We're Back!

 

I've always had it in the back of my mind about this neglected blog.  I was thinking that I should bring it back so that I can have a written record of what is going on with us.  I like those end of the year letters that I get from some people that tell of everything that they did for the past year, so I was thinking that this blog can be like that, but more up to date.  I do post a photo on IG everyday and I guess that is somewhat similar to this, but this will be more word heavy and not updated every day.

Since it would be too long to recap the past years since I've written in here I'm not going to :).

I hope that everyone had a Happy New Year and I hope that the New Year will be a happy and healthy one!

-Heather

2015

Surprise, surprise I did not keep up on this blog at all and I think it was a record this year of only doing one blog post about the year!  The year flew by and I can hardly believe that the year is over in a week.  This past week I finally got my act together and uploaded all of our photos and organized them so that I could do our yearly calendars.  I figured that since all of our photos were uploaded I might as well update this!  Here is our year in review (I won't do January since I already did that one).

February:

We celebrated Chinese New Year by going to The Chinese Gardens in downtown Portland.  It was fun and not too crowded.  Christopher and our dog Lucy each celebrated a birthday :).

March:

We continued on with homeschooling.  Nathan started fencing with a homeschool class.  Christopher flattened out our side/back yard.

Fencing (Nathan is on the third strip from the left)

Checking out some bees at an apiary

Checking out some bees at an apiary

April:

Christopher and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary and Nathan celebrated his 7th birthday!  Christopher also started his beer literacy class through the local community college.

Easter

At our anniversary dinner

We have to work on our selfies!

Someone had a little cold during this regular check-up

May:

Mother's Day, school, a work trip to Vancouver for Christopher that I joined for the weekend.  My mom came to take care of the boys and we got to celebrate her birthday with her :).

Doing a Maypole with one of our homeschool groups

Making his own knitting needles

Mother's Day

Vancouver

Granville Island

Capilano in the trees

Capilano in the trees

Celebrating my mom's birthday (that cake was the free birthday dessert!)

They're going to be pros soon!

June:

We finished up first grade with Nathan.  My cat Bella had to be put to sleep :(.  We went blueberry and berry picking a couple of times.  We celebrated my birthday and Father's Day.  Nathan ran his first race (he ran one mile in 9 minutes & did awesome!).  We went to the local hot air balloon festival.

Climbing at the local climbing gym

Bella in her last days :(

The slackline Christopher made

Picking blueberries

At Cannon Beach for my birthday

Birthday dinner

Birthday ice cream

July:

Our foreign exchange student Sabrina (from two years ago) came to visit us with her friend Stephanie.  We went on a lot of adventures!  Christopher built a rock wall to cover up an ugly dirt hill.

At a fountain in downtown Portland on a very hot day!

Having fun in the Williamette

4th of July

Picking blueerries

Pike Place market in Seattle (we were there for a One Direction concert that the girls were going to)

Seattle

At Cannon Beach

Multnomah Falls

Having fun in the Columbia

On a boat ride on the Williamette

On a boat ride on the Williamette

Having fun outside of the ice cream store

Zoo time

Hiking at Silver Falls

Hiking at Silver Falls

Behind one of the two waterfalls at Silver Falls

Hiking at Silver Falls

Our first Voodoo donuts

Having fun at the Evergreen waterpark

Saying goodbye :(

August:

A truck event.  A camping trip.  A beer disaster.  Nathan started 2nd grade and Anderson started his first year of Kindergarten (he'll do another year since his birthday is in October).

At the truck event

The view outside of our library, so pretty!

Camping 

At the river by the camping site

Serious picture

Silly picture

Christopher's Blackberry Wheat beer went Ka-Boom!

September:

A visit from the Stone family.  A trip up to my mom's house.  

All the kids playing Minecraft

At Justin's wedding

Hanging out at the Millpond

Fishing at the Millpond

Friends!

My mom and Lucy

October:

The Great Wolf Lodge (not as much fun as we thought it would be), Anderson's 5th birthday, Halloween (where it was raining so much!), a trip to Japan for Christopher's work, and a visit from all of Christopher's siblings!

Painting the tombstones for our yard

At the Great Wolf Lodge

At the Great Wolf Lodge

Happy 5th Birthday!

He lost both top front teeth

In the corn maze

In the corn maze

In the corn maze

In the corn maze

In Japan

In a Cosplay room for the conference

Minecraft Zombie (Anderson)

Minecraft Creeper (Nathan)

November:

Wordstock, getting ready for Christmas, and Thanksgiving with some friends!  We also had to put our 19 year old cat Suki to sleep :(.  She hung in for a very long time!

Knitting with Aunt Karen

On a field trip to Powell's in Portland

Carson Ellis reading her book Home to the kids at Wordstock

Nathan made this all by himself!

Decorating the tree on Thanksgiving

The dogs on the bed together for the first time

Playing Super Mario for the first time (Christopher set up a system)

Pretty Suki!

December:

Well, here we are!  I actually haven't loaded up many photos for December yet.  I had a cookie exchange and made loads of cookies!  We went to Shrek, which was a kids' play.  We finished up school for the year and have been enjoying our winter break.  The boys have mostly been playing with their Legos.  We are having a lovely Christmas today!