New blog

Just FYI my blog has moved to a new home ...

http://www.efclifeadventures.wordpress.com/

See you all over there!

Ballerina Birthday

Our beautiful niece, Aubrey Ranae, turned 2 years old! Ah! Where-oh-where has the time gone? We so very much LOVE seeing her grow into the adorable, bright little girl that she is. She says the funniest things and always greets you with such excitement. Probably my two favorite phrases of hers are "Aubrey SO happy!" and "Wuv 'ou! (aka Love you).

The birthday gods were on our side because the rain cleared up, it warmed up and it ended up being sunny + about 70 degrees on her party day. The above pictures is Aubrey with her bud Dorian (Dani's god son) who is actually about 20 days older than Aubrey. They are both so stinkin' cute! More pictures to come when I shrink all of them down so they can squeeze into the little bit of photo storage I have left. *sigh*

Beer & Brats

Well, I couldn't leave you with a boring 'none picture' post so here is a 'quick' snapshot of our recent trip to Leavenworth. We went up for a (very) mini vaca with our good friends. Putt Putt golf, silly hat shop, beer & brats, hot tub, hiking, taffy ... whats not to love about Leavenworth. We had a great time, just wish it could've been for a bit longer.

1GB

Oh the irony. I have used up my 1GB quota for photo storage on Blogspot. Figures that I could do that in less than a year from starting my blog. I'm trying to figure out a solution since I do not want to purchase more storage which is option A or delete all of my old posts which is option B. The other option unrelated to blogspot is starting a new blog on a different platform. So needless to say, since I am not a fan of posts without photos it may be a little while before I update until I figure out a solution. Good times, good times.

Spring Love

The house we are currently 'renting' in Oregon has a very charming front & back yard. You can tell that the previous owner (she lived to be 101 I might add) had spent many years caring for the grounds. The tree in our front yard has the sweetest bird cage hanging from it which I can see from the large living room window. The birdcage is old, broken, and covered in moss but I think it is so beautiful and I can only imagine how much it has seen over the years. We moved in at the end of Feb so all of the trees/shrubs were dormant from winter. Over the last 2 weeks I have been seeing bits of Spring peaking through. I just love the changing of seasons. I cannot wait to see what the yard looks like when it is full this summer, but until then ... here is the beginning of Spring.

I cannot wait to go to the Tulip fields in Oregon this April! Good thing I just bought a 'rain coat' for my camera (and no I'm not kidding - lol!) We have had 29 straight days of rain ... we are all well hydrated here ;)

Honestly

I need a break from life. I feel like a ticking time bomb where at any minute if pushed too much I will just burst into tears. I guess you could say stress has taken front/center stage in my life and I just want a break. When I was at IAA, when I became stressed I would just wander out into an empty field, meadow, grotto, cliff (anything in nature) and collect my thoughts. It's how I process. I seem to find myself when I try to lose myself. I am so desperate for that right now.
This weekend I am headed to Napa for a girls weekend but I secretly want to steal away for days and go find some deserted place, with my camera and just have 'me' time. I hate that when I come back all that stress will be waiting for me at the baggage claim (no pun intended). It's true that in this case bottles and bottles of amazing wine might not be the cure (never-the-less it sounds amazing and I'm going to take full advantage!) Here is to hoping I find my 'happy' while in Napa ...& de-stress a bit!


Aubrey Love

One of the best parts of the new house is that we live minutes away from Dani & Aubrey, so we have been seeing lots of them. I take a ton of pictures on my iPhone and so I decided to do an "Aubrey" post and put up recent pics of the cuteness that is Miss Aubrey. We just love her to death and she has our names down which melts my heart every time I hear "Liiiiiiiiisssaa!" or "Ke-eb!" LOVE!

We met up with Dani & Aubrey at the park to play on a beautiful (rare) sunny day about 2 weeks ago. Ok, the first pic is of my loves but all the rest are of Miss A.

MELTS my heart <3

These next ones are from last Sunday - Caleb & I watched Aubrey for a few hours to give Matt & Dani some adult time to celebrate their engagement. We watched ammovie, played, and ate lunch ... OH, and Caleb even changed his very FIRST diaper. And yes, I do have photographic evidence! Hah!

She really loves pretending to drive - it was all smiles till I had to put her in her carseat ...

These final two are from a few days ago as we (Aubrey, Mommy, Nana & I) went to OHSU for A's MRI. She was such a trooper and we were all so proud of her. I added a video to the end of A doin her little dance in the waiting room. She does this funny 'crab walk' that Matt taught her. I didnt take the time to edit down the video so sorry about that :o) Enjoy!