Mirette Grace Bixby

Over the last year my sister Brooke and Brother in law Eric have been in the process of adopting a baby from Ethiopia. In December they were finally able to go get her. When they flew home we had a welcome home party waiting at the airport. My nephews Jack and Sully were petty excited to see their parents and new baby sister. As soon as Sully saw them he ran down the hall into Eric's arms. I am not sure anyone was as excited as Jack was to see Mirette, he just couldn't get enough of her. Here are some of the pictures from the airport.

Brooke made the boys Big Brother shirts to wear to the airport.



The Welcome Home Party



Sully running to his Mom and Dad, he was so excited to see them.


Brothers with their baby sister.


I love how excited Jack looks!


Meeting Miri for the first time.

Alive and doing well

So, I have taken a bit of a vacation from Blogging. Truth be told I have been a little busy and just haven't wanted to. All sorts of exciting things have happened since I organized my stuff back in January. So, this next week I will hopefully get all caught up on the blogs. So, if you are a regular member of my life you already know what happens and have probably seen the pictures or in some cases even taken the pictures. Be exited folks, I'm back!

Organizing!

Yesterday I decided that I needed to go through all my stuff to organize and get rid of things. I have 8 Rubbermaid's that I keep all my stuff in that I don't have room for here in Oregon. Since I share Tori's house, I don't need your normal household items because Tori already has them. Since Tori is the best landlord ever, she allows me to use her things! So, this morning I started going through everything. I thought that when I packed everything up I had done so in an organized manor, not so much. There was really no rhyme or reason to why certain items were in certain containers or how they were packed. Most of this stuff has been packed up since before I moved from Oregon. Here are some of the things I found,

3 Electrasol tabs
about 350 paperclips
a bag containing picture hangers, tacks, and 1 Lego man
5 AAA, 7 AA Batteries all different brands
30 frames at least!
Cords for something, not sure what
phone chargers for 2 different phones that I don't use
at least 3 hands free ear pieces
Probably 10-15 free advertising pens, Thanks Hannah!
My 5Th grade Diary
Jr. High Progress reports
5 half used notepads
3 unused notepads
The Letter K for company reader boards

It was pretty fun going through all this, and now that things are all organized it is much easier to find things. I called my parents to see if they still had some of my stuff at there house and my dad said he would take some paperclips off my hands but said he didn't need 350 and I said Does anyone need 350 paperclips? I am not sure why I have so many, I am thinking that I need one and went and bought some because I couldn't find any. I can't even think of a reason I would need a paperclip! The frames are crazy! If for some reason you need to buy me a gift in the next year or two please don't buy me a frame! The Elecrasol tabs make me laugh, I clearly couldn't just leave those at my last apartment of give them to my neighbor! That would be crazy, so I gave them to Hannah!

Safeway

Sometimes I think that I am kinda rude at the grocery store. For instance this evening I am at Safeway buying the ingredients I need for a lemon meringue pie. It's my Dad's birthday and I said I would make one for his birthday dinner. So, I am walking through Safeway getting lemons and such and go to check out right behind a normal looking woman about my age maybe a little older. Now, I really don't mean to be rude but I am not there to make friends. In fact I probably won't talk to you unless you are a decent looking guy about my age, even then I may not talk to you. So this woman is looking at magazines and turns to me and says "I Can NOT believe that is Dakota Fanning!" and shows me the cover of the magazine and says " that's Dakota Fanning!" and I say "yep". Shockingly enough Dakota Fanning grew up and is no longer 5 years old. So, then it's this woman's turn to check out and she stops the man half way through her stuff and says "oh, I'm sorry I should have separated my stuff it need to be on two transactions." So, now we all have to wait while they go get someone who can authorize some voids. She looks at me and apologizes and then looks into my basket and says "Are you making a pie?" and I say "yep." and then she says "yum" and licks her lips. Not two seconds later she looks in my basket again and says "a cheesecake?" and I say "um, no". In my basket is a pie plate, 4 lemons, sugar, pie dough and a Odwalla C Monster, yep I would say I am making a cheesecake! At that point I turned to face somewhat away from her so that maybe she would stop talking to me.

Baby Shower Cake

This last weekend I made a baby shower cake for my Friend Jamie. She is having a boy I believe in early december or late november. It was fun to see her and our friend Heather, who I never see! We were all highschool friends, Heather and I have known each other since we were kids when my Mom babysat her and her little sister Shannon.

I have been sick for the past 2 weeks! I feel better now but still have a cough...no worries it's not Swine Flu!

Yesterday I decided that I would stay in bed all day and watch movies, so that I would get better. Yeah, that lasted all of 5 hours and I was bored! So, I went and rented some movies, got some food, nearly killed people in the Trader Joes parking lot. Got home stayed there till 7 pm and then went out to Joann's Fabric and bought some fleece and made a no sew fleece baby blanket. That was fun but only took about 2 hours.

I did blog about the Ballroom Glitz 4, for those of you who don't use Google Reader. Check it out, it's pretty fun!

Ballroom Glitz 4

A few weeks back my parents were in a ballroom dancing competition and took 3rd place! The whole evening started with me meeting up with Aunt Mel and Uncle Jack at the Oregon City McMenimans, where I had some delicious butternut squash soup and some not so good fish and chips. It's really hit and miss with the food at most McMenimans. After catching up with each other and eating our dinners we headed over to the Milwaukie Elks Club. First of all, they really should light up there parking lot more or make it easier to see the sign cause we flew past it and had to turn around. Second, I don't think they have redecorated since 1963, Really guys you could use some new wall paper in the ladies bathroom it's coming off the walls!
When we found Mom and Dad, Dad started pointing out the "competition". I am proud to say that my parents didn't wear his and hers outfits, Feathers (of any sort), pimp hats, leopard print or ruffled dresses. Dad wore a red shirt and black pants and Mom wore a fancy black dress and both looked great! There were 8 couples/teams which I nicknamed of course! Here they are listed out with nicknames placement and how I felt about their dance if I felt anything about it.

T1: Team Feather head, They were wearing black out fits and she wore a headband with a big black feather on it. Fancy! According to Bob and Nancy they were doing a 3 step to a 4 step song...I am not sure what that means but sadly Team Feather head did not place. They did take home a participation metal that I was sure Mr. Feather head was going to throw on the ground because he was so upset with not placing.

T2: Team Mom and Dad....They looked great, better then all the other couples! As I said before they took 3rd place and got a pretty fancy trophy.

T3: Team Mini me, They were both really short and her dress was a little weird but over all nothing to weird about the outfits. They took 1st place, even though their dancing was little choppy. Their trophy was almost as tall as they were!

T4: Team Purple People Eater, They were probably my second favorite couple. She was wearing this long ruffly purple and black dress that would have been suitable for any 1988 prom. Their dance was fun and cute but they didn't place.

T5: Team Plane Jane, They were very plain, she wore this nice gray dress but it was kinda like Meg Ryan in the last scene in You've Got Mail. Cute dress Meg, but really that's the dress you chose to meet up with the love of you life? I think I would have chosen a fancier dress. They took home 2ND place and really all she did was kick her legs up.

T6: Team SVU, This couple was a little strange, they had only been dancing for a year or something and apparently met at the gym! The guy at first glance looked like a small version of Christopher Meloni from Law and Order SVU. She was a typical looking soccer mom. They according to Bob did very well for only dancing for a year. They didn't place.

T7: Team Red and Black, She was wearing a black dress with a red flower in her hair and a red feather boa. He was dressed a little like Wayne Newton with hair just like Wayne Newton, a red shirt and black vest and a big red pimp hat with leopard print around it. They fell at the end of their dance and were good sports about. They also didn't place but took home the participation metal.

T8: Team Taylor Swift, the woman looked like a older Taylor Swift, She was crazy tall and had this huge smile! There dance was cute but it didn't seem like they danced a lot. They also didn't place. She actually knew my Aunt Mel and Uncle Jack way back when I was a baby or not even born and hasn't seen them since! She was a little emotional when she saw them.

We had a great night cheering on Mom and Dad! Congratulations Mom and Dad on your big win, you did great!

Here is a picture of them and there trophy. If you have a facebook page you can go to the this link and watch the video of them dancing. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1243533897166

Operation: National Guard base tour

Yesterday was the best day ever! My Starbucks manager Amy and I got to take a tour of the National Guard base where all our Ait Force buddies work. The day started out with Buzz coming and picking us up at Starbucks and taking us to watch the jets take off. He and Mike drove us down to the end of the runway to watch. After that they took us over to there shop, I believe they are called the Life Support guys. They put together all the survival kits and stuff. While we were there we got to get in the pretend F-15 training jet, where we took a bunch of pictures. I got to hang in the pretend parachute, we ran out of time so Amy didn't get to do that part. We were then escorted to a presentation by Chris and Neil, explaining what the flight gear was used for. We learned all about the fancy $140,000 helmets, poopy suits, night vision googles. Neil even took our picture through the nigh vision goggles! No one else thought it was as cool as we did.
Mike stayed with us almost the whole time, They kept telling us we were VIP! We got a tour of the hush house, I didn't really get what it was for, but it was cool to watch the engine start up. I think it was for trouble shooting engine problems...but once again not too sure.
After Lunch was when we got to go up in the fuel tanker to refuel jets in the air. Only the coolest thing ever! We all loaded into the giant plane and Amy and I volunteered to sit in the cockpit for take off. The chair I was sitting in was basically a folding chair that was half bolted to the ground. The seat belt was hard to explain but I would have felt just as safe if they had told me to just hold onto the seat. I have a picture of the seat belt....it was sketchy! The pilots were super cool, they chatted with us and answered all our questions. Once we were in the air we were allowed to walk around the plane. One guy somehow cracked his head open, it wasn't as bad as it sounds. When you went into the back of the plane there was a area where you could lay down and look our a window and watch the jets fly up. You could actually see the pilot in the jet! All that was between you was some plexi glass! After we landed the pilots let us take their pictures and sit in the pilot seats. Pat and Mike came back to get us and took us to another area of their shop and we were able to put on flight gear! It was super cool! Right before we left they took us to there bar where we all had a beer and then we went home! It was by far one of the coolest things ever! If you know me even a little bit you probably know how much I love beening VIP, I just love being more important then someone else and that is how we were treated the whole time. It was so much fun to walk around with an escort and then we had this creepy photographer around. Amy and I said he was like paparazzi. At first I thought I was imagining it, but Amy said later that it felt like he was taking pictures of only us. Seriously We had so much fun!

Here is the link to my pictures from the tour!

Untitled Album