Leaves in November

It is December tomorrow and colored leaves are still on the trees.
Oregon is awesome.

A little bit of sunshine

So we have had some crazy storms this week.  Wednesday was so dark and rainy that the day stayed the same level of darkness as when I woke up to when I went home that night.  It was eery.  Having the sun pop out for just a minute was so nice the following day, of course it was followed by a lot more rain, but still....sun!  Sometimes it is weird trying to figure out what looks different

Countdown to a Utah Christmas

Ever since I was little my mom has always given us advent calendars to count down to Christmas.  She even made a home made one for my sister Christie filled with Trident chewing gum, mints, etc since she was allergic to the chocolate in our calendars.  This year she sent my sister and I advent calendars not counting down to Christmas, but counting down to when we would be flying home for Christmas.  The countdown consisted of a string of lights along with Christmas Trivia Cards with the date and how many days remaining written on each one.  So fun!  We are really excited to be with our family in December.

Thanksgiving

We had a very neat Thanksgiving this year.  JD had Wednesday-Friday off of school this week which has been amazing.  We slept in, and watched the dog show champion be selected in the morning. Afterwards we had a delicious dinner with some friends in the ward.  The McNeils made a HUGE dinner of ham, turkey, potatoes, yams, beans, etc Whitings brought delicious stuffing, and the Parades family brought a dish that I can't pronounce that is native to their country of Peru, that was SO good.  We got to hear about the Parades family conversion and it was an amazing dinner.  Afterwards we got to hang out with the Whitings for a while since their 2 year old was sick and they couldn't come to the dinner portion.  We feel so blessed to have such good friends here, to have the Gospel in our lives, and to have each other.  It was a really good holiday.

Picture Notes: birds in the grocery store parking lot and Peruvian cuisine.

Dumb Ways to Die

I may or may not have watched this real Australian PSA for train safety 5+ times this evening.

Grateful

There are two little words in the English language that perhaps mean more than all others.  They are "thank you".  Let a spirit of thanksgiving guide and bless your days and nights. Work at it.  You will find that it will yield wonderful results. -Gordon B Hinckley

Arboretum

We had a rainy day in Portland this weekend.  The roses are sleeping, the leaves are falling from some trees and starting to change on others.  We discovered a new place that will deserve further explorations: the Hoyt Arboretum.  It is several trails through lots of different trees.  Very kicked back and relaxing play weekend.  I'm looking forward to a Thanksgiving weekend this coming week.  If the rain calms down a bit, hopefully we will be able to get to the ocean.
 

Homemade Fall Decor

I love fall, I love trees, and I love quick, cheap projects.  You can buy these place mats at Ikea for 4.99/4 mats.  I just colored in the leaves using Sharpies and Sharpie highlighters (I liked the highlighter affect more than the markers).  I have one pinned up in my work cubicle and the rest in my living room.

Autumnal Temple

"I know your lives are busy. I know that you have much to do. But I make you a promise that if you will go to the house of the Lord, you will be blessed; life will be better for you."

—Gordon B. Hinckley

Vote

Voting from the comfort of my home as an absentee was pretty sweet.  I liked being able to look up each candidate and issue as I voted and not have to stand in line forever.  I am grateful for the opportunity to vote and enjoy the blessings of freedom that comes from being a citizen of this country.  I do wish that people would be a little bit more respectful of everyone's right to have their own opinion.  Things get a little heated up here in Oregon when it comes to politics.  A precinct voting area is across the street from where I work and the cops had to close down an entire lane of traffic today to accomodate the amount of people coming in to drop off their ballots from early voting.  I will have to take a picture of the madness that is sure to come tomorrow.  Get out and vote!!! 

The Gorge

 We went to 'The Gorge' today as locals like to call the Columbia River Gorge Area.  This is a stretch of beautiful mountains and trees that stretch along the Colombia River right outside Portland to the base of Mount Hood.  We took the Historic Columbia River Highway and got to see new waterfalls that I haven't ever been to or even knew were there.  Some of these were Shepherd's Dell, Wakeenah, Multnomah( I knew about this one, but now I know how to park right next to the lodge), Horsetail, and Bridal Veil area.  I am a fall leaves fanatic, so it was really fun to be in this area with pretty leaves and surprisingly no rain, though we got a thorough misting from the falls.  It has been raining a lot here recently and you could tell from the amount of water that was coming off the mountains.  We hiked a few of the trails, but with this new discovery there will be a lot more to come back and do when I have a map and know where everything is in the area.  We played the-drive on this surprise highway until there is a waterfall then pull over game-more time and planning should be fun in the future.

Halloween Photo Tricks

This is what happens when you have no Trick-or-Treaters and a husband studying for a big test on Halloween: photoshop sugar skull, zombie, and witch.

Pumpkin Carving

We had fun carving our pumpkins tonight.  Nothing quite like turning on Pandora Halloween Radio, listening to a variety of music including: Nightmare Before Christmas, Disney's Haunted Mansion ride soundtrack, Told the Witch Doctor, Devil Went Down to Georgia, Monster Mash, Thriller, among many other classic Halloween songs, and digging out pumpkin guts. I think they turned out pretty cute.  Happy week of Halloween!

When it is raining and the husband is studying....

In case you weren't aware, it tends to rain in Portland, and while we didn't experience this until this month, we are quickly realizing that this is a true fact.  I happen to like rain, a lot, especially when I can be home when it is raining and not have anything I have to get done or do.  Today consisted of cleaning, and once everything was nice and clean?  I started on projects creating lots of messes.  One of them was this banner/garland that I am in love with.  While enjoying Karate Kid III, I cut, pieced together, and sewed something fun and cute, for now it will be a cheery decoration for my cubicle at work.  Now I get to clean all over again.  Yippee!

Hello, Autumn

There are still many more to go, but how great it is to have the trees different colors!

Sunday Mornings

JD loves sleeping in, and only gets to do it once in a while.  Today in order to avoid waking him, I drove up to Cooper Mountain and walked around.  The leaves are beautiful and all over the place.  It was so peaceful wandering around pine trees and freshly rained on fall colored trees.  I love fall!

Portland

We went downtown today.  Portland is a much different place during the 'off season' but still as quirky as ever.  On the agenda was: Powell's Bookstore, Athleta (yay!), Willamette River Walk, and walk around Pioneer Plaza and Square.  We are finally offically in fall here.  Some of the trees have changed to bright oranges, yellows, and reds, with many more who have yet to even start changing.  I wish the quieter weekends with JD would last longer.  We have been super busy between him studying and my new job training. 

Take that Chinese Food

Guess what I made, all by myself, and it turned out delicious?  That's right, ham fried rice people.  For  whatever reason, cooking any form of Chinese food is scary to me.  I won tonight though: Natalie 1: Chinese Food 0.  I made a ton of it so it was dinner and lunch for both of us.

The Barber

I cut JD's hair for the first time today.He had gone since the day before we moved here without getting it cut and he was getting a little shaggy.  I found a nice clipper set on Amazon and went at it.  Not going to lie, it was a little scary.  I think it was worse this time because his hair started out so long that it was a little crazy looking at the hair pile up in the garbage can and around his feet.  Good news: he isn't bald, it looks really good, and that hair cut technically paid for the clippers, so from here on out we are in the plus.

I love the TEMPLE!

This is about as close as you can get to taking a full picture of the Portland Temple, any other angle consists of a lot of trees or not being able to get far enough away to fit it in.  It is beautiful and I love it.