Don and I drove about an hour and a half south to Philomath, OR to visit my cousin, Staci. It was the first time we had a chance to see her house and meet her horses, doggies and barn cats. Her place is amazing!! It's a 3-acre piece of land nestled in a small valley with hills on either side. They are only minutes away from the town of Corvallis, pop. 50,000, that serves mainly as a college town to Oregon State University. She and her husband Burt have been renovating the main house for 3 or 4 years now and living in an apartment that's attached to the super big workshop in back. This place is huge! It's broken up into a living quarters and then two more enormous workshops that house everything from power tools to a tractor to furniture that will go into the main house at the front of the lot when it's complete.

Out back of that are the stables, a great, red barn, a chicken coop, greenhouse, several apple trees, her sweet dogs underfoot, her two horses, Rocket and Carter, grazing in the pasture and their newest addition, Orrey, a minature horse that they rescued a couple of weeks ago from a horder that made the news up here. He's so small he can walk right underneath the other horses! And he already is starting to run the show. :)

On our way to have lunch, Staci took us by the Oregon Alpaca Farm--that boasts the largest aplaca herd in the state. They were pretty cute, especially the one that Don got a picture of, who looked like he was on his way to the muppet tryouts.

It was wonderful getting a chance to see my beloved cousin and peek into her everyday life. And what a life it is! She and Burt are completely in love and living their dream. Can't ask for much more than that!

Don and I ventured out to enjoy a truely beautiful Portland day. (And, as it turned out, so did the rest of the city!) We stopped by the Saturday Market--a Portland landmark that draws Portlanders and tourists alike. Lots of vendors selling handcrafted art, jewelry, ceramics, glass...crazy wonderful street performers like the Myopic Elvis and the white kids playing Zimbabwean music. Lots of great food, lots of dogs out for walks, and lots of every type of man, woman, and child that you can imagine. A perfect slice of Portland! We settled on an almond toffee ice cream cone, then headed over the river to Fire on the Mountain, the place to go for hot wings. I cannot stress enough just how insanely good their wings are! We hadn't gone there for months, and usually get an order of fried pickles, too, but are sticking to our budget and just shared an order. It was worth it!

Big, big thank you's to Denman and Bettie Jo! We have our stroller!! It's a 'travel system' that comes with the baby carrier and a base to put in the car. It was rated the safest carrier for car travel in the case of an accident and the stroller got overall high marks for durability. We are very excited to have this first major item for the baby!

It was a kick putting it together. As you can tell from Don's expression the task seemed like it was going to be quite a headache, but it turned out to be a cinch with me reading the directions and Don assembling. It now sits, waiting, by our front door. We are looking forward to when we get to put our little bundle of j(b)oy in it!

Also, big thanks to our Grandma Betty. She gifted us our glider and ottoman (for all of the late night feedings in our future.) They were out of stock at the store, but will be ready to pick up in 1 or 2 weeks. (Hope putting those together will be as easy as the stroller was!)

Thanks again to Don's wonderful parents and grandma. We are so appreciative and love you so much!

These are some of my favorite pages from our wedding album. Little Miss Lauren, my most favorite little girl in the world (who just turned NINE YEARS OLD!!!) is seen here signing the guest book. I put the picture next to her signature. Two other goodies include the picture of us kissing right after we were pronounced "husband and wife," and the page that has a picture of me and my dad heading for the chapel, a GREAT picture of Don with Bettie Jo, Denman, Grandma Betty and Amy, and a picture of Don and I with all of Don's extended family.

Better Late Than Never

So......sorry Bettie Jo, but I JUST finished my wedding album. I know that's terrible! Bettie Jo, the most amazing mother-in-law in the world, gave Don and I a beautiful, embossed wedding album and went to the trouble of photo-copying every page so that I could have a test run before filling out the real pages. Well, as the story goes, I put it off at first because I was just, well..."wedding'd out" after we got home from out honeymoon. I put it in the bookshelf and told myself that I would complete it within the month. That month soon turned into a year, then another, then another, then the situation became like that friend you've been meaning to call. You wait just long enough that you feel so bad about NOT calling that you put it off even longer! That album was calling my name every time I saw it, so I just took to averting my eyes when I'd walk past that bookcase. :)

But it's funny what a kick in the pants pregnancy is. When we saw that tiny heart beating away, I knew it was 'time to put away childish things' take stock of my life and take care of business. And for some reason my wedding album landed smack dab on the top of my 'to do' list. And now it's finally done! And now that I've put in the last picture and wrote my last description of the events, funny enough, I'm kind of glad I waited.

I got to spend two days walking down memory lane looking through all of the photos, reading through the organizer I kept when we were planning it. And in a way I got to relive that amazing, fabulous, most special day. Can't wait for you to see it, Bettie Jo!!

Arts & Crafting the Nest

So of course, with our little boy on the way, Don and I are even more conscious of saving money. We've started to carefully track where every penny goes, clipping coupons, cooking almost solely at home, making my lunch for work, planning out our meals for the week before we go grocery shopping. We make a pretty good team!

I also started getting a bit crafty. I love writing little sweet nothings to friends and family, but pricey stationary is not very high on the priority list at the moment. A trip to Michaels and the Dollar Store later and now I've got a nice supply of correspondence. :) It's also a good way to satiate this constant nesting instinct! I swear I wake up in the morning and go to bed at night rethinking where the paintings and pictures are hanging on our walls, or how I really need to reorganize my filing cabinet, closets, kitchen, bookshelves.... Don's been really helpful in doing all of the heavy and not-so-heavy lifting, but even he will probably draw the line at my latest desire to scrub the bathroom walls!

But so far, we've rearranged the living room and the bedroom, and are making plans to rent a storage unit at the beginning of June for all of Don's music equipment so we can turn the studio into the baby's room. I really, REALLY hope that we won't have to live here much longer. It's quite a sacrifice on his part and I hate that he has to make it. But if all goes as planned we'll be in a larger apartment by sometime next year. Then the focus will shift to saving for our first house.

But first things first. Gotta tackle those bathroom walls!