Our house

A few weeks ago the designer who helped us furnish our house brought a photographer to take pictures for her portfolio. They turned out amazing! Looking at these makes me fall in love with our house all over again. Check them out. http://www.tdhid.com/charleston

Cecilia takes some pictures

Maybe it is just me but these make me smile. Cecilia asked to borrow my phone to take a picture of Vivian with purple baby. When I got it back there were about 20 pictures taken. This is a sampling. Isn't she so funny?

Vivian blessing

The last weekend in August we blessed Vivian at our church on Sunday.  The whole weekend was spent getting ready.  Lots of food was prepared (how it takes that much time to prepare for sandwiches that people are going to assemble themselves is beyond me), the house was cleaned, and Vivian's dress was laundered.  Shaun did a great job on the blessing and Vivian was adorable in her dress.  He held her up after the blessing for the congregation to see and she happily looked around at everyone.  After church we all came back to our house for lunch.  It was so nice to get together with extended family on such a nice day.  Thanks to all of those that could make it.  Vivian and Cecilia both loved the attention. Vivian crashed (see below) and Cecilia was sad when everyone left.  Unfortunately we were so busy visiting we didn't get many great pictures.  These are the best ones :)

Oregon

We were able to go to Oregon the first of August for our annual trip.  It was so much fun.  We started out the trip with lunch at our favorite "junk food" restaurant, Burgerville.  Where we got our Tillamook cheeseburgers, Oregon grown vidila onions onion rings and fresh Oregon raspberry shakes.  So yummy!  Then we went Marionberry picking with Shauns cousin Cherice and her daughters.  Cecilia loved to play with them.  She is between their ages and loved playing with both of them.  Here she is holding Madelines hand and in the stroller with Jacklyn. She followed Jacklyn around like a puppy dog and was a mother hen to Madeline.








After we left Cherice's house we drove down to Silverton to stay with Shaun's aunt Renee and her husband Doc.  Renee was so nice to play with Cecilia.  Once she warmed up to Renee she couldn't get rid of her.  I'm sure she was happy to see us leave and get rid of her shadow.  Here she is doing triple duty, holding Vivian, drawing with Cecilia and talking to Shaun.



On Saturday we went blueberry picking.  It was the hottest day of the year in Oregon, temp over 100.  Of course that is the day we decided to go blueberry picking.  We tried to get out early, but after going to the wrong place it wasn't as early as we would have liked.  We tag teamed the girls and between us picked about 25 pounds of blueberries.  This was an organic farm so we had to pay double what we did last year, a whole whopping $2 a pound.  Compared to the $2 for 4 oz you can get here I'd say we got a good deal :)



Saturday night we went to Shaun's aunt Barbara's house for dinner.  Shaun's grandma, Gee Gee as she is known by now was there too.  It was so nice to spend the evening with lots of family.  It was the first time they have met Vivian and she got lots of attention.



After leaving Renee and Doc's we visited Gee Gee one more time and headed up the Oregon coast.  It was supposed to be a 2.5 hour ride that somehow turned into 9 hours.  Between stopping for gas, the bathroom, feeding Vivian, and a mandatory visit to the Tillamook Cheese Factory it was an all day event.  There is still an hour we can't account for.  Such seems to be our life these days.  Anyway the cheese factory was a lot of fun and super yummy.  We bought a couple of cheeses that we can't find here and enjoyed some fabulous ice cream.



Cecilia eating her strawberry Tillamook ice cream.

The drive up the coast was beautiful and cold.  It was at least 30 degrees colder than Portland!  But so beautiful.  We drove through the forest and fog that accented the trees to make them so lovely.  I didn't get a picture of it because at that point we were just trying to get to the hotel.  We also saw the ocean, it seemed like a wilder coast than I've been to before.  We didn't even stop to put our feet in.  We'll have to go back another time when we have more time to enjoy it.  Monday we got our pictures taken in front of the Goonies house.  As children of the 80's Shaun and I were surprisingly excited to see it.  Then we went to Fort Clatsop where Lewis and Clark wintered on their expedition.  It was fascinating to see and think about their monumental expedition.  Wyoming has several landmarks of their expedition, including one in Green River so it was fun to see the end so to speak.  Then we hurried back to the airport to get home.  Another fun filled vacation to Oregon.  Can't wait for next year to do it all over again!

Brigham City Temple Open House

Two weeks ago we were able to go to the Brigham city temple open house. My sister and her family live up there and invited us to go. Taking our girls up there was worth the drive and time off Shaun had to take. Cecilia knows the primary song "I love to see the temple". It was fun to sing it with her and change the words from "go someday" to "go today". It was a beautiful building. Cecilia liked it and kept pointing out small details the rest of us didn't notice. She has such an eye for that. Unfortunately it was super busy so we didn't get to really stop and look at everything. It was amazing how many people must go through it! Here we all are outside the front doors.