Sunday Picnic

So the weather here has been great when it isn't snowing and we have been enjoying sunday afternoon walks. Last sunday we packed ham sandwiches, orange juice, apple slices, and no-bake cookies and walked to a park that we had never been to before. Max insisted on bringing our children (Dot and Penelope). I am so embarassed of our children. Anyway, we had so much fun talking and eating and playing Dice!

Max's Commercial

Max got to be in a commercial for his work. He had so much fun. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgWKtrPwMHo

Armenia

My past mission companion, Anna Pew, found round trip tickets to Armenia for $800 per person this May. Max and I are seriously considering going. It is an amazing deal and it would be good timing to go now before we have children! I just get more excited thinking about it. It will be wonderful to see the amazing people there again, eat some of the traditional foods, use their crazy public transportation and the best part is that I can share it all with my amazing husband! I'm so excited!!

Fire Fighting and Strawberries!

This last February has flown by but it was full of busy homework and a prolonged Valentines day!

Early in February My brother James and his family came to stay with us for a night. We had a lot of fun and went dressed up for our stake Valentine's day dance!

James Elizabeth and Gwenevere

Gwenevere really did have fun dancing with me!

A couple days later Max needed to travel to Portland to take an exam to get onto the Portland Fire Department. We have decided that Fire Fighting will be a good career for him and our family. All fire departments have a test, then if you do well on the test you are called back for a physical, then if you pass the physical you are called in for a interview with the Cheif. Portland's test was the first test that Max took and he plans on applyng to many fire departments around the Oregon and Washington area. Portland has some of the best training and it would be an ideal situation but it is very competitive so we have a back up plan if he doesn't get in. Anyway, he left on Monday February 15, I would have loved to go with him however I would have died if I missed a week of school. He stayed with his cousin in McCall Idaho for 2 nights to study for the test. (His cousin is a Fire Captain in McCall) While we was in that snowy freezing city he not only studied but visited the fire department and went snow shoeing with Jeremy and Krystel.

The pictures look beautiful! I'm jealous that I wasn't able to go but we are planing a trip there at the end of March so Max can do some Job shaddowing!After 6 days and 5 nights of not seeing my husband I missed him a ton! That is the longest we've ever been apart in our marriage and hopefully it was the last time. we decided to celebrate Valentine's a little bit more because it seemed to be cut short the week before. As my husband came home around 8 o'clock on a saturday night I had left candles all over the stairs descending into our basement apartment. There were a trail of candles leading inside to the kitchen table where I left chocolate covered strawberries spelling out I heart U! (I guess the pictures are pretty self explanatory.) It was so wonderful to see my husband again! We then binged on strawberries, changed quickley and headed to another fancy dinner dance. Max surprised me with some beautiful jewelry that I was so excited to get because I really don't own much jewelry!
I guess I will end the story there!

Dot's Story

Oftentimes I don't write anything on this blog because I feel that nothing interesting ever happens to us. We are just busy students. So I thought I would share a story about our daughter Dot (short for Dorothy.) Dorothy was born May 2 2009. We met her on the day of our wedding and instantly fell in Love. She really is the perfect Baby, she never cries, doesn't need food, and we never have to change her diaper.

During the summer Dot liked to go on outings with us. One of her favorites was to go and play at the gym. Her friend Augustine made her a cute little workout diva outfit which she has worn ever since. She has traveled to universal studios and the beach with us. But those are pretty much the only times we have let her leave the house in her nearly 10 months of life. She does love to play with her parents at home, her favorite activity is gymnastics although she often gets caught in the ceiling fan.

Dot's tragedy happened when she was visited by her favorite cousin, Gwenevere. (Gwenevere is nearly 4 months older than Dot) Gwenevere was innocently playing with her late developing cousin when Dot's arm just fell off. Dot of course was our little angel and didn't complain one bit. I'm not even sure she or Gwenevere realized what had happened they were just having so much fun playing!

Aren't they the cutest little angels ever?

Christmas Part 2

After playing at grandma's house for the morning, we freshened up and headed over to Max's "acting" grandma Annette's house for a couple of minutes to see her family for christmas. We then quickley headed over to Max's uncle Jay's house for his family get together. We played with the cousins and opened presents and then had a massive wrapping paper fight. After cleaning up, we had a nice little dinner. We then headed home back to Red Grandma's house.

Mum-Z with our new nephew August!

The next day we got together with a lot of my wilcox cousins. We were there all morning, and in the afternoon, Max, Dad, Austin, Danny, Elizabeth and I headed to the temple to do baptism for Max's and my family. It was wonderful!

A couple days after Christmas we were able to go up to Tacoma to James and Elizabeth's house to stay for a couple days. We went with Dad and Danny and Austin. It was so fun spending Peaceful time with the family.

One of the highlights of our break was redeeming our gift certificate for a couple's massage. All I can say is that it was amazing!

For New Years eve I was able to go snowboarding for my first time ever. I thought I would be cold and miserable but it ended up being so fun. We went with Max's brother and his son and also my little brother Danny came! It was his first time too. I'm bummed I forgot my camera. Danny did awesome. We had so much fun, especially when they started shooting off fireworks over the snowcovered mountain.

On New Year's day we packed up and headed to Madras to visit Max's uncle Jay's property, a summer camp where Max had gone many years, and Jay's madras house. Jay showed us where he is going to build a house in the near future. We got to wrangle some cows which scared me to death. We also met Jay's girl's! (His seven cows that he recently purchased)

Jay with his girls

The cows we wrangled. (Jay's friend's ranch)

Jay's friends pet. His name is spike and he likes sitting on the couch.

That was our fabulous two weeks we were able to spend with family. We had so much fun and we can't wait until next year!

A hectic bunch of weeks!

SO, all I can say is that our winter break was probably the best ever and it was somewhat spoiled as we had to jump into the busiest semester yet of school. Don't worry, I'm loving the learning and keeping plenty busy.

Our break went a little like this...The morning after our last finals we headed out about 8:30am. The weather was perfect the whole way and we made great time to Portland. We arrived in Portland just as My younger brother Austin was performing with his bag pipe band on the historic PEacock Lane...That was our first stop instead of dropping of everything at Grandma's we just hung out down town looking all grubby for the evening.

Before leaving Portland, we found out Max's brother managed the Chipotle downtown near where Austin was playing and we were starved so we stopped by to see him and chow down.

We finally got to Grandma's pretty late and we were so excited to see her!

We spent a lot of time trying to visit all the family we have in the Area. We made dinner and played games with Max's grandma (MUM-Z) for an evening, we got our car all fixed, we went running regularly on the trails of cook, Tualatin, and Durham parks. We slept in more than we should have and attended our wonderful home ward.

On Christmas eve we went to Green Grandma's house as I have always done for as long as I can remember and have only missed the one year while on my mission. There are so many new cousins it seems every year.

We left Green Grandma's house a little early to head to Brent, Max's brother's house to celebrate Christmas with them. We had a fun time playing with our niece and Nephews and spending time with family.

The next morning was probably one of my favorite Christmas mornings. I was able to sleep in! Well, until James and Elizabeth came to wake us up. We were all at Red Grandma's house so we went out to her tree and saw the beautiful Christmas scene. Max and I filled eachother's stockings that morning! We opened up gifts with Grandma and soon after my little brothers and dad came over. After the wonderful present festivities Max, Dad, and I made a breakfast of homemade buttermilk pnacakes, hashbrowns, and bacon. Yummers! It was so tasty and I loved having a family meal!
We had a nice slow morning and I mostly played with my beautiful neice. Our favorite game was sailing in other words... "Let me push you around in a box Gwenevere!"


It is taking me days to work on this post so I will post this now and then finish it later!