24 hour trip to Yakima.

February 4th was my good friend Hannah Noel's 30th birthday. To celebrate, her husband Brent asked us to come visit for the evening to surprise Hannah. So, Hannah B, baby Claire, Shannon, Tori and I drove up to Yakima for the night.
We drove straight to Brent's Mom's house where we met up with another good friend Marisa. The night before we left we joked with Hannah N. on Facebook about how fun it would be to be hanging out eating Tillamook chocolate peanut butter ice cream and drinking wine, so when we saw their car enter the drive we left Claire (who she had never met) in her car seat in front of the door with a gallon of Chocolate PB ice cream and a bottle of wine and we all hid in the back room. When Hannah walked in she said "I didn't order this" and then she looked at Claire and said "that looks like Claire", Brent's Mom said "it is Claire" and then the best line of the night was when Hannah had realized what was going on and screamed "where are they?" and came running back to the room we were hiding in. She was surprised to see us all!
The rest of the night was spent talking, eating and drinking. We sat at Brent's Mom's house for awhile and then we girls went out of the town (as much as you can in Yakima). We had a few drinks and headed home to the Chocolate PB ice cream. We stayed up till 2 am eating ice cream, drinking wine, talking and laughing. In the morning Hannah N. made breakfast and we hung out in our PJ's until it was time to leave and head home.
Happy Birthday Hannah!
Tori and I in the back seat of the car.
Talking around the table.
Out on the town.
Ice Cream and wine.
The whole gang in the morning.

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