Lately...

I feel lame for not having blogged in a while, but I haven't had a computer to spend the time it takes me to write a blog. And we also haven't done anything too exciting lately...the rain has prevented us from going out a lot and Chris has had about 2 tests a week for the past 2 months. So he studies quite a bit! But here are a few things that have been going on in our lives:

-I went to the Oregon Zoo with some wives from our ward and it kicks the Hogle Zoo's butt! Well, the last time I went to the Hogle Zoo was in 7th grade, so from what I remember of it, the Oregon Zoo is cooler.

-This last week was Chris' fall break, he had a 5 day weekend that was much needed. We mostly slept in, took naps, watched movies and had the missionaries over for dinner one night.

-In one short week will be in Utah for a few days for Thanksgiving! I am very excited to be in close proximity to good stores for some shopping on Black Friday. (Not looking forward to sales tax though)

-My viral infected computer will be ready for me to bring back to Oregon!

-I haven't been searching for jobs much since I don't have a computer to do so, but as soon as I get my comp back, I will be searching big time because I am going crazy here!

-We are flying home for 2 weeks for Christmas, during which is our 1 year anniversary!

-The rainy season has definitely started here. It's cold rain, so it is most enjoyable while inside. It causes problems when I need to do the laundry and it won't stop raining. Because of this, I ended up doing 7 loads of laundry in one day.

-I am getting excited for the Christmas season but Chris refuses to acknowledge that it is coming until the day after Thanksgiving. He strongly dislikes all the Christmas commercials that play Christmas music and he thought I was mad at him one night when I decided to play some Christmas music on the piano because I love it so much! (Sorry babe)

-Speaking of which, back in September I got a free keyboard from someone in the ward to practice the piano on! I was so excited to get it and it has been super nice to have. I'm the ward choir pianist and it's been nice to be able to practice. Although, growing up playing on a real piano, it's been hard for me to adjust playing on non-weighted keys, having no pedal and missing 27 keys. Even though I can't wait for the day when we can get a real piano, or at least a keyboard with weighted keys, I'm sure grateful to have this one.

-It gets dark here at about 4:30. Boo to that.

-We are loving the milder weather here; we just barely turned our heat on last week.

And that is about all that has been happening!

Arizona and SLC

*Beware-this is going to be a looooong post (but you should already be expecting that right?)*
Two weeks ago I got to fly down to Phoenix to go to my cousin's wedding in Scottsdale. All of my dad's side of the family was flying down so I got to see everyone again. I was super excited to go but so sad to leave Chris for 8 whole days! That's the longest we've ever been apart. I know it would have been easier for me to leave him if we lived in Salt Lake and he had family around he could hang out with. I kept telling him the week before I left that I wasn't going to go. Not only was I sad to leave Chris but I get nervous when I fly, especially when there is turbulence.

My flight to Phoenix was uneventful and I stayed entertained by reading SkyMall. That first night it was just Nikki, my mom and me in our hotel room. (If you can call it a hotel room, it was more condo-ish). My mom can't stay awake past 10:30 if her life depended on it, (same with my sister) but we stayed up til 2 am talking and laughing and having a good time.

While we were down there it was over 100 degrees and so nice! We found a store called Tall Girl and I was in heaven when we walked in. We spent some time at the pool and enjoyed all the wedding festivities.

We flew back to Salt Lake Monday afternoon and I got to spend 4 days with family. And I got the best greeting from my dog when I saw her. After 4 fun filled days with the fam, I flew back to Portland and experienced the worst turbulence of my life, but I didn't freak out too much! Seeing Chris again was so awesome and I am so glad to be back home with him!

When we first arrived at the resort. The parking was terrible and so far from our room that they take you on golf carts to get anywhere.

Our very comfy, tempurpedic beds!

The pretty scenery while eating breakfast.

This is a church by the resort called the "Trendsetter Church"

Getting ready to go to the rehearsal dinner.

At the pool

My mom and brother swimming laps

Pretty flowers in AZ

Eating at Oregano's after swimming

Getting ready for the wedding and enjoying the robes they found.

Grandma and the girl cousins before the wedding.

The pretty gazebo where they were married.

Aww, the whole fam (minus 2 husbands)

My mom's 10th serving of this cheese.

Waiting to be seated for the dinner.

Dancing the night away.

Lantanas.

Hanging out with Nikki and Bana in Murray.

Hanging out with Sadie.

Savannah was a baby when we moved to Oregon but she is a full on toddler now and so cute!

Hanging out with Cambria.

Cambria modeling.

I think I have the cutest nieces in the world.

I've watched this video so many times and it never gets old. This is part of Cambria's modeling for us.

I had a great time back home in Utah. I stayed busy by spending lots of time with my nieces and sister amongst many other things! I can't wait to see them all again for Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Want to hear about irony? Well we finally got the internet in our apartment and an hour before my flight left to come back to Oregon, my computer got a virus! So I had to leave my computer with my dad and I can't even use the internet now that we have it. So lame! I am lucky that my dad is a computer wiz and can fix the virus. The virus is one to that tries to steal your bank account information but lately we have only ordered things online on Chris' mac to be safe. We are lucky. Chris is very nice to let me use his computer in the evenings when he isn't studying. Now, does this look familiar to any of you Murray-ites? This is in a park in Hillsboro and we are pretty sure it is the same one at Murray park! It made us feel at home. :)

This is what the plaque says, so we need someone to check out the Murray indian and see if it's the same.

MOLD!

I hate the humidity here and the mold that we have to deal with because of it! We get mold in the caulking around our tub, on the bottom of our shower curtain, in the windows and in the dowels! I have to use Tilex to get rid of it and that stuff has such a strong stench that I can't stand breathing it in. Unfortunately our apartment is so small we can't really avoid it...

Here are our dowels growing mold. You can see the condensation in the window and the black on the window ledge is mold too. This is how bad it got while I was away for a week. Every morning there is a ton of condensation in each window and it runs down and soaks into the dowels. I sure miss Utah's dry air...

Oct. 11

So if you've ever seen this show:

then you will hopefully enjoy this post. If you haven't seen the show then you probably won't understand my excitement.
If you haven't seen the show, it is about this family-the parents are dwarves and they have 4 kids. Only one of the kids is a dwarf and he is a twin. His twin is normal height. But the show just follows them around and shows how they do everyday things. Well they live on a farm and they grow pumpkins, and maybe other things too. But for the month of October they let people come to their farm and buy pumpkins and you can take tractor tours around their farm. Well the exciting part is: they live a half hour away from us!* I used to watch their show with my mom so when I found out they lived by us I knew I HAD to go see their farm during October. Unfortunately my mom was not able to go, she would have shared in my extreme excitement to be there! I had to drag Chris along instead. And by drag I mean DRAG. He has never seen the show and does not understand my excitement in this. I mean, they're basically famous, right?!
Chris and I went on a Friday afternoon when he was done with school. I was hoping to see at least one person from the Roloff family there...
On our drive there. This is how excited Chris was NOT.

The pumpkin patch.

There were a lot of really cool carved pumpkins

Still trying to be excited.

After roaming the pumpkin patch we went on one of the tractor tours. While we were waiting in line we were lucky enough to see the twin boys. This is the dwarf one texting.

And this is the other one having his picture taken by and with just about everyone on the tractor. He didn't seem too thrilled with it and I'll admit that I think it would suck to be them during pumpkin season.

This is their nicely remodeled house, complete with short toilets and lowered counter tops.
The dad and the boys like to build a lot of things and this is the barn where they keep all the wood and supplies.
Their very nice basketball court and soccer field behind it.
The film crew!
This is the little western town they've build, it's called Destination. The tractor tour stopped here and we got to walk around and take pictures for 10 minutes.
They had all the doorways boarded off because you couldn't go inside because of some Oregon code, but the doorways were only about 5'10" anyway.









The insides were set up all cute-like.

A little church
A little house.
A little outhouse.

There is a bald guy in the picture below. While Chris and I were walking around this little town, a girl came up to me and said "I'm sure you probably get this a lot, but my boyfriend noticed how tall you are and was wondering if you were taller than him." Then she called her boyfriend over, (the bald guy) who claimed to be 6'3" and we stood next to each other. He was not even close to 6'3" and we were the same height, if not me being a little taller. Then his girlfriend whipped out her camera and snapped a picture of me and him standing next to each other. It was weird. They came to see and take pictures of little people and things, but apparently they thought I was an attraction too.

This is their 4 story tree house.

Their pirate ship (sleeps 4 comfortably), tree house, and castle (complete with queen's quarters). The kids often sleep out here when the weather is good. See all the useful info we learned on our tour?!


And as we were finishing up with our tour, Matt Roloff, the dad, came driving by on their little golf cart.

It was a very exciting day for me! Thank you Chris for being a good sport and going with me. Next year I will take my mom, since she is probably the only one who will appreciate this post.
In other news, Chris wants me to let everyone know that doggone-it is his new favorite word, however you spell it. And we are finally going to get the internet in our apartment! YAY!