Progressive Dinner

So since we have been in Portland I have been having a really hard time making new friends. It is weird but for living here all growing up I find myself friendless, and that makes me pretty miserable. So I have decided to not wallow but to actually become more active in things. Tonight I started with a Progressive Dinner that the Oregon City 5th ward was hosting. We were in charge of bread and all met at the church for appetizers and conversation, then drew names and met at a host house for the rest of the meal. We went to the Mikkelsen's, who I knew because they have kids my age.
The evening started with everyone becoming their alter ego, so in attendance was Mitsy, Steve, Alli, Immanuel, Felix, and Vivian, Bridgette and Tad. (any guess on my alter ego for the night? I will say at the end) We had ravioli, salad, rolls (which we provided), and this amazing desert! It was this amazing trifle. It had vanilla pudding, fresh blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, cool whip and a white cake all layered. It was so amazing. Seriously. I think I would also like to try it with a chocolate cake mix and chocolate pudding because I think that would be so great! We talked about everything including jobs, travel, funny stories and more!
Overall it was a really good time. I think I made some good contacts at church so Sunday's will continue to be a good time! I am glad I went and am hoping to have more opportunity to makes friends so I can feel more comfortable here!

Okay do you have your guess of which name was my alter ego?!?! Here are your choices again: Mitsy, Tad, Bridgette, Steve, Immanuel, Alli, Daisy, Vivian, and Felix. You should probably get an answer in mind... you should probably tell me which one you thought it was in a comment on this post... any ideas? okay here it is...

My alter ego was... Bridgette!
Brent was Felix!

Post who you thought I was!

A Portland Weekend

So far week have been in Oregon for about two weeks. The first one doesn't count because we did take a trip up to Seattle so this was our first full week and here is how we are feeling...

Okay not really! Both our jobs are going great and we are starting to get the hang of living somewhere new... Again. There is one thing that is drastically different... WE HAVE NO FRIENDS HERE!!! So here is how we spent our weekend went.

Friday night we went to go shopping with my dad! He is pretty into saving money, so we went to three different stores to buy three or four things. it was pretty fun actually!

On Saturday we went our to buffalo Wild Wings with Toren and Audrey. Audrey still looks amazing despite being at 9 months! This means I should have a new nephew this week! YEAH! Iron Man 2 followed the lunch and it was a really enjoyable time! The story was pretty legit and the action wasn't overwhelming. I would recommend it!

On Sunday I got called to be a Primary worker and after church we went on a bike ride! Brent is getting the bike ready. All the tires were flat! Action Shot! I am still not that comfortable on the Bike. I can't even ride with one hand! Brent and I really enjoyed this so I think we will be riding a lot more!

It was a pretty fun week! We were busy but I would still like to be more busy and have more to do for next weekend!

I love all the green in Oregon! It is really great and so far the sun has been out a lot!!!

Last Day in Seattle and MOTHER'S DAY

So on our last day in Seattle we just relaxed. Brent went on a bike ride with his brother Sean. I guess they had a few different encounters with some cows down by the river-way they were following.

Me on the other hand I just stayed home and relaxed. I decided to take a picture of the view from Sean's living room. It is on a huge hill and so it overlooks everything. At night the place just lights up and the Sunset is pretty incredible.
Sean also has a cat that is half cat and half African Serval. It is a pretty majestic animal, and luckily he just recently had all his claws taken out, so the one time he did try to swipe at he he was unsuccessful.
Here is a picture of Brent's Dad and the Kitty (Maximus) just relaxing in the sun... what a cool cat!

TODAY IS MOTHERS DAY! SO HERE IS THE WOMAN RESPONSIBLE FOR IT ALL! This is my mommy!
My dad planned a great dinner with steak, potatoes, corn and finishing with strawberry short cake... except he forgot to buy the shortcake part. Luckily Audrey and I were able to figure out a better solution! Yeah for Bisquick!

One of the fun things about this Mother's Day is we had a missionary out so my mom got to hear from Blair for the first time in about two months! It was fun and we all had a chance to talk to him and see how he was doing. I guess he just recently got in a car accident... he is okay but it would have been better had he not been in an accident at all!
While my mom was talking we were all busy cutting up strawberries for dinner! I love Strawberry shortcake ( I like it with angel food better but short cake is still pretty good)
Yeah for dinner time! We ate outside today and notice the phone in Toren's hand? That is Blair. We made him smile and everything!
Here is me trying to get a good picture with Brent... anyone else find it difficult to be married to a 5 year old?!?!
It was a really good day! It was fun having Toren and Audrey over and actually being in town for my mom to celebrate how wonderful of a mother she is... 5 kids and we are all still alive and happy!

Oh, here is the strawberry short cake... yum! How was everyone Else's mothers day?

Seattle Trip Day Two!

After the Mariners game on Thursday Brent and I were excited to go out and see a little bit of the city. We thought the whole family would join but Brent's Mom was really sick so everyone was in more of a relaxing mood, so Brent and I were able to go out on a fun day date!

Whenever we are in Seattle Brent always wants some good Teriyaki. We had no idea where to go so we decided to just head out our destination and my great eyes spotted this!

since I have been trying to watch my portion intake we decided to share a Beef and Chicken Teriyaki plate. The salad was a lot better than I expected so I ate most of that and Brent ate most of the beef and chicken teriyaki.

Once we were done with lunch we headed out to the Mukilteo (Muck-ill-t-o) ferry. It went out to Whidbey Island, which was a lot bigger than we expected. Look at gorgeous that skyline is.

On the Boat Brent found the steering wheel. I am so proud that we only hit one or two other boats while he was directing!

Once we were on the island we were really surprised that it was 38 miles across. We couldn't believe it. We went to the town of Langley. We went down the main little downtown area and it was really cute. Here is a chair outside of a wood and rug shop. We also found a really nice solid wood arm chair that was really pretty!

All Along the coast line there were these Totem poles. I am not sure if they were original or not but they were very cool and obviously very tall! I still can't get over how gorgeous the Northwest is!

Brent loves taking pictures of different churches. Brent didn't think this picture turned out well but I think it looks really really nice, but with so much greenery it is hard for not everything to be gorgeous~

While walking along the street we found this guy... I tried asking if he could take a picture of us and he didn't even look at me or respond! He is not a very responsible pet owner either because I totally sat on his dog and he didn't even look at me once!Brent posed this picture, and I think it turned out really cute! He is so much more artistic than me it is crazy! You also get a really good idea of how the downtown looks.

Another posed picture. The old street sign wasn't accurate but it is pretty cool when in contrast with the trees and coastline!

As we headed back on the ferry we wanted to visit this cute little lighthouse but unfortunately it was all fenced off because of construction, you think that they would leave at least the beach open for you could get closer to it.

So instead of going to the lighthouse we just went to the public beach with some ice creams from Ivar's. It was pretty cold and windy so we didn't stay to long at all!

The rest of the night we just relaxed at home. Sean made some amazing steaks and salmon while Melanie made great baked potatoes, salad and cheesy bread. I felt a bad allergic reaction coming on so I took some medicine which put me to sleep around 8:00 pm. I did wake up briefly to go get ice cream float fixings for the family. They were delicious but then I was out before I could even manage to think about to much else!

It was so much fun getting to spend some time with just Brent and me. When you are dating you think that all the time you have will be spent together, but with work, school, church, family, and other responsibilities Brent and I are lucky to get a couple hours a week where we can just be together and by then we are usually tired enough to just relax at home not really exploring the fun things around us! This day was really fun to just spend together wandering the, playing on the boat and have some fun before we truly buckle down for summer!

I have decided that I need to make a better effort to plan one day a month where we can do fun things!

MERRY MARINERS CHRISTMAS

So for Christmas I tried the impossible... to be a good wife. Brent and I had agreed no presents and I pretty much broke that agreement almost as soon as it was made. My parents got Brent a wii and I thought I would try to out do them with four tickets and a $20 gift card to a Mariners game. We all went to the Mariners game last year and had a great time. So I thought we would try it again.

This is the beautiful Safeco Field. It is in a beautiful part of town and the night life was very enchanting. I loved it!

Here is everyone we dragged along! Brent, Mom, Dad, Melanie and Sean. We all were present last year at the game where we ROASTED!!! It was so hot and unbearable! Luckily this year was an evening game... and therefore FREEZING!

Brent and I were finally able to just relax!! I bought Brent a Mariners Jersey (easily his most expensive piece of clothing) last year but it was so cold we both had to cuddle up in jackets (Brent is wearing his mom's jacket... He is 26 and his mom still looks out for him!!!)

It was pretty cold so during the 6th inning Brent really wanted ice cream but everyone else thought Hot Chocolate was more in order... boy were we right!

Sean and Melanie ended up buying a Mariners Fleece Blanket to stay warm. I think the Neon Pink and Seattle Blue really go well together. Up in the stand we saw two more blankets like this... Held by 6 14-16 year old girls in the shortest shorts I had ever seen... I am super glad I am not them!

Some of you know that I am personally NOT a huge baseball Fan, so you maybe wondering how I could possibly get through a whole game There are two ways...

First, Thank you to all my friends who texted me endlessly during the game. It was a lot easier to make it through a game when your mind is a million different places.

Second... I went walking a lot. Whenever someone needed water, a fork, napkins or anything else in the world I was off. I enjoyed walking around the stadium and taking pictures of the views! It is because of these two coping techniques that when I did watch the game I really really enjoyed it!
This was amazing! The view of the harbor and boats and city skyline was gorgeous. Really made me finally feel like I was home back in the northwest! Can you believe I was actually homesick for Utah this week?!?!

Like I said we did get a $20.00 gift card to the stadium when I bought the tickets so Brent and I ate stadium food and didn't even car how much we paid. We had garlic fries and hot dogs for dinner and then later we moved on to some healthier choices...
NACHO'S to share and another HOT DOG for Brent. It was really fun not having to worry about spending more money once we were already on vacations! (Don't you love the hair?!?! I wish I could get the windblown look everyday :)

Overall it was a really fun game to go to. The cold weather was something we decided bundling up could easily fix.

It was a really fun game. Brent and I had a great time! With moving, and starting new jobs, and packing and everything else this was a great time for us to reconnect and just have an amazing time being together! I love Brent and because of that I can officially say I am a true blue Mariner!

P.S. Mariners lost 8-0 next year we are going to an easy game, bundled up for an evening game! Yeah for thrid chances!

Family Pictures

The weekend that we all came home to see Blair at his farewell Maren, the studious sister she is, made sure that we got family pictures. I do not know what it is about family pictures but it is so entirely stressful. We wanted to be matching but not to matching and we didn't want to look to stupid either. There was a lot riding on these photo's considering we have two of the cutest additions to the family.

Here is our family picture!

Let me walk you through the family. At the top we have Mom and Dad. They have been married for 30 years and have produced the worlds greatest kids. You are welcome Mom and Dad it isn't always easy to make you look so good!!

On the left is Toren (the oldest child) and his wife Audrey. Audrey is so amazing to have around. Usually people assume Toren is the in law and Audrey and I are the ones related! Audrey is pregnant with their first and is due May 22nd. Then you will have some of the cutest pictures of my nephew in the world!

On the right we have Maren (The Oldest Sister)and her husband Blake. They have two beautiful Boys. Blake is holding Brody and they are currently living in Pullman Washington. I do not see my nephews often enough. I love Brody's look, he is so calm and cute but totally acting crazy!

Below Maren is Blair (He is just younger than me). He is currently on his Mission in Tallahassee Florida and I couldn't be more proud!

Below Audrey is Kalen. She is the baby of the family. She is currently a sophomore and is on the School Drill team.

Finally, US! I saved the best for last. I love this picture because Braden is so so so adorable and he is sitting right next to me!. It isn't often I feel intimidated by someone else but Braden really made me feel like I had to bring my A game to the picture. Hopefully I was able to live up to Braden's cutest! The way he is was smiling at the camera lady was so precious! You just knew he loved her! So there is the Quick version of my family. We aren't to complicated... yet!

Then we got two pictures of ourselves. We haven't had any since our engagement and were hoping they didn't turn out to engagementish... what do you think?

This is a really good picture of the both of us.

It was really stressful but the pictures turned out very nice and thankfully Maren had coupons ready to save us a lot of money! Tell me what you think of the pictures!

Baptism on the Farm

I have been a very bad blogger. Our lives have been in transit for the last month. We have been packing and moving and throwing things away all during that time but it is driving me crazy, luckily now we are done with that. I had my last day at work at Enterprise was on Wednesday. It was pretty bitter sweet. Everyone was getting along and I had figured out Paul (car prep) and I are pretty much best friends, so it was sad to leave my friends. I don't know why I couldn't leave during one of the weeks that I was miserable. It is probably better leaving when you are happy. Wednesday night I drove straight from work (after some sad good-bye's) to Boise to meet up with Brent and Family. We spent Thursday and Friday just relaxing and I did a lot of gym time, which was a ton of fun. Today we headed up to Weiser to hang out with the Kenley family (Christi, Mike, Tyler, Josh, Huntley, William and Micheal). They live on an amazing farm and it was a special day for William who was getting baptized.

Brent gave a wonderful inpromtu talk that was really good but seemed a little disappointed in himself.

Here is us with the Baptism day boy! He looked a little scared until Brent picked him up then he seemed to relax.

Here are the Three girls. Grandma, Me and Tyler (the secret favorite grand daughter!) She is wonderful and one of the best parts of seeing all the family together. (I am not just saying this since she is reading over my shoulder either!)

After the Baptism, we got to go home. Lately I have really wanted a farm and so these lambs are really really fun! They are pretty fun but I kept holding my hand out and they kept trying to find something in it to eat!

They also have Polish Chickens who will have little feathers Afro's coming out when they grow up!

This is a beautiful place and it is always a little sad leaving it. So I wanted a picture with us and the view... Had to make sure Brent looked pretty first!Aren't we so cute (the dress was only 8.99 at Savers!!! THANKS FOR THE GOOD FIND ERICA)

I had a great time nwinding this weekend. I am really anxious since my life feels so uncertrain right now but I am sure it will pass and I will feel more comfortable with life, but for now I will continue.