Family and Friends

This last weekend was pretty busy. On Saturday Reuben and I headed to Portland to celebrate a friend's birthday. We had a bbq and then all headed to a Portland Beavers game. We lost, but it wasn't too bad of a game. I haven't been to a Beaver's game since junior high, so it was fun to see one again.

Then on Sunday Reuben and I went to his family picnic at Lake Mayfield. It was a beautiful day out by the water. It was nice to see Reuben's extended family again. We went to a picnic earlier in May, and this is the final one of the year.

After the picnic Reuben I headed back to Longview for dinner at Andreas. It was a very full weekend, but also very enjoyable. See the pics below from the baseball game. :)

And the Sewing Continues

Well the sewing fests continue. :) This week Teresa, Rikki, Mom, and I made purses from dishtowels using our pattern from Susie's shop! :) It was fun. Unlike past times we didn't power through. We took two evenings and completed some amazing purses! :) Enjoy some pics below.

Rikki sews away. :)

The group pose


My amazing new purse!

Lost Trailers concert.

Today Teresa, Chauntel, and I went to the country concert at the fair. :) It has been soooo hot this week, but it was actually pretty tolerable tonight at the fair. It was perfect concert weather. :) We saw the country group "Lost Trailers." They have a couple of hits on the radio: "Hollerback!" and "How bout you don't" are probably the ones you have heard of.

We all had a good time. :) I hope that they continue to bring concerts to town. Lately, it has been pretty nice with all the ones KUKN are putting together.

Enjoy the pictures below....


The Lost Trailers up close. :)


Can you spot Teresa and Chauntel? - Kinda right by the head of the gal walking up the stairs.




View from our seats! :)


Teresa and I in the grandstands! :)


The sound on this video is pretty crappy, it was much better in person...stupid camera phone speakers....sigh.

Sewing!

Wednesday's have become our sewing days! It has been quite fun to get together with Mom, Teresa, and Rikki and sew our blocks together weekly. We have been working mostly on our monthly blocks for the saturday sampler at Susie's shop. :) We made one bag as most of you have seen and we have another bag in the works that will start working on next week! :)
I have missed sewing, so it it is nice to be getting back into it. I am enjoying the small projects and being able to complete them quickly. I have bigger projects in mind, but I am not sure I want to start them yet. :)

Enjoy some pictures below. :)

The 4 of us with our completed blocks!

My block for the "challenge block" project at Susie's shop. Teresa made a cool swirly one. with the same fabric. :)

Camping

Hey thought I would update you on our camping trip. It was definately a more interesting vacation for the Fergusons. lol.

We woke up for the 2nd day of the trip - Monday, David had woken up early, but Mom went for a drive with him. Once the rest of us got up we moved my parents tent to the new site that had electricity. It was a very damp morning... After we got settled again and ate breakfast we headed out on the road to Forks, WA. We did the touristy stuff related to the Twilight book series: went to Forks Outfitters and bought some souvenirs,visited La Push Beach, ate at a local restaurant. It was fun. :)

Then we headed to the Hoh Rain Forest. It was really nice to get out and walk around in the woods. They had well marked trails that weren't too strenuous. We went through the Hall of Mosses, and the Spruce Trail.

After the Rain Forest we went to Klalock beach. This beach is where Tonia's family often went camping when she was younger. It has something in the water that makes it kinda glow when it gets dark in the moonlight. We stayed there until it got dark, but the light wasn't right to see the glowingness.

Throughout the day we were dealing with some baby drama. David threw up a few times...At first we were thinking it was car sickness or something. We headed back to camp after the beach and upon arrival realized that our campsite 'closed' at 10:00....it was 11. Tonia was able to break in the gate for us though. lol. It was a crazy day.

We made it back to camp and put David down, but he threw up again. At this point JonTon decided to head back home with the baby. We quickly packed up most of their belongings (in the rain) and around midnight they left the campsite.

The rest of us went to bed putting an end to the fun, yet disappointing day. We woke up the next morning to some more rain. We decided to pack up and head home since we were all pretty disillusioned to the camping trip. We made it back to Longview around 5:30. We are thinking of going to the beach tomorrow or something since we still have time off work. Enjoy the pictures below from our brief camping trip. :)

The river by our campsite:





La Push Beach -- Near Forks, WA:





Hoh Rain Forest:






Klalock Beach

Day 1 Camping Trip 09

Day 1
We made it to camp! :) It was a four hour drive with a 1.5 hour stop in Aberdeen for dinner and walmart.lol. We found a nice camping spot...but at the moment no electricity. We will change 1 campsite tomorrow. We kinda expect to see a vampire anytime now. :) Anyway, that is all for now. Sorry about the double post. Working with a new phone to post the blog. Heh. :)

Kukn Country Concert

On Wednesday Teresa, Andrea, and I went to the country concert put on by KUKN. It was very similiar to the last one I blogged about. :) This time it was Aaron Benward, Brian McComas, and Brady Seals. They aren't as well known as last time, but they have been part of groups in the past that have had some hits. :) They have broke out on their own now I guess and have some albums coming out. It was really fun, the guys were pretty goofy and family friendly. It was a very good show. :) It looks like this is something KUKN will be doing every now and then I encourage people to check it out. It's cheap and super fun. :) See pics and videos below. :)

Sewing Party

This Saturday Teresa, Rikki, and I got together in the evening to sew. We had a pattern to make a tote bag out of a 'charm' packet of fabric squares. We set to work after dinner at around 6ish. The project was fun, but took a little longer than anticipated. :) We got done around Midnight! It was both stressful and fun. The evening was filled with the excitement of getting the project complete, and the annoyance that comes with sewing delays. Nothing like a needle breaking or the bobbin running out of thread at 11:30 at night to keep things interesting. lol. However, we persevered and all came out with a nice new tote bag to show off at church the next day. :) Not bad fore a mere 6.5 hours of work. Enjoy the pics below!

We would like to thank our instructions interpreter: Mom. :)


As you can see, I finished before Midnight. :)

Memorial Day weekend

Since no one else has blogged I get to be the first. :)
The fun began Friday evening with a game night at Aunt Linda/Tom's. We played "Rage," which is a fun card game our family has recently learned. We are still getting used to it. Aunt Linda won (mostly by luck...lol). JonTon met us at Linda's and we visited for a bit before heading back to mom/dad's. I finished up my laundry there and then headed home.

Saturday was our annual trip to Dallas/Fall City, Oregon to put flowers on the graves. This year we had two new additions to our family tradition with Gabby and Reuben. It was fun to have "new blood" to introduce all of our quirky traditions to. :) heh. Always fun to share the "Turtle Bridge" with more people.
After we put flowers on the graves we went out to lunch at Murphy's Grill. We have been there before, it is a pretty cool restaurant. Then it was off to visit Teresa's college campus and see her new house for next year. It was good to see her campus with the family and her house for next year is pretty sweet! :)
After the tour we headed back to Longview. We all split up and made our way back. Once back at Mom/Dad's we watched a few episodes of the Food Network's show "Ace of Cakes" about a cake shop. It was one of Tonia's birthday gifts.

On Sunday I got to meet more of Reuben's family. His Dad's side has a bbq at Moses Lake every year. We arrived there at around 11:30 and spent a lovely day enjoying the good weather. We played a bit of badminton and celebrated his grandparent's birthdays. It was nice to meet more of his extended family. We left at about 6ish. Once back in town Reuben had to go do homework so I headed back to mom/dad's. The family played Teresa's new game "Munchkin Impossible"...which is like "Munchkin," but spy oriented. It was fun...mostly because I won. :)

Monday Teresa, Tonia, and I had a sewing party. Teresa worked on her shop hop table runner, Tonia was making an apron from the fabric she got from Susie's shop, and I was making a baby blanket. It was nice to sew again, I haven't been able to do it in a while. :) I was able to complete my whole baby quilt before 5:30! It is Raggedy Ann and Andy themed.
I left mom/dad's at around 5:30ish and headed off to dinner with Andrea, Tyler, Diane, Jacob, and Reuben at Azteca. We had a nice dinner outside and the decided to go watch Star Trek since the theatre is right across the parking lot. :) Diane and Andrea hadn't seen it yet. I enjoyed it just as much the 2nd time as I did the first. lol.

Anyway, that was my weekend. Packed full of family events, but it was all good stuff. :) I wish that all weekends were three day weekends....

Catch up

Okay, so I have been horrible about blogging lately. Sad I know. It is such pressure to start the blogging fad and then end up being the slacker of the family. lol

Let's see, here is a little of what I have done since I left off:

-Cousin Day-
On March 21st JonTon, Teresa, Gloria, myself, and Reuben headed down to the DaVinci exhibit at OMSI. We had a couple of free passes, which made it really cheap and totally worth it! It was a very good exhibit and showcased DaVinci's work well. After the exhibit we went out to a late lunch at Macaroni Grill at Clackamas mall. Then we came back to my apt and played 'Rage' and 'Munchkin.' It was loads of fun. We need to schedule our next cousin day....and make sure Deborah can make this one. lol.

-Seattle-
Early April Reuben and I took a day trip up to Seattle to see some of my Moyer friends. It was nice to see them again and hang out. It was the first time I had seen everyone since Bonnie's wedding I think. We got lunch at Chipotle which is always fun. Reuben had listened to me rave about it all the way up....I think it lived up to my hype. lol. We had a game night in Redmond that evening and then headed home. We got back to Longview kinda late, but it was worth it. I really like Seattle, but am always glad to get back to my little town. :)

-Easter/B-days-
For Easter and birthdays we went up to Port Orchard on April 11th. We had a wonderful ham lunch and celebrated Deborah and Mom's b-days. It was nice to get together with the extended family. We talked, played games, and took pictures of David at Deborah's studio. :) Good times.

Then on Sunday Reuben and I celebrated Easter out at his parents. We had another wonderful dinner. Reuben's cousin Brade and his wife Lorraine were there too. They have two cute kids, one of which is a few months old. She is super cute. :) Even though it was pretty wet outside the kids went out hunting Easter eggs...They hunt real eggs, which to me seems less fun as there is no hidden candy inside. lol.


-Visiting Teresa-
The next weekend Kristen and I went down to visit Teresa in Salem. It was great fun. I drove down Friday night and Teresa and I hung out watching netflix on my computer. Then on Saturday Kristen joined us. :) We went to the movies, and ate at olive garden, and got a slushy from In-N-Out Burger. We then watched movies and played scrabble on facebook until the wee hours of the morning (I think we completed 3 scrabble games online that weekend). On Sunday Kristen and I drove home before lunch.
Once I got home I hooked up with Reuben and his cousin Brad/Lorraine at Izzy's for lunch.

-Etc-
Since then it has been basically just work, family, friends, Reuben, and sleeping. That is pretty much all I do in life in general though. Teresa moved back from college. It is nice to have her back around. We have hung out quite a bit already. :) We went and saw a movie last night - "Ghost of Girlfriends Past" - it was cute. Susie's shop opened so Teresa and I went to visit. It is super cute, I could spend hours roaming it. lol. Teresa starts work there next week, so maybe I will get a chance to bug her. :)

Reuben and I celebrated 7 months on April 29th. Hard to believe that much time has passed. Although writing this blog about the last month and a half has proven to me how quickly time passes.

Anyway, I guess that is the update for now. Sorry I have been so bad at keeping you all up to date on my life. I will attempt to be better at it, but I make no promises. :)

Work Annoyances

My copier at work has been giving me trouble. Generally we are on pretty good terms, but it is a very special machine and likes to be treated well. It doesn’t like paper from the back of a binder that is slightly curled and it thinks staples are the bane of its existence. Also, I think it has poor eyesight or something because occasionally it “cannot detect the size of the original.” When it jams it likes to play hide and go seek with the crumpled paper, ensuring that I check every single door and move every twistable part in order to find the unruly paper piece.

Lately, it has been giving me error message SC545. This message makes it impossible to do anything. Apparently it is having a temperature problem. All I know is that our copy guy (who isn’t as good as our old copy guy) called and walked me through how to get it to go away. …You know how in the old video games there was bonuses if you pressed the right combination of buttons at the right time. Like Sonic had one that was up, down, over, over, a, b. Well that is how I feel with these copier commands. In order to get the error message to go away I have to press the clear button, type 1-0-7, hold down the cancel button for 3 seconds, wait for the menu screen to appear, turn off the copier, wait a few moments, and then turn the copier back on. ….I feel like I would accomplish the same thing if I just turned off the copier and turned it back on…but I will admit this way is more fun. :)

Anyway, I have been doing this for a while and now my copier is beginning to catch on. It has decided that when I do all the steps and restart it that it will just refuse to come to the right temperature and gives me another error SC545. Rude!

Guess it’s time to call the copy guy again…

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day Reuben and I headed to the Oregon Coast. We ate lunch in Cannon Beach and walked along the sand. It was a nice day, but the wind on the actual beach was pretty cold.
We then headed back to Seaside and toured some of the shops. We played mini golf and each of us got a hole in one once! :) Reuben ended up beating me by 1 point though... We walked along the boardwalk for a little bit. And then decided to head back to Longview since it was starting to rain.
Back in Longview we got Chinese and a movie. We played a little Wii and watched a pretty good movie: Eagle Eye.
A very good Valentine's Day. :)
Enjoy the pictures below.

More Pics! (updated)

Here are the pictures from the concert that I promised you! :)


Andy on the left and Rhett on the right.


Gotta love the camo guitar --can you say redneck?


Diane at the meet and greet. :)




Whoo hoo! I have touched a country star! lol.

Rhet Akins and Andy Griggs Concert

I can't believe it has been over a month since I last blogged! It has pretty much been life as usual in Laura Land. I went up to Seattle last week to finally celebrate Christmas with Megan and Veronica. I had a good visit. :)

Reuben and I hit the 4 month mark today. It is hard to believe - the months have sure flown by. Reuben had class tonight, but that is alright I found other ways to occupy my time. :) KUKN the local country radio station hosted Rhet Akins and Andy Griggs in concert at the new LCC performance center. It was really cool. I went with Andrea and Diane. We got good seats thanks to Andrea and Diane staking out our spot in the line early. :) We were 3 rows back in the center section.

For those of you who are like "Who are Rhet Akins and Andy Griggs?" let me enlighten you. If you listen to country music at all you have heard some of their songs. To name a few:
-That ain't my truck (Akins)
-She thinks she needs me (Griggs)
-Put a girl in it (written by Akins, made famous by Brooks and Dunn)
-If heaven (Griggs)

It sounds like KUKN will be putting on more concerts like this in the future, which would be pretty sweet! Tickets were only $15 and we got to have an up close personal concert plus they signed autographs/took pictures afterwards. Very cool.

Here are a few crappy pictures/videos from my phone. Andrea's friend Shayna who sat with us had her camera and took better pictures (including Andrea and I with the stars). I hope to get a copy of them soon and I will post them. Until then you will have to make do with what I have. Enjoy.

Christmas with the Powers that be....

"The Powers That Be"...heh. heh. I am sooo clever. lol

Anyway, I spent Christmas day with Reuben's family and it turned into an overnight adventure! :) Reuben came and got me Christmas morning at around 8 a.m. since it was so snowy out. He was supposed to pick me up at 7:30, but apparently he had to dig himself out of the valley. We headed back to his parents house in his subaru. The roads were pretty clear, except for the last mile or so, then it was not as cleared off by snow plows. We parked at the top of the driveway and walked down because his driveway is pretty long and it requires going over a one way at a time bridge.

We arrived at his parents house just in time for the presents! The kids were all lined up to be let into the living room to open thier stockings. It has been a long time since I have been around kids at Christmas! I had forgotten what that was like. After the kids were done with their stockings there was a short break and then it was on to the tree! :) ...Thinking back to my childhood we were pretty much always required to take turns opening presents...not so much at the Power house. lol. It was pretty crazy with 8 kids ranging from the ages of 9-17 grabbing and ripping open presents. :) It was pretty hilarious to watch. A couple presents got opened by the wrong person in the mayhem. lol. All the adults just stood back and watched, saving their own presents for after the craziness.

After we opened presents it was time for breakfast! Eggs, hashbrowns, and sausage. Yum. Reuben's parents got halfway through making it when the power went out! They had to finish making it outside on the camping stove. It was still good though. :)
The power was out for about 3 hours or so. While it was out the adults just sat around and talked, or watch the kids play with their new toys. One of Reuben's sisters, who is about 10ish I think, got a slinky. It was her favorite toy. She played with it for hours and hours. She made piles of books to have it travel down. She also got a toy laptop with educational stuff and games on it...but she mainly used it as a step for her slinky. lol. :)

The kids also got a wii for Christmas. So as soon as the power was back on Reuben was hooking it up for them. The next few hours was spent playing/watching the kids play wii. It was pretty fun. I slaughtered Reuben at bowling. :) heh heh.

At around 4:00 Reuben and I decided to attempt to get me home. It had snowed a little during the day...so we weren't sure of our chances. We hiked back to the car. During the day 2 other cars had parked near Reuben. He tried to make it out, but was sliding around quite a bit, so he decided to try to shovel the snow a bit. He shoveled for about an hour, but because of the 2 cars and the cliff leading to the river he finally just called it quits and we hiked back down to his parents. I didn't mind so much because I didn't have anything pressing back in Longview. I just wish I had brought extra clothes. :)

So we had a wonderful dinner with the Powers family. We had ham, potatoes, peas, and rolls. It was very good. The conversation was very educational. It started out with who had the flattest/biggest nose and digressed into discussion of milk coming out of various holes in the head. lol. Great fun for all. Just as dinner was coming to a close the power went off again. :)

This time it was dark, so the candles and lanterns had to be brought out. The kids entertained themselves with a few games while the adults talked. After a while Reuben and I helped guess for a pictionary game some of them were playing. At about 10:30, just as the lights came back on Reuben and I hiked down to his grandmas where I stayed the night.

I slept in a very comfortable cozy bed with an electric blanket. It was very nice. I borrowed some pjs from his grandma and was all set. :) It took me a while to fall asleep, but once I did I had a nice night. I woke up at about 9:30 then Reuben stopped by to make the hike back up to his parents house.

We had a nice breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes. Only a few of the kids were awake. They were playing new computer games. It was pretty relaxing. I spent the rest of the day watching the kids play wii. I soon became the time police, ensuring that everyone got their turn. :) It was fun though. Wii is almost as fun to watch as it is to play. ...Reuben and his dad spent the day digging out Reuben's car and then his dad's car. Finally at about 7:00 this evening Reuben and I hiked back to the car and were able to make it onto the freshly snow-plowed road. However, Reuben discovered that one of his windshield wipers was missing--the drivers side! lol. So we drove into town with only one working windshiled wiper. We stopped at Shucks to get a new one once we got into Longview. lol.

Whew. What an adventure! Once I got back into town and turned on my phone my message chime went off for like 30 seconds. Apparently I was missed. Now that I have showered and have fresh clothes on I am sitting on my couch enjoying the peace and quite....I forgot that it could be this quiet. lol.

Even with all the craziness it was still a wonderful Christmas. I am glad that I got stuck there. It allowed for more time with Reuben and his family and definately makes a more interesting story....."Mom, are you seriously telling us your White Christmas story again??!"

I think by the end of it I was able to remember all of their names: Edik, Raya, Mirielle, Josh, Elianna, Hannah, Nakita, and Abby! lol. Yay!

Thoughts on Disneyland

Well I made it back from Disneyland alive....barely. The flight back home was pretty rough and made me sick....but other than that I had a very enjoyable trip.

Here are some of my random thoughts on Disneyland and a few more pics. Enjoy!

Thought #1
Disneyland makes you both want to have a child and want to never have a child at the same time. You look to your right and see an adorable child dressed up as a disney character excited to experience the magic of disneyland....then you look to your left and see a kid bawling his head off because The Happiest Place on Earth isn't meeting his every desire. lol

Thought #2
Never in my life will I go to disneyland with a stroller.

Thought #3
I think the parents at Disneyland kinda forget why they are there...They are so intent on making sure they give their child the best disney experience possible that they make their kids miserable. Seriously, if your kid doesn't want to ride finding nemo why make him stand in a 30 minute line?? Also if your kid is grumpy and repeatedly telling you that they are tired and rubbing their eyes at 8:30 p.m. perhaps you should go back to the hotel instead of making them ride Dumbo.

Thought #4
It is exteremly easy to get sucked into the vortex of consumerism that lies at the heart of Disneyland. You must constantly be on your gaurd!! Otherwise you will find yourself buying overpriced suveniers that you will sell at a garage sale in less than 5 years.
On that same note, it is hard to believe we are in an economic downfall based on the number of loaded disney bags I saw walk out of Disneyland with families. Wowser!

As I was riding the Pinocchio ride I was struck by the irony of the evil carnival land Pinocchio gets sucked into going to and Disneyland. I know this seems rather a harsh comparison on The Happiest Place on Earth....but it does have some similarities. lol.

Anyway, all those random semi negative thoughts aside I had a super great time. Andrea and I were able to stick together and ride all the non-scary rides. Our favorites being Thunder Mountain Railroad (we rode this one at least 3 times a day), Maderhorn, Soarin' over California, and the new Toy Story ride.

I think it would be fun to take an extended family vacation there sometime...any takers?

Enjoy the pics below.

These first 3 pictures are from the band I went to see in Costa Mesa with my SPU friends Heather, Ashlee, and Jenny. We went out to dinner Tuesday evening and then went to see the band Barcelona play. It was pretty cool, especially since it is a band made up entirely of former SPU students. :) I recognized the members from the GROUP band. I guess they just signed a contract with Universal Records...so that is pretty cool. Heather, Ashlee, and Jenny knew all the members, so they interacted with us some before/after their set. Good times.





These other pictures are just from around Disney. It was fun to have everything decorated for Christmas, which I think some of my earlier pictures showed. The last picture is from the ride Buzz Lightyear. In it you use a laser gun to shoot targets and earn points. It is pretty fun. I have a funny story about it, but you will have to ask me in person. Then at the end you can email yourself the picture that they took of you during the ride. I was never able to get a fantastic picture of myself, but it was still fun. Plus they put the cartoon spaceship in front of it, which in this case blocks the fact that I am actually holding my gun and playing the game. You can tell I was playing the game because I am space ranger 2 and have the highest score!! lol. Whatev.