Memorial Day

This weekend was Memorial Day, which every year we celebrate KelliJean's birthday on, although this year it was a full week ahead of it. But we did get to have a lovely barbaque and have strawberry shortcake as a birthday cake. A favorite for both KelliJean and I.

It was a crazy weekend, because I was babysitting my friends 2 year old, Emily and so I brought her along to Mom & Dad's house (which really is not baby proof anymore). Emily was well behaved and I think everyone had a good time, including my Grandmother who I think enjoyed having a small one around the house again.

Tiah

Visitor from Japan

For the past two weeks we were lucky enough to have my friend Azumi's mom, Sumie visiting from Tokoyo Japan.

Sumie came to help my friend Marcia out with the new baby for a while and teach her the tips only a Japaneese mother would know. It was great having her visit, and while Sumie only knows a small amount of English and I know even less Japaneese we had no problem communicating, she even tried to teach me a Japaneese nursery rhyme about a snail.

I did pick up a few new cooking tricks for cooking Japaneese food which is always fun.

Tiah

another baby shower

Saturday was another baby shower, number 4 for the year. This time for my friend Alison from high school. Saturday morning I drove up to Maple Valley, WA to her mom’s house. It was a beautiful sunny day, which made the trip way more fun. It was nice to see Alison and her family, whom I had not seen since her wedding 6 years ago.

The big hit at the shower was the baby sling given to her from her friend who owns Otter Cove Baby, www.ottercovebaby.com Christy makes these slings with padding for the shoulders, and it can be used well into the toddler years. I am going to have to remember these for other baby shower gifts.

Tiah

More Holiday highlights

So some of the best things of the holiday:
Munich: Street performers, there were musicians all over playing great music. I was especially impressed by the groups that had the baby grand pianos! The hotel here was also amazing, it was very inexpensive, in a great location and was beautiful. We could not believe out luck!
Vienna: The cake!!! Vienna is known for their cakes, and music, and they were so good. Caryn and I total enjoyed 6 different cakes and the Esterhazytorte was hands down the best one, we actually had it twice. The close second runner up was the Sachertorte, it was so rich and chocolaty it was great.
Prague: Really everything here was a highlight! It was not as warm as in Munich and Vienna but still nice, could wear a tshirt only part of the day and needed a jacket the rest. The whole city was beautiful, every building looked amazing. We had the shortest time here but it was my favorite. The Dvorak museum was really cool, they had a very good history of his life and some items from his home, like his writing desk and piano! There were some of his original scores from a few of his symphanies there as well.
It was a fantastic week in the sun, probably my one week of actual summer weather all year!

~Meagan

Munich, Vienna, Prague...Amazing!!

Wow so Caryn and I just took one of the most amazing trips ever. The trip started with two days in Munich. We got some really good beer here and some of the most amazing sausages ever. We went to one of the most famous pub, Hofbrauhaus, and ate tradional white sausages with pretzel and mustard and of course beer (I didn't care for this meal much). We also went to Augustinerbrau and another I can't remember the name. At one of these pubs I got amazing cheese sausages which I think were the best meal of the trip.

Day one we went out to Schloss Nymphenburg (summer palace), to Marienplatz (main square) and saw the Neues Rathaus (New town hall) where has the Glochenspiel and listened to it and we climed up one of the church towers to see the city views. At the palace was an amazing botanical garden that had beautiful flowers. On the second day we went to the Residenz and the South end of the Englischer Garten. Here at the Englischer Garten we got to go paddle boating, it was the coolest thing and one of the highlights of the whole trip. It was very warm and sunny in Munich and I got a sunburn and bought 13.45 euro sun cream!
Vienna was even sunnier and warmer. We spent a lot of our time in the gardens but do admit that the Germans do better gardens then the Austrians. We went to the Belvedere and got to see Monet's Chef painting and Klimt's The Kiss plus many more. We climbed up the Stephansdom and had some amazing views up here, it was well worth the 342 stairs. Other sites we saw were the Staatsoper (with guided tour), Hofburg palace (but didn't go in), parlimaent, Burgtheater, Volkstheater, Palais Trautson, Museum Quartier, Secession Building and lots of monuments. We went to seven gardens the first day and another 3 the second day, it was great seeing the gardens and relaxing in the shade cause it was too warm to lay in the sun! We also went to a concert at Palais Palffy where Mozart has played concerts and listened to music from Mozart and Strauss. Then I bought cello mucis cause why go to Vienna if you are not going to get music, I got Erlkonig - Le Roi des Aulnus by Franz Schubert. The original opera was first played in Vienna!
Prague was my favorite city on the trip! Every building was beautiful, the architecture was incredible. We went all over Prague in a day and half! We went everywhere; the old town square, the Charles bridge, the Prague Castle, old town square/ astronomical clock, the Old New Synagogue, the powder tower, the Dvorak museum plus more! The sites were amazing. We also went to a concer here, it was an Organ concer that played several different composers. We went to the top of the tower of the old town hall and this had the best views of the city, the highlight of the trip.
So overall I enjoyed the whole trip and wish I had more time in each of the cities, there is still many things in each city that I would love to go back and see some day!

~Meagan

Mother's Day

Sunday was Mother's Day and like all good children we spent the day with Mom. Shopping and going to Starbucks. Even Meagan remembered to call from her travels in Prague.

In the afternoon Aunt Kenda came with Granny and KelliJean and I made dinner. Ending the celebration with ice cream cake, Aunt Kenda's favorite.

Tiah

Bridal Vail, OR

Yesterday my cowoker Danielle and I took a long lunch break and drove off to Bridal Veil, OR to mail her wedding invitations. It was about a 20 minute drive in the pouring rain to the worlds smallest Post Office, but it was a lot of fun. She was able to buy stamps with a wedding cake on them and the post office mark was two intertwined hearts, very cute.

Tiah

More Birthday Fun

Last night I had some friends over for cheesecake and sangria to celebrate my birthday. David, Lauren, Rod, Safina, Caryn and Sue all come over and it was tons of fun. We ate cheesecake, drank sangria/wine and played games. Rod had us play a game called Traingle and its one of those games that you have to figure out what is going on as you play and it is not fun until you understand. Well, it took us an hour to figure out how to play and that was with major hints and help and threats to Rod to tell us how to play (great youth group game). Then we played Bingo and watched clips from Britian's got talent online. It was a great night and I had tons of fun.
~Meagan

A Day in the Shire

Caryn, Safina and I rented a car and spent a day out of Aberdeen in the Shire and it was tons of fun. The weather shaped up to be a perfect Scottish day, we enjoyed gray clouds, rain, wind, gale force winds, and sun (but this did not come out until we were headed back to Aberdeen). We started the day with a 10 min walk up a hill called Mil Maud, which is just about 10 min out of Aberdeen. The walk up the hill was very nice through some woods and then at the top it was covered in heather and we spent a few minutes lying in the heather which was actually very comfortable. After this we drove over to another hill called Pressendye which was much bigger, it was about 45 min hike up. I really struggled to get up this hill but at the top someone has built a wind shelter out of stones and we sat in the shelter and ate our lunch of scones with jam and clotted cream, cheese, strawberries and Sangria. While eating lunch gale force winds came up and walking out of the shelter was a bit dangerous, we got knocked over as soon as we stepped out but, we did have lots of fun taking pictures laying on the wind. Next we drove over to Balmoral Castle. We stopped about 50 times along the way taking pictures of the beautiful country side. The castle was a bit disappointing, you only get to go into the small ballroom, but the grounds were very beautiful. There was a little green house in one of the gardens and walking in it you were encompassed in the greatest smell of tons of flowers! Overall the day was wonderful and we got to see a lot in one day.

~Meagan

New Baby

Congratulations to my very good friends Marcia & Michael Kelly who had their first baby on May 1st. Mayson Alexsander Kelly was 5lbs15oz and 19 inches long. Hopefully, he will have a name soon his parents are trying to get to know him before nameing him.
Tiah

Ollie the Octopus

This is Ollie the Octopus, which took me 3 months to knit from a wonderful pattern off the Lion Brand Yarn website. The pattern was listed as easy but it really took all of my knitting know-how to create and stick with it. But I think he turned out wonderful and now that he's done, I think I could possibly make more for other people.

Tiah