Idaho Trip

Monday night, Marcel and I returned from a long weekend in Idaho, which his little brother tagged along on.

Marcel picked up his brother Wednesday night from Olympia and we were on the road Thursday after I worked a typical Thursday shift. The car ride went exceptionally well considering we were traveling with a 4 year old. He spent hours entertaining himself with my water bottle tied to my shoe. Friday, we spent the day at the water park and had a blast even though Snoh was too short for the big rides that he so desperately wanted to ride. The rest of the weekend he told everyone that he just wanted to be 5 so that he could ride the tunnel rides.

Sunday we had what Snoh called a "Princess Party". To the rest of us it was a Wedding Open House (Princess Party to him because in my dress I look like a princess). It was really nice to see so many people I hadn't seen for quite awhile. I wish we would have taken more pictures at the party (or any!) but we still had a great time.

Very early in the trip Snoh saw a picture of himself on my mom's computer from the last time he was in Idaho that reminded him of a pretty cool toy she has:

Snoh playing slots (December 2007)

Snoh playing slots (July 2009)

He also saw a picture of him in the tube on the sledding hill at Bogus Basin and wanted to go again. I'm not sure if he understood that there isn't snow on the hill in July, but we told him he could come back at Christmas time and we'd take him up the mountain. By December Marcel and I will be back living in Idaho!

The other pictures we took:

Snoh got himself stuck in between the door and the screen door. I felt a little bad making him wait until I took a picture, until he asked if he could do it again as soon as I got him rescued.

Marcel enjoyed some brotherly bonding when he took Snoh on a four-wheeler ride, which Snoh didn't want to do because it meant taking a break from a computer game

And, as always, the trip was about Snoh, which we expected when we decided to take him, so there isn't a single picture of me and Marcel, but we can deal with that as we're still going through our 1600+ wedding pictures! I'll post some next time I'm stealing internet ;)

Heat Wave in Portland

Portland (and the entire Northwest) is experiencing a terrible heat wave this week. I thought we were going to be so lucky that it would occur while we were in Idaho, but no so luck.

We are back from vacation and roasting in our apartment with no air conditioning. Our fans can do nothing to overcome the heat. I'm going to spend my night at work trying to think of places me and Marcel can kill a few hours tonight so we don't experience a heat stroke--even last night at 11:00pm, it was still 85+ degrees.

Some things I'm not liking about the heat (besides the obvious no air conditioning)
**Even after being moved out from in front of the window, our candles are melting
**Instead of having to wait for the water to come out of the faucet warm, we have to wait for it to come out cold

We have decided that we will do all our laundry before the heat goes away because the sauna that our house has become will make for a perfect atmosphere to dry our clothes without having to run the dryer. Now if I could only stand to get some other housework done in the heat!

Married Life

Here are some of the pictures we have taken in about 45 days of being husband and wife, which we are both thoroughly enjoying!

First night back in Forest Grove after our honeymoon



I came out dressed in this tank and here came Marcel matching me;
we didn't leave the house until he changed into something else!


Surviving Marcel's first experience with a Forest Grove heat wave!


Our first "married couple" date
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past at McMenamin's Grand Lodge
where we stayed on our wedding night.
Best date ever: free movies for students!


4th of July in Banks, Oregon
our first 4th of July in Forest Grove area



We've enjoyed 45 days but can't wait for the next 45 years (and then some!)

7-11

On Saturday, Marcel enjoyed a great day together, simply because we are a one car couple with two very busy schedules, seen below:

7:45am--drop Marcel off at The Rock, the church he plays at with friends

9:00am--MaryBeth at work after playing on the computer in the parking lot

12:30pm--MaryBeth off work and headed to pick up Marcel

4:00pm--drop Marcel off at Sonrise, to play video tech at our church

4:15pm--MaryBeth at Panera Bread, enjoying free wi-fi

6:00pm--MaryBeth back to Sonrise for service

I wish I could tell you that this doesn't happen that often, but it happens just about every weekend. The weekdays aren't as bad because Marcel has a mo-ped and can get to work on his own, but the weekends when we both need a car leaves us being very creative. Also, since Forest Grove (our home city) is far from where all above-mentioned activities where happening, we must also get creative on ways to kill hours at a time.

On this particular day, we vacuumed the lone car in our family and headed to Little Ceasers, because it was a food option in our budget (barely!!). We planned on taking our pizza to a park we've found in Hillsboro (for Hillsboro folks: it's hidden behind the new assisted living condo's by Jared near the Streets of Tanasbourne). We knew it was free slurpee day at 7-11 because they are Marcel's obsession, and were excited when we found one to go to. Little did we know, we'd find 3 just on the way to the park, and let me tell you that we did in fact stop at all of them. We did enjoy our pizza picnic and had fun playing in the water fountain (without getting wet!) and all the other normal playground toys.

On the way home from church, we stopped at two more 7-11's, only 1 of which still had the cups for the free slurpees. No worries, though, because the last one in our day told Marcel that if he had a cup from a different store he was more than welcome to fill it up one more time!

Here's the stack of cups we collected throughout our day:

Enjoying the first of our many treats that day

The Time Has Come

Last night we got our 1675 wedding photos back from our photographers. We went through all of them last night very briefly and I've spent a bit of time today rotating them (when he burned them to a DVD for us, that didn't come through) and trying to sort them. We have yet to look at them in regards to which ones we like and want to print and hang in our apartment that could use some more decoration, but overall we are very impressed and would highly recommend them to anyone looking for great photographers who has Marcel likes to say "Saved the Day Super Hero Style" (they were much more than photographers for us--they always were able to help when the baker told us we'd be assembling the cake, and when the bridesmaids sashes wouldn't tie...the list goes on!)

This is my favorite of us so far

Let it hold you over until we can pick the best ones!

Honeymoon #3

One last set of pictures
(unless I ever find time to post some pictures of Vegas sites)

Waterfall at the Mirage

we just wanted to swim and had nowhere to go
swimsuits on before we realized that fact!

waiting for the Treasure Island show that we didn't see

waiting in the condo before one last Vegas meal with my aunt and uncle

on the shuttle headed to the airport and back to real life.

We had a great time and would offer Vegas as a vacation spot to anyone without kids or a family that has an option to leave the kiddos behind! It's not the place to need a stroller, even though you wouldn't be alone if you tried. We did make a vow not to take our kids there unless we were celebrating a birthday for a child turning 21, but we are hoping to return a few times before we have to remember that vow ;)

We're hoping to have professional pictures back soon. We heard from him just a few days ago and he said they are getting close. I can't wait to get to go through 1000+ pictures to pick the ones to decorate our apartment with. The best will be posted as soon as I have them, my computer and wireless internet at the same time, made harder by the fact that it will never be at my house!

Honeymoon #2

in the Bellagio atrium

because you can't go to Vegas without taking this picture
but we had ours taken by Elvis

at Hoover Dam
(a story in itself, involving an abandoned vehicle, cops, coroner, CSI photographer and some repelling rope!)

probably my biggest voucher: $4.13
and my drink of the week: rum & coke

before Zumanity, a Cirque de Soleil show

Honeymoon

It was been much longer than the week I was hoping to take before making this post, but time has been better spent than by being on blogger. I'm thoroughly enjoying spending every minute not at work with Marcel. He did start work today so the time together will shrink some now, but we're happy to make that adjustment so he can help support the bills some!

We had a blast in Vegas. I don't think we could have picked a better honeymoon location for us. My aunt let us crash her condo there for the week, which saved us a lot of money. We rented a car to help get us around like we wanted to. We saw just about every single hotel/casino only because we had a full week to do it in. They are all very cool to see but if you wanted to see all of them in a shorter time I would not envy you. We only saw a handful a day and after the 3rd or 4th I was ready for something new. We saw just about everything we wanted to, except the Pirate show at TI, because it was too windy for them to perform and it was the last night we were there.

Some of my favorite pictures (I'm favoring pictures with us, because if you've been to Vegas you have the same pictures we took of the scenery; maybe when I find more time I can make a post just for the scenery-type pictures)

Our first day in Vegas: Outlet Mall

How we had felt for weeks

after the New York New York roller coaster

The biggest voucher we saw: $34.15
little did we know it would later buy Marcel an extra large margarita

3D: "I lost my M in Vegas" at M&M world