very expensive nap during the show

My favorite set-the awesome monster!

All in all, it was very entertaining. So glad we went! We are now done with shows and concerts til the next good thing comes along!

Dayville!

2010-08-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

Trying to find a place that is halfway between Portland and Boise, that can accomodate 4 girls isn't easy. As you know, my best friend Becky lives in Boise, so we (Brianne, Shannon, Becky and I) tried to figure out a place halfway for us to meet. Somehow we settled on a TINY town called Dayville, OR, just west of John Day. There is pretty much nothing there but a tiny cafe and a tiny post office. Luckily there is a small place with 3 little rentals attached to the back of the post office, so this is where we stayed. I didn't get any pictures of the place, and now I am wishing we had! It was quite an adventure, but we had a great time cooking and being together. We played did a LOT of madlibs and watched Labyrinth, since Shannon had never seen it! We also took a day trip to the John Day Fossil Bed National Monument-both the Sheep Rock unit and the Painted Hills. Eastern Oregon is so beautiful!

Sheep Rock

Brianne scoping out Sheep Rock

The inside of the visitors center had lots of awesome fossils, but really weird paintings of prehistoric times. Here is a prehistoric Brianne and a prehistoric Becky.

The Painted Hills...

And one last one of Lucy riding a chihuahua sized trike. The trike was in the funny place we stayed :)

And that's it for Dayville!

Seattle

2010-08-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

Rick and I went to Seattle the first weekend of August to celebrate our anniversary early. We knew we were going to the beach for Kelly's birthday the weekend of our anniversary, so we had to plan early! Thanks to my friend Josh, we got an amazing deal at the Westin in downtown Seattle. We were on the 39th floor of the hotel overlooking the sound. It was gorgeous. We spent our weekend relaxing, shopping, eating and going to a soccer game. It was a great weekend away!

View of the space needle from our room

View north from our room, there were a few cruise ships in port

The weekend we were there was the Seafair, and they had the air show on Saturday. We didn't go, but a few of the Blue Angels flew right in front of our hotel, which was awesome, but I didn't get a good pic of. Two came back later around the other side, this was the best I could get!

Nice clouds over the Sound

Seattle skyline from the soccer stadium

Glitter and fireworks during the national Anthem made for a fun start to the game. We got tickets through Samsung, had awesome seats, and had an entire row to ourselves! It was really fun, I'm excited for the Timbers games next year!

Us at the game

Yesterday was our actual anniversary (and my Dad's birthday!). I can't believe 2 years have flown by so fast. I love being married to Rick so much. He treats me so wonderfully, he makes me laugh every day, he keeps me challenged and on my toes, and I know I am blessed to truly love spending time with him both one on one and in groups. He is my very best friend, I love you Rick!

We were able to go to a nice dinner at Ristorante Roma downtown last night after I got off work. We had a LOT of food, and it was really good. If you ever want a good Italian restaurant downtown, I totally recommend it.

Work is going well. So far so good...its just been a bit of an adjustment getting used to working full time again. I like what I'm doing though so far.

I have a lot of pictures to process through-girls weekend in Eastern OR, Lady Gaga concert and our weekend in Lincoln City for Kelly's birthday. To come soon!

TJ & Christy's wedding

2010-08-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday we headed out the gorge, up to the Bridal Veil area for our friend TJ's wedding, to his beautiful wife, Christy. The wedding was held at Bridal Veil Lakes, which I had never heard of, but was absolutely gorgeous. I got a lot of great pictures, it was hard not to take a ton since the location was so perfect!

Walking in to the ceremony, which was on the other side of this lake

The bridal party. We know TJ through Dylan (3rd from right), and now TJ works for AT&T as well. The funny part is that one of the bridesmaids, Kelly (2nd from left), I graduated high school with, and one of the groomsmen, Ryan, (2nd from right) is my first husband Adam's cousin! I tell ya, small world!

The happy couple during the ceremony

The bridesmaids, I loved those grey dresses with the yellow

Its official!

The newlyweds

TJ & Christy taking a canoe ride. She was brave, not sure if I would've gotten in a canoe in a wedding dress!

The gorgeous setting

Dylan looking stylin' in his groomsmen outfit and complimentary dollar store shades

Rick and I all dressed up

Dylan & I

The setting for the reception

The beginning of one amazing sunset, looking over the Columbia

Me, Jen & Misty

Love TJ's face!

At sunset the light started streaming through the trees and it was gorgeous

Definitely my favorite shot of the night

TJ & Rick

and one last one of my lady friends...

Me, Alison, Misty and Amber

It was a great wedding and we are glad we got to be a part of it!

In other happenings, I start my new job tomorrow. I am excited to have a normal schedule again, but at the same time, I haven't worked full time in about 4 years so its going to be a hard transition after having this whole summer to do nearly nothing! Back to being a grown up!

Camping at the beach

2010-08-06T11:59:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went camping in Pacific City on the coast. We stayed at Webb County campground, and I do not recommend it! The nice thing was that it was across the street from the beach, but the downside was that it was pretty much a parking lot. We happened to get the one spot that backed up to a natural setting, but the rest of it backed houses etc. Kinda of weird! 11 of us went, and we had a great time and beautiful sunny afternoons. Saturday we were all in our bathing suits even. Of course, we didn't get in the water, it was WAY too cold! Here's the pics!

Tina (the birthday girl!), Saturday morning, waiting for the clouds to burn off

Zach, Liz and Gracie enjoying the sunshine on the beach!

Zach decided to dig a hole...

Ronn, drinking out of a frisbee

Kelly soaking up the rays

Ronn playing football with some kid

Scenery...

All the ladies from L-R

me, Shannon, Rachel, Jenny, Tina, Kelly & Liz

Tina and Jenn hanging out with Gracie. Once it got cloudy, it got cold fast!

Ronn and Kelly tossin' the pig skin

Dave and Gracie dancing

Cute Gracie

There were wild bunnies everywhere at our campsite. Tons of them!

Why not eat salad out of a giant bowl? I got a little toasty that day...

Shannon, Tina and Liz waiting to be fed :)

It was Tina's 29th birthday. We rewarded her for being born with some St. Cupcake!

Nothing like a chubby bunny contest when you're camping!

I came in third with 12

Ronn came in 2nd with 14

Our audience

And Dave won, with 15!

Rick jumped on the bed and didn't know I had unplugged the airmattress. He rolled right off!

After a LONG lunch at the Pelican Brew Pub, we hit the beach again. It was a little windier on sunday...

And that was our trip! So fun!

In other FABULOUS news...I got a job!!!! Hooray! I am going to be the manager of a alarm monitoring center for a company in Vancouver. I was interviewing for a receptionist position, but they liked me so much they wanted me to do a management job, which is great! It isn't my dream job, but it is a good use of my Business Degree, and it makes me feel so relieved to not have to stress any more, and to know I'll have a stead income during those winter months where I usually make nearly nothing doing my current job. My current boss was so totally supportive and excited for me, it made it much easier to quit the job I've done for the last 4 years. While I am training for 4-6 weeks, I will have to work swing shift 2 nights a week, so I am planning on still doing the photography job in the mornings as needed during that time. After that, I am hoping that some realtors will still want me to shoot for them on weekend mornings, so I can make some extra side money. My desk top computer is theirs as well, so they'll let me keep it as long as I am still on pay roll, so that's really nice too, I was worried about having to go buy a new one. I go in to sign paperwork next Tuesday, then I'm hoping I can start work right away after that. I'm anxious to get moving on it!

Rick and I are off to Seattle this weekend for an early anniversary trip. I am really looking forward to it, and to a weekend away with Rick, he has been working like a madman lately, so I'm glad he'll get to relax. Hope everything is well for all of you!

newly painted house!

2010-08-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

We had our house painted last week and we are so happy with it! It went from sea foam green to a lovely neutral shade of brown. New fascia boards makes it complete. Now just to paint that dumb front door and get some gutters...we'll be right as rain!

Side of house and side yard

Back and other side of the house

Karen's day

2010-07-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was Karen's day! I went to her bridal shower and bachelorette party. Karen is my best friend Becky's sister, so she is like an older sister to me as well. Both her shower and bachelorette party were a lot of fun, and the added bonus of course was that Becky was in town from Boise and we got to spend a lot of time together!

Becky and Karen at the shower

Karen and her best friend Peggy

Becky's Mom Jan, and her Grandma, Evelyn

Becky and I in the party bus on our way to the Ambassador for karaoke

Karen and her friend Sam singing

Our "party bus" aka a raft van! Too funny!

Another of Becky and I, at a place called Mixers

And one of little Dexter to end it!

In other news, we are having our house painted this week, so that is very excited. I'll definitely get pics up once its done. Rick has been working a TON lately, so I am looking forward to Friday night when we'll meet some friends for Brew Fest, and next weekend we're going camping at Cape Kiwanda with some friends.

I had a job interview this week. Its for an alarm company doing admin and sales support stuff. Its not really using my degree, but I really just need a job at this point. It seems like a pretty good place to work, and my good friend Jaime works there too, so that would be fun. I should hear by mid-week next week whether they want to interview me again, or if I didn't get it. I'll keep you posted!

Hope all is well with all of you!

This and That

2010-07-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

Blogger has a new weird format, so if this looks at all weird, I apologize! Well I have now been a college graduate a month and I don't have much to say really. I have been job searching almost every day. There seem to be a LOT of jobs out there but not one person has called me for an interview. It is getting really frustrating, and I have never had to spend this much time looking for a job. A product of the times/economy I suppose. Regardless, I am ready to start working. I feel bad that I am here half the day doing nothing but putzing around, reading, watching movies etc. We have been doing fun stuff in the evenings...I love being able to go to Happy Hour, or a baseball game, or whatever we feel like doing.

Dexter is doing great, he feels like he's always been part of the family. He and Rocco are best friends and they run around all over the house and play.

At the end of June we went to our friend Kody's birthday party at Eastburn, where Rick DJ'd.

Heather and I at Kody's birthday, and Ronn in the back

We also went and saw one of our favorite comedians, Aziz Ansari at the Aladdin in June. You may have seen him on Parks and Recreation. We love him!

Ashley and I another at Eastburn again, for Alex's going away party

Both of our cats love to drink water out of the tub :)

We had a bbq the weekend of the 4th of July, with just a few people, to celebrate my belated graduation.

Kelly, Shannon, & Heather

Makelle and 2 of her girls, Morgan, Dick and Peggy, and Brady in the front

Cute Brady (one of Misty's 2 boys)

Brianne and Christina

Jen, Misty and Bryse

Me and Faith

Jay & Gwen

Cute Addison, copying her uncle Jeff

And one last one of the buddies to send you off!

That's about it for us!

Remember when...

2010-06-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

Remember back to last March, of 2009 and THIS was my kitchen?? Lovely light fixture, motorhome cabinets on the top left, fake marble backsplash, awkward pantry, poor use of fridge space, shallow sinks, fake wood countertops, sick ugly tile, horrible wood trim around the outside door, a leaky faucet, a hole through the siding that let in cold air, and oh-that pesky MOLD?

Another lovely view

Yeah, I remember all of that. And I so do not miss any aspect of it. Yes, my kitchen has been completed since last September, but I just got this new fangled system to go between my wall cabinets so finally, the kitchen feels finished.

My, have we come a long ways.

And in other home improvement...
This was our front yard. We can't grow grass because these 2 huge trees give so much shade that grass won't grow. I haven't known what to put down, because the trees lose so many leaves that I needed something hardy to be able to rake over.

Looking the other direction

Our solution: rock!
We are super happy with it!
I still haven't heard from Portland Public Schools, so that is getting really annoying. I need to start looking for other things now. Well, I need to get off this computer and go enjoy the sunshine. Its finally arrived!

Graduation!

2010-06-16T18:39:00.000-07:00

Well I did it! I graduated college! It is amazing to say that I have a degree. 4 years of hard work certainly paid off on Sunday when I got to cross that stage and get my (fake) diploma. It felt so good! I have, for the most part, really loved college and the knowledge that I've gained. I have had some really great teachers and some really horrible ones too. I know that I will never regret my decision to go back at 26 years old...and now that seems really young anyways! I definitely feel like I picked the right degree for myself, and I'm so happy I didn't do finance! There were times when I would get so frustrated-when I was a poor college student and my friends with good jobs were spending money like it was going out of style, when there were times when I had to stay home when everyone else was doing something fun, and the times when I didn't understand the material and I'd get so frustrated I'd feel like crying! But now, it is all done! I never could have made it through the last four years without the support of my friends and family, and especially the last 3 years of school with Rick's support. Rick's last girlfriend was in college too, getting her PhD, and he has endured YEARS of a partner splitting their time between him and school. Hopefully he's happy to have me all to himself! I know he'll be REALLY happy when I get a job and start raking in the dough :) I also have to say, I never would have decided to go back to school if it weren't for Adam. He was just weeks away from graduating college when he got sick. He would have been the first of his siblings to get a degree. I was so heartbroken that he never got to walk across that stage and receive that diploma. BYU was kind enough to give him his diploma after he died, but it just wasn't the same for me or for his family. Adam worked so hard at school, he was a great example for me, of the kind of student to be. Its times like these where I feel mixed emotions, knowing I would never have this life if it weren't for his death. So, this degree is as much for me as it is for him. I just wanted to make that known. I guess I should also mention that I ended the semester with 3 A's and one A-. That's a 3.89, rounding out my PSU GPA at a 3.69, which gives me the great pleasure of graduating with honors! That'll look nice on my resume I hope!
So, I suppose I'll move onto the pictures!
Pre-graduation with my friend Constantine, who I met back in my first semester of PSU in a finance class.
With Yuliya and Josh, Supply Chain friends

Yuliya and I with Lee Buddress, the head of our department-one of my very favorite teachers.

My buddy Josh again

My favorite cap decoration

The view from my seat on the floor. The Rose Garden was completely packed! This was the largest ever graduating class in the state of Oregon with around 5100 students. However only around 2000 participated in commencement.

During the ceremony, which was terribly boring

And after! All graduated!

With Rick's parents, Dick & Peggy

The graduate :)

With my parents after a nice dinner at Stanford's

With my Aunt Linda, my Dad's sister (if you couldn't tell!)

My biggest fan :)

And of course, with my adorable Grandma

One last one!

In many ways, its hard to believe its over. I'm actually feeling a little down this week because of it. School has been my number one focus for 4 years and now I have to figure out something new to fill my time up with! Hopefully I can get some new hobbies!
On the job front-I still haven't heard back from PPS. Last Tuesday they said they'd make a decision between me and one other person. I emailed yesterday and nothing back :( I'm starting to feel not-so-confident about the whole thing. The prospect of looking for a job is a bit daunting, that is for sure.
Well that is it for now. Hope you all have a nice Father's Day this Sunday!

Meet Dexter!

2010-06-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

Meet our new little guy, Dexter, or Dex for short. We got him through a friend of a friend who took in a stray pregnant kitty. She had 2 available males and I chose this little guy to be the newest member of our family. He is 8 weeks old and full of kitten antics and energy. Rocco was not at all a fan the first couple days, but he is slowly warming up and I think they're going to be good buddies in no time at all. Rick is definitely in love with Dex, so I think I made a good choice. We still miss Penny a lot, but we are used to 2 kitties, so I'm happy to take another in and make a good home for him.

He's awfully adorable!

Cabo!

2010-06-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I said before, but Rick and I took separate Mexico vacations this May. Becky and I planned a trip to Cabo to celebrate her 30th birthday and my early graduation. Then some friends of ours invited us to go to Puerto Vallarta with them, and since it was the week before I was going, I couldn't go, but Rick decided to go since the entire week was only $75 for the room. So Rick went the week before I went, came home Friday night at Midnight and I left the next day at 11am. After doing this, we realized we should never go on back-to-back separate vacations again, because 2 weeks was definitely too long to be apart. Now we know! Rick had a great time on his trip, they had a totally different vacation then Becky and I did! Rick and our other friends went out every night, stayed out really late etc and Becky and I were in bed by 10 pretty much every night. Becky and I really did nearly nothing, besides laying by the pool reading, taking the occasional dip...one sunset cruise and a beachside massage. It was heaven! So because of this lack of activity, I don't have all that many pictures. So few, that they can fit into one post! So here are my Cabo pics!
Becky and I, first day
Very happy feet

Pathway in front of our hotel

Zocalo church in San Jose del Cabo

Inside of church

We stayed at an all-inclusive so we ate dinner every night in our hotel. This was supposed to be the "fancy" restaurant. The food was definitely lacking at our hotel, especially compared to the one Rick and I stayed at in PV.

The marina in Cabo San Lucas

Pina coladas before our sunset cruise. Poor Becky got pretty burned :(

A seal in the harbor

Leaving the marina and heading to sea

Approaching land's end and lover's beach

The famous arch

Besties!

My idea of a really, really great time is a sunset cruise. I like to do it every time I'm on vacation and I am never disappointed!

Becky doing a little boat dancing

These two older ladies were our favorite. They were having a blast. Becky and I aspire to be just like them when we're that age!

By sunset the entire boat was doing the Macarena and a congo line. It was so fun!

Crusin' by the hotel zone

Fireworks from the pirate ship

Proof that I danced too :)

Back at the hotel, our nice pool

The beach on our last day

The waves were too big to swim in

And finally, adios from the Mexi-Twins!

So in catch up around here...things are really great! It is finals week for me, and that just means one final Monday and one final Thursday and I am done FOREVER! I don't have any regular classes-no more 4 hour night lectures three times a week. It still hasn't sunk in that it is almost over. Graduation is in a week from tomorrow and that is absolutely amazing to me. I have worked so hard to get here, and this is truly my greatest accomplishment. I don't think I ever would have chosen to go back to school if it weren't for Adam passing away, and he was only a few short weeks shy of getting his degree when he died, so I truly feel this degree is as much for him as it is for me.
I have been looking for jobs, but have been so busy the last couple weeks, I haven't done much for searching. I had an interview with the Portland Public Schools for a Purchasing internship and I am REALLY hoping to get it. I just found out that I am in the top three candidates, so that is good news, but I am hoping that I come out the clear winner! Having a job so soon after graduation would be a huge blessing. I am stressing a little bit about finding something full time before I have to start paying back my loans in 6 months. Plus, Rick and I are really outgrowing our tiny 720 square foot house. We are hoping I get a job so we can fix the yard up here and move next Spring.
So, that's about it for now. Hope things are well for all of you!

I almost forgot!

2010-05-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot! The Wednesday before Preston's wedding I threw together a little party to celebrate the end of Preston's bachelorhood and also his 30th birthday on May 2nd. It wasn't exactly a bachelor party as you can see below:
Rochelle was there as well as 4 of Preston's sisters :)

We went to Player's in Lake Oswego and bowled, it was fun!
Me & Megan

Unfortunately I only got three pictures, but wanted to make sure and put them up :)

Preston & Rochelle's wedding

2010-05-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

I am quite behind on my blogging! On May 1st, Preston & Rochelle got married! But that morning, I went to Taylor's baptism. Taylor was the most beautiful little girl, and that has not changed as she's gotten older. I thought her dress was beyond adorable, and the baptismal service, was so sweet, ran by her 2 older sisters, Macey & Ashlyn, and even her younger sister, Josie sang. It was very sweet.
Taylor and her baptism dress
Denene & McKay were in town that weekend so it was nice to see them too, even if it was only for a little while!
Alyssa, me and Denene (oh and Denene's toy firefighter)

On to Preston's wedding!
If you're reading this blog, then you likely already know who Preston is, but if you don't, he is my very best guy friend. We've been great friends since we were 14 and I am thrilled to know he is so happy. His wife Rochelle, is so cute, and I just really love her.
The ceremony

Sealing the deal!

During the reception-Preston with Melissa, a friend of ours from high school

Preston and his beautiful sister Diane

Rick was a little excited about the candy they had

Beautiful Megan and I

Preston asked me to give a "best man" toast at the reception. They didn't have a wedding party, but I was honored to be a part of the event, and say a few heartfelt words, even if he did ask me only 4 days before ;)

The newlyweds at their table

Preston has FIVE sisters, all who are so sweet and cute. Preston is the baby. The sisters wrote a special poem for him, I loved it!
Left to Right: Julie, Sandy, Diane, Wendy & April

The Rickster and I, all dressed up

Melissa & I

Josh & Leslie Ricker's oldest, Sawyer, found some dress up clothes. I saw him in this get up and didn't even recognize him. Too funny!

First dance

Cute table decorations

Amy Benjamin, Amy Lambert Hilton and me

My family!

With the happy couple

Aren't they adorable?

Our buddy Nick came in from Southern California, it was great to see him!

Preston's old roommate, and shorter "twin", Aaron Shober

P & Rochelle leaving, everyone threw pompoms at them

The escape vehicle

After the reception a group of us went to Tachos in Gresham, where we used to go in our early 20's quite a bit. It hadn't changed much, but we couldn't stand it long. The music was deafening and after 10 they pat everyone down before entering because there has been so much gang violence in the area. Yikes!
Megan and a not-so-thrilled looking Nick

Amers & I

Garon, the karaoke king was there for awhile with us, making his customary drink flair.
Cory with his drink flair ala Garon

Singing "Venus" by Bananarama. amy is playing a blow up guitar and her face is classic!

And that's it for wedding pics! P & Rochelle, still so happy for you two :)

We will miss you, Penny

2010-05-26T11:20:00.000-07:00

Sadly, our cat Penelope Ann Kitty, aka Penny, passed away last week when I was in Mexico. Poor Rick found her in our bedroom, already gone, when he got home from work. I rescued poor abandoned Penny in April of 2007 and she has been the best pet for the last 3+ years.
Penny was totally neurotic-could never get enough food, and had funny quirks, but she was also the happiest, sweetest and most loving cat. She couldn't stand to not be in our laps if we were home. Pets really do become like children, and we feel her absence greatly in our home.
Poor Penny had been having some vision problems, but nothing to alert us to her being sick enough to die. Regardless, I am glad she isn't suffering anymore.
We love you little Penny!

End of Phoenix trip

2010-05-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

We had gorgeous weather the last 2 days we were on vacation and we spent the majority of it lying by the pool-soaking up the rays, watching the Blazer game from the pool bar and eating and drinking on the company's dime. Sigh, that truly is the life.

Some adorable baby ducks near the pool

The Hyatt's adult pool area
That night we met up with the Andls-Justin used to be Rick's assistant manager, but they moved to Arizona about a year ago or so. We went to a Diamondbacks game with them, which was a lot of fun. It was my first MLB game. They had to bribe their daughter Caitlyn with cotton candy to want to come. She was too fun to watch with that cotton candy :)

Chase Field

Rick and I enjoying the game from the nosebleeds :)

We had to get a few pictures at the end of the game!

Rick & Justin

The Andls-Justin, Kari and Caitlyn

After the game we headed to old town Scottsdale for some late dinner and my friend Kylee Shields from high school came and met up with us. She has been in Arizona the last couple years getting her Masters Degree. It was so fun catching up with her! (PS Do you think I got a little sunburned?)

Rick & I at dinner

Afterwards we went to Tempe to a dueling piano bar. I wasn't that impressed, but it was fun anyways. Rick, Kylee & I (and a photobomber in the background!)

And one last farewell shot, our last morning at the pool.

What a great trip! So glad we got to do that.

xoxo!

Birds of Prey/Desert Dinner

2010-05-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

After we got back from Sedona, we noticed they were having a birds of prey show at the hotel. I was bummed to miss the beginning of it, when they had an owl and some other things, but it was still very cool to see what we got to see. Most birds of prey shows I've seen have been at the zoo etc., so you don't get to see the birds very close. This was SUPER close and very intimate, so I was able to get some great pictures!
Harris' Hawk
A black vulture trying to take off.

But by far the coolest was a juvenile bald eagle. I guess they don't get their white heads til they reach sexual maturity around 2 I think.

Another view of the bald eagle

That night we all got bussed out to the middle of nowhere in the desert to a really awesome venue. Sunset upon arrival.

What it looked like arriving...

It was all western themed, and they had hats and bandannas for all.
Joseph, Rick and Nic-a few of Rick's co-workers/other winners.

The cowboy's counterparts-me, Christa and Tristan

We had a gorgeous sunset

This event was really awesome. They had quick shoot, hatchet throwing, leather branding, tarot card readers, learning to lasso, old time photos and a karaoke band. It was very cool.

Rick being dressed for old time photos (I have to scan those in!)

The barn where the karaoke band played

Rick hatchet throwing

Me hatchet throwing

Nic, by far the best karaoke singer AT&T has to offer

On the bus ride back, with Josh looking on

This trip was for the whole west half of the country basically, and you could pick out exactly who was from California. You could even tell the difference between NorCal and SoCal. It was so funny. On this bus ride back all the SoCal people were super rowdy and one of their guys was even throwing up (into the cowboy hats-so gross!!) and they kept saying "Oh we're from Denver" like we wouldn't know. I don't understand how people let themselves get so ridiculous at a corporate event! Oh well, it was fun to make fun of them and tell the story of the guy puking into his three cowboy hats :)
This night was our last company event. We stayed 2 more days, so I'll get those pics up soon. I do have to say this company trip was so great. I loved coming back to our room to presents every night-jackets, framed pictures, messenger bags, thumb drives etc etc. Rick and I are really lucky for him to work for such a good, stable company. We got to meet the guy in charge of the whole west part of the US for mobility and he was kind and gracious. Its nice that the bigwigs are still accessible, you know? Anyway, enough about that.
I have a phone interview today for an internship with Portland Public Schools that I'd really love to get. Positive thoughts!!! x0x0

Sedona

2010-05-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

Friday of our trip we headed out early on a tour of Sedona with a bus full of AT&T'ers. I had never been and people always rant about how fabulous it is, so I was anxious to go. I have to say, I wish that we had taken the option of renting our own car and going up there instead of doing a tour. Our guide took us just to a few vistas then they dropped us off for 3 hours to shop. Not exactly what I was anticipating. Not only that, but it was only in the high 50's that day so we were in jackets and jeans. Darn weather!
Oh well, we still had a nice time and I'm glad I got to see Sedona.
Our first stop, seeing the red rocks off in the distance
Rick at the visitors center

At the 2nd stop, Bell Rock

The aforementioned, Bell Rock

Sedona from above, on Airport Butte

Josh & Rick walking around Sedona

Alien sighting!!

We were lucky, it did clear up and get sunny for a few hours!

We went to this cool area called Tlaquepaque with expensive shopping, but it had some beautiful, authentic Mexican courtyards. We had lunch there as well.

Rick checking out the bridge and river

From the bus on our way back. I just loved those desert puffy clouds!

Gliding!

2010-05-09T10:41:00.000-07:00

2 weekends ago Rick and I went to Arizona for 5 days. This was a trip he earned for work, which is a really big deal with the company. As they repeatedly told us once we got there, this is the "best of the best" of the company. The top people that have done the best, so we felt really honored and special to be there. It was sort of bizarre, hobnobbing with Rick's bosses boss, and his boss, and even the president of the west region of mobility. Needless to say, it was an awesome experience, and I told Rick he really needs to do it again next year so we can go again :) Next year is in Palos Verde, CA. So we arrived mid-day on Wednesday and had down time to relax and take a nap before the events started that evening. The Hyatt we stayed at was gorgeous, too bad the first three days were yucky weather-cloudy and cold. We thought we left that in Oregon, but no such luck.
The company paid for everything, including activities and we even came back to our room each night to presents! Loved that!
Thursday morning Rick had some meetings to receive his award and I went and sat out at the pool with all my clothes on! It was too cold for a swimsuit! Thursday afternoon Rick went golfing and I went GLIDING!
They took a group of about 20 of us out about 40 minutes west of Scottsdale to a gliding school.
The sights on arriving
The gliders all lined up

The school's mascot, Be Bop

The tow plane

The first people that went up-the tow plane and glider

Nice puffy clouds

My turn! my glider...

In the "cockpit" before closing the hatch. Believe it or not I still wasn't nervous at this point!

You can see the tow plane ahead of us, this was about the point where I pulled the cord to release us.

Me, gliding!!

The nice white puffy clouds disappeared when I was up there. I wish it had been sunny!

The tow plane left us around 6000 ft or so, so we caught a thermal and glided up to about 10,000 ft and glided over to a nearby lake, called Lake Pleasant. My pilot was awesome and asked if I wanted to stall, meaning pointing the nose straight down to the ground so I could get some good pictures. I can't believe I agreed, but I did, so he did it. It was pretty awesome and a little scary for sure! That's the nose of the plane at the bottom looking straight into the lake!

Gliding back to the school

On our way back he asked me if I wanted to feel some G forces, and I did, so he did some crazy turns. We got about 3 G's, it was pretty cool. Here is a picture of us turning so you can see how sideways we were.

The school from above, as we were coming lower

Landing...surprisingly smooth

Be Bop was glad we made it safely

Wow, what an experience. I am so glad I did it!
That night was our fancy cocktail reception and dinner, so we got all dressed up for it.

The dinner was amazing-filet so tender you could cut it with a butter knife! After dinner they had a cover band where everyone danced like fools. It was pretty entertaining.
The crazy centerpieces in the dance area.

This is Rick's boss's boss, Jake, trying to juggle the centerpieces :)

Rickster and I

The band made Rick play cowbell!

And he passed it off to Josh, who had it for way longer than he wanted!

And that's it for Thursday pictures. Sedona pictures are next!

Eva's 2 year pictures

2010-05-07T08:53:00.000-07:00

I have been an absentee blogger as of late. You can't blame me, what with trips, weddings, work, mid-terms, a sick cat etc etc etc. You know...life. Things are great here. Powering through the last weeks of school and REALLY getting excited for summer! I am still processing all my pictures from Arizona and Preston's wedding etc. I finally just finished this batch of pictures for Jen & Dylan so I thought I'd get a few up here since they turned out so cute!
We went to Creston Park by their house and took pictures for Eva's 2nd birthday invitations. The invitations themselves turned out darling, so I am glad I could help :) Here are a few pictures of little Eva.

This one below is the one Jen used for the invitation. I love it.

Love this surprised face

I am hoping by building my portfolio that I will get more clients who want pictures of their kids and families. One can hope :)
In news around here...wow, where do I begin? Arizona was amazing, I'll get those pics up soon. Preston's wedding was great-so fun to see old friends and see Preston become a real grown-up :)
Mid-terms were this last week and they went pretty well. On the downhill slide to graduation now! I have a phone interview on Wednesday with Portland Public Schools for a year long paid internship that I would really love to get. It would be an awesome opportunity for good experience and if they'd hire me on after, that would be even better! So fingers crossed for that one. I am hoping to wow them!
Rick is leaving tomorrow for Puerto Vallarta for a week with some of our friends. I wish I could go, but I can't be too sad since I am leaving for Cabo next Saturday with Becky! Its funny how Rick and I have vacations planned to Mexico, but separately! Luckily he'll be back late Friday night so I can see him before i leave. I think 2 solid weeks is too long to be apart (by choice!). Regardless, we are both looking forward to our trips.
Poor Penny has had all sorts of issues as of late. When we got back from Arizona I noticed she seemed to not be able to see, and my suspicions were definitely confirmed when I saw her running into walls etc. So Rick took her to the vet, and she has "prolapsed lenses" in both eyes, swollen glands AND a heart murmur. Poor thing. The Dr. gave us drops to help the eye problems, but he said the heart problem basically makes her a ticking time bomb. It makes me so sad, especially since Rocco sneaks up on her all the time. I wanted to get Rocco as a companion for her, and it seems that I did the worst possible thing :( Her eyes seem to be doing better, but not all the way better, so I am going to take her back in this afternoon for a follow-up.
Well I think that mostly catches you up with us for now. Arizona pics to come!

Quick catch up

2010-04-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

It seems I have been quite absent from Blogger lately! I usually only like to post if I have something cool to report, or a lot of pictures. Right now I have neither! So I'll keep it short and sweet!
We had the nicest, mildest winter, then as soon as spring came, it decided to go back to winter! It was cold and we had a lot of WIND! We have 2 giant trees in our front yard and whenever it gets windy we get lots of falling branches. Usually they're small and don't cause problems, but one finally did and my car was the victim :(
My cute friend Ang has been mostly MIA since having a baby 15 months ago. We finally convinced her to come out with us last week.
Me, Jen and Ang at Doug Fir

Kelly, me, Ang and Jen

Last Wednesday marked the first of MANY exciting things that Rick and I have coming up in the next several months. It is seriously going to be non-stop. I should have LOTS of great pictures to share in the next couple months, that's for sure! Wednesday we went with Bill & Misty to a nice dinner, then to Cirque du Soleil's show, Kooza.
Misty & I in front of the Grand Chapiteau

If you have thought about going to see the show, I am here to tell you-DO go see it. It is worth every penny and you will be amazed and entertained for 2 hours straight. We really loved it.
Other than that I have been keeping busy working and of course getting through my very last semester at PSU! Luckily it is a fairly easy semester, which is great after last semester. Now I'm just a mere 8 weeks away from graduation. It sure is coming fast!
Rick and I are very excited to leave for Scottsdale on Wednesday. We'll be there 5 days and look forward to playing on the company's dime :) We are also staying our last night in Phoenix with some friends and plan on going to a Diamondbacks game-my first MLB game ever! The warmth and sunshine in Arizona will be very welcome, that's for sure!
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know we're still alive and kicking and we'll have lots more to blog about soon I'm sure!
Lastly, I just have to say Happy birthday to my friend Erin Linthorst. I think she's having a pretty great birthday, she gave birth to her second son yesterday, Nolan Frank. He is so cute, and I just wish they weren't all the way in Chicago so I could meet him in person! So happy for you Linthorst fam!
That's it for now! xoxo!

Nieces visit

2010-03-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend for Spring break, Rick's nieces Riley and Kailey came to stay with us. My Aunt has always been so generous to me, and I have great memories of us doing all sorts of fun things while I was growing up. She even took me to Australia and New Zealand when I was 16! Sorry Kailey, I'd love to take you to Australia, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon :)
Anyway, we had some fun things planned for the girls. They live in Salem so we wanted to give them the authentic Portland experience.
We went to the Blazers game and had sweet nosebleed seats!
Rick & Riley
All of us after the game

Then we took them to Voodoo Doughnut, where we had to wait in line, and while we were waiting a homeless man with a plate of chicken was walking up and down the line offering it to everyone. A must-see for the real Portland experience! We also had to cross over a pile of vomit on our way back to the car. Again, total Portland experience here.

Then we went home where Rick DJ'd for them until around Midnight. That's a pretty authentic experience around my house. (PS Rick is DJ'ing his first gig on Friday!)
Saturday morning we slept in, then went to the Flavour waffle cart-a delicious Portland treat!
Then we headed to China town to the Lan Su Chinese Gardens. I had never been and really wanted to go. It was impressive, however very small. The $8.50 it costs for adults almost isn't worth it, since it only took us about a half hour to walk through it. But it certainly was pretty, and they say its the most authentic Chinese garden outside of China!
Spring in Lan Su

Camellias all abloom and a wisteria cut into a bonsai. Beautiful!

Cute Riley

The intricate hand-laid pathways

I'm so happy there are things blooming! Hooray for Spring!

The gang in a pagoda

Rick & I enjoying the 70 degree day

sisters

All of us at the end

Beautiful magnolias

And more camellias

After that we went to Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe and enjoyed some delicious milkshakes-yum! Then shopped around Pioneer Place. We hope you girls had fun, because we really enjoyed having you here with us!

Night in Seaside

2010-03-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

The first weekend of March Rick and I went to Seaside for a very short trip. My dear friend Emily lives there and she does my hair (yes, I drive to Seaside to get my hair done!). I usually go every other month or so, but staying the night was way over due so I'm glad we went.
We were treated with a beautiful afternoon and sunset!
Rick & I

Emily & I-we have known each other since I was born-our parents are great friends!

Emily took us out on the town for the night and it was something else, let me tell you :)

Dancing later at Girtle's :)

Em lives so close to downtown that we walked home. We made some funny stops on the way...

Interrupting my beauty sleep...

Thanks again for having us Em, it was SO fun! I can't wait til next time!!

In other news, I'm on Spring Break! Yay! Too bad it is almost over :( I feel like I've done nothing but work! I did lay around all day Sunday doing literally nothing all day and that was a great treat, but I'm hoping for some more relaxation between now and Sunday. I ended one of my hardest semesters with 2 A-'s and one B+. I know I should be proud of my grades, but I am a bit disappointed in that darn B!! Oh well, at least I have next semester to set it right before I am done FOREVER!! Woohoo!
All else is well, I am headed out now to meet some friends for Happy Hour on this gorgeous sunny day!

Wrapping up February

2010-03-10T17:36:00.000-08:00

I call it wrapping up February, but here it is, already March 10th! Just a few pics for your viewing pleasure...
Chinese Gardens downtown (taken while I was out working-I really want to go to the gardens now though!)
Also taken while working :)

We celebrated Dick's (Rick's dad) birthday at the end of February by having dinner with the family. Rick's parents live in the country and next to their house there is a farm with sheep. All the baby lambs were out and too cute to resist!
Dick feeding a mama

The adorable babies

Baby following its Mom

Sunset in Salem

I also helped celebrate another birthday at the end of Feb. Miss Gwen Ricker turned one! There was a party at the Arnell's to celebrate and it sure was fun to see all of the Ricker and Arnell clans. Those families are just growing and growing and it is very obvious that miss Gwen has a lot of admirers!
Gwen and her new swimsuit that I got for her. You can't tell, but it has a halter top, its the cutest thing I've ever seen!

Leslie & Josh's little one-Finn with his Uncles Chummy & Jeff

The birthday girl

Jay, shoving the cupcake in her mouth :)

Jeff & Andee being cute with Finn

And another cute one of the adorable birthday girl!

The Rickers and Arnells both are like extended family to me, but Jay's Mom, Kathy, is truly like a second Mom to me. I adore her!

And that's it for February! Rick & I went to Seaside last weekend to spend some time with my friend Emily and I got some good pics from that. I'll get those up soon. Finals are next week so I am working hard on getting those out of the way so I can concentrate on a glorious 2 weeks off of school for Spring Break! It will be the first year that I haven't gone anywhere since I've been in school. I'm totally fine with staying home, working and getting some stuff done around here. Not only that, but it makes it easier to cope knowing that I just booked a week vacay in May to Cabo with Becky! I can't wait! Hope all is well with all of you!

Utah

2010-03-01T14:28:00.000-08:00

We left for Utah on Tuesday the 16th of February and drove straight to Boise. We didn't get in until around 2am, and were up and back on the road first thing in the morning, so it felt more like a short nap, then a night's sleep. We stayed with Becky, but she was already asleep when we got in and had to leave for work around the time we were getting up, so we didn't get to visit at all. Wednesday we drove from Boise down to Provo in Utah county to Denene's house. That night we had a get together with the Morgans and the McCoys over at Denene's, it was a lot of fun to see my old friends/roommates and their kids. Denene just had her baby, Sylvie (my niece!) just over a month ago, so it was a lot of fun getting to spend time with everyone. The next morning we went to breakfast then McKay drove us up Provo canyon a ways. Rick had never been to Utah except just driving through the northern part of the state, so I was glad we could go up the canyon a bit. Its so beautiful up there! There are a few things I surely miss about living in the mountains!
Provo Canyon-Bridal Veil Falls
Snow up by Sundance

After our drive we went back to De and McKays and hung out for a few more hours. Rick and Carter had a dance party :)

My adorable nephew, Carter

De & McKay's pups, Griffin and Miles

Me and new baby Sylvia Claire (Sylvie for short)

We left De & McKay's to have a late lunch with my cousin Jordan and his wife Rachel. Even though we didn't get to spend much time with them, I was glad we got to visit a little bit and see all the hard work they've been doing on their condo!
My friend and old roommate Ashley Hawkins Jones had her baby the Wednesday we were there, so on Thursday before heading out of town, we stopped at the hospital for a visit. I hadn't seen her in ages, and had never met her husband! I was glad to meet her cute little boy, Lincoln Henry Jones. What a lot of hair he had!

We then headed to Salt Lake to have dinner with friends, and go out afterwards downtown. We had a great time and I'm so glad I got to see more old friends! Thanks everyone for coming!
After dinner, hanging out-Rick, Emiley, me and James

James and Rick

My cute friends-Emiley, Jessica, Lindsey and me

Friday morning we got up and had breakfast up Emigration Canyon, at Ruth's diner, one of my favorites and a friend from high school who now lives in SLC came up too, so it was fun to see her! After breakfast Rick, Lindsey and I headed up to Eden, up Ogden canyon. It was snowing out and we had a nice drive up. The whole point of this trip was because a realtor here in Portland asked me to go and photograph his vacation home in Eden, and if I did, I could stay in the home for free. The house is huge and beautiful and we had a really nice time there.
The view from the house looking out into the valley at dusk.

Eden is close to Snow Basin ski resort, but there is also this little ski resort right across the valley from the house.

Saturday in Eden was gorgeous and sunny

The house

Sunset night 2

Jessica, James and Emiley all joined us and Jess made us an amazing dinner Saturday night!

The gang, parting ways on Sunday morning
Miss you kids already!

We drove back to Boise Sunday afternoon and had dinner with Becky. We headed the rest of the way home Monday morning so I could get to class Monday night. Lee, the realtor that owned the house in Eden, paid me $200 to drive his car back home, so I did that. It wasn't too bad, and the money basically paid for all of our gas for the trip, so that was cool.
Well, here it is March already! Gosh, it sure snuck up on me! My theme for March is organization. I REALLY hope I find some time to spend on this goal. I love being organized, but with everything going on lately, it has had to move to the back burner. Hopefully with spring break coming up in 2 weeks I'll be able to spend some time doing some organizing here around the house and in my life in general.
That's it for now. Adios!

Nichole's birthday

2010-02-26T13:57:00.000-08:00

I know I have been terrible at blogging lately, but I have just been insanely busy! We just got back from 6 days in Idaho and Utah and I'll have pictures of that to post soon. We had a great time visiting with all my Utah friends, but the time went too quickly, and the drive was pretty long! I think the older I get, the harder that drive becomes. As soon as I took my 2nd job, my regular job got insanely busy. I have been working anywhere from 35-50 hours a week plus school. Its been a lot to say the least, but I am doing my best to make it work. Luckily there are only 2 weeks left of this term, I am really looking forward to a week and a half off school, and then starting my final semester, woohoo! In other really great news, Rick found out this week that he ranked in the top 8 managers for his region for 2009. He works so hard, I am so proud of him that he is finally getting some recognition. He was actually offered a different job recently, in Seattle. We thoughtfully considered the job for some time, and weighed all our options. After everything, we decided to stay here in Portland, and I think we both feel really good about the decision. Anyways, because Rick won this ranking, it means that we both get to go to Scottsdale, AZ on a trip for AT&T's Summit, to recognize all the top people in the company for last year. We are both so excited to take a trip to sunny AZ in April, and especially since it'll be free! Again, I'm so proud of all of Rick's hard work!
Well back at the beginning of February was our friend Nichole's birthday. I only have a few pictures, but I'll get them up here. It's a good excuse for a post :)
The birthday girl and I at The Loft (inside Grand Central Bowl)
Enochses

Heidi and I

And one last one of Jaime and I

Some of you may wonder how my New years' experiment is going for this month. The theme is love. Well, I sort of feel like I've failed miserably. I have tried to do some little things for Rick to show him how much I love him, but I honestly have had nearly zero time to do anything besides work and school. So I've just been trying to be kind and say "I love you" as much as I can to not only Rick, but everyone I love. The interesting thing, I think, is for a month that I am trying to focus on loving other people, I have instead been shown a lot of love. Its funny how sometimes when you try and do nice things, and maybe it doesn't work for whatever reason, you instead learn the lesson because someone is doing the same thing to you :) Rick has been wonderful in doing extra things around the house. He bought me a watch that I love this month, and has even been cleaning out the litter box for me! So, I hope all of you know how much I love each of you, but even more so, thank you for loving me back!
One last piece of good news: we got our taxes back and I paid my car off! I would have paid it off in July anyways, but it still feels great to have it paid off 5 months early, and no car payment is going to be sweet!
That's all for now. TTFN!

Weekend in Oceanside

2010-02-11T15:43:00.000-08:00

The last weekend in January we spent in Oceanside, OR, a little beach town that I have always loved. My friend Stephine's co-worker owns a house so we were able to stay there for the weekend for nearly nothing. We had a great time, met a new couple, and had some great weather on Sunday to explore a bit. I won't give you too many captions. Enjoy!
Saturday night sunset in Oceanside...

Sunday we drove north to Cape Meares State Park

Oceanside from above

Crazy surfers in January

There is a cave that goes through the entire cliff to the beach on the other side. You can see it at the base of the cliff that everyone is walking to.

Porthole from the cave out

Hope you enjoyed, we really had a great weekend. I love the Oregon coast! Everything is great with us. I am extremely busy now with 2 jobs and school. We are leaving for Utah next Tuesday for 6 days so I am trying to work ahead to make my life a little easier while I'm gone. I'm really looking forward to seeing all my Utah friends, and we're stopping in Boise on the way there and the way back to see Becky too, so that is exciting!
Hope all is well!

July or February

2010-02-06T00:13:00.000-08:00

This picture was definitely taken last July, right?

Nope. Try today. February 5th. It was 60 degrees out and I had the luck of shooting this cool condo building downtown, (that's Lincoln High School's field you see) with an awesome rooftop deck and pool. When it rains for the next 4 months I'll picture myself up there with a lemonade in hand, basking in the rays :)

New job!!

2010-02-05T18:45:00.000-08:00

I am very excited to announce that as of today, I have an exciting 2nd job! I have always had amazing luck with finding work and this is no exception! There is a realtor that I work with (take pictures for), who I have always gotten along well with and enjoyed talking to. I hadn't seem him in awhile, so today when I saw him we caught up a little bit and he happened to mention he finally got his website launched, one he and I had discussed previously. He gave me the site and I said I'd check it out when I got home. Well, for some reason as we were parting ways I just said-hey, I'm graduating in June, so if you need people for whatever, just keep me in mind-totally thinking nothing would come about it. However, he got excited and told me he needs work done NOW-on a part time basis and asked me to come meet with him later this afternoon. So I went to his office this afternoon and we spent 3 hours talking about the website and what it does and what he's looking for. I'm pretty excited about all of it-the job itself and extra money every month is going to be so awesome.
The website is portlandoregon.com and it is a mesh of a social networking site and a site like yelp.com or citysearch.com, but I like how its set up better than either of those sites. Both of those sites are ran by people who don't live in Portland, and they just rely on people in town to keep the site up and running etc. Since Jim (my new boss) is from here, his website is really specialized down to neighborhoods here in Portland. You can basically enter in any kind of business you'd like, then people can leave reviews on the business and upload pictures etc. So my job will be to help upload all of these businesses to get them in the database. The hope is that as businesses start getting reviews etc, that they'll want to pay for advertising. I will also be spending a lot of time walking the streets taking pictures of businesses for the website. It is all right up my alley, so I'm very excited about it. I hope that you'll take some time (if you're in Portland), and sign up as a member and start using the site. You can add businesses you visit often and give them glowing reviews, or trash the businesses you had bad experiences with. There are already a lot of businesses already on the site, so you can start adding pictures and reviews now. So help support my new venture and a local business at the same time! I am very excited :)
xoxo!

Health wrap up

2010-01-28T13:18:00.000-08:00

As I am wrapping up January (January-where have you gone?), I am doing my best to reflect on my goal of health for the month. I am pretty proud of myself. I have managed to go to the gym every single week, 3-4 times. I have lost 7 pounds, which isn't that great, but I'm still ok with it :) Beyond that I have been on weight watchers and I have been trying to make very wise and healthy food choices and make new and fun recipes for Rick and to eat. That has been the hardest because I am in school three nights a week during dinner and have to eat on campus. All in all, I am just trying to make these health choices part of my life and routine so they aren't "hard". I think I knew I was on board when last night Rick brought home some of those sugar cookies from the grocery store with the crazy frosting...I allowed myself one and I didn't even really enjoy it!

I just want to say that part of health is having some sort of idea where our food comes from. About two years ago I decided to stop buying beef. I really love steak and hamburgers, so I wasn't going to stop eating them, but I decided if I could buy ground turkey instead of ground beef, that i would do that because cows have a horrible environmental impact. (Their nasty gas is terrible for the environment!) I have stuck with that, except buying a very, very occasional steak, or buying hamburger patties when we have a bbq. Yesterday on Oprah she talked about where our food comes from. She was talking about the documentary "Food, Inc." (which I need to see). They showed a clip from the film where the chickens were so big and fat from all the antibiotics that they could barely walk. They grow them big and fast for only 39 days from hatching to butchering them. And in that short time they're fed a bunch of crap and shot up with antibiotics, they live in crowded areas and can barely walk. The scene made me cry. I am a total bleeding heart emotional person. If something has to be raised to feed us, at least it should have a happy short life in my opinion. So I did a little research and most chicken farms are like this. Foster Farms doesn't do this, and anyone that lives here in the NW knows who they are. I am making a new commitment to only buy turkey and chicken from Foster Farms. I am willing to pay a little more to know those poor little chickens get to walk around in their short little lives AND knowing that I'm not eating meat chalk full of weird antibiotics.

Anyways, that's my little soap box about health. February is all about love. I am hoping to show those I love how much I love them in little ways all month.

We are headed to the beach this weekend with some friends and I am looking forward to it. Hope you all are well too!

Lauren

Grade school

2010-01-20T14:36:00.000-08:00

There has been a barrage of photos floating around on Facebook lately from grade, middle and high school, so I apologize if you've seen these on FB already, but I wanted to put them up anyways :) I love my scanner!
My kindergarten class picture with Mrs. Boylen
I'm on the bottom row in the pink with the fro. My Mom took me in to get a perm right before school started, and they gave me this awesome little orphan Annie look. There are many of these kids that I went from kindergarten through high school with, and some of which I'm still friends with today!
1st grade. I'm on the top row with the flipped out mullet. I'm wearing an awesome sweatshirt with a lamb jumping rope :)

2nd grade with Mrs. Jensen, who was really mean. I'm in the 4th row.

3rd grade with Mrs. Chisholm-one of my favorite teachers. Sadly I gave my friends "lipstick", including myself. I'm in the 4th row in the plaid dress. I remember that dress was super itchy and I hated it!

4th grade with Mrs. Dexter. This was a fun class! I'm in the 2nd row with the white t-shirt and headband. I had an awesome dress on, I wish you could see it. It had a big black elastic waist band, a red straight skirt with a ruffle and a big red button on the waist! Classic!

I thought these were really fun, hope you enjoy!

Emily in town

2010-01-20T14:12:00.000-08:00

My friend (and at one time roommate) Emily was in town from Utah with her hubby and daughter. She was here for a long time, so I got to see her twice, which was really fun. Once with Travis and Elise-we went to lunch-which I didn't get any pictures of, then once to dinner with some of our other girl friends.
But first, a quick pic of Rocco playing in my new sweater organizer! That cat is seriously into everything :)
Here are the girls at the Montage-one of my favorite Portland restaurants-and one that we used to frequent a lot in our early 20's.
Sharon, Emily, Hannah, Makelle & I

Cute Makelle and I. Makelle is pregnant with her 3rd daughter. I'm so excited to meet her new one, sometime in May. She makes the cutest girls :)

Em, it was so great seeing you guys, and getting to spend more time than usual together. I so appreciate you, and I'm so glad we're friends!
And to you other girls-dinner was wonderful. I love catching up with you. I'm so impressed by all of you. You're such smart, beautiful women and are great, inspirational Moms! Love you!

Happiness

2010-01-16T17:08:00.000-08:00

Over Christmas break I saw the author Gretchen Rubin on the Today show. She wrote a book called "The Happiness Project", which I have not yet read, but hope to. She was only on for a few minutes but her story got me thinking, and inspired. Her book is about researching and finding ways to be happier every single day. I believe what she did was pick a theme for every month and then she spent the whole month focused on that topic and trying to be happier. So, I started a list of possible topics for myself and themes for each month that I can think about and try to make my life happier! I'm not exactly sure how I'll execute it-I am a busy lady and I don't have time to revolutionize my life by any means, but I thought if I could pick a monthly topic, then at least I would be thinking about said topic all month and maybe I can squeeze some time in to act on it as well. So here goes, my themes for the year.
January-Health
February-Love
March-Organization
April-Environment
May-Creativity
June-Family
July-Patriotism
August-Outdoors
September-ME
October-Friendship
November-Gratitude
December-Community/Making a Difference

Of course if I see fit to switch any of these because it is more appropriate, I reserve the right to do so :)
I hope to spend some time blogging about some of the things I decide to do, and how they impact my life and my happiness.
I know January is already half over (what the heck?!), but I have been concentrating on my health since the beginning of the month already. I started back on weight watchers, and I resolved to take advantage of our brand new Rec Center on campus. I have been sticking to the plan and went to the gym three times last week, and four this week. I am so proud of myself. I am a total foodie, and even though eating right is really difficult for me and I really don't like to work out, I feel so much better after I do both of them. The goal of course is to lose weight, but even more than that, I want to establish eating right and going to the gym as part of my routine. At some point Rick and I will want to start a family and I don't want to be over weight and out of shape before doing that. It will only make it harder to lose the weight afterward. So I would definitely say that doing these two things-working out and eating better has made me feel better about myself, which always makes me happier. I hope to spend the next two weeks (and beyond) keeping up this routine, but also looking into other ways to get healthier (and happier too)!
That is it for now. I need to go make dinner. On the docket: Bbq chicken and black bean home made pizza. Yum!

New Years Eve

2010-01-10T10:24:00.000-08:00

This year for New year's Eve we went up to Brightwood and stayed in a cabin with some friends. The house was beautiful, and we had a really great time hanging out and eating some good food!
Of course DJ Rick made an appearance and kept the tunes going all night for us!
All the girls that were there, minus Hayli

Liz & I

Morgan, putting money in Rick's fake tip jar

Dance party

Kelly really excited about balancing a noisemaker on my hat!

Morgan photo bombing a pic of Liz, Tina and Kelly

Tina & I hanging out in the kitchen

Our whole gang!

Outside on the deck at Midnight! Pretty cool-we were right on the Sandy River, with a full moon over head. A great way to usher in a new year and a new decade!

The all-important New year's kiss!

Rick & Ronn excited about 2010 :)

Jenn & I towards the end of the night

I hope you all have an amazing 2010. Cheers!