Mommy's Birthday

It was my birthday yesterday, and I had a great day! My mom and sister took me out to lunch at Godfathers for a pizza buffet. Chris came home from work with flowers and a new book Extreme Measures, by Vince Flynn. I've loved all of his other books, so I'm excited to start this one! Thanks honey! Then we went out for dinner to Red Robin. The kids behaved, and it was pretty good. Afterwards, we were feeling adventurous, so we went bowling for the first time as a family. The kids had a blast! They were so excited to push the ball down the ramp that they have for small kids. We used the bumpers and we all had a great time. Although, I wasn't aware that the alley wouldn't have shoes for kids. I felt like a bad parent...I let Claire bowl in her flip flops. It's a good thing we survived with all of her toes intact. :) Thanks family, for a great birthday! I love you all!

Nike Maxim Awards

Last night Chris and I went to the 2009 Nike Maxim Award Ceremony for IT. It was a formal affair, so we got to get all dressed up. Chris and his colleagues were finalists for two of the awards. Here is us leaving the house....

The event was held at the Tiger Woods Building on the Nike Campus. First there was a cocktail hour, which we missed most of, and then the ceremony started in a large auditorium. They put on a good show! The awards were specially made black shoes with purple laces. They are pretty fancy.

That's right, Chris and his teams won not one but TWO of these Maxim Awards! Considering there are only 11 awards given out, and over 200 nominees, this was a great accomplishment! Good job honey, we are proud of you! (Too bad they aren't the right size) :)
After the awards were all given out, we were served a really great dinner of steak and salmon with spinach and potatoes. There was a live band serenading us throughout the dinner. Overall, it was a really fun evening! It was nice to have a fancy evening out away from the kids. Thanks to Grandma for babysitting!

Fun in the yard

Summer days are just about over. We have been trying to enjoy the heat while we can, knowing that next week the rain could start. On one such day, we opted to stay home and play outside with water. I spent a few dizzying minutes blowing up the kids' small inflatable pool, and then Claire helped fill it up. It was pretty nice to just sit in the shade and watch the girls have fun. They really love splashing around and just being in their swimsuits makes them hysterically hyper. I'm glad I finally said "yes" when asked to get out the pool. It really wasn't that much work...and the looks on their faces was priceless.

For the record....

So, it turned out that my fish was actually good to eat! We BBQ'd him up last Sunday, and it was super yummy! A little terriyaki sauce and brown sugar, thrown on the grill = tasty dinner. I just wanted the record set straight. My fish was high quality! Just as good as Bree's fish. :)

On a boat...

Yesterday, I went salmon fishing for probably the zillionth time in my life. Okay, so I probably haven't been that many times, but I have been on numerous trips looking to catch the elusive salmon. Each trip was wrought with disappointment. It was always the same. Get up at the crack of dawn, drive a million miles to the boat launch, endure waves, wind, rain, and the munchies, then fish for hours, load up and drive home again...with no fish to be had. Yesterday was different...

It all started pretty typical. The main difference was that we didn't leave the house until 2pm, which is a pleasant change from the early morning trips. Although, this did make me skeptical, I thought for sure we wouldn't get anything because we left so late in the day. The weather was also changing. For those of you non-fishertypes that is usually bad news for fishing. We were prepared with our GIANT rain suits. It was my dad, my younger sister, and I. We had enough junk food packed to last the whole weekend. The vanilla oreos were defiantly a hit!

This is us as we first got out on the water. Notice how we are dry and still in normal clothing.

About a half hour into fishing....it happened...the moment I had been waiting for all these years! My rod tip nose dived to the water. I leapt into action, grabbing the pole from its holder and yanking it back to "set the hook". With adrenaline pumping, I fought that fish to the death. It jumped out of the water about 3 times. I was a little shocked to see how big it was when it did that. I didn't think I'd have the strength to reel it in.

Getting closer...

Finally in the net! What a relief! At this point my arms are about to fall off. My hands feel blistered, but hey...I GOT A FISH!!! Whooohoooo! Totally worth it!

Alright, so then starts the interesting conversation....my dad says, "well we need to decide if we'll keep it or if you want to throw it back." I was like....uh.....duh...why would I want to throw it back? Apparently, it's what you would call a tooley (?spelling?)...meaning it was getting ready to spawn soon. That is what explains the redish color on it's belly. The only downside of this is that the meat is sometimes not as good to eat. After about 3 min. I decided to keep it....there was no way I was gonna throw back my first (and probably only) salmon ever. So we kept him! I'm still proud of my 2nd class fish. He was after all, 30 lbs!!!!

A couple of hours later, my sister Bree had a very similar experience. She fought her fish for quite some time. It took lots of line and we had to chase it down in the boat. Eventually, we got it into the net. About 28lbs! Another giant fish! Her fish, however, was first class. It was all silver and beautiful. It will be a good tasting fish. Can't wait to eat it!

My dad then decided he would gut the fishies out on the river to avoid bringing the mess home with us. So we had to take some pictures with them before they were all cut up. Here we are...trying desperately not to drop them. They were soooo heavy! Not to mention slimy and bloody too!

Overall, we had a great time out fishing with dad! It was definately an unforgettable trip!

Tillamook....again

We just loved our visit to Tillamook so much, that we decided to go back the next weekend. Our good friends the Wildes came from Utah to stay with us, and we wanted to show off the beautiful NW. We did things slightly different this time. We packed a picnic lunch to eat at the center, and the kids spent a long time hiking around the Wilson River with their dads. Afterwards, we of course hit up the cheese factory and even the beach at Oceanside. The weather cooperated and it was a pleasant 70 degrees on the coast. We had a great time with our friends!

Stinkin' Fun

Last weekend we decided to check out the annual Elephant Garlic Festival in North Plains. We had always wondered what exactly a garlic festival was...would it be decorated with garlic cloves? Would there be people dressed up in togas and hats that look like giant cloves? Would there be all sorts of food made with garlic, such as garlic ice cream? It turns out that all of these things were at the festival, although I would not recommend the ice cream. One bite of that gave us super stinky breath for the rest of the day! There were also inflatable toys for the kids, a playground, lots of fair type food, and of course tons and tons of garlic. Everyone who came to the festival left with a complimentary clove. The kids really liked having their faces painted. Apparently, it was a first for them. Claire thought her pink unicorn was pretty neat. All day she would ask, "is my unicorn still on my face?"

Although we enjoyed checking out the festival, we didn't stay very long...the garlic ice cream left a bad taste in our mouth. :) We left from there and headed to Tillamook for a "quick" ice cream and lunch of cheese and crackers. It was tons of fun because we went with Chris's parents, siblings, and his Aunt Angie and Uncle James. The Dias family also came along. We were quite the caravan. Afterwards we went to the Tillamook Forestry Center on the way back home. If you've never been there, I would highly recommend it. It is a pretty new center and has great exhibits about all the huge wildfires that completely destroyed the entire forest about 50 years ago. Everything we see today had to be replanted. There is a good movie about it, and we all learned some fun history. Out the back of the center is a bridge that goes over the Wilson River. You can walk across, or hike down to the bank. We spent time by the water throwing rocks in and just enjoying the beautiful day. It was quite the spontaneous day, but we had a blast!