What Was I Thinking?

Hi.  It's not such great idea to drive off with your garage open when your cute beekeeping husband just harvested 55 frames of honey the night before. It makes for unloading your groceries a little tricky. Just sayin.

So the story goes on.... over 2 hours later....2 nasty bee stings later...he had once again  moved each of the 55 frames and dusted off all the bees and had them tucked away safely. It took a lot of smoking and leaf blowing magic to get all those bees out of our garage and back where they belonged. In the short time they were out, the bees managed to rob back three full frames that were uncapped.  They had those frames cleaned right up with not a drop left behind.  Those were some busy bees.


I decided I better get busy and make some kind of redeeming dinner. I had a roasted chicken and I made this amazing Tangy Pear and Bleu Cheese Salad found here (it has five stars for reason..YUM!) and some delicious Caprese topped bread.  It was a lovely meal and Mark was a rock star.  No complaints about the bike ride he missed because of my dumb mistake.  I love him.

 You can see the red above his right eye...the next morning it looked like this:

Molly's Weekend With Papa and Nana

Two weekends ago...where does the time go?? Molly got to spend the weekend with Papa and Nana while her mommy and daddy got to have some quiet time in Midway. We loved every minute of it!
We made a visit to our little zoo and were entertained by the silly monkeys and all the neat birds.

 We were so surprised that you wanted to go down the giant slide all by yourself!  

Again and again!

Of course Papa followed you up the ladder each time.

 

You are a joy to watch.  The world is a fascinating place to discover.  

One of your favorite things to do when you visit our house is go on 

a walk to see Joni's goats and chickens.

The chickens were no where to be found.  

We were getting ready to go back home and what did you see?

The Chickens!! Yea!!

 Chicken talk is the best kind of chatter.

 You make the cutest little pucker face and then smack your lips at them.

They hear you and come to see what's up.

 You had to do some coaxing to get them to come out of their favorite hiding place!  

But soon they were munching on the apples you fed them. 

 We got down an old tea set that was your mommy's and had a nice little tea party with Bubba.

Thanks for the great weekend, Molly!  Come back soon so we can get that crazy hair on the trampoline and laugh with you until our faces hurt.  xoxo

Time for A Long Bike Ride

Early start to take advantage of the cooler temps. We wished them luck as they rode off.

We drove over to Mendon to meet them at their lunch break.  It was a hot day to be riding but everyone was in good spirits. They were telling us about sore toe nails and crazy cramping muscles...

but the Cache Valley Century is a beautiful ride. 

With the temperature in the upper 90's it was nice to have some cloud cover.  

Way to go biker guys!!

Friends in Real Life

Up until this week we were only facebook friends with our adorable niece,  Felicity. She lives all the way across the giant pond in England.  We were so very happy to finally meet her and spend a little time with her family. She won our hearts over in a matter of seconds.  We will miss you three...take care!

 

 We enjoyed a lovely dinner at Elements and caught up on each others lives.

 Felicity approved and enjoyed the walk by the river.

 

Felicity. A One year old, bright little doll who is dearly loved.

Em Makes the News!

We love any photo or tidbit of info that we get from the land of Brazil.  So this was a real treat!   She was interviewed a couple of weeks ago and her friend Lu sent me this link.  She told us she had a hard time understanding his English, that's why there are so many splices.  Some words don't translate straight across the line.  When he asked if she was ashamed she thinks he meant shy. We thought it was funny listening to the opening introduction.  It sound like he says, "Emily, an American, stuck in Brazil." The ending is awesome, too.  She tells us Brazilian TV is very interesting to say the least. She is definitely having an adventure.  We love her and her cute, spunky attitude.  She had her first Salsa lesson last night.  We are patiently awaiting a blog update.  She just spent 10 days visiting family two hours south of her home.  Her Brazilian brother and his wife just had a new baby daughter.  Her online time has been limited but she assures us that a new post will becoming shortly. Emily is doing well despite the barrier of not being able to communicate as well as she would like to.  She is understanding very well. Keep that smile on Em!  We love you and so admire your courageous attitude.  You inspire us! xo

  

New Scenery

New scenery is always wonderful! We just got back from a very relaxing trip to Portland, OR. The trip included time with Janell and Ben, a trip to the coast, a sweet wedding of a beautiful couple, delicious food, hours in a bookstore we love and lots of down time.

 Just what we needed. We took our share of photos.

Voo Doo Donuts...an icon in Portland. The lines goes out the door. We won't say they are our favorite bakery treat ever, but they are tasty and it's fun to be apart of the crowd.  Some haul them off by the box full.  Some choose one larger than their own head.  (See that cute little boy?  His mom was going to give him his dollar back if he could eat the entire thing.  I don't think he could) And some choose several and enjoy sampling them all outside as they people watch early in the morning.




The Real Mother Goose.  
Full of beautiful artisan crafted goodness and eye candy galore

 

We met Ben for lunch at Kenny and Zukes for the MOST amazing Reuben Sandwich in the Universe. We kid you not.

 The little pickle plate was mighty tasty. We will be back for sure.

After poking around Powell's for awhile and riding the Max around town, we headed back to the hotel to wait for our ride to dinner.

What a vacation! Our Portland hosts took us to Nicholas' Restaurant for scrumptious Lebanese food.  Such a treat!!




Then it was time to watch the sun set over the pretty city of Portland.  We are having a wonderful time

 Mount Rainier is there - over there...where?

Far away in the clouds.

 

 The sun went down...

 

and the moon came up.

(Aren't they cute?)

Weddings are such happy occasions.
Congrats to Samantha & Brandon!

And the trip continues...Lincoln City here we come.

  Wonder, beauty and tranquility.  Such a gift.

and F U N ... we love the ocean!

So on to dinner, which was amazing and worth every penny spent. Truly. Black Fish in Lincoln City. 

On to the cheese factory - home some of our favorite ice cream and cheddar cheese: Tillamook

The whole factory is fascinating.  Do you think Jiggy Stick will ever get to this point? :)  The old vintage advertising was a blast to see the ice cream was delicious! Of course we had to poke our heads in the holes...the things you do to get your grandbabies to smile (Hi kiddos!)

Is this post long enough yet, Em?

Back to the coast and enjoying some scenery like this on the way:

 Cape Meares Lighthouse and The Octopus Tree.

 The Rose Gardens It's much more fun to dance among the roses than just stand there for the camera.  Roses of every shade imaginable. You just had to smoosh your face in some of them to soak in the scent. We had the perfect weather, everyday.

 Japanese Gardens Very tranquil and zen like. Fun to hear dad talk about his mission memories. We'd love to take a trip there someday.

And how do you end a stay as beautiful as this?  Eat sushi and LOTS of it!

 Oh yea, our crazy little room in the Crystal Hotel. We stayed here our last night. Crazy history.  The McMenamin Brothers are doing very cool things with old buildings.  There was a sweet salt water soaking pool in the basement.

 ***

It's nice to have one more trip documented. Check.

Now to begin sorting through thousands of recovered photos and try to make some order of them all.  
Wish me luck.