overnight in Discovery Bay

Hello Girls!  After a long week working, we were able to get away on Sunday night!  Jeremy's parents had to go up to Port Angeles on Monday, so Sunday night they booked a two bedroom Condo and we went along! It was fun and relaxing!  Tim and Tawny came up with the kids and we all went swimming for about an hour and a half.  They didn't spend the night, but stayed for some grilled hamburgers (OH SO YUMMY) and Hanna and Joey (Jeremy's sister and her husband) came up and spent the night too.  We stayed up until about 1am.  I painted my nails.  We laughed.  It was fun.  

Here are my boys asleep in our giant king sized bed.  You would THINK this means lots of room and sleep.  You can't tell that well, but Shea is sleeping sideways and pretty much kicked me in the head all night long.  It didn't matter how many times I turned him.  Not to mention his diaper got SOAKED through (I think he drank a lot of juice before bed, because I didn't really monitor his intake) and his diaper fell apart right in the middle of the bed.  Yep.  So I got to sleep on a towel and a blanket for the rest of the night.  This is why I was up and they were all still asleep at 7:30, I just couldn't lay there anymore.

So I hung out on our balcony for a little bit.  So sunny and beautiful!

I tried to take a picture of myself.  It was so sunny though!

After a bit Shea got up and we ate some breakfast.  Here he is posing and shouting "BREAKFAST!!" (which he just automatically does now - if the camera comes out, he shouts whatever he is doing and gives a cheesy smile)

After cleaning up and checking out, we went with Jeremy's moms out to Fort Warden and walked to the bunkers.  We parked outside of the park, because they started charging 10 dollars to park, and its silly to pay that when we're only going to be there for like 20 minutes.  Shea loved the bunkers and kept walking down the "dark tunnels".  I even went.  I usually hate them, but it was sunny enough and I had to show my son how to be brave, haha.  It was a loooong walk to get in and out of the park, even though we parked really close by.  Shea got really tired and would only let me carry him, so I got my work out and was about dead by the time we got back to the car.  At least a 2 mile walk with a 32 lb. toddler on me.  We stopped and made some croissant sandwiches for lunch and then headed home, because I had to work at 5.  Work was thankfully uneventful except for two people who walked in the door 20 SECONDS to close and ordered two large desserts.  I was kind of mad, because I had to re-clean a bunch of stuff.  Really, who does that?  They even looked at the time posted on the door, checked their watch, and then decided it would be OK to come in and order when we were basically closed and I was the only one working.  LAME.  I never go to restaurants that close to closing.

And here is my belly pic from last week!  I'm feeling so biiiig - I know I'm not really that big, but things just feel a little more uncomfortable this week.  Oh well.  I'll get over it.  4 more months to go!  I started posting on my other blog and there is a page called "belly watch" if you want to a see a week by week progress ;P

Today we are heading out to Preschool Storytime at the library, and then to run a few errands in Silverdale (buying diapers, ugggh).  I also finally cleaned out my refrigerator, and noticed that other than 1.5 gallons of milk, some yogurt, and eggs, we pretty much have no food but condiments. Yeeeeaah, need to remedy that!

I love days off. I think I have mentioned this more than once.

So I had two days off, worked two, and had two more off. Such a relief after the mega amount of work I did the last week. I had a student both days I worked which is awesome because I get paid more when I have a student, but sucks because it is way harder to get my work done when I have to explain every step of everything that I do.

On Wednesday Gabe and I went to Ikea and it was awesome. I got a curtain rod and curtains and Gabe helped me make them the right length by pinning them. I had to buy an iron because mine completely broke and these are no sew curtains. They came with iron on adhesive so that I just ironed the bottoms to the right length and cut off the extra, I am super pleased with the results! I think it brings the dining room together and I am so glad to have a way to cover the huge screen door! My kitties were quite helpful as I was ironing. They thought I was doing super fun stuff. If they only knew. Haha. Ill have to take a better picture of them open because that is how they will look more of the time. :)

I got a new table runner for the dining room at Ikea too. I have ironed it since I took the picture (didn't own an iron when the picture was taken haha). I love it though! I bought a 4lb container of strawberries the other day at costco and we just ate the last of them today. I think they lasted 4 days. I want more already!

I am super addicted to a show called Downton Abbey. I stayed up one night when I got home from work to watch an episode and my kitties kept me company. I don't usually get addicted to shows and want to watch them all the time but I seriously can't stop thinking about this show! Ridiculous I know.

I didn't take a picture of them but I made snickerdoodles on Thursday for a going away party for one of the students on our floor who had completed her 240 hours. These cookies are amazing. I forgot how good snickerdoodles were, thank you pinterest for reminding me! Amber and Candice, you will be addicted if you ever get a pinterest. I know Becca and I are!

In other news I have swam 4 times a week for the last three weeks! I am so happy I have gotten in a good routine. I think I will only go three times this next week though because Paul and I are going out of town Thursday through Sunday for my cousins wedding in Portland. We will be staying with my Grandparents in Salem and I can't even tell you how excited I am for this missing vacation!

Playing Hooky

I have been really unproductive in terms of school work.  I have the whole week off, and my dear husband reminded me today of all the work I was saying I would get done.  After sitting in front of my computer for an hour doing nothing I decided to take the day off and not even try to do schoolwork.  I'll save that for tomorrow. I ended up having a great day and getting some other things done.

I tried Angela's baguette recipe.  AMAZING!  It turned out so good.  I have joined the 'never buy store bought baguette' club.  Here are my pictures:

Fresh oven baked bread is my weakness.  I cut a slice and spread on some spinach cream cheese and five minutes later: 

I also went on a great walk with Beatrix.  There's a trail really close to our house that used to be a railroad line.  It was so refreshing to be alone in the woods walking next to the river.  I loved it.

Tonight I made Herb Roasted Chicken from Pioneer woman.  Its so easy and so delicious!

Even though I love living here, we haven't made that many friends yet.  So Justin and I have been spending a lot of time together.  Its been so good.  The other night we went and saw 'The Vow' at our local theatre.  I loved it and cried-it was similar to 'The Notebook' in that way.  Its funny because there were a bunch of other women there too, and during the emotional parts I heard someone openly sobbing behind me.  -signs of a good movie.

Justin and I have been working out together too.  Its been great because when one of us isn't motivated the other one will make sure we do our workout.  shhh don't tell anyone, but I've been getting him to do Pilates dvds with me. ;)  They are really tough, but we've done them about 5 times already this week!

Well, its getting late and I should go to bed.  Good night ladies!

beautiful day off

Today was finally my day off!  9 days working straight, and I am so happy to be able to be home and not worry about dropping Shea off with Gramma and Papa, switching cars, having to pick him up again to take him home, and not seeing my husband at all!  I still haven't really seen him that much today, but last night we were able to go out on a Pho date (we didn't end up going on Sunday).  We ordered one big bowl of pho, and a chicken curry and it was so so so good, I ate until I couldn't eat anymore.   Than we walked next door to the dollar store and got some dollar candy to take back to his parents house, where we sat and watched netflix for a couple of hours while Shea was sleeping.  We didn't end up going home until close to 1am!  But it was so fun and worth it.  Plus, Shea slept in until 7:30 and I stayed in bed until close to 8.  Hence the following picture...

Yes.  I came out to find that Shea had moved a chair to the counter, reached into the bread basket, and took out all of the remaining mini-bagels from the bag.  One was stuffed in his mouth - I have no idea how many he ate, maybe only 1...I couldn't help but laugh though!  It was kind of my own fault for not getting up and feeding the kid, but usually he asks me for breakfast and doesn't just help himself.

After I got dressed, I was able to finish up all our bills and boring stuff.  I did our taxes two nights ago on TurboTax, but they had an error in their website we couldn't get around.  Turned out enough people were having trouble that they were issuing an update today.  Gotta admit - I was a little mad, because I had spent SO much time on it, and stayed up late thinking I could get it done by the deadline to get the return a little sooner, and then they had already charged us and we still couldn't e-file because of THEIR glitch!  Luckily, they fixed the problem as promised today and our taxes are officially DONE!  Can't wait to get our return in a couple of weeks - we'll finally have our second car paid off and be debt free.  Of course, we don't owe anything on it until like 2014 anyway, but it will be nice to not have the interest accumulating.  And we really like the idea of not having any debt ever.  Except, of course, when we finally buy our first home.

Then we ran off to a playdate at the park!  I moved my mom's group to facebook, because we don't want to pay the fees for Meetup anymore and wow!  The membership doubled in a day!  It is so much easier to get people connected on there and it is easier for me to manage with it all being in one place.  We had so much fun - I met one mom who wasn't from the group at all and she might join, and then three other moms came with their kids.  We were there for 2 and a half hours and it was WONDERFUL (although, a little cold).  Shea got so, so dirty, but he definitely had a blast running around with the other kids.  Its nice to just be out and chatting with other moms too - something I didn't get a lot of when I lived in Port Orchard.

Shea is still asleep.  Once we got home I cleaned up the living room (I had left Shea's half-eaten bagel and crumbs rushing out this morning), did the dishes, and made some pizza dough which is rising right now.  Jeremy's brother and his wife are up in the area, so once Shea gets up we're going to head up and visit them, and then I get to go to Kingdom Kid's tonight (the kids club Shea goes to every week that Jeremy's parents run).  I haven't been there in over a month because I normally work Thursday nights, but its so fun to see the kids and Shea singing and dancing and interacting so much with each other!


No 21 week pic today.  Too busy this morning!  Jer felt Hailey kick last night though, and he has men's group tonight, so I get to come home and have an evening of sewing and working on projects.

My week.

This past week was tiring, I worked 7/8 days and it surely exhausted me. Paul texted me on Monday evening (the last of my seven days) and said "there is no food in this house". That is right ladies, our fridge was flat out empty. Yesterday I made lasagna from the Pioneer woman and it was amazing! I also made split pea soup so there would be more in the fridge. We had some cabbage so I made chinese chicken salad (minus the chicken cause I was feeling lazy). Then this morning I made Lemon Cranberry scones and they were amazing and then I tried to make this english muffin bread, but only one loaf of it and it turned out um...gross, non risen straight to the trash!

I was tired and my kitties cuddled me, it was a perfect morning!

Little man Eric has been my right hand man this week. Since I was so tired from work I tried to chill in the mornings not to wear myself out. I would wake up, drink tea, read my Bible, cuddle my kitties, watch Downton Abbey (awesome show by the way!!), take a 20 minute nap, go swimming, make lunch, then go to work. Good good days I tell ya, good days.

Paul brought home jelly beans from work, the sweet tart kind. My favorite kind ever. I was trying to take a picture of them in my cute owl bowl and then bam, they fell everywhere. The truth behind cute pictures, chaos.

Some of my relaxing before work week. Tv, tea, cats, coffee, staying in bed till 10am, and scones and pears for breakfast when we were out of milk!

Monday was the last day of work in my long stretch, so before I went to work I made sure to get all the laundry done so I could relax on my two days off. (the bathrooms had been cleaned and the floors vacuumed on thursday when I was off).

Tuesday. I woke up at 10, got out of bed at 11, ate breakfast at 11:30, watched Downton Abbey, went swimming at 1pm, then went and did my errands. I have this awesome app on my phone that keeps all my lists separate by store, and it is awesome. I don't know what to do without it anymore!

Today for breakfast I had greek yogure with granola and fresh strawberries! For lunch I had that baguette bread I made the other week (I froze one of the loaves) with some of that homemade lasagna. Yum, yum, yum. And there is my flop of a bread recipe, um, will need to try that one again later.... Oh and my chicken patty, he is one goofy chicken patty.

I went to bible study last night for the first time in years and it was awesome. There were 7 people there, we are talking about the importance of the gospel, and it felt so good to be around people my age and talk about God and the gospel. I can't wait to go again in two weeks (I can only go every other week due to work but still, better than nothing!). :)

Love to all!

20 weeks!

Just thought I'd post my belly pic from this week! Its my halfway point and  I think it moved up a little bit even since the party. I felt Hailey move from the outside today!  Jeremy still can't seem to feel her, but I know soon he will - she is a mover!  I think maybe more than Shea (uh oh...;P).  I bought two little clothing items for her yesterday and am going to start sewing this week, it feels so much more real now that I know its a she and she has a name and a personality already!  Getting ready to head off to work and I think I'm going to treat myself to a Starbucks on the way(Jeremy if you are blogger stalking me, pretend you didn't read that), because I worked out for an hour today (two days in a row!  I probably shouldn't be celebrating yet...).  Had a wonderful lazy day yesterday before work with the Shea and am looking forward to having tomorrow night off - I have worked every evening since Tuesday and am TIRED.  And I've hardly seen my husband because he's been working during the day all week.  Date night should be in the works for tomorrow.

Love you girls - hope you are having a wonderful Saturday!

PS - Angela, thank you for posting the pho recipe!  Next time I get to our one grocery store that has a decent asian section I am going to try it out!  I also made those baguettes yesterday - HOLY COW was that easy and fast and delicious!  Keep sharing your awesome recipes!  OH and I got all the pics in the email - thanks! :)

Pho

Becca asked for the recipe so I decided to put it in its own little post because I had too many comments to add. I never completely follow recipe's (unless it is cookies or something) so here is my take on Pho.

I started with this recipe. The first time we made the pho I used chicken stock, it was pretty good but we had low sodium c hicken stock and I would say it needed a bit more salt. But overall it was yummy. I also used the thinly sliced beef instead of chicken. So so good. I used the noodles pictured above instead of dry chinese egg noodles (8 oz instead of 4) and left out the lemon grass and bok choy.

The second time we made it I used beef stock, it was good but I just may have liked the chicken stock better even though we were putting beef in the soup. I plan on buying vegetable stock and trying it that way as well in the very near future.

We used the "rooster sauce" and hoisen sauce as the condiments, just as if we were at a restaurant.

So there you have it, my version of Pho. So so so cheap to make and so amazingly delicious.

Becca's gender reveal party, Valentines day, and of course my kittens.

So I told Becca I would post these pictures on Tuesday, but here it is Thursday and I am just getting around to it. I worked Monday through Wednesday, have today off, then work Friday through Monday, so today is my day for chilling with my love, cleaning house, watching tv, and blogging!

On Sunday was Becca's gender reveal party. I loved all the colors and decorations, they looked awesome all over Amber's house! The food was delicious, I ate way too much, but at least it was fruit and veggies that I ate!

Becca said the bunting is going to go in the baby's and Shea's room and I can't wait to see how it all comes together!!

Adorable cupcakes, awesome decorations, scrabble tiles mixed of the baby's name. It all was awesome.

I sent this iphone collage to my mom during the party and she thought it was adorable! Like mother like daughter. :) And of course it doesn't hurt that Becca and I have nearly the exact same taste! Love it.

Shea was absolutely adorable eating his cupcake. Becca's dad was on the other side of the table taking a bunch of pictures as well and all Shea cared about was eating the entire cupcake. Adorable.

Here is a little video of him:

When the party was winding down Joe put on Toy Story and all the kiddos came one by one into the family room. Oh how sweet it was to see Joe on the couch with 7 children! :)

On Monday Paul and I drove down to Cabela's to sell one of his guns. We stopped at Krispy Kreme on the way down and got free donuts with coupons I had got last time I was there with Gabe. Oh how yummy those donuts were. Pure heaven in my mouth. I sat in the chair at Cabelas (after Paul sold the gun to some dude) while Paul walked around. That chair was super comfy!

This was my valentines day. Paul and I said we weren't going to get presents for each other because we did that mini vacay, but then I ended up making him a card, getting him Sweethearts, and made him some cookies. I bought myself a coffee at starbucks after working out with a giftcard my mom had gotten us, and looked at my phone to see this awesomely cute picture Paul had sent me. Then the next day Paul worked a half day so we got to see each other for a few hours before I went to work. He brought me home that adorable mug (Hancook China-my fav) and I came home after work to an awesome note on my side table. I sure do love that man. He knows me so so so well!

Eric found a super comfy nook between his mom and dad today while we were watching TV. The picture of us snuggling was from the other day, this cat is seriously the most cuddly cat I have ever met ever. Eleanor just likes to help me eat my breakfast, haha.

Today I got up, did some laundry, picked up the house, emptied trashes and the dishwasher, went swimming, Costco, and Safeway and came home to Paul (who had worked at half day). We hung out and watched Downton Abbey, snuggled with the kitties, and then went to Trader Joes, H-mart (asian grocery store), and the gun store. When we got home I made us caramel macchiatos, then tea, we watched more tv (lazy day ya know!), and then we made pho for dinner. Perfect evening if I do say so myself!

The other day I made beer bread cause it said "five minute beer bread" on pinterest. It was good, kinda tasted like beer, but good. I ended up throwing a few middle slices away because there was a little doughy part. I think I need to make it in a bigger loaf pan next time because it would have been super dry on the ends if I cooked it longer.

The next morning I made baguette bread and it was amazingly good, I never am going to buy any at the store again if I have the time to make this!!

Becca if you want any of the party pictures full size just send me your email address and I will send them over!

Love to all

today

well.  I DID it.  I sat down and finished our taxes and just sent them off to our CPA friend to see if he will double-check them for us.  And, I am excited, because unlike last year (fingers crossed that I did everything correctly) these were WAY easier, and we should be getting a nice chunk of money back.  It was really frustrating when I started, because I KNOW I did all of Jeremy's self-employment tax paperwork back in July after he was done working at the church, but none of the forms were saved anywhere on the computer.  So I had to re-do a lot of stuff, but it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would.


Anyway, I decided that once I completed that, I would post about my day!


I don't work until 5 (and my boss just texted me and said I would probably be coming in later than that), so it has felt like I've pretty much had the day off.  Jeremy didn't have to go off to work until 9 today - he has thankfully been getting lots of extra hours at the church, because they are tearing down and putting in a big new deck.  So, I made us some lattes while he cooked up some bacon.  Then we had egg, avocado, and bacon sandwiches on english muffins.  OH so yummy.  I am obsessed with avocado since I bought some delicious ones for only .50 each!  I need to go back to that store and get some more now that I know how good they are.


After Jeremy left, I worked on party decorations for our gender reveal party on Sunday (Angela, did I tell you I am so happy you can come?? I told Amber, haha.  And Candice, you would of course had been invited if you didn't live so far away - lots of pictures will be shared, I'm sure)!  I am getting excited about it! I have found so many fun/cute teal/red decorations and my sister-in-law, Hanna, is making a some cute stuff too, and helping with food, etc.  Here is a sneak peek at the mess that is my dining room because of all the craftiness going on:

Yes, I spraypainted an old frame and a cupcake holder I got at Walmart for $6 to match the color scheme.  I am excited because these are the colors I am doing for Shea/baby's room too, so I didn't mind buying things I could use again for decor in there.


I also baked three loaves of lemon-coconut banana bread (my favorite recipe).  And they turned out better than any batch I have ever made!  I made so much because I brought home all the too-ripe-to-serve bananas from work.  I'm planning on giving some to my sister-in-law and then taking some into work.  The third loaf will be frozen for when we have company and we have half a loaf left to enjoy this week with our coffee.

After that was done baking, I did a 45 minute work out.  Felt SO good, I haven't worked out in about a week, because I've been so exhausted from work (and a little lazy).  My hair looks horrible, but here I am in my work out clothes - it is so nice that work out clothes are stretchy so I can wear them the whole time!  I'm sure a better/more official belly pic will come when Jeremy is home to take one, but it might not happen until tomorrow.

And, of course, my Sheabug!  He played so much today and is always so, so, happy - how can I get his cheerful and energetic attitude?  I tell you, this kid has always been a sweety, but in the past month, he has just turned into super-sweety!  Always smiles and hugs and laughter and love from this boy (and the occasional tantrum, or course!)  Oh yes, and he is in overalls which the back leg is covered in play-dough from this morning, and that is still his pajama shirt on underneath.  Its been a chill day.

I had bought some noodles for him to do stringing with - turned out fun, but hard, so it didn't last long.  I threw them into a bowl with some counting bears and measuring cups, and he had so much fun concentrating on this!  He divided them up by bears and noodles, tried to fit them all into the smaller containers, and eventually dumped them all over the table.  Good clean fun.  I put them in a ziploc bag for other times - I know this will get a lot of use and there are SO many different activities he can do with it.  Yep, homeschooling has begun ;)

Shea is still taking a nap right now, I think I am definitely going to get OFF the computer after working on taxes and staring at this screen so long and probably go do laundry and try and organize my files a little better - my organizational system has not been very uh, organized since we moved here.  Gotta get back on track for the next year!  

Oh yes, and this is just me being a nerd and feeling very smart.  I set up dual monitors today. Which isn't really very hard at all with the help of google, haha.  But it made doing taxes so much easier since I could keep track of the millions of forms we have to fill out, and copying numbers over was so much easier when I could look at both forms at the same time.  Love it, never going back.

Tomorrow is my ultrasound at 10am!  It came quick!  I'm still voting girl!  We'll see...;)

Port Townsend and a mini vacation!

I waited too long to try and get someone to cover my shift on Monday (I started like a week in advance) so everyone who wants to pick up shifts had already picked up shifts from someone. I put myself on the cut list (which means I could either not have to go in, get put on standby to come in after 4 hours, have to work the first 4 hours of work then get cut, or they need me so I work the whole 8 hours). I ended up getting put on standby and got no call by 5:45pm so Paul and I headed to Port Townsend for our two night stay!!

We got to our room a bit before 8, took everything up three flights of stairs (the building was from the 1800's so it had no elevator). We then made a quick trip to Safeway for some dinner. Dinner of a sub sandwich and Bagel Bites and sweethearts. Health food? RIiiight, this was our vacation. I had brought some popcorn from home too so we made that.

We went to bed by 11 (I wouldn't have even been off of work by this time) and I got the most awesome night of sleep. We had a king size bed, so I did wake up a few times wondering where Paul was...and he was just two feet to my right...haha. We woke up at 6:30 to watch the sunrise and then woke up at around 8:30am for the day. It was super sunny, gorgeous, and almost 60 degrees!

We had a gorgeous view of the bay from our room, which was awesome. We had an even better view from this cute little coffee place across the street. This place seriously had the best coffee and breakfast roll up ever, and I wouldn't just say that. The roll up had ham and eggs inside and the outside was made of sweet wheat something. Oh man how I need that recipe. I had a caramel latte and it was heaven. Pure yummy.

After breakfast Paul and I walked all around Port Townsend and looked in all the cute shops (which don't open till 10:30 or 11). I had my polar fleece on and got warm, it was so awesome. There are so many cute shops and old buildings, I kept making Paul stop so we could take more pictures.

We had recieved a subway giftcard for Christmas from one of my Aunt's so we stopped and had a nice free lunch! The view was amazing, not your average Subway.

We went to a little park, Chezamocha Park, and they had the most beautiful baby flowers. I can't wait for spring!!

More walking around town. I realized I am hardly ever in pictures because I am always the one taking the pictures, so on this mini vacay I kept saying "Paul take a picture of me here, and here, and here..." haha.

We seriously lucked out with the weather. I could have stayed outside ALL day long.

More walking, more awesome old buildings, more holding hands. :)

Our room (bed not made) with the sun streaming in. I love sunshine, big windows, and the king size bed. I took an hour nap in the afternoon!

After I woke up from my nap I ate some caramel apple, and let me tell you it was good.

For dinner we went to an Asian place by the hotel, it was not too great. I think Paul and I are spoiled with all the awesome Asian food over here and should have never tried to go to one in all all white person town. Not a good idea.

After dinner we went for some homemade ice cream, I got gingersnap and Paul got Oreo ice cream. I love all the yummy food and eating out that vacation gives!

And last but not least we went to Hudsons Cafe for breakfast. We both got scrambles and yumm, best food I have had at a "greasy spoon" kind of restaurant. Mine had bacon, mushrooms, eggs, cheese, bell peppers, and probably more that I don't understand!

We left the restaurant at 11 and got home at a little before 1pm. We had some very happy kitties waiting for us. :)

And that was our vacation. On tuesday I got a call from working asking me to pick up shifts on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, I picked up Saturday so I am working all my hours this week but still got a three day vacation. Best deal ever even though I procrastinated.

I am loving life.