Getting Excited

Easter

Happy Easter!  I love this holiday.  I love the meaning behind it and the chance to focus on the Savior and the Resurrection.  This year Easter fell on a very appropriate week where the blessings of the Gospel and the Resurrection have taken a deeper meaning for me.  I am so grateful for the Life and Mission of Jesus Christ, for the fact that on that Easter morn the message delivered was, "He is not here. He is risen." Luke 24:6.

 
 
 Sorry for so many blossom pictures, I just love them.  They were all taken outside our apartment this weekend.  Easter was really nice this year.  Church was very good as usual and our afternoon was quiet.  I got to Skype with my family and we went hiking-more so walking at Cooper Mountain Nature Park.  We also had a fun dinner with Ben Holst who served with JD in India, he is from Nevada so he didn't have any family here either.  We had a turkey that I cooked in the crockpot, stuffing, salad, corn, and other treats it was a really fun and delicious day.

Snakes Instead of Newts

We went and walked to the Lily Pond in Tualatin Hills Nature Park after Portland yesterday, it was 80 degrees and sunny so instead of newts that prefer 47 degrees and rainy we had garter snakes, JD and I were able to spot 4 of them while going on our hike.  It is crazy how much a park can change in just a few weeks. We are loving going on walks through these forests in the middle of the cities here, they are so pretty and it is fun to spend time together.

Springtime in Portland

 We went downtown and walked the Willamette River today, and true to our past Portland experiences, there is always something weird going on.  This time we saw a very strong runner go by us wearing blue bunny ears, a few minutes later there were more runners one with cotton balls around the neckline and a bunny tail.  Another couple minutes passed and suddenly we found out we were completely surrounded by bunny runners, at least they were running slow enough we were able to realize that we were in the middle of an Easter themed race.  The blossoms everywhere are beautiful.  The one below is not a black and white it was actually taken in the Target parking lot when I was doing some shopping for a charity basket for work.

I am really enjoying spring here if you can't tell.

Whale Week

I was looking up the different state parks in Oregon since we now have a pass and discovered that there is a wonderful thing called Whale Week which takes place twice a year in honor of the migration of the Grey Whales to and from Alaska all along the Oregon Coast.  We had so much fun watching a mom and baby whale swim around and trying to see all the whales that the 'expert' volunteers were seeing.  When we got to Ecola the count was at 14 and when we left it was 37.  Not bad for two hours.  After the whales we drove down to Nehalem Bay State Park.  It is kind of fun how much the Oregon Coast changes so quickly.  Ecola/Cannon is very fine sand and flat, Nehalem has a lot of sand dunes that are crested with grass before going to the beach and ocean.  It was a really fun day on the coast, I feel spoiled getting to go twice in a month.  

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Babysitting

I have probably babysat more since getting to Oregon than I did my entire growing up career. Mind that isn't saying too much. I was really busy with school and I had a job at age 14 so when it came to babysitting there were only a couple of families I would agree to babysit.
All of our friends in the ward have kiddos so on my 'yuck' weekends as I like to call them (weekends that JD is studying for an exam). I will often volunteer to watch kids so my friends can go out on dates, to the temple, run errands etc. This is an added bonus because JD gets uninterrupted study time and I am kept busy. I actually enjoy babysitting now. The kids are all cute and being a grown up manipulation doesn't work and the kids know it. It has been fun playing with them and taking care of them. I had to drop off some money to one of my friends today because I kept forgetting to pay her back and upon reaching the door I was invited to 'come play with me' as my hand was grabbed to lead me into the house, for the next little bit we read books and examined my work badge and when it was time to leave there were tears. It is nice being loved like that.
Now I am at another friends house so they could go see their new baby in the NICU I love the forced relaxation and time I have to be still. I will be here through Thursday so we will see if I go crazy from so much peace and quiet, but until then I am loving this.

Spring

Spring is here! The temple flowers were great and there are several trees and bushes covered with blossoms. I'm loving it. It is so nice to have real Spring that doesn't involve snow killing all the flowers and just rain watering them.