Our last few moments

Time is interesting. When I want time to go quickly it seems to drag on forever; but when I want time to go slowly, it's gone all too quickly. It's nice to know that God has complete control over time and its pace. Leading up to and going through this deployment I have resolved to appreciate the time I'm given. I don't want to wish away the next year to have Ben home again (although I do miss him and want him home) because God has given me this time.

Inversely, I am trying to not mourn the time that has gone too quickly. Ben was home for 5 days this past week and we had a wonderful time; but as previously stated, it went too quickly. On Sunday, the full day before he left, we were able to spend the day in Portland together. We had so much fun thanks to the suggestions of a few friends. First we went to Pittock Masion. It was bitterly cold but also beautiful and decorated for Christmas.

We then checked into our hotel at Hotel Deluxe. It was a fancy hotel with valet parking in downtown Portland.

After that, we walked to Powell's Bookstore which was a few blocks away and spent a couple hours looking at all the books. Ben bought 4 books with his Christmas money to keep him entertained while he is away.

We ended the evening at Portland City Grill which is on the 30th floor of the Unico US Bancorp Tower in downtown Portland. It was awesome; it is a dimly lit restaurant with windows on all sides so we could see all of Portland with its lights including the river. The food was also quite tasty.

And now, Ben is gone again so I get to practice being thankful for the time God has given me.

Thanks for coming

This year I hosted my first Christmas party. We had a wonderful time with lots of food and fun. We ate dinner at the fancy table,

decorated sugar cookies,

ate tripple chunk brownies,

and left a huge mess!

Phase 2

We were able to accomplish another phase of our home upgrade this past week...New windows! Here are some pictures.


The trim around the windows still has to be painted, but I am supposed to wait 1 week for the calking to dry.

Here is the garage window. It is frosted now so we don't have to have an ugly curtain hanging in the garage.
Sliding glass door.

The old windows that were here did not open so when I orded the new ones, I made sure they would open which will be so nice in the summer.

In other news, Ben gets to come home for Christmas! And since the Oregon military can't support their soldiers, it only costs us $550!!!

Army of One

This post is mostly for my husband, but you can read it too -it's just not really that interesting.

The following is a summary of my day, beginning at 5:30am:
Go shopping for all the great deals on black Friday
Come home to put lights on the house
Start the lawn mower by myself
Mow the lawn
Rake the yard
Bring wood into the garage
Sweep the garage
Get a Christmas tree
Trim and set up the Christmas tree and other decorations (ok, this is only half done)
Clean the kitchen
Do dishes
Clean the room
Do laundry
Change the sheets on the bed
Do more laundry (I'm a little behind)

Now, go watch last nights episode of Survivor...And it's only 7:34pm. Imagine how much more I could have done if we were an Army of TWO! I sure do appreciate all the help I get around the house when I have a husband.

I would have posted pictures of all my hard work, but the new camera I bought doesn't have a memory stick, and contrary to what the salesman told me, the memory stick for my old camera does not work with the new camera. Guess I'll have to do more shopping tomorrow.

4hrs 30min 17sec

I finished my first marathon!! I didn't run as fast as I would have liked and I am very sore today, but I finished.

This first picture is taken the day before the marathon at the expo.

These last 2 pictures are at the finish and after the finish. See how pretend happy I look. I was actually in a lot of pain. Running 26.2 miles is a lot of work.

My Hobby

While Ben is away (which he is, deployment day moved up to late October), my favorite thing to do is scrapbook. Since not too many people (okay, no one) comes over and asks to see my scrapbooks, all my hard work sits in the book. So now for your viewing pleasure, here are the pages I've recently completed for our trip to Hawaii.

First Fruits

More like first vegetables. One of the best things about having a house is the fact that I can have a garden. This year my garden is thriving! I have already canned 8 pints of green beans (and that doesn't count the numerous evenings I walked out to my garden and cooked fresh picked green beans for dinner that night). Below is a picture some of the other vegetables I'm growing. See how small the carrot is? I think I'll let those grow some more before I pull any others out.


I also am growing corn. The stalks are about 7 feet tall, but not quite ready to pick the ears yet.

Phase 1

Before: After:
I painted the trim on our house the past couple weekends. There still are a lot of updates we want to do, but it's nice to have the red gone.

So proud

I know this is a silly post but I don't care. I found this recipe and it sounded so good. So I went to the store to buy shrimp and noticed the noncooked shrimp was cheaper. So bought it and learned how to devein the shrimp. It was then marinaded in this spicy sauce I made and then put on the skewers with the vegtables. They turned out so tasty I just had to show the pictures of the colorful dinner we made.

Uncooked...

Cooking...

Eating...

Back to real life

While we were gone we had a tree cut down. The mess was waiting for us when we got home. With the help of my parents, Alan, and a chipper, here is the work we were able to accomplish in 3 hours.

This is the ugly tree that is left. In the long term plan, this tree will come down also.Here is how big the stump is that is left: The big pile of branches my dad made before we got home:

The pile is gone!

From Hawaii

Currently I am sitting in our condo in Hawaii and decided to make you all jealous by posting pictures of the fantastic time we are having here.

Just a nice beach we snorkled at.

At the Luau.

The brothers.

The ocean that claimed the life of our camera (why do swim trunks have pockets?!?!)

Shaved ice is so good!
Another beautiful sunset in paradise.