The BEAT

We had a fun day today. It was nice to be off work!! It has been YEARS since I've looked forward to a weekend! When we woke up this morning we fully intended to go to storytime, but the garage sales were calling my name. So after a quick detour to Dutch Bro's for some iced soy chai we hit the sales. We found a great estate sale and I got a few pots and pans we needed. Also found a 1 cup coffee maker for my dad for a buck -- coooool. Ali picked out a bag full of old antique hot wheels. I also grabbed the movie "Secret Garden" -- I LOVE that movie!!

After garage saling we headed to Woodburn to have lunch with Grandma Adams, Great Grandma, and Great Grandpa (Ali's Great-Great-Grandpa).. that means we had 5 generations sitting around the table. Doesn't get any better then that. Grandpa is 87 year old -- he rode in the van with myself and the kids to Canby for lunch (we ate at Homestead.. or Homesteaders.. something like that). On the way grandpa told me about how he met my Great Grandma when he was in the service and stopped by to see a friend in Napa (CA). He said the first time they met he kisses her -- GO GRANDPA!! Hehe.. he said that the kids (my grandma, great and Marvel) didn't much like him hanging around their mom in uniform (Navy guy). I asked him what his favorite state was that he has lived in -- New Jersey.. of all places?! He says he loved the water and his dad had a 70' Oyster Scooner (sp?). I love hearing all the old stories.. amazing history.

Ok, so I got off track.. we go to lunch which was pretty uneventful -- Ali was up to her usual antics and Jonathan flung food all over the place -- sweet. After Lunch we surprised Grandpa with a trip to the Woodburn Drag Strip where we had the honor of watching Grandpa George drive a "VROOM VROOM" down the track -- Ali was THRILLED! After our short visit to the track we dropped Grandpa off at home and I nursed Jon in the car for a bit.. then went in to visit Grandpa a bit more.. but ran into a small problem because we didn't know which room was his and Grandma Adams and Great Grandma decided to leave their phones in the car.. hmph. :) Oh well.. we headed home.

By this time it is 3:00 and both kids are exhausted.. sure enough Jonathan is asleep within 10 minutes.. and when I am about 30 seconds from home Alissa falls asleep too.. nice.. soooo I drive around the block a few times to be sure Alissa is FAST asleep before stopping.. carry the kids into the house one at a time and lay them in their prospective beds... VWALA.. ME time! Hehe.. I vegged out and watched some TV while kiddos snoozed.

When they woke up we headed to "The Beat" of Salem...basically a bunch of different cultures get together with booths and music.. we watched Indians dance, and Japanese drummers, and a belly dancer (with a huge belly).. I ate Indian food and we ran into Damon and Sasha (Colleen and Lila are in DC) and got to hang out with them while we were there. The girls feasted on noodles (much to Grandma Adams dismay...she went hungry) and then we had icecream.. well, they had icecream.. I didn't want to die. I know I'm leaving a bunch out.. oh yeah, we ran into Grandma Davis and Bethany and got to say "HI!" aaaand we brought the mutt too.. she was pretty popular. The girls shared the stroller seat -- it was cute.. I will post a pic later.

So we got home about 10.. kids are both snoozing, and I'm heading that way shortly. Matt has tomorrow and Monday off -- YIPPEE.. but he has to work the 4th so we are going to celebrate next weekend with him. Darn, that means I have to watch MORE fireworks?!?! Poor me. I know.

Just found out I am going to Dallas in the morning to pick up "GG". Cool.. Ali loves her GG. (Thats Great Grandma Davis by the way). I'm not sure I need to specify who is who.. heck, I'm not sure anyone other then myself ever reads these things.. lol.. anyways.. I'm off to see the wizard..hasta

Work is AWESOME!

This is Alissa and friends on her 3rd b-day party.. CUTE! :)
So I started working for Mid-Valley Interpreter Services, INC on Monday and I LOVE IT! It started out as a very temporary this -- two weeks of answering phones from 9-5. I went to the office Monday and Tuesday and Matt watched the kids.. poor guy was a bit frazzled at the end of the day, but the kids survived so he did a GREAT job. Wednesday I answered calls from home most of the day and Matt watched the kids for a couple hours so I could go in. And today Colleen watched the kids for me in the morning and I am just going to take calls from home for an hour this evening.

How about THAT for a lot of boring details?! Hehe.. Now to the cool part. Monday and Tuesday I put together a brochure in my spare time for the company, and the boss LOVED it!! She even offered me more work that I could do from home!! She wants me to design a website for them, and also to start helping with billing once a week. Awesome!! So my two week gig has turned into a real opportunity for extra income!! I am so excited!! What a blessing. I am so thankful to Colleen for helping me get this job and also for volunteering to help with the kiddos. I feel bad leaving them, but this is very short term and they don't seem any worse for wear.

Jonathan is really starting to talk now that he has wlaking mastered. He says "doggy" now where others can understand him.. he has a word for "Kitty" although it sounds a bit alien. And of course "mama" and "Dada".. he see's Matt and he waves and smiles and says "DADA!!" Veeeery cute. He's a smart little booger.. really starting to use his signs a lot too.. his favorite is milk.

Alissa dressed herself up as a fairy princess (complete with wings) yesterday and we went to Grandma Adams house to play. Grandma Adams was nice enough to give me some technical advice on my brochure -- and sure enough when I applied her advice it looks MUCH better! Grandpa George is sooo cute playing with Alissa, I really enjoy watching them interact -- he's a great grandpa. Not a Great-Grandpa.. a great as in super gramdpa.. aaaaanyways, I kow.. duh. Did I mention Alissa wanted to wear bright green mud boots with her princess dress? Nice.

I can't wait for the 4th of July!!! YEAH FIREWORKS! Alissa told me today that she is excited for fireworks, but she wants to wear "my own little ear muffs".. lol.. she is cute. I wish I had a set of ear muffs when I was a kid, I HATED the loud noises. I'm a weenie.

Until next time.........

I got a job...

I cut my last blog short because I got motivated to do my slideshow.. it is almost finished, I just need to get it smaller then its current 14mb..oops.

In other family news...

I was offered a very part time job yesterday -- looks like I will be working Monday and Tuesday from 9-5 downtown, and Matt will hang with the kiddos. It will be a good experience for him.. maybe help him to appreciate what I do more ;) I also ran into some old friends from T-Mobile and they are trying to talk me into coming back to the call center as a manager -- ummm... no thanks. Although truthfully I would love to work again, but I chose to be a mom first.. so someday when the kids are older I will go back to the work force. I really can't understand how anyone could leave their babies 5 days a week for sooo many hours .. how sad for them to miss out on so much of their kids lives growing up.. and how sad for their kids missing out on that mommy time and love. Anyway. I understand some people have to leave their kids in daycare out of necessity, just sad. :(

Alissa is growing up so fast. She talks like a little adult already. She is also a bit of a control freak. She is out in the living room with Daddy right now reading stories.. well, Daddy is reading. I backed off on the phonics teaching for now, just seems a bit early.

Jonathan decided a few weeks ago that he is not interested in baby food anymore -- greeeeaaat. It was much easier to just grab a can and be done. Oh well, nothing but real food for my big man. He has four teeth by the way -- two top and two bottom. Still nursing, and luckily he doesn't bite.. he has a couple times but its been awhile.

Did I mention we have a beta fish that hates me? Seriously. I had never been attacked by a fish before.. guess I can say I have officially experienced everything. Stupid fish. Oh, and Ali named him Sparkle.. as opposed to say.. Psycho.

I'm exhausted..

What a week. I have so much to write about I'm not even sure where to begin. Matt lost a dear friend on Father's Day - Deputy Kelly Fedinburg -- to a terrible car crash. It was strange, I have never met this man.. but somehow it felt as though I lost a family member. I had no idea how much myself and my family would be affected by this. It really hit home when I realized he had a three year old daughter.. and Father's Day morning, before Matt woke up and told me the news, I had spent the morning with Alissa coloring pictures for Daddy. And all I could think of was Kelly's three year old, and how she wouldn't understand that the painting she made, or card she picked out for her Daddy would never be seen.. she would never again see her Daddy. It is just beyond comprehension how hard this must be for the family. To say the least it has been very emotional for our family this last week -- helps to appreciate what you have. Matt is now anxious to join the enforcement team and "take up the fight" where Kelly left off. I am so proud of him, and have so much respect for his decision.. however hard it is to accept the fact that he is putting HIS life in danger as well.

The memorial service for Kelly was yesterday. I have never been to a more touching and powerful ceremony in my whole life. There were so many memories shared -- so much camaraderie between all law enforcement agencies. I feel so blessed to be a part of such a "family" of law enforcement. Words are innsufficient to describe the atmosphere in the armory during the ceremony. It was heartbreaking, yet inspiring.. all the men and women gathered there to honor their fallen brother.. and what an amazing thing that God was a huge focus throughout the ceremony -- it was emphasized by Kelly's family that we should rejoice that Kelly has gone Home.. wow.

After the very emotional ceremony, I was able to join Matt in a county vehicle for the procession. Now, having never been in a funeral procession or seen one for that matter, I had no idea what to expect. I think this was the most emotional experience of the day. I don't know what I expected, but when we started down the road, and citizens of all ages were lined up for the whole procession I was amazed. And it brought me to tears to see the children holding and waving American flags.. the elderly standing at attention and soluting.. the people of all ages with their hands on their hearts watching us drive by.. the children who had made signs saying, "Our Hero", "We Support you", "Thank you for your sacrifice".. and more.. just the amount of support from the community was overwhelming. Law enforcement is mostly a thankless job, but to see that .. wow. I will write more later. I need to get a slideshow together with pictures from the memorial.

Overtime

Well, looks like we will be going it alone for 4 days. Matt will be putting in 32 hours of overtime over the next 4 days. Yikes.. I really don't know how he does it.

In other news :) I thought maybe Alissa was ready to go without naps...I thought wrong. She gets way too loopy. Oh well, it was worth a shot. It's kid of tough because her and Jonathan take naps at the same time, so I don't have any one on one time with Alissa. She is growing up so fast.. I think art skills must skip a generation too, because she is an awesome little artist already. When she paints or colors something, she stays in the lines. Seriously, her artwork is beautiful. I will have to post a picture.

Jonathan is unbelievable. He just turned 10 months and has already figured out how to stand up unassisted. I have a video I will post later. Even though Ali walked at 9 months, it took her FOREVER to learn to stand up without pulling up on something. This guy is going to be a handful :)

Short video of Jonathan walking...

Can you believe he is only 9 months old?!! Sheesh.. just seems too early.

I love my new camera!!!

I will be posting a lot more pictures now! I have a snazzy new camera. Here is one from our anniversary.

What a week!!

It has been a while since I have posted because Matt had a rare vacation. He was off from the 1st to the 5th. June 1st was our 5 year anniversary. That means we have officially been a couple for 10 years.. wow. For our actual anniversary we dropped the kids off at Grandma Davis house and went our to Red Lobster. I had never had lobster before so I ordered the steak and lobster. Then I remembered why I never order seafood. Yuck. No harm - Matt was happy, he ate it :) Also, the steak was real fatty and I ended up getting it free, cooool. Overall it was an excellent dinner and nice to spend the alone time with Matt.

To officially celebrate our anniversary we headed to the coast on the 3rd (Sunday). Grandma Davis, Aunt Bethany, and "GG" were kind enough to follow us up to the coast so they could keep the kids occupied and Matt and I could have some quality time. We made it to Newport at about 10:30 and checked in for our 2 hour cruise -- I have lots of pics, I will post a few later. On the cruise we saw two big grey whales -- NEAT! Matt and I both drove the boat -- THAT was cool.

After the cruise we met up with the gang and headed to Lincoln City to check into our hotel -- Jonathan and Alissa both fell asleep on the way to the hotel -- it was about 2pm at this point. We checked in at the Siletz Bay Lodge room 407 -- top floor with two queen beds and a balcony. After checking in Alissa and Jonathan went off with Grandma to play on the beach (Mo's was walking distance from the hotel so they went to that beach) and Matt and I headed to Chinook Winds casino to eat.

We got to the casino about 3:30 and found out they didn't serve dinner until 4:30 so we decided to try our hand at gambling for awhile. We did terrible, but had lots of fun. We played the penny games which were a lot of fun. I played one "Cops and Donuts" game and did pretty good -- figures. :) All and all we ended up sponsering the cansino that day and def. left with less then we came in with. Oh well. We ate the buffet dinner -- YUM! The best part was the authentic Indian fry bread -- a big indian man made it while you watched. Matt made his into a taco and I had a dessert style with cinnamon sugar -- WOW. After dinner we tried our hand at Bingo -- that was hard! You have to really pay attention. We lost. Time to leave!

From the casino we stopped at a Mcminnemans and tried a bunch of beer samples. Then back to the hotel room. We said goodbye to Grandma Davis, GG, and Beth.. Alissa and Jonathan stayed the night with us. The hotel beds were horrible, but we survived.

In the morning we took the kids to the beach and had a great time. Matt even tried his hand at clam digging -- and caught a clam! Who'd of thought? Alissa was impressed. It got cold and started to rain so we scurried off to Mo's and had lunch. First time EVER I have eaten at Mo's and it wasn't a madhouse. Of course this was Monday morning. After lunch we went to Tanger Outlet and hit a few stores before the kids went insane from lack of sleep -- time to go home. Ali and Jonathan both crashed on the way to Salem. What a weekend.

Monday evening I dragged myself to Thompson's for my final ASL class get together. It was a great time. We were not allowed to use our voices at all or acknowledge anything we heard. Definately more challenging. It was a great experience. Matt watched the munchkins while I was out.

Tuesday was my final OSD ASL class. I brought the whole family for potluck and swimming. Alissa and I did the swimming thing and had a lot of fun. Ali is getting a lot better at dunking under water. You can tell swimming classes are helping her confidence.

Today -- nothing but laziness. :) Trying to catch up on sleep and get back into our routine. The kids are both napping now, and I'm thinking about joining them although my house really needs some attention. Until next time...


--April