Man...has it really been 4 months!!

I guess Jeff and I have just settled into the monotony of school/work, eat, sleep... :-(

Nathan got to come and visit us this past weekend. It was kind of a last minute deal, but as always, it was fun to have him with us.

Jeff picked him up in Salem Friday afternoon, and to kill time before driving to Tualatin to pick me up from work, they went and checked out some electric cars. This bit Jeff with a real hankering to buy an electric car. Don't worry...we didn't splurge that much! :-) However, it might be a real possibility in the (not-so-distant) future.

Saturday afternoon, we went to the Portland Saturday Market. There were a lot of really cool things there. It really made me wish we had more $$ to buy art, jewelry, crafts, clothing, etc from these local artisans. Maybe someday...

The highlight of my weekend (and this is no joke) was after we returned from the Saturday Market. Nathan got to spend some quality time with grandma, and Jeff and I did yard work. Yep, you read that correctly! I mowed the lawn--not once, but twice. Yeah, it was that long. While I was mowing, Jeff was weed wacking. It was actually a lot of fun. My back and feet are a little sore today, but the yard does look much nicer. Both our mower and weed wacker are electric. It was pretty funny at times when we both had cords strung out in the yard where the other needed to be. I'd never used an electric mower before that was pulled into the house while you used it. It felt a little like vacuuming. :-)

Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post. I hope to get up some soon...

Christmas 2006 with Nathan

Nathan came to visit us for a few days the week before Christmas. We had Christmas one week early on Monday, December 18th. We read the Christmas story in Luke for Family Home Evening and then Nathan opened his gifts.

Here are some pics from our Christmas:

As usual it was a joy to have Nathan come for a visit. We look forward to spending New Years with him. He'll be with us to ring in the New Year. :-)

Nathan

Nathan came to visit last weekend. It was a pretty lazy weekend, but still fun to have him around. We had Thanksgiving dinner Saturday evening. Check out the posting on my blog for pics of the dinner (www.clarindas.blogspot.com).





Here are a couple of pics of Nathan:

After a shower. Oh to be little enough to wrap the towel completely around yourself TWICE

Balancing on the exercise ball--with a little help from the couch. :-)

Nathan's first visit

Nathan came to visit us this weekend. For those of you who may not know Nathan, he is Jeff's son, my stepson. He is 7 years old and full of energy!

I thought it was a lot of fun to have a child around the house. For as much energy as he has, he is still very well behaved. He was such a big helper, too. He helped set the table every night! Plus he helped with just about anything I asked him to do.

We had a very busy day on Saturday!

He had a soccer game in Salem, OR. It's fun to watch these little guys play. Nathan is actually quite good. Unfortunately, the team they were playing yesterday were even better! Oh well, you can't win 'em all...of course, they don't even keep score yet.

Dad and Nathan before the game.

Nathan wearing a silly hat (?)

It's the cover for a camping chair; he was pretending to be Cat in the Hat.

A couple ACTION shots...

After the soccer game, we headed to the International Rose Test Garden in Portland. Jeff needed to visit the garden for one of his classes (Art 101), so we thought it would be fun to kill 2 birds with one stone. I've wanted to visit the garden for some time, so it was a bonus for me as well.

Jeff taking notes at the Garden.

Nathan is such a little ham; he loves to get his picture taken.

The little guy tried his best on this one, but our heads got a little trim. Oops! What do you expect from a 7-year old, I suppose. :-)