Thanks to Pottery Barn!

I've been wanting some of these pillows to go on my couch in the front room (I love lots of pillows!... makes me feel cozy) because I like that they are casual but nice looking. But with the price tag I was a little hesitant. Turns out they're super easy to make! I went to good ol' Jo-Anne's and got some fabric and made up a pattern for these envelope pillow covers. This fabric is going to go perfect with the fabric I got to reupholster two chairs that I have in that room (you can see the fabric proped against the couch on the left). LOVE IT! I made both pillow covers today (they really aren't that bright of a red. I think the flash made them kind of look like they are a glowing red color but they're actually darker than that). Here's the link to the pottery barn ones. Pretty close eh? ...and alot cheaper than $39 each (which doesn't include the pillow insert!)

http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p8224/index.cfm?pkey=csolid%2Dpillows

Thanks for the great idea Pottery Barn!

The River Wild!

I had the chance to go on a Girls Night Out excursion a few weeks ago (Aug 8 -9) with a group of 11 girls.... ahem... women (sometimes I forget that I'm an adult now). I knew two of them in the group so it was fun to get to know alot of new people.

We left our families and drove down to Oregon and camped overnight... which was an adventure in itself. When we pulled up to the campsite it was beautiful.... right up the hill from the river. But it was incredibly windy so we had to lay on the tents as two people went around and put stakes in so they wouldn't blow away. As we were doing this all of the sudden we heard a strange loud noise.... chugga, chugga, chugga, CHOOOO CHOOOO!!!! CHOOO CHOOOO!!! Oh my, we had a beautiful campsite all right but what we didn't know was that right on the otherside of a nice little blackberry patch was a train track that was very well traveled. Every half hour until 4 in the morning the train came by and blew it's horn. Why did it have to blow it's horn right as it was going past the camp ground every 30 minutes until 4 in the morning.... I have no idea. It turned out to be a very long night... never mind the fact that I was sleeping without an air matress and could feel a big nice rock under me... I tried to pretend it was giving me lumbar support. . After we got our tents put up in record time we headed in to town for some dinner. Mind you this was a group of women who were out for the weekend so there was no way that we were going to cook while we were away. We ended up finding this cute restaurant in town (Hood River) and we dined on Salmon and filet migon! Now that is my kind of camping food. It was delicious!

The next morning we got up early and headed across the bridge into White Salmon, WA and went white water river rafting down the White Salmon River. It was so much fun! We were feeling brave so our boat decided to do the optional class 5 "rapid". It was a waterfall!! with a 10' drop and the raft gets totally submerged! It was absolutely awesome! After doing that the class 3 and 4 rapids we did earlier in the river and after seemed totaly lame. =) Here are some shots of our raft going over the falls. I'm in the back on the right...

Ahhhh!! What fun! Can't wait to do it again~

Has it really been 7 years?

Ok this post should've been done last week on August 11th (our actual anniversary) but better late than never I guess....

We celebrated our 7 year anniversary last week. Time does go by so fast! We didn't do much on the day of our anniversary because Brandon had to work. But, we did use our china that night for dinner.... of course when you have burgers and chips on your china it doesn't look quite as nice but the thought was still there. =)
The following Saturday, August 16th, we went as a family in the morning to Snoqualmie falls, had a picnic breakfast and did the short hike down to the bottom. Of course Carter had a great time because he got carried the whole way in the pack. We had a babysitter (that is really awesome) come over at 1:00 to watch Carter and Brandon and I headed out for some alone time. We went to the pre season Seahawks game in the evening (which they won in overtime against the Chicago Bears). The problem was it was like 90 degrees and it just didn't feel right being at a football game wearing shorts and sweating to death.
So, was it a perfect anniversary... not really.... but for the last 7 years I've woken up each day more in love with the man I married than I was the day before and for me, that is perfect enough.
Here's a few shots of us at the falls...

Carter Caught the Summer Reading Bug

Carter completed his summer reading program chart on Sunday (8/10). Here he is pictured with his chart and his favorite book.

This program was put on by the King County Library System and they had a preschool age program so I signed Carter up for it. He got this chart and a sheet of bug stickers (the program was called "catch the reading bug"). On the chart were different bugs and he got a coordinating bug sticker when he completed the activity. For example, to get a lady bug sticker he had to read for 20 minutes that day, to get a grasshopper we had to sing a song or nursery rhyme, to get a fly we had to walk around the neighborhood and talk about what we saw, to get a bee we had to point out new words in books or do an alphabet activity, to get a butterfly we had to go to the library or go to a summer reading program and to get an ant we had to do a silly dance. There were two spots for each sticker except the lady bugs there were 8. On Monday (8/11) we went to the library to turn in his completed chart and get his prize. Carter handed the lady his chart and when he saw her bring out a brand new Dr Seuss book he was so excited! He kept saying "Seuss! Seuss! Seuss!" Luckily our library is pretty kid friendly so people smiled instead of being upset at his little excited outbreak in the library. For the prize he got the book On Beyond Bugs! All About Insects which is a tad advanced for him but he loves flipping the pages.

Lake Pearrygin

We spent the weekend in Lake Pearrygin (which is near Winthrop, WA) with Eric, Brianne, Kaylin and some of Brianne's famiily.

Carter had a great time splashing in the lake, playing in the sand, and having his first bite of s'more!

I love this shot... Notice the sticky marshmallow... He loved it!

I also got up on skis for the first time... and Brandon had a good time tubing and going off the rope swing...

We tried putting Carter and Kaylin on the tubes with Brandon and Eric but it didn't go so well for Carter. He pretty much screamed the entire time. Which was surprising to me because he really likes the water.

All in all it was a nice trip and it was great to get away from the hussel and bussel of daily life. I didn't even have a watch with me!