BIG BOY!

This morning AJ had his breakfast and then said "poop!" so we went to the potty and started reading his book. He was only a few pages in when he actually did it! He pooped in the potty. I know that to all of you who aren't parents this seems ridiculously gross and silly to be celebrating but we are SO excited! I hope he potty trains quite because it I am done with diapers!!! Yippie for Age!

P.S. I have recently noticed that I use and excessive amount of exclamation marks in my blog, I'll work on it.

Punch Bowl Falls

Growing up I was all about the outdoors. As soon as the summer hit I was barefoot and running wild until it was time to go back to school. We didn't camp, that would be my moms worst nightmare, but my Dad took us hiking and I always wanted a husband who love nature as much as I did. I remember seeing young couples hiking with their little baby in a carrier and thinking how cute that was, I would picture my husband doing the same thing. Well today that picture became a reality and although it might seem a little lame, I was loving every minute f these two hiking up to the falls.
As you can see we went for a hike today with 4 other couples and Dan. Dan was a lone wolf today because his wife wouldn't phone in sick, party pooper, but we were glad he still came anyways! We drove about 30 minutes out of Portland to the base of the hike and started in. Me and Aaron are a little out of shape but we didn't want to wuss out so we went anyways. The hike was about 4.5 miles round trip with an elevation of 500 feet. We went to check out the stream at the base of the hike and found these spawning Salmon, they swim up the stream to lay their eggs and spawn and then they die. This one still had some fight left in him!
We started out strong, visiting and getting to know everyone, but after about 30 minutes this quieted down a little. Here are some shots I took on the way up.

After 1 hour and 15 minutes we had made it!! I felt so proud of myself for not passing out, Hurray!!! Here are the falls, how do they look, familiar? These falls are in a church video so keep your eye out for them next time, and just think, "Lacey and Poy were there!" Anyways we stopped for lunch and to let the kids (and husbands) play for a while. It was Tom's 30th birthday today, whoo whoo, so he decide to celebrate by risking his life on this 60-70 Foot drop!!!!
It only took us 45 minutes to hike out since it was a lot more going down than up. We had a great time getting to know everyone and seeing a bit more of Portland. I know that I have put up way to many pictures for one post but here are a few more for our family's!

The Power of the Gospel

I feel so overwhelmed by the power of the Gospel, and the profound impact it has had on my life. After attending the Woman's broadcast last night I could not help but get exited about Relief Society and what it means to be a part of such an amazing organization. I have been so nervous about moving this far from my home and family that I almost forgot one of the great blessings that comes with belonging to the Lords church, Ward families. What a blessing it is to know that no matter where you go, there is already a support system waiting for you.

After meeting the Wagner's on our "Find a home" trip, they have become good friends and helped easy our transition in to Portland life. With in the first hour of arriving at our new apartment complex we had also meet the Gough's, not only did they introduce themselves and invite us for dinner the next day but they stayed around to help haul all our stuff into our new apartment. After only one day at church we have been invited to go on a hike with 5 other young families from the ward, and although I have not been hiking in a few years and will probably be eating their dust, I am looking forward to it! Our ward family has been taking such great care of us it is hard to believe we have only been here one week!

Last night the stake had a dinner before the broadcast, which I was a little nervous to attend since I hadn't even been to church yet! My nervousness vanished the moment I arrive. The women welcomed me with love and I soon felt apart of my new stake and was eagerly introducing myself to those around me. (Weird, I am usually so shy!?!) The General Relief Societies message was so beautiful, I felt inspired to throw myself into the RS program and take from it all that it can offer me. I may not be as close to home as I am use to but there are so many knowledgeable women right here that I can learn from, and I intend to do just that! I have a fire in my belly and look forward to getting my visiting teaching beats and a new calling in the Columbia River Ward, I will keep you posted with our ward life, until then here is my favorite quote from last night:

"Work will cure your grief. Immerse yourself in the service of the Lord!"
-President Gordan B. Hinkley

Portland Blues

Today was cloudy and a little rainy, I guess you could say that after just 5 days Portland has gotten to us. We stayed at home almost the whole day with the Portland Blues! lol, we didn't really have the blues but we had to stay home and wait for the washer and Dryer to show up, which didn't happen till around 3:00. I have been really worried about my Grandma who is in the hospital right now (I will give you the whole story later) and also for my family. I want to be there with them to get through this crisis as I always have been, but that just isn't a possibility. So we stayed home and had a family day. It was nice to be together and enjoy our new home. Here are the boys playing a little guitar.


Dad always hogs the guitars, this is AJ giving him the "I could do better" look.

Here is my Sexy rock star husband, he gave it all up to live the simple life with me! he he he. I love this face though!

Me and Age reading his Nap time story, sometimes I ask Aaron to take our picture so I am in a few of the shots, and then this is the face I make! Nice

Can't help myself!

So we moved here approximatly 3 days ago, we still have stuff in boxes, and our washer and dryer could be here anytime today but I just couldn't help myself, I had to have people over. Most of you know that I LOVE having get togethers at my house. Weather it's watching a show, hosting a party, or in this case making cookies. We wanted to get together and do something fun for the kids so we thought that we could decorate some sugar cookies. The Gough's and the Wagners came over around 10:30 this morning and boy did we have fun. The kids ate so much sugar, I am not sure any of them will ever sleep again!

This is Nicole, Megan, and AJ getting thing started by taste testing a few of the toppings. AJ just kept eating teh M&M's of his cookie and saying, "More!"

Here we have the Gough family. Ken has some real talent in the cookie decorating area, I think he was pracicing at home before he came over. Once we saw his first few cokies we all steped up our game, see if you can find Steve's Poccahantis.

Isn't she so cute? Breanna was liking all the iceing off he cookie but we got a shot while she was still clean!

And this is Erika, she is only 11 months old, a little young to help out, so she decide to lay under the Table in hopes of catchinga few snacks. (Which I am pretty sure she did! What a cutie)

WIC Family.

Some of you Canadians may be asking yourself, "What the heck is WIC" well I am here to tell you just what it is and why I love it! WIC is a program they have here in the states to make sure that children 5 years of age and under are getting the proper nutrition. I wasn't sure if we would qualify because we are Canadian but it is for any Low income family living in the states, so we got our appointment and went down there for our interview. We got approved and now we get the following items FREE every month!!!!

4 4L jugs of milk
2 boxes of cereal
3 cans of frozen juice
2Lbs of Any type of cheese
2 Dozen eggs
1 Large jar of Peanut Butter or 1Lbs of peas/beans/lentils

Isn't that awesome!?! We are really grateful as poor student for any help we can get and this will be great, so Thanks Portland. Also today we ordered our washer and dryer, they are 4 years old with all new hoses etc. and the Dryer has a new heating element in it. They will be delivered tomorrow and I can't wait. I hate getting behind on Laundry. While we were out doing all this AJ fell asleep for 20 minutes in the car and decided it would be his nap, as you can imagine this made the rest of our day a little ruff.
Here is our nap free AJ, dosen't he look fun?
After dinner we need to get AJ distracted so we went to Ikea to find a desk and then came home to put it together. AJ loves helping his Dad or Grandpa or anyone build stuff so that kept him happy till bed time. He the are hard at work, aren't they so cute?
Here's AJ checking out Aarons workmanship.

Humm....I think he found his pretzels, forget the desk!

"Dose this help Dad?"

Family Home Evening

Today we were off to an early start, there is so much stuff we still needed to get done that we had to leave early. We ran all over town getting papers signed, groceries, and all the other household iteams we needed. It was lots of work and AJ was really tired when we got home but it was worth it cuz' now we are almost all set up now.

The Goughs invited us to spend family home evening with them. After a long day we where more than happy to joing them. We went to Winco and got some toasted subs and then went to play at the park. We told the Wagners to meet us there but we didn't think they would show so at the last minute we switched parks. When I got home Nicole had writen me a message woundering where we had gone!!! Opps, talk about your first impressions, they may never hang out with us again, lol. Nicole said it was no big deal, so I think we will try to get together in the next day or two. Anyways here are some pictures from the park.



Alysha and Breanna trying out the slide, this little girl has no fear.

Ken and little Breanna

Comments

Anright everyone, I have changed things up a bit and you can now leave a comment with out having to sing in or anything. This is mostly for my family members, make sure yu put who you are and the bottom of your post and then just select the "annonymous" setting and yu can make all the comments you want! Love ya guys.

One in the same

I still have to blog for Monday but I just couldn't help posting this picture. This is Aaron and AJ right after Age's night time bath. He LOVES when Aaron is here to give him his bath and tonight he got to try out our new shower head. I don't know if I mentions the insanely low shower head here, which lead to our purchas of a new shower head! We got oneof those ones that has a long hose so you can move pick it up and move it around. Anways AJ thinks it's great btu that is beside the point. I wanted to post this picture I got, look how cute they are!?! People are constantly telling me that AJ looks like a mini Aaron but I usually can't see it but here I can. They are two very cute peas in a pod and I just love them some much!

Sunday

We are horrible, after everything the Lord has done for us we didn't even make it sacrament on Sunday! We are such brats. Our sunday clothing was all packed away and er never got to it in time, plus we looked like crap but we will be going next week and can't wait. We spent the day getting organized and keeping AJ out of trouble, which is harder than you'd think in a house full of boxes. At 5:00 we went over to the Gough's (g-o-ff) house for dinner. We were so ready for a deacent mean and Alysha's taco soup did not disapoint. The have the cutes little girl named Branna, she and AJ played so well together, They have very similar tempraments so they get along great, no fighting or puching...so far anyays! Ken is entering his 10th quarter which means they still have a yea left here, and he was able to give some of his study books to Poy. You spend most of your time with your own quarter so they might not see much of eacother but I think me and Alysha will get hang out quite a bit! Anyways we mae a lot of progress in the house and got to know some really great people, I know we didn't get to church which is super important, but we had a pretty good day. Oh yeah and here are a few shots of the soggy welcome Portland gave us, way to live up to your reputation!

Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you!

So this post in a great big THANK-YOU to our families for everything they have done for us with and in preparation for this move. Thanks to my parents for letting us invade their home for more than 7 weeks. I know it's not easy to go from just the two of you at home to having us running around messing the place us but they did it and we are so grateful. We loved getting to spend all that time with you and I know that AJ will miss seeing you guys (and the puppies!) everyday!
Thanks to Aaron's parents for taking us down to Portland on two different occasions. It was so much fun to spend time together exploring Portland and finding us a place to live. We never could have done it without you guys and there is no one we would have rather done it with! We will miss you so much.
Thanks for all your help getting packed up, cleaning, moving our stuff to Fort Mac, watching AJ, Scanning pictures, Putting on BBQ' so we could say our good-bye's, for all the good advice, blessings, and above all else the love and concern you all have for us! We are so Grateful for you all and count you as one of our greatest blessing.

So I have one last thanks to give and it's BIG one. This is for Grandpa Chuck, Al, and Jared. We want to let you guys know how much your helping us move meant to us. Not only did the Voluntarily drive some 28 hours in just 3 days but they also loaded and unload the trailer, picked up furniture, assembled furniture, and I swear that Jared must have thought I brought him as a babysitter! Every time I needed a break or had something I had to get done with out AJ, I would take him right to Jared, lol. I have never see those to hang out together before but AJ LOVES Jared, he was looking for him every time we stoped for gas or food, and it was really nice to know that Jared would take care of him. We never heard anyone complain or mention how long the drive was, they never made it seem like a chore. Even thought some may think we have it way to good for being students (he he) I know that they are genuinely exited for us and this new phase we are starting, so Thanks again Everyone we love you!

Saterday - Moving in

It was another 7 hours in the car today what with all the stops for gas and food. We got up at 5:40 and were on the interstate by 6:00. AJ said his good mornings to everyone and promptly fell back asleep the minute the car started, he has been such a good traveller. 7:30 was breakfast and it was so delicious I think that I will always stop at the little pancake house in ritzville when we make this journey. We drove along the beautiful Colombia and hit a few patches of rain but by the time we hit Portland it was all clear. Even though AJ did great in the car I have never been so exited to get out of the vehicle in my whole life! We all needed to stretch out legs and I was anxious to see our new place and start getting everything moved in.
After a few wrong turns we found the apartments only to see that we had missed the apartment managers by 5 minutes. They were gone for lunch until three and we were stuck waiting in the parking lot. ho hum. Since we had time we unhitched the trailer and sent Grandpa and Aaron to pick up the couches.
During our wait we meet Ken Gough, he is a WSCC student with 1 year of study left. He and his wife, Alysia live in the complex with their 18 month old daughter Breanna. They are such a nice couple and Ken stuck around to help us move everything in. It took a while but we got it all done, hurray we live in Oregon!
Aaron and Jarrad ran the U-Haul back while Grandpa Chuck, Al, AJ, and I went to get a few grocery's to tied us over till Mondays big shop. We have a great Safeway about 4 blocks away, which I am so exited about, since I have been stressing about it. (which I know is ridiculous!)
We ate Chinease food and then Al and Jarad came back to help set up the beds and stuff before saying good-be and heading to the hotel. It was such a long day but also very exiting, it may be messy but we finally have our own place again!!!
Pictures to come - I have to get them for Al's Camera

Getting There

After our morning at the hospital it was time to get a move on. As always saying Good-bye to our family was not easy, we are going to miss them all so much but we KNOW THEY WILL COME VISIT US LOTS and that really helps. AJ slept for two and a half hours which is great for a car nap, he had his snack and read some books, I honestly couldn't believe how good he was. Te border was a breeze, our I-20's took about a half hour to process and the just took a quick glance in the trailers before sending us on our way. All that careful box labeling and they didn't even ask to see my master list of what we were bringing down. After all the work I put into it, I finally just gave it to him and said, "here's a list of what were are bringing" He glanced it over and said it was fine, I think he thought I was an idiot but I would have been livid if we left the boarder and no one had even seen it! We made our way down to Cour De'Laine, ha ha ha is that even close to how you spell it, where we went for a swim and then tucked in. When we are at hotels Age always sleeps in the bathroom, most are big enough to fit the playpen in and he sleeps so much better when he is in his own room. Plus the bathrooms are really dark so he sleeps longer. Don't knock it till ya try it! More later. love.

Charcoal Anyone?

Friday morning came faster than I wanted it to, I was up way to late and then way to early with antisipation. Everything was going according to plan Al & Lorraine were at work for the morning, we had pancakes, the suitcase was being organized, I thought, "good today is going to go smoothly!" It was abou that time AJ ame walking over to me coking on a mouth full of something and carrying and open Ibpropine bottle. Oh my gosh!!! I went into pankinc mode. I emptied his mouth as best I could, scooped him up, told Aaron to grab the diaper bag and ran for the truck. Of coarse the truck was alreafy hooked up to the U-Haul so we had to move the carseat to the van and head straight for emergancey. I am not sure that I have ever been that scared in my whole life, Aaron kept it together and got us to the hospital where they checked AJ over. He seemed fine but we had t feed him 45mls of Charcole and stay for 2 hours for observation. It broke my heart to see him drinking that charcoal but I feel so blessed that he was okay and that by noon we were back at the Poytress's house getting ready to leave for Portland!

Pack it up

Thursday was such a busy day, I guess that was kind f the theme this weekend! We got up early and got everything left at my parents packed into our Blazer, did a quick cleanup of the house, and went into Lethbridge to pick up the U-Haul. Of course when we got there we had some electrical difficulties and ended up over at "Poor Boy's" auto shop for about an hour while they sorted it out, but we figured if that's our only major delay, no big deal!

That evening we packed the Trailers and got everything ready so that we could leave as soon as Al was done work on Friday at 1:00. It took some planning but we were able to squish everything in, Yippee! Then we ordered Chinese food and hung out with the family one last time before leaving. Aaron's Mom was such a big help with my picture scanning, we got everything done that I needed to and a lots more. We finally called it a night at 1:30 and boy was I tired!