Playdates with Zeke

Since Wembley and Zeke go to the same preschool, Amanda and I rotate playdates every week.  This playdate, Wembley and Zeke wanted to play outside all day.  I love watching these two together, because they are so cute and funny.  Wembley is teaching Zeke how to hit a tennis ball.

We then had hot chocolate out on the front porch.  Nothing better!

Visitors from Reno

Our friends from Reno, Brett and Julia came to Oregon to show off their newborn twins and to spend a little time with us.  They stayed at our house for a couple days, but unfortunately, it was a crazy week/weekend, so we didn't get to see them as much as we would have liked.  Either way, we had fun and we miss them.

We took advantage and had a girls night out.  We saw the play Chicago and hit up Voodoo Donuts.  Megan and I reminisced of our downtown stroll near the homeless shelters, but this had the added bonus of being late at night, and lots of the "unique Portland people" out on the town.

We went to the zoo, and we wanted Julia to come back to the true Oregon experience, so we ordered rain.  

Come back again soon Nelsons!

Friends

In this below par weather, we have been trying to stay busy.  Briz and Piper went to Tryon Creek State Park for the Ranger guided hike.  They learned all about bees this week and then went exploring in the meadow.

 They loved imitating bees with their pollen pockets.  

 Piper was devastated when they left, crying and saying, "I'll never come back to the meadow!"

We also went to the park and practiced our bike riding.  Going down the hills is quite an adventure.  Even though there is lots of owies, crying, and wrestling, these two girls love each other.  

But we miss one of our favorite little guys.  Jaron told us he wanted to move back and live with us, so we are planning on it.

Mamander's Wedding

My good friend Amanda, got married last week and I am still so excited about it.  Mander and I met in London over 10 years ago and have been close friends ever since.  We lived together, watched weird movies alone together, and have been through a lot.  I like her so much, I even followed her to graduate school at the U.   She is an extremely modest person who doesn't demand a lot of attention.  So it was so fun to see her in the spotlight, and just extremely happy with her husband Brian Nelson.

Nick, Briz, and I all drove down from Portland to be a part of the festivities.

Wednesday night we had her Bachelorette party.  We went out to eat at Sammy's in Park City (which was SO good, I am definitely going back next time I am in PC).  We were planning on going Karaoking after that, but no surprise, we all blabbed way too much and didn't have time.  The rest of the night, however, I will have to leave up the imagination of the reader, because it's not appropriate for my blog.  But I will say that I haven't laughed that long in a long time.

Thursday night was the rehearsal dinner and I am pretty sure that Sam and I were only invited because we tried to force Amander to make us her bridesmaids.  As a consolation prize, she invited us with her family to a very nice dinner at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

Our "honorary bridesmaid" gifts.

Brian and Mander got married in Salt Lake on the 22nd and it was a beautiful and powerful ceremony.  I was just overwhelmed with happiness for my dear friend.  It was, however, freezing!  About thirty degrees and snowing.  What the!!!

That night she had a reception where the highlight was the unlimited diet coke and the photo booth.  Briz also thought she was part of the bridal party.

It was so fun to be a part of a fun few days with Mander and my good friends.  It makes me sad to leave Utah because I can't get enough of these fine women.

February

I don't generally care much for February.  First of all, the weather generally stinks here.  I am not  a big fan of Valentine's Day and it is spelled weird.  Why the first r?  Why?  

However, February proved to a be nice surprise this year, because it has been great.  We have had quite a few sunny days and partially sunny days.  And Briz and I  have been doing a lot of fun things.  I definitely feel like we're getting ready for spring and that is a good thing.

 1.  Briz and I have started loving watching movies together.  We regularly have movie parties, which is a fancy way for me saying we sit on the couch and watch a movie.  Briz has now fallen in love with State Fair.  The other day she asked me if she could watch it with her friend Harper, who was coming over to play.  I informed her that she couldn't because I could guarantee most other normal three year olds would not like watching State Fair.

3.  As always we visited Holly's grave a few times.  It was so nice to go there on some sunny days too.  Makes it much more pleasant.

4.  Briz likes to use her umbrella as much as possible, so she is a little disappointed in the lack of rain.

 5.  Briz continued to play basketball on her team.  She scored her first (and so far her only) basket.  She was so excited, she jumped up and down, clapped, and ran straight over to Nick for a big hug.  She continued to run off the court and give us both hugs.  About the fifth time, I was about to tell  her to stop running off the court when she whispered to me, "Mom, I love you."  Hahaha.  Guess she was just feeling the love and my heart melted.  But truthfully, her making a basket is a huge accomplishment for her.  We generally encourage her to just touch the basketball during the game.  She's gotten excellent at her defensive slide, but on offense she generally just continues to defend her own teammates.  So the fact that she got the ball, attempted to dribble it down the court, shot it, made the ball reach the height of the basket, and then the ball fell through the net . . . well that was a miracle.

6.  Went to the children's museum one last time before our pass expired.  Her and Jaron ran around like crazy animals the whole time.  Julia and I sat and watched them.  Julia has the excuse of being pregnant, but me, I like to let Briz explore on her own (while I sit as much as possible).

7.  We went to the zoo and saw baby Lilly.  Oh my goodness, I loved watching her. I laughed, I cried. I think had an overly emotional response to a baby elephant, but what can ya do.

 8.  Lanny came into town for a weekend and we got to spend some time with him.  He and Briz had fun chillin at the zoo, and the highlight of the weekend was when someone asked Landon if he was Briz' father.  Say WHAT!  It was one of the funniest things I've heard in a while.

9.  Holy crap, Briz has been coloring like a banche.  I'm not sure if its physically possible for her to color anymore.  I feel a bit of guilt for constantly throwing trees away, but its doubly worse having to deal with Briz constantly making her disappointed face when she finds her art in the trash. I have thus learned to be very sneaky.

10.  Nick got knee surgery again.  And luckily, it ended up being fairly minor.  But Nick's knee is still taking a while to heal and all of us can't wait until he's 100%.

11.  Briz has been practicing her biking skills on our nice days.  And its a double whammy because she gets to cart along a doll/stuffed animal.  Not much more she could want in life.

12. In the absence of Nick being gone in Vegas and hanging out with Bo Jackson, I decided to send him a self portrait of myself.  It doesn't happen very often.

13.  We went up to Seattle to visit our cousins.  We went to the zoo (and it was freezing), and we also went swimming.  Briz is just in heaven following Portia around.  And I love my nephew and nieces so much; its so great being around them more often.  Can't wait for Thatcher Hugh to be born in a couple months!

 14.  It has been nonstop Baby Business here.  There are very few people that we know who aren't pregnant or had a baby recently.  All of this baby mania has been getting to Briz and she finally decided it was time to join the club by having her baby boy and girl, named Collie and Carline, respectively.

15.  It's the time of year again for swim lessons.  We had to sneak them in before we left for Florida for spring break.  It's crazy to think of how much better Briz is than she was a year ago.  She pretty much swims by herself; we just need to work on her technique some.  The doggy paddle only lasts so long.

 16.  We started going back to our Tryon Creek nature hikes.  Briz loves them.  But she calls it camping.  Clearly we need to spend more time in nature and hiking.  I am so disappointed.  But either way, its fun and its FREE.

17.  Briz is ending her tap class and starting her ballet class.  There are a few weeks of overlap so it feels like she has got way too many classes right now.  I will be sad to see the tap class go, because it was pretty cute to watch.

18.  I started teaching piano lessons which I absolutely love.  And I keep saying I should have started it a long time ago.  One of my favorite things about it is how it keeps me playing a lot more.

19.  Nick has been working like a maniac recently.  But his department has been getting incredible reviews, in particular for the fuel band (which is in fact, incredible if I don't say so myself).

20.  I finished my application for licensure for professional counseling.  I am waiting to  hear back the board's review and will then have to probably take a few classes, but I'm excited to be back on the road that I have wanted to be on for a while.

Now that February has come to and end, we have a bunch of fun things in March to look forward to: Amander's wedding on the 22nd, Andrew McMahon concert on the 25th, and then Disneyworld on the 27th!

And as a PS, my goal next month is to blog more because these posts are way too long.

Sammy's Visit

I am a very stupid person.  For lots of reasons, but this one in particular is because my dear friend Sam came to visit me and I took no pictures.  I am really off my game.  But maybe it was because I was too busy talking a million miles a minute and also maybe because I was enjoying sitting around watching 90210 with her.  No really, we did that a lot.  I love that I have a friend that I can truly vege with, no matter how old we are.  But Sam is a very good friend to come see me and talk to me for hours on end.
In addition to watching Dylan, Brandon, Kelly, Donna, David, Brenda, Steve, and Andrea, we also enjoyed a beautiful day at the beach.  This was after we tried to stop in Astoria and that didn't work out.  At the beach, we tried to convince Briz to play with random kids so that Sam and I could sit and relax and talk.  We went to 23rd and shopped, went to Ikea, and drove around Portland a lot.  I am not trying to find Sam a job in Portland as an ICU nurse, but I know this is just wishful thinking on my part.

S'more cruisin'

I thought I would share some more pictures that Carly sent me.  And also, I realized I completely forgot to add our quotes from the trip:

- "You're sluffing some juicy ones." (Nick)

-"What are these muscles called?" "Trapezoids." (Carly and Lexie)

- "I am just really glad that Bradley Cooper is finally seizing his moment. Good for him." (Daniel after reading the current ship magazine).

- "Uh uh uh uh." (The man in the Love and Marriage Game on the ship).

- "I am not going to applaud farting." (Some man behind us after someone made a joke on stage about farting).

-"Welcome to hell." (David, our Belize tour guide)

- "I am like a whoppper with a lot of stuff on it." (A young newlywed who was trying to make a comparison with fast food and himself).

Nick jumping off a dock at West Bay Beach in Honduras.

Digging a hole with Henry at West Bay Beach.  The cutest kid ever.  And of course they had to dig a hole.  Nick did have to convince Daniel to participate, but we all knew he wouldn't be able to resist.

Shaking his booty onstage while having a bit of our own dance party.

Soft Serve!!!

In Grand Cayman Island, they had these cool water tables.  They were extremely comfortable.  We decided that the next time we go there we should laminate cards and play in the water for hours.

Don't know what I'm laughing at but it must have been pretty funny.

Serious card players.

Superman pose with Fast Eddie.

Doubles.

Our two guides having a contest to see who can unharness the men quicker.  There was a lot of trash talking and it was intense.

Winning a medal after putt putt golf and I am very excited about it.  This is nothing to compared to the awesome  ship trophy I won for movie trivia.  And Daniel got one as well for Sports Trivia.

Posing next to Henry at West Bay Beach.

Right before Carly slammed her head against Daniel and almost got killed.  But it was well worth it, as you can see.

Upside down pose with Fast Eddie.  This picture scares me a little bit.