Snow!

It has been snowing for over a week, and we are covered in a couple of feet of snow. It is so pretty. We have been stuck at home for a few days now, and we are all quite ready to get out.

My sister Charis was here for about a week during the storm, which was fun. Since it wasn't safe to drive either of our cars (hers or mine) we rode SAM and TriMet and went shopping around Gresham and Portland. Fun times! (except the two+ hour ride on the MAX from Portland to Gresham because of frozen switches!)




Our house, covered in snow!


Looking down our street--Dubarko heading West. We haven't seen pavement for a few days, now.


Yesterday we tried to go sledding with Zac, but he just cried. He didn't like it so much. :-(

Our garage door has been frozen shut, and our driveway covered in a couple feet of snow, so yesterday Jeremy spent over four hours shoveling, and another four hours today! I guess this is when a huge driveway is not so nice! He is quite sore, but we are finally unstuck! Thank you, Jeremy! Today he dug the truck out of the snow, and put chains on. Unfortunately, we don't own chains for the Jetta.

Our Christmas Tree

Saturday, December 7th, we drove up the mountain with our friends Jeff and Tracy to find the perfect Christmas Tree from the National Forest. We bought a pass for $5, and hiked up into the trees. It was a beautiful day -- we were all bundled up for December weather on the mountain, but we were all quite warm even without coats and hats!

Setting up and decorating the tree. (Zac was asleep in bed by the time we finished.)

All In a Day's Work

Jeremy and his dad spent the day Saturday moving gravel from the far end of our property to our front walk. Zac and I enjoyed watching, which was a lot easier than shoveling gravel -- we had no sore muscles afterwards! Jeremy and Phil, well, I can't say the same for them! They worked so hard, digging out the walkway, shoveling gravel into the lawn mower trailer, dumping it, load after load, and spreading it in the walkway. It is so nice now to have gravel for a front walk. Previously, you would have had to walk through dirt or mud to get to our front porch, so we haven't even been able to use our front door in the year we've lived here. Now that the gravel is down, we have to pack it down, add sand, and lay paving stones to complete the project.

Pumpkin Patch, October 26th, '08

This was a few weeks ago now, but here are some pictures from our visit to Liepold Farms. We had beautiful fall weather, and Zac had an absolute blast. He loved seeing all the animals, and he was very excited to be surrounded by so many pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. He is quite independent, and enjoyed walking all around the place, NOT holding Mommy's or Daddy's hand -- unfortunately he took a lot of tumbles, but he didn't seem to mind.

Zac at Jeff and Tracy's new house

Here are some pictures of Zac at Jeff and Tracy's new house. Joe Knapp took the pictures with his new camera.

Zac's Birthday Party

We started the day's festivities with a picnic lunch at Meinig Park. It was a little bit cold, but lots of fun. Zac's cousins Kaleb and Micah were at the park with us, as were both Zac's Grandmas and both Zac's Grandpas and several fun aunts and uncles.

During naptime, those of us who were not sleeping decorated the livingroom, diningroom, and cakes. Aunt Kirsty decorated the cake and cupcakes, which Grandma Ginger had made. They turned out awesome!

I know this is a bit randomly placed, but it WAS shot at the party, and I just love this picture of Zac's cousin Madison:

The party got underway at 3:00. We had about 25 people here -- Mommy's family, Daddy's family, and a few of our good friends. We had tons of balloons (well not literally because that would be a heck of a lot of balloons), some with helium (thank you Grandpa Cliff) and some on the floor (thank you Daddy). We played some games, had snacks, opened gifts, and ate tacos and cake with ice cream. Thank you everyone who came, you made the day so special!!!

Opening gifts...

Below, Zac is opening a gift from Kaleb and his family. Kaleb was quite excited about giving Zac this gift, which was a dumptruck and a backpack just like Kaleb's, except it says "Zac." :-)

1 Year Pictures

We took Zac in for his 1-yr Pictures on Friday. He did great! He even got to have some pictures with his cousin Madison. It was a lot of fun, and of course we spent way too much money, but he's only one once, right? Well, that's what the sales lady told me, and I guess it worked.

Here are a few of our favorite shots
...a couple of the ones we got printed, and a few choice shots just for a laugh: