On the cusp

We are on the cusp now. Newberg finished up the school year and I had my last day of work and the kids had their last days of daycare. The cool, rainy spring weather is finally fading into hot summer days and nights and we are counting down the days till our move and leaving this beautiful Oregon behind. It's definitely bittersweet for me. I am sooo excited to get our own house and yard and garage and to put down roots in what's hopefully more of a forever area but at the same time I will really miss the Pacific Northwest with its farmer's markets, and you-pick farms and foggy mornings and plethora of fun diverse and delicious Portland restaurants. I will miss the political climate that I fit into in a lot of ways here and our great ward. I will miss the kids' great daycare with its seasonal vegetarian menu. I will miss our friends. And in a way I feel like our family is just stepping off a cliff into the great unknown. Neither Eric nor I have jobs in Texas yet, we don't know where we will be living, and I know no one in Texas except Eric's family. Part of me wonders if we are just absolutely crazy for moving out there now without things already in place for us, but the other part of me feels like it's an important step for our family's growth. Like we would stagnant here. This area has been the perfect little nest for our baby family- going from students to professionals and welcoming our first two kids. Now our kids aren't even little babies anymore and we need to take the next step to keep growing as a family. It's scary but at the same time I know that the Lord will take care of us as long as we keep our covenants.

Anyway, in all of this preparing to move and everything, we are also still living a super full life! Since my last blog post we celebrated Emery's first birthday with a fun BBQ with friends, had a short but sweet visit from Uncle Eric, Eric and I went to a Carrie Underwood concert at the Moda Center (AMAZING!!!!!!!), celebrated Eric's birthday, spent a lot of time at parks and splash pads with friends and celebrated Katie's graduation and father's day! Here's some pictures of all this awesomeness that's been going down:

When Eric visited, Levi asked him to read him his goodnight book. It was soo cute! 

Eric took Levi on the annual Father-Son campout and as usual they had a great time! 

When Mom came to town the week before Emery's birthday she watched the kids while Eric and I went to the Carrie Underwood concert. It was Such. A. Great. Show. Seriously so good!!! She was opened by Runaway June and Maddie and Tae and they were all amazing. And Carrie is just such a great performer. I was in heaven loving every minute of it! 

Family picture at Emery's birthday BBQ! Neither of our kids were really feeling like stopping playing and eating to take a picture but at least we got one! 

My last day of work was all the equipment wrangling. This is only about a third of the equipment at one of my schools! I had to gather, clean and tag it all for summer. But I love that I am leaving everything hopefully well sequestered and safe and well-organized for the new PT coming in in the fall. 

I sold my car!! It took less than a week and we got more for it than we had originally thought we would so that's a good thing. And it's definitely a relief that I don't have to worry about the clutch anymore! 

They're replacing the siding on our apartment building which is incredibly noisy which makes naps nearly impossible for poor Emery. The other day they were banging on her walls loudly all day so she couldn't sleep and she was just sooo tired poort thing. 

Eric's friend Derek comes over to play games sometimes and has notoriously stinky feet when he comes straight from work (he does sprinkler installation so he wears wet work boots all day). So as a joke I got him pineapple socks to wear at our house so he can take off his boots and stinky socks and bag them and wear the pineapple ones instead haha. Funniest part is that after I bought them we found out that he is actually allergic to pineapples! 

I made Eric a DELICIOUS peanut butter oreo cheesecake for his birthday and it is delightful. 

Fun Times at the Splash pads, park, and friend's houses for water playdates to beat the heat! 

Those thighs! I can't even handle the cuteness. 

 

 

Her first time at the splash pad and she LOVED it! 

 

Levi shenanigans!!!

He loves to be a burrito boy all wrapped up in the yoga mat! 

Emery Shenanigans!!!

Silly girl climbed into Levi's luggage and was just sitting there chilling haha. 

When she was "helping" me with the laundry the other day she managed to get one of Eric's garment tops on and she was so proud of herself! Soo cute! 

Master Katie

So my dear sister graduated yesterday! She is now a Master Social Worker and I am so ridiculously proud of her. No more school for her, she's now a working professional and she's got her first job lined up already! We got to go up to Portland yesterday for her graduation and made a whole day of it. It was a great Portland send off- graduation ceremony at PSU, lunch at Killer Burgers (after 2 other lunch attempts that didn't work out), rode the tram, and had delicious icecream and lazed around the park down by the south waterfront. It was a lot of walking and paying for parking but it still managed to be so relaxing and nice. The weather was perfect and we took lots and lots of pictures:

The kids were pretty good during the ceremony thanks to lots and lots of cheezits and practice sitting in Sacrament meeting haha. It was definitely a very Portland-feeling comencement. There was more than one mention of the climate crisis and whenever a speaker was introduced it was also mentioned which pronouns he/she/they used. Katie's classmates definitely have a passion for standing up for the oppressed and being the change in the world. I was impressed by the hope they chose to have in the face of very real and threatening fears and obstacles. It made me want to share the gospel with them. Because they are just choosing to cling to love and hope but it is so hard when so many things on Earth can be so depressing and overwhelming- racism, hate crimes against the LGBTQ community, the destruction of the environment, etc, etc. I want to share with them the gospel to help them find the peace they so obviously lack. The state of the world is very scary to me too but I have the assurance that we have a supreme creator who has a plan. This world is ultimately His and He will purify and restore it at the last day and He will not allow the righteous to be completely destroyed despite the tumult of the last days. But at the same time, I know that many of these great people would have a hard time even opening themselves up to listen to the gospel because they hear the name of our church and automatically think of bigotry and exclusion of the LGBTQ community. I can see what they would think: "I'm not interested in anything from an organization that does not support my gay/transgender brothers and sisters and give them full and equal access and respect." And I totally get that. It's a challenge for me and I am looking at it from a place of so much more light and understanding. If I was on the outside looking in, I probably wouldn't take a second look either. And so I'm not sure how to reconcile that. It's something I don't have answers to yet. 

Anyway, it was definitely very different from my commencement but I really liked it. 

This sums up my kids pretty well- Emery trying to escape and Levi being very enthusiastic about something new. 

When we rode the tram, Emery was very into the pole haha. I have no idea why but she loved it! She would pull at it and push at it and thought it was so funny! 

 It was a clear day and views from the top of the tram were GORGEOUS. Unfortunately, Levi was very nervous about being so high up there. You can kind of see how he is clinging to me in this picture. So he was in a hurry to get on the tram going back down quickly. So we didn't linger up there very long. 

Emery just wanted to be put down so she could run around. 

She did lots of fun running around yesterday and loved every minute of it! 

Icecream face! 

Emery was so proud of herself for putting on Auntie Katie's purse!

Levi and grandpa! 

I love how you can see Emery's 1 1/2 teeth in this picture! 

Then in the evening, everyone came back to our house and we had a super late dinner, put the kids to bed and then all stayed up late talking and laughing and just being ridiculous. Katie tried to teach mom and me to do the fake smile she used to do as a kid and it was hilarious.

I love this family of mine and I'm so glad we got to spend one of our last weekends up here all together!

Onederful Emery

I can't believe my baby is a year old now! She's walking around like a champ and feeding herself and eating what we eat for dinner, and drinking whole milk now! We did a cake smash to celebrate her birthday last Monday and it was SO ADORABLE. She was so happy to just sit there and eat her cake. It was substantially easier than doing Levi's cake smash pictures. Anyway check out this sweetie pie!

Sweet Emmie Mae brings so much light and happiness to our home. I love her sense of humor and the way she loves water and wrestling with Daddy and brother. And the way she dances to music and gives hugs and kisses. I am so grateful to be her mommy!