What?! It's Been a Year!!

Yes. It's been a whole year since this wonderful, handsome, happy boy came into our life.

 Lots of changes followed. Love him. What you all really want to see are the photos. So I will let you enjoy his face.

First you get to see how he changed over the months.

 This mom was sick and totally missed 10 months. Don't tell.

Wasn't that fun? It's funny to look back and see how funny-looking he was as a newborn because in my mind he has always been as cute as his is now.

It's Been Too Long.

I haven't posted in far too long. Many, many wonderful things have happened since our last post and it's high time I update. Kehl is a year old now so it's time. Said update to follow.

A Glimpse of our House!

You asked and asked, and things have finally slowed down enough for me to share a few pictures of our house. We refinished the floors before we moved in, so it was a mad rush at the end of the month to get moved out of the apartment. Now I can breathe a little while I try to organize everything into our house so it will feel like a home. We are very excited to be in the house. It has a great yard! Lots and lots of cool plants, but everything needs a little upkeep as the house has been vacant for a while and the previous owners just let the landscaping just do it's own thing.
First off, the floors.
As you can see, there was a lot of wear on the floor. This is the hall going out of the living room. The living room had been refinished more recently, and you can see the line.
The north bedroom.
The living room. As you can see, it's not as bad as the back rooms, but still not great.
View from front door. Living room and kitchen.
Office Floor.

Office floor from the other side. Yeah, it didn't look great. Those hot legs are Michael's.
Bedroom floor.
You can really see the wear. This is another view of the north bedroom.
The hot guy who came and refinished the floors. Mmm-Hmm.
This is between coats of polyurethane. We did a Satin finish, so it isn't super glossy, which I like.


North Bedroom. Much better.
Office.
Putting on the last coat of urethane. Stinky stuff. When we did the first layer it was my job to move the pan and mop up drips as he went. I got SO sick from the fumes though. By the last coat, he was doing it all himself while a stayed in the fresh air, or worked on other stuff.
Mask required. We started out with all the windows and doors open, thinking that would be enough to keep the fumes from getting us. We were wrong.
This is my favorite tree on our property. It's a Japanese Maple, I think. The leaves are soft and it's a short lil' thang. I love it.The benefit of moving to the house at this time of year is that we get to enjoy all the fabulous blooms. We have flowering dogwoods, irises, lavender, rosemary, lilaacs, peonies, poppies, 'grape clusters', tulips, and so much more. Beautiful stuff. Unfortunately I haven't taken pictures of all of them so you will have to take my word for it. The above bush is bright pink.


This is to show you the pretty contrast between the white flowers of the tree, and the deep burgundy of the maple. When the sun shines on that tree it glows! I tried to take a picture of it in the sun, but it was too bright for the camera.
I want to share more pictures after we have things more in their place. Right now all you would see are opened boxes and randomness.
Well, that is all for now. Tune in next month for more.

It' been a while...

Yes, I know, it's been a while. I'm sure I should post more about my life, but that will have to come later. I just wanted to share a project I just completed. I've had the parts for a while now, but just decided to finally put them together. I made a quilt of my old t-shirts from high school. Looking at it you would think that all I did was play volleyball. I did a lot of other things, but they just didn't have t-shirts. :) It was a fun little project to get off my "to-do" list.

I can't remember which year each volleyball shirt goes with. They were the shirts we got as a team and we would where these to school on away game days, and dresses on home game days.
Top row, left to right: 1. Volleyball shirt. 2. Senior shirt w/all our signatures. and yes...those are ALL of the signatures of my graduating class. 3.Volleyball shirt.
2nd Row: 1. The Mousetrap t-shirt. It's a play based on a book by Agatha Christie. I was a lowly prop director, and I rocked. Mom and I made some sweet props for that play. I did quite a few plays in high school, but we only had t-shirts for two of them. Sad. 2.CTVB shirt. This was the volleyball camp I attended each summer. Great camp. Sore muscles to cry for. Aaaah, the memories. 3. D.A.R.E. 'nuff said.
3rd row: 1. Utah Centennial shirt. This is actually from 4th grade. Me and another girl were selected to go sing at the re-dedication of the "This is the Place Monument" in SLC for part of Utah's Centennial celebration. We wore these shirts. :) 2.CTVB Canyon volleball camp, again. 3. My Volleyball uniform from my freshman year. After that, they stopped putting our names on them so they could be re-used. Yes....I was "Number 1" :).
4th row: 1. back of "Annie" play t-shirt showing cast and crew. (see 4th row #3 for front). I was Annie. It was fun. Anellisa's dog Saboka played "Sandy". 2. Another School Volleyball shirt. 3. The front of the "Annie" shirt.
5th row: 1. CVTB Volleyball camp shirt...again. 2.Senior t-shirt. 3. Another school volleyball shirt. Volleyball is fun! :)
Additions: If you look close you will find pieces of my "HOBY" leadership t-shirt, and UREA.
A glimpse at the back. Can you guess what my school colors were?
The End.

"It's about time!" or "The Berries that Fought Back"

So, it's been a while. Not a lot has been happening, until recently. For anyone who didn't know, and that's probably most of you....
WE MOVED !
We moved to Central Point, Oregon. Arrived last Saturday with the help of my parents and Michael's sister and brother-in-law. Going against the family tradition of driving all night, we did the trip in two days. Michael and I stopped shortly to check out the famed Bonneville salt flats. Wow, that is an amazing site, which is so much better in person than on countless television commercials.(I'm not great at taking pictures of myself,...cut half of me out...gotta practice that one)
We moved in on Saturday, went to church on Sunday, played a little Monday and sent mom and dad on their way that night. We spent the week slowly organizing stuff. That job isn't done yet. I will be organizing for weeks to come I am sure. I am related to my mom...to some degree I guess.
Moving in....

Dad taught our nephews how to fold the boxes to make them stay, so they busied themselves making forts while we put stuff away in the Kitchen.
We did a little exploring while Mom and Dad were here. We drove to check out a town called "Grant's Pass", just through the canyon. We stopped and picked blackberries and whipped up some freezer jam when we got back! Yum!
Here is mom working on berries, and then posing in her cuteness with all the jam we made (tons...5 boxes of pectin worth!)















Michael and I had the chance to go pick pears on a church welfare farm here in Medford. We were "platform pickers". They have this cool motorized platform, basically, that goes between the rows and we pick as we go. It was quite the experience. There are two levels of platforms and there were 4 people on the top one, (two for each side), and 3 on the bottom level. We were on the bottom level and were keeping up really well so Michael would switch back and forth to help the brother on the other side from us. The first row took about 2 hours, then one couple left to go get there kids. So we had two fewer people, but the driver went faster (?!). The second row took only 1 hour, but it was quite exciting trying to keep up. It had rained the night before, and we basically got wiped with every branch...so we were very soaked by the end of it all. I may go back again this week.
Harnessed and ready to go...Grandpa Bench would be so proud :)A view down the pear orchard road, and where we parked. They said "choose any row below the platform to park"




















While driving we noticed a bike trail that ran along the freeway. We decided to go for a bike ride and find it. We did, and it is awesome!!! It starts right near where we live and goes all the way to Ashland...wherever that is! But it's far! :) It has blackberries all along it too...well, they grow everywhere. It seems like Blackberries are to Oregon as Kudzu is to Georgia. Except less invasive...and much more tasty. We have since gone on a couple bike rides, and returned with Nalgene bottles full of berries. :)
Here is Michael on the trail...i took this while riding. Yeah, I'm that good. HA HA!

Looking over the bridge of the Bear Creek.
Don't dis the clothes. That is me in full blackberry armor! Long sleeves and pants is a requirement. These bushes are terrible. Thorns everywhere. Don't even think about trying to get those berries way in there. They're only for the lizards that dare climb back into the jungle of thorns, dead vines, and more thorns. My hands and ankles have little scratches all over from our last berry picking adventure.




Bushes everywhere. That little speck in there is Michael. :)
















I found some very big berries. Notice the thorns in the background...mean.
















The aftermath.......
We have enjoyed our week here, and are looking forward to the many more to come. This valley is so beautiful. I'm very grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me the chance to live on such a beautiful earth, and for giving me blackberries to welcome me to our new home. :) Yeah...I'm still a dork.