Saturday, January 19, 2013

December 2012

Birthday
Our birthday is December 4th, it's fun to share.... 
we sure celebrated well this year.
Denny's for breakfast, yup free grand slams. awesome.
Olive Garden for dinner, they don't do anything for birthdays, 
but our waiter brought us a load of mints! 
picture from our actual party, 
the candles were "sparky" and a little freaky up so close to our faces

Gift Basket from the Mechams, yummy


The best Birthday chocolate bar.... soooo good. 


Dinner at Red Robin, we got balloons instead of dessert, we already had our fill. 
So yummy, gonna be a yearly thing for sure.

Cable Bridge Run
Swanger Crew all ready to go. 
The kids all did a 5k and Mom & Dad did a 10k.

**Disclaimer: Joseph is NOT wheelchair bound, we do use a wheelchair when traveling and he wanted to do a 5k in his chair, and he wheels most mornings. It's a great freedom for him.**
Joseph on the Bridge

 We did have to run to keep up with him at times. 
The only part he needed help with was the railroad tracks,
 they tried to "buck" him out of the wheelchair.
We finished in 46 min. 

Seaside Oregon
Travel was good and almost uneventful until we were closer to seaside, 
when we actually needed to chain up. 
Valerie and I learned how to put chains on, it wasn't hard. 
The worst part was getting them off, 
Valerie and I were wet and dirty when we arrived at the resort.  
But it was worth it...

View outside our condo. 

We went to the Seaside aquarium, not too exciting but fun.
The seals were so cute, especially when it was feeding time.

The sky was beautiful, this was taken on our walk to the aquarium.


It did rain A LOT one of the days that we were there, this is right off the side of the road.
 We were trying to go to Canon Beach, but the road was flooded.

Joseph at the shipwreck on the beach, fun times were had there. 
We had to hike to get there, quite literally the sand had blown up very high,
 up to the parking lot and beyond.


Astoria Bridge. My first Panoramic.

Seaside was amazing, relaxing, fun and wet. 
Vacations are good, vacations with family are the best.

Christmas Time
we got to spend time with lots of family and lots of relaxing. 

Keeping up our tradition, we went to see the hobbit on Christmas day.
We have been doing this for 4 years now, 
it started the year Joseph was diagnosed blind at Christmastime. 
This makes that memory happier and makes for a fun tradition for us. 


The cat was really insecure, she was very cuddly when we got home. 
She's right up between our heads in this picture, very unusual.

 More scenes with our lovey-dovey kitty, un-posed
She would hop up and snuggle anytime we stopped to sit.
she stuck her paw in while we were holding hands
Sleeping on my chest in the morning
trying to open the door while we were getting dressed.

2012 went out with a bang, literally. 
The back-door neighbors were setting off fireworks, 
totally freaking out the animals. 
No, not little fire crackers but BIG fireworks
 and once they started landing in the backyard
 we called the cops, twice. 
Does that make us old? 
We weren't planning on being up until midnight,
 but when it sounds like your house is being bombed it's hard to sleep.
Not exaggerating, seriously.


So goodbye 2012,
we weren't bff's or anything, 
so see you around. 
2013 please be kind. 

November 2012

These are the highlights of November:

We traveled to Mt. Home Idaho at Thanksgiving and visited with Alisha, Marc and kids. Here are some pics of the fun we had there.

Tori 

Sera Jean


Ever serious Sera

 
Tori

Sera warming up to Joseph

Tori jumped in, she loves having her picture taken


Coloring pictures for family

Sera sharing, it was a good game


Checkers, well sort of

She sat on him, closest thing to snuggling she does with a boy

The girls "helped" us pack, then watched tangled on the iPad
(I did their hair!)

After Mt. Home we spent time in Boise where we did a thanksgiving dinner with the Mechams and Toths, it was also the weekend that Calvin was blessed. There aren't as many pictures because I ended up with a double ear infection and sinus infection... so I felt pretty miserable.

Calvin Scott in his blessing outfit, his mom and Gma Toth made



"Yer a wizard, Calvin"
This is what happens when your  photographer auntie edits your pictures while tired! 

October 2012

I know, I know, it's been a while. But I thought that I should go back and add anything that I may have overlooked or forgot about blogging before I start the 2013 posts.

June 11th, 2012 our niece Paisley was born,  we were lucky enough to make a trip and meet this cutie while we were there.


October 13, 2012 our nephew Calvin was born. We met him early in November and Joseph and Calvin had some man- bonding time, I think that Calvin likes his voice. I don't blame him, I am a fan too. 

here they are cuddling...

and suddenly he busts out this smile.

We are smitten. 
More in October...
We received new callings. Joseph and I were called to ward choir he is the choir president and I am the director. The call was a surprise but the timing wasn't, let me explain. One Thursday evening I was talking to Joseph on my way home from work, hands free- no worries! In desperation I told him I didn't want to go to pack meeting that night, and something to the effect of "I'm done, I've reached my limit". Well, lo and behold the Lord was definitely aware of how I was feeling because 2 days later we were called into the bishop's office & we were extended our new callings. 

So ward choir is a whole new challenge, but like my dear husband reminded me I wasn't called as pianist because that would be easy for me, this is much harder and sometimes terrifying. Things are going so well and so smoothly, I am not music chairperson so I only make decisions for choir and Joseph "runs" everything, starts and ends practice, helps me pick songs and copies them for me while I'm at work and he invites people to join choir. We're a great team.