Oregon and Washington...

...is where Brody and I spent the last week and a half of our lives, along with the rest of my family. We drove up and stayed with my cousin Stacey and her family for 4 days in Vancouver Washington (just North of Portland), went to Cannon Beach for a day and a half and to Seattle for a day and a half. We had a blast and luckily for us, the weather cooperated very well. The only day it rained was Sunday! Way less than what I was expecting. It was still overcast a lot of the time and a little on the colder side, especially when there was water involved, but that didn't stop us from doing all the things we wanted to do!! Here are the highlights:

Friday we did 2 different bikes rides, one through the woods with just the adults (so beautiful!!) and one through Portland with all 13 of us (great way to see the city!) with a stop at a cool fountain and a treat at the end.

We had the most darling picnic on the edge of the Columbia River right before our ride around Portland. Stacey even brought a centerpiece!! It was so cute. After the ride, a few crazies jumped in the ice cold pool back at the house.

On Saturday, the adults went to the Portland Temple, then had lunch and did some shopping at the Portland Saturday Market. Oh and we also went to the most divine antique shop I've ever seen. I loved it!

Sunday, we did a pretty nature walk in the rain before church...

...And that night we had a yummy dinner and played games (actually, we did that all the other nights as well!) Since there were 2 Brody's in the house, 3 year old Brody became little Brody and my hubby was big Brody. That was kind of fun. 7 year old Kennedy had a crush on big Brody and would always do a cute little wave to him. It was the cutest thing. Those Lake kids are so much fun and really showed their true selves on Sunday night with some of the games we played. I was laughing so hard I was crying and my stomach hurt.

Monday we hiked up to Multnomah Falls. It was one of the prettiest hikes I've ever done. I love all the moss covered trees and water everywhere!

After the hike, we went boating.... it was freezing, but so fun!! The water was so glassy smooth, it would have been perfect for wake boarding, but we did something where you didn't have to get in the ice cold water- tubing. (Except poor Griffin fell out twice. I felt so bad for him!) To warm up after we had a fire and roasted mallows.

Tuesday, the 7 of us left the Lake's and headed to Cannon Beach and then on to Seattle where we would spend the rest of our trip. Before leaving the Portland area though, we stopped at the Rose Garden, which was beautiful!!

We stayed in a beach house at Cannon Beach and absolutely loved our time there. Here's what we spent our time doing:

looked around big rocks for creatures during low tide...

...and found lots of cool things!

Fed the seagulls (one took a piece right out of Brody's hand!)

Played in the ocean (it was painfully cold!) and had a fire and smore's

Drew in the sand and took some fun pictures

We also had a picnic with a great view of the ocean, played frisbee, had a yummy dinner at Mo's Seafood Restaurant and did a scavenger hunt around downtown. It was so much fun being there and playing on the beach even without the sun shining on us! Go figure.

We spent about 6 hours in Seattle going to a cool aquarium, riding the above ground metro to the Space Needle, eating more seafood and going to Pike's Place Market.

This was such a fun vacation!! Many thanks to the Lake's for letting us stay at their house and to my parents for planning the whole thing. We had a great time!

Beautiful.

The sky today produced some BEAUTIFUL images!!

Both these things in the same day!

I loved it.

Impressed.

This is my brother Jake.

I am very impressed with him. He just finished his 3 month long eagle scout project of finding and fixing up 63 bikes to donate to some Burmese refugees that are living here in Logan who have no form of transportation other than the bus. I know it was hard for him to come up with that many, 63 is a LOT of bikes

and not to mention the time it took to make sure each one was ready to ride

but with the help of others (me included, and many other friends and family) he got it done!

Last Thursday was delivery day and Jake asked Brody and I if we would help and I'm very glad I did. It was so cool to see the excitement on the faces of these Burmese people as we pulled up with 4 trucks and 2 trailers chuck full of bikes and began unloading them. As I helped get all the bikes on to the grass, I had multiple kids come up to me and ask if these bikes were free and I was so happy to tell them that they were!

It was even more amazing, when the time came, to watch each person pick out a bike and ride away with a huge smile on their face.

He went to a lot of work and spent many hours finding people to donate bikes, parts or money, organizing times to get all the bikes fixed and cleaned, and asking people if he could borrow their truck/trailer. There was even a story about it in the newspaper today and it was cool to watch him get interviewed by the reporter.

So good job Jake!! And thanks for letting me participate in such a neat and awesome experience. :)

{Here's a LINK to the newspaper article, if you're interested}

Memorial Day 2010

We had a great Memorial Day. We spent Sunday with Brody's family; eating dinner, visiting cemeteries, watching a movie and just hanging out. And Monday was spent with my family (thanks mom for all the pictures- I haven't been doing very good at that lately). We started the day with our traditional big breakfast (and the YUMMIEST french toast I have EVER had-- I'll post the recipe at the bottom) and then went on a bike ride which is beginning to be another tradition. We biked along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail,

and also decided to hike up to Castle Rock.

We then stayed on our bikes and headed to the Logan cemetery to visit some graves and see the release of a bunch of balloons with messages to loved ones.

Me and Brody thought it would be fun to see how long we could ride like this.

And it was fun. Until my handlebar got caught under his, twisting my front tire all the way around, causing me to spin out of control and come a little too close for comfort to crashing.

After our bike ride and getting all cleaned up. We played a game of croquet before heading to Aunt Carol's for a BBQ. We then went back outside and spent the rest of the daylight playing catch, throwing a frisbee and slack-lining.

We ended the day with a movie and popcorn. It was a great day!

----------------------------------------------------

{Orange/Strawberry/Pecan French Toast}

Ingredients for Sauce:

4 Tbsp Butter

3 Tbsp Honey

2 Tbsp Brown Sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

Heat butter, honey & sugar until barely melted. Put in bottom of 9 X 13. Sprinkle pecans over top.

Ingredients for Toast:

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice

2 eggs

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp sugar

Strawberries

Whisk all ingredients in a bowl (besides strawberries). Dip bread (texas toast, 6 pieces) one at a time and place on top of pecan mixture in 9 X 13. Bake at 400* until golden brown (15-20) minutes. Place french toast, pecan side up on a plate. Top with fresh strawberries, fresh whipped cream and mint leaves.

** Makes 6 toasts

Seriously, it is SOO good, you HAVE to try it.

Family Parties

We've been to a few fun family parties since being home. The first was with my dad's side of the family. My grandma planned a lot of fun games centered around fear factor and amazing race. One event was an obstacle course wearing silly noses, another was trying to keep three balloons in the air as long as possible in a confined space, and last for amazing race, we split up into teams and went to a grocery store to buy a dessert and get as close to $6 as possible.

For fear factor, we got really into it. I'm not exaggerating. The first event was to put a net around your head that contained 25 crickets and stand there for 1 whole minute while they jumped around and landed on your face. It took me about 45 minutes to commit to doing it but I finally did (and my team ended up winning, so it was all worth it!) The second event was eating some sick nasty food including- pickled pig's feet, smoked herring, spam, Vienna sausage and liver. Again it took me a while, but somehow I got it all down. And kept it down, was the amazing part. Brody had no problem with either of these things, neither did Jessica, Cam, my aunt Stacie and several other men and cousins.

Also, my mom planned a fun welcome home party for me and Brod with her side of the family. We ate a yummy dinner and played some fun games. It was fun to see everyone again and catch up on things. (haha I liked that picture of Brody)

Thanks mom and Grandma for planning such fun parties!!

A very lazy summer

So, now that we're home, our plans for the summer are as follows:

NOTHING!!!..........

.

.

.

Absolutely. Nothing.

.

.

.

It's going to be GREAT!!

When we left for Europe, we moved out of our apartment and I quit my job (or took a break, I'm not really sure what will happen when we get back) so since we have nothing to get home to, I would much rather NOT be in Arizona during it's worst and hottest months and instead, stay in Logan! We're living with my parents so as to save our non-existent money-- Neither of us have real jobs since we're only here for the summer, but we have been lucky to pick up a few odds and ends type of jobs here and there, thanks to some extended family members.

So, we plan to just sleep in, hang out with family and friends, lay out by the pool, read books, go camping, climbing, biking, hiking or whatever else our little hearts desire. I can't WAIT. I can already tell it'll be hard to go back to real life after this..... or maybe we'll be ready for it. Who knows.

Also on my list for the summer, (after having nothing to watch on TV for two months while in Prague besides the Food Network -- nothing else was in English) I've decided I want to improve my cooking skills. So far, it's been a lot of fun. I've found some really yummy new recipes and I think the whole fam has enjoyed testing them out.

I've also enjoyed playing the piano and brushing up on those skills a bit. I hope one day to have one of my own, but for now, using my parents for the summer will have to be good enough!

Rome

Rome was our very last stop of our entire adventure. We were there for 5 days and had a blast! After Prague, this was definitely our favorite city. It was beautiful, there is a ton of history and really old, cool, {not to mention very famous} buildings, the food is delicious and the list goes on. I took about 200 pictures there, but I'll just post a few.

Our first stop was Vatican City/St. Peter's Square.

Well actually it was our first and last stop. The first time, we went in the middle of the day and the line to get in to St. Peter's Basilica was about 4 hours long (you can see the line of people behind us. It wrapped around the entire square!)

so we decided to wake up early and get there right when it opened on a non-weekend day and that was definitely the smartest thing we could have done (look at the difference!) We were the first ones in line and pretty much had the whole thing to ourselves. Plus, the sun-rise was gorgeous!

The inside of St. Peter's Basilica was insane. I don't think it's possible to describe it's beauty. And obviously the pictures don't even come close. There was marble everywhere, and the craziest sculptures and designs. And it was huge! You could fit the statue of liberty under the dome, if that helps to understand the size. The entrance to St. Peter's tomb was also crazy cool. Especially after watching Angels and Demons.

Next, we went to the Vatican Museum, which is where the Sistine Chapel (and Michaelangelo's famous creation painting) is located. There were also some other crazy paintings on the ceiling of every single room, it was gorgeous!!

The Colosseum and Ancient Rome was another favorite thing to see.

Inside the Colosseum:

It was awesome to see so many ancient ruins of what Rome used to look like. It's hard to imagine that some of those structures are still standing after so long!

Again, we found ourselves another park and took a few hours to just relax. And the roses? Funny story... See that guy trying to sell some to those people (top right picture below)? Well they were everywhere, and when one came up to me and shoved a flower into my hand and then turned his back to me, I didn't quite know what to do. So Brody was trying to tell him we didn't want it and I just stood there waiting for the guy to take his flower back, but he never did (and Brody was waiting for ME to give it back) so he ended up paying for it. When Brody asked how much, the guy said "very little" so Brody gave him 60 cents. But apparently that was very, very little because the guy wanted a whole Euro. Brody only had a 2 Euro coin, so the guy gave me another flower. So I ended up walking around Rome with 2 stinking Roses that I didn't want....... ha. That's what I get for being so passive.

Here are a few funny things from Rome: (1)We went to the grocery store since we found a cheap apartment to rent that had a kitchen. They had little wagons to put your groceries in, I thought that was funny. (2)Also, I've never seen such a big back of pasta in my life!! (about 3 feet long!) (3)It kept raining off and on while we were there and we kept putting off getting an umbrella thinking each rainstorm would be the last, and of course when we actually did get one, that WAS the last rainstorm. (4)Instead of a drive thru at McDonald's they had a legit "walk thru" so of course we had to partake in that craziness. (5)Also, as a choice of McFlurry you could get Smartie. I couldn't bring myself to waste money on that...

We both love the book and movie Angels and Demons, so we made sure to visit all the sights from that. (If you haven't seen it, these pictures won't really make sense).

We saw many other cool things in Rome including (but not limited to) the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.

We just really liked everything about Rome and I'm so glad we were able to go there and stay for so long (well it was long compared to how long we stayed in other places).

I can't believe our Europe trip has already come to and end. It is so weird when something you've been looking forward to and been so excited about for 6 months comes and then is suddenly gone. I'm glad that Brody and I were able to have this experience and I know he enjoyed his classes and everything school-related he did while we were there as well. I'll never forget all the fun times we had and the memories we made. Thank goodness for pictures (of which I now have LOTS and don't know what to do with). Now on to our next adventure.... Summer time!!