Haystacks and a Yo-Yo

Tonight we went over to our friends' house. Damie and Jared are expecting their first (also a little girl!) in November, and since Damie started working in Jason's office, we've been doing a lot more together. They've invited us over several times, and we haven't had a chance to return the favour, but they're a lot of fun. Tonight was haystack night, and it was delicious! Aside from us, there was also Ryan, a 2009 WWU grad, there (a former photographer of mine), and Will, whose wife was out of town, and his two daughters, Lydia and Charlotte.

After dinner, Jared kept the girls entertained with all sorts of toys...though they were perfectly capable of entertaining themselves with the cat's plastic jingle bell balls they found all over the apartment. In the above photo he is testing the yo-yo out before giving the girls a lesson in how to make it work. Though Lydia (the older girl) tried for about 10 minutes to make it work, she couldn't get the hang of just letting it fall. She always tried to catch it! Yo-yos are complicated! Who knew?

And here's Jared giving a demonstration as Lydia and Charlotte look on in fascination. (They adore Jared, and it's so cute to watch him with them. He'll be a great dad.)

El Fin

Today they removed the last of the big tree near my office. They chopped it down last week, and I showed you pictures of the beautiful decades-old giant being torn down in a matter of hours. The size of this trunk illustrates just how strong a hold this tree had on the area. It was no youngster, that's for sure. Here's a photo of the hole they pulled it from:

Though it's kind of hard to tell, I'm hoping the backhoe there will give you an idea of the perspective on this huge hole in the ground. That tree is very missed already. I'm still so sad they had to tear it out.

The Wedding

Today was the wedding. I managed to snag a few shots during the professional photo shoot and also got some fun candids. The photo above is one of my favourites, if only for the expression on Lance's face (he's the second from the right). The ceremony took place on this gazebo, and its steps made for a great group shot.

The wedding colours were orange and green. While that may sound a bit daunting as a wedding, it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. This is one of the centerpieces on the reception tables.

Jason was paired with Misty as the bridal party entered the ceremony scene. Here you can see the wedding colours and how beautiful they look. In the pictures it reminds me of orange and lime sherbet, but at the time it never crossed my mind. Perhaps I'm in the mood for sherbet...

I love this picture, too, mostly because of the black and white. I think in colour it wouldn't have turned out as striking. The photographers were the same ones who did Jason's and my wedding, as well as Whitney and Rolie's wedding. They live in La Grande and the wife in this husband/wife team works with Jason's mom, so it's an easy choice!

This was after the wedding when we were waiting to get in line for the amazing fruit, crackers, and cheese buffet. I like this picture...and I loved the buffet. I filled my plate with some of the best fruit I've ever had - including some fantastic mango. There was also pineapple, plums, cherries, honeydew, cantaloupe, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, and kiwi.

The father-daughter dance to start the reception...they danced to a country tune called "I Loved Her First." It was super cute!

Aaaaand the first dance. I can't remember the name of the song right now (I'm a tad tired), but it was very cute to see them grinning away and just enjoying every minute of being together as husband and wife. They just learned to dance on Friday, from what I understand. Her brother taught them after the wedding rehearsal.

And before we move on to shots of the view from the wedding location, here is the prize-winning wedding photo. People gathered on the "dance floor" to do the Twist and Shout, and apparently...Alex was really enjoying it.

And now, some scenery shots:

Multiple Celebrations in One

This afternoon we had a celebration picnic. There were about 20 of us there, and although we originally gathered to celebrate Katrina's (soon-to-be) and Jason's master's degrees, we soon discovered we had a lot more to celebrate. Here's a list of what we deemed the picnic in celebration of:

1. Jason's master's degree (Library Science, completed in August 2008)
2. Katrina's master's degree (Choral Conducting, to be completed in July 2009)
3. Lorin's brother's birthday earlier in June
4. Lorin's parents' anniversary earlier in June
5. Lorin's niece's birthday this week
6. Jason and I expecting at the end of next month
7. Katrina getting a job in Indiana and she and Lorin beginning a new chapter in their lives

Whitney and Rolie brought their new puppy, Jake, and even Jason couldn't resist petting and playing with him, as you can see above. Eventually, he even napped with the dogs, which is pretty impressive for a cat person! The Dalmatian is Jason's parents' 18-year-old "grandpa dog," Chip.

An Early Weekend

This morning Jason and I left work early to head to La Grande, Ore. in time for a wedding rehearsal. On Sunday our friends Tyler and Sophie will exchange vows and swear to love and cherish each other for the rest of their lives. Here are all the groomsmen at the tux rental shop in their groomsmen t-shirts after fitting their tuxes this afternoon. From left: Jason, Tyler, Alex (best man), Lance. They look pretty good in those shirts.

After the tux fitting we went to the rehearsal which was at a winery in Cove, Ore. It was a gorgeous place nestled up on the side of a hill with a fabulous breeze blowing and a fantastic view of the Grande Ronde Valley. I hope to get more pictures on Sunday, when we're there for the wedding.

The rehearsal dinner was at Wallowa Lake near Joseph and Enterprise, Ore. It was a picnic at Wallowa Lake State Park, and boy was it COLD! The wind picked up and blew across the lake, which chilled it significantly. Most of us were in t-shirts and some in shorts because it had been in the 90s all week. It was a delicious dinner, and quite a fun time, as well. Here's a view of the lake on the north end (the picnic was at the other end).

I love this area. It's one of the most beautiful parts of the state, I think...and imagine it being on the EAST side of Oregon!

A Busy Morning

This morning I took Raina to the vet. For the last couple of weeks she's been hacking and coughing and wheezing and Jason and I couldn't figure out any pattern at all. She could be lying on the floor for an hour and then get up and start hacking away. Finally, since she wasn't showing signs of improvement, I made an appointment at the vet. Forty-five minutes later, Raina had peed on the vet's floor twice and the scale once (I TRIED to get her to pee before we got to the vet, but nooooo), the vet had stuck his finger down her throat a couple of times, listened to her lungs, and jiggled her throat to see if he could get her to cough. It worked...apparently Raina has an inflamed trachea. Usually this bug is passed from dog to dog, but the only dogs Raina has been around recently are our neighbour dogs, and they never show any interest in her through the fence, which is the only possible interaction they can have. Also, no one walks dogs past our house since we live at the end of a dead end street, so I'm not sure how she got the bug. The vet says it's a mystery.

An $88 mystery, apparently.

Granted, she did get her distemper shot today, too, but I also left the vet with two bottles of pills, which I have to administer to her (3 twice a day) with wet dog food. So Raina's going to love this being sick thing...she gets yummy wet dog food (complete with pills) as a treat for the next two weeks. Spoiled little dog.

A Late Night

Tonight Jason and I paid a long overdue visit to our wonderful friends Summer and Michael. We got to enjoying game nights together last year, but then they left for Thailand as missionaries for a year, and this only our second time getting together with them since they returned in December. Scheduling just never worked out. This time, however, we've planned ahead and will be getting together with them more regularly.

On the way home from their apartment, Jason commented that there are just "some people who are always happy and positive and fun, and just plain good people. They make you feel like a better person for having spent time with them. Summer and Michael are that way." He's right. We're so lucky to have them as friends.

Here we are, playing "Puerto Rico" and thoroughly enjoying ourselves (it was a bonus that Summer made DELICIOUS apple pie).

Baby Belly 3

Here's Little Miss in her third photo shoot. Compare my growing belly to the previous two shots:

Baby Belly 1 - May 12
Baby Belly 2 - June 7

A New Game

Tonight, while Jason was mowing the lawn, he took the soccer ball we've had since a major wind storm blew it into our yard a couple of months ago and kicked it at Raina. She's pretty good at fetching, so she ran right after it. Then came the hard part - getting it in her mouth. She failed her first few attempts, but didn't give up. She finally did get it in her mouth, and after that grabbed it on the first try every time. Jason played soccer with her for a while, and she loved it. Below is my favourite picture of the game...Raina looks so hilariously demonic! (Is that possible?)

Traveling & Craftiness

Tonight we watched an oldie but goodie: "Around the World in 80 Days." No, this isn't the one with Jackie Chan. This one's good. :) If you haven't seen this family friendly, kid-clean movie, I highly recommend it. Make it your next choice for family night, or if you want to use it as an educational piece, feel free to study cultures, languages, music, people, and places - or even geography - while watching this film. Based on the novel by Jules Vern, a gentleman and his assistant embark on a journey around the world, from London to London, on a wager that they cannot make it in 80 days. I highly recommend this film...though you might want to skip the boring intro.

Earlier today I went to the store and found some cute white fabric with tiny white daisies on it. This I cut and sewed together to make "curtains" for the nursery. Here's a picture of the nursery as it is right now:


I'd love to replace that rocker with a glider and glider footrest...but we'll see. The rocker was my mom's when she nursed and rocked us girls, and I love it...but I think a glider would make nursing a bit easier, what with being bigger with padded arms...and having a place for my feet.

Oh, and by the way, HAPPY SUMMER! And, most importantly:

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

to all the fabulous fathers out there, including my own, as well as my soon-to-be-Daddy hubby.

Outdoor Church

When I was in high school, we had outdoor church a couple of times. On Sabbath morning they'd drive carloads of students to the mountains and we'd have a church service and outdoor activities all afternoon. It was great! I loved the change of pace, and church in the middle of a forest in jeans was a lot better than wearing uncomfortable dress clothes and sitting in a stuffy church with other teenagers who smelled funny. Today, instead of church (since it was campmeeting and our church wasn't meeting), Jason and I went to Rooks Park. We took the camera I showed you yesterday and had fun taking pictures of the beautiful area. There are a ton more, but here's a small sampling of what we took.

Photos by Jason

(This one is best viewed if you open it and zoom in.)

Photos by Becky

(See the heron?)

Practice Makes Perfect

This afternoon Jason and I decided to pull out the travel system and give it a try. I'd been wanting to try strapping the car seat into the car for a couple of weeks but we'd never gotten around to it. Since we have to have the car seat in the car in order to take the baby home from the hospital, I figured it was best to learn how to install it now.

Our travel system came with a stroller, a car seat base, and the "infant restraint" as they refer to the carrier. It took us about half an hour to put the stroller together and figure out what everything did. We'll probably forget the first time we use it for real, but hey - we're new at this! Then we took the car seat and its base to the car and went through the instructions for making sure the seat was secure in the vehicle. We practiced both with and without the base, and it seems pretty simple, actually.

That wasn't the only thing we practiced this afternoon. The WWU library got a new digital camera this week. It's a super nice Canon something-or-other (I'm NOT a professional photographer, so I have no idea how to describe a camera). Here's what it looks like:

Jason brought it home to figure out how it works and give it a try, and I had a LOT of fun today running around trying to find things to photograph. When I discovered the macro setting, that was all I wanted to do. So here are a couple of my first attempts with a nice camera with macro setting capabilities. (FYI, "macro" means you can take shots of things super close up.) They aren't the best, but if I could practice more...like with my OWN nice Canon camera, for instance...I'd probably improve.

It Marred My Day

Today while stuffing envelopes in my office, my student worker and I heard a loud buzzing and engine roaring. Looking out our windows, this is what we saw. That's the back of the only gas station in College Place (Shell Station), and they are starting work to expand the convenience store and deli part of the place. Apparently this means cutting down a tree that was quite obviously there LONG before the station was, and if you look closely at its location, it's not actually in the way, and it wouldn't take a ton more thinking to figure out how to arrange the expansion plans to incorporate the beautiful tree. Many people enjoyed eating under this gorgeous giant, and I was extremely saddened and upset to see them destroying it in less than a day. And destroy it they did.


My student worker, Sarah, decided she wanted to know how old the tree was. I mentioned that the only way she could know is to count the rings. So...she went and asked for a piece of the trunk so she could do just that. When she asked, shouting over the noise of the cherry-picker and other machinery, the guy looked at her like she was crazy. "Why do you want it?" he asked. She said, "To have...and to count the rings." He shrugged, grabbed his chainsaw, and went back up to the top of the trunk to cut her a slice. In spite of its thin-ness, it was quite a heavy piece of wood! It needs to dry out, but we do intend to find out how old this tree was. For now, its one spared section is sitting in our office.

Red Pepper Risotto Night

Tonight Jason and I made red pepper risotto. It's a rice dish that uses - you guessed it - red peppers. Except that when we went to the store, red peppers were super expensive, so we got one red pepper and two green ones. I don't think it necessarily detracted from the taste all that much, but it wasn't as red.

The first step is to broil the peppers, which we did (see above photo). Then you peel the peppers, slice them, and add them to the tomatoes, garlic, vegetable stock, and bay leaves on the stove. That, plus some water, cooks the rice.

The blurry spot in the above photo is caused by the ghost spoon you can barely see (look closely, it's there, I promise!), which is stirring all the ingredients together after adding the dry rice. It then cooks for about 20 minutes until the rice has soaked up all of the excess liquid, and then it's time to eat. We had ours as the main dish, but it's probably intended as a side. At any rate, it's pretty healthy, and quite delicious. Anyone want the recipe?

Creativity

Tonight Jason and I went to his office's annual staff dinner. Though in the past it's been at a local restaurant voted on by the library staff, this year we saved money by having a picnic in the park. The library provided enchiladas and paella (a Spanish rice dish with veggies and soy non-meat products, pronounced pie-EH-uh), and everyone else brought either dessert or a salad. This adorable cake was on the table when we arrived, and I loved it so much I had to get a picture of it. The cake was delicious, too, but we almost hated to cut into the poor little owl. It was so cute! Thanks to Christy for the adorable, yummy cake and for getting me a picture of it.

It's All Fun 'n Games

Tonight Jason and I did something we rarely do: We went to a party on a weeknight. Some friends of ours were hosing a mini-BBQ in their backyard, complete with croquet and an outdoor movie. Above are Jason, John, and Aric. One of the girls present, Krista, finally won, after chasing John's croquet ball around the yard for a while as "poison." I was the first to get through the wickets and complete the course, but in order to win, you have to be the last person standing. Krista got me after we'd gotten almost everyone else out.

For dinner we had burgers, chips, and lemonade, complete with no-bake cherry cheesecake and homemade jelly cookies. It was delicious! Even if I didn't get to eat as much of the cheesecake as I would've liked.

After we ate, we set up a projector, a great sound system (provided by Aric), and watched "Transformers" (since Jason and I hadn't seen it yet) projected wide-screen on the back of the yellow cinderblock building next door.

This is my favourite picture of the month (isn't he cute?):