Thirty-one Years

On Friday Chris turned 31. His uncle had come to town for a visit, so we had planned to go out to eat with him and the family. We went to PF Changs, which was pretty yummy and even splurged for the great wall of chocolate. We stopped by Rainy Day games on the way home to buy Chris's new favorite game: Agricola. When we got home there was a large gift waiting for him on our kitchen table. He opened up his brand new hunting rifle. I was excited to have finally pulled off a surprise! I had been planning and scheming with my dad for the last month and it was killing me to not say anything about it to him. It paid off! He was really happy with it. I also got him a case to carry it in. We stayed up late playing our new game.

The next day was spent hanging out with the family and playing more games. We went over to my parent's house and my dad gave him a really nice Leupold scope for the rifle! WOOHoo! Now he can actually use it! That was really nice of him. Thanks Dad! We are excited to take it to the range. The rest of the weekend was plenty relaxing just hanging out and watching conference together. It was a good weekend, and a good birthday (if I may say). Happy Birthday honey! Hope you enjoyed it.

Kiss me...

...I'm Irish. I really am. In fact I have dual citizenship as an Irish-American. If I wanted I could have 2 different passports, but why on earth would I want to pay for that?
Today I decided to continue on with the fun tradition that my mom did for me as a kid. I brought treats in to Claire's class and read them a leprechaun story. Kids always like cupcakes, and Claire was just super excited to have Grace and I there. I also told the kids a little bit about St. Patrick's Day, and why it is so important to the Irish.

ú sona. patrick's lá! Ádh mór ar an Ghaeilge a thabhairt duit

8 months

Today Neil is 8 months old. He is sitting up all by himself and is eating solid foods like a champ. He loves to play pat-a-cake and to sing itsy bitsy spider. His light hair is really growing in and he is getting more and more handsome. He adores bath time especially now that he gets to be in the big tub with tons of toys and room to splash. His sisters love him to pieces and he thinks that they are just the greatest. I can tell that he really wants to run around with them. Someday little guy...thankfully for me, not today.

Indexing Much

It all started with an invitation to try out the indexing program. For those of you who may not know what "indexing" means, just imagine taking bajillions of paper records (census data, draft registrations, death certificates, etc..) and typing them into the computer so that the information can be accessed by everyone worldwide. Yeah, it's a giant project.

The best part is that anyone can do it. All you need is a computer and Internet. You can start really small and basic. I started working on it a couple months ago in my free time and as of today I've done 650+ names! It is a worthwhile endeavor that will help everyone with their family history work. I'm not big into genealogy at this time in my life, but this data entry stuff is easy, and fulfilling.

So here's my plug for indexing.. just do it!
https://familysearch.org/

As good a day as any

Yesterday wasn't the beginning of the new year. Nor was it even the beginning of a new month. It was, however, the day that I decided to get up off my booty and hit the gym. It has been many years since the last time I set foot in a gym (Claire was a baby), so I was a little nervous about it. Once I took the tour and filled out some paperwork, I was ready. I actually had a really great time. No kids, no messy house, no thinking about anything else except for me. I'm using a free pass for a month, so we'll see if I can stick to my goals. If all goes well, I will probably continue with a real membership. Wish me luck! I will need it. :)

Hooray for the Snow Dance!

Last night we of course did our trusty snow dance; although I am a little perplexed as to why it gets more complex each time we do it. Not only do our pajamas need to be inside out for the crazy spinning in circles, but the pillowcases needed to be inside out AND we had to flush ice cubes down the toilet. Really? Who comes up with this stuff?

The kids are convinced that it works because sure enough we woke up to snow. Not a lot, but enough to get out of school. I had to stall them until 7:50 because they were dying to get out there. It's a good thing we went out early though because by 10am it was all melting.

They had a great time playing with a bunch of neighbor kids. I even took the baby out for a few minutes. He was happy to be outside. All Grace wanted to do was eat it. Claire made snow angels and threw lots of snowballs at me. Then we all came inside for some hot chocolate.

This may be our last snow of the winter, so it was fun to get out and enjoy it

Zoo Day

The zoo is not usually on my list of places to go during the week, but with Monday being a holiday, and the zoo offering free admission, it was hard to pass up. Thankfully Chris had the day off of work to enjoy with us. We rode the Max thinking that it would be crazy busy, but we were pleasantly surprised. Not only were the crowds pretty minimal, but it was sunny out, and the animals were actually awake and moving around! It was by far one of my better experiences with the zoo. The kids had a great time. It was totally worth it to run around looking for the next animal. Grace had to see the "giraff-esss". When we got to the elephants there was a keeper there who had some kind of food for one of the elephants. It even did a trick for everyone and then flung the food into it's mouth. It was feeding time for the bats too. I would not want that job! This lady was ducking through their enclosure dodging bats and poo to string fruit onto the vines. As soon as the fruit was on it was immediately attacked by a swarm of bats. It was pretty fun to watch, but yeah, not for me. After a few hours we were all exhausted. It was a blast though, and I'm so glad that the threat of rain didn't keep us away. We are after all Oregonians.