ILV2KYK

After graduation Cody has since found a job working at a Dick Hannah used car lot in Vancouver. He loves it because he finally gets to do what he's been studying all these years and preparing to do. He's been really blessed just being able to get the job so fast and being so close to home. But now me best friendless with Cody working until 7 or 8 everyday except for a 2-day 'weekend' (the schedule rotates so his weekend lands on just two days in a row). I've tried not to go crazy with boredom and procrastination of the things I know I need to get to and trying to find a job myself. Change always takes just a little time to get adjusted to like always so it will be good soon.

This last week Cody's 'weekend' landed on Thursday and Friday and now that we only have 2 days to play we are trying to really take advantage of these days. Soooo this last Thursday we went kayaking!! Cody's family own four kayaks and couldn't come up with a reason why we hadn't gone out on them before. The day started out overcast and a bit drizzly but luckily half way through the day the sun finally showed up.

It was a perfect day. We drove up to Lake Merwin which is about 30 minutes past Cody's house up in the mountains. I've never been (which again don't know why I hadn't). It is a gorgeous open lake with a narrower part that leads off to the right and to some small waterfalls. I kept thinking I was going to tip but after about 15 minutes you get the hang of it and it's quite enjoyable.

i may look calm and collected on the surface but i was kiiiinda freaking out

Sometimes we go fast but mostly would leisurely take in all the Northwest beauty. Living in Idaho for a year really makes me appreciate all of the green everywhere. I feel really blessed to live in a such a gorgeous area.

water falling down a rock that we swam up to

my three loves

When we got closer to the falls we found ourselves in this super calm part of the lake so I thought it would make for some cool pictures. When I was getting my camera back from Cody I heard this wooshing noise, looked up and no more than 15 feet away from us flew a bald eagle and landed on a tree. It was one of the more magical parts of the adventure. We just sat for about 10 minutes looking up at him.

To get to the falls we had to park our kayaks (because you literally couldn't go any further due to some major boulders blocking the way. We chose this spot as our lunch location and then headed up to the falls.

after many attempts of me running back and forth from this rock to the camera (two rocks away) to take this picture, this was the winner.

I can foresee a lot of kayak adventures in our future because I simply had a blast. And once Megan and Rusty can steal away from little Olive we hope they would accompany us for a group kayak adventure.

Ah Crepe

Every year we look forward to the time when all of our blackberries are ready to eat. Megan and I got inspired and decided to make some crepes to eat with the berries.

this would be the second batch of batter I made due to me accidentally dropping the little glass bowl full of melted butter into the kitchen aid mixer. I now know that kitchen aid mixers shatter little glass bowls.

Megan came up with the brilliant idea to heat up the blackberries with some sugar to make a yummy berry sauce


all of the yummy ingredients


Google helped us by finding some neat ways of folding your crepe and we thought we'd give them a try

Family Night with the City Council

For FHE last night my dad invited our family to go to a city council meeting for an issue he had been fighting for for a long long time. He can give you all the details because he lived it but the short version is the high school wants an electronic reader board but our city has a restriction on having electronic reader boards in on main street.
It was probably one of the greatest FHE's I can remember. Even through the boring parts it was still neat to see how a city is run and the people involved. My former track coach who was mayor twice before is on the city council and also a good friend from our ward is also on the council. Highlights of the boring segment of the night came from the time allotted for anybody to stand up (they are limited to 5 minutes) and pretty much can just present/say anything. These were made highly more entertaining with frequent texts from Connor that forced us to suppress cracking up in front of the city council. First was garage sale sign conspiracy lady. She had had garage sale signs of hers taken down and she pretty much just wanted to know who the culprit was. Lady that was sad that a dog (named Bo) on her route to work was tied up on a short chain all the time and didn't have freedom to run around and wanted him freed. Clark County says the rope has to be 5 feet but BG's says 3 so she wanted that fixed. (Connor's best text: Let's Free Bo! Po Bo Chained No Mo!). This was followed up by some other guy who says his garage sale signs were being taken also. At this point I very much felt like I was in a city hall town meeting in the Gilmore Girls... just a little more official feeling.
After this part was over the first item on the next part of the agenda was the reader board (and you have no idea how grateful I was that it was the first to come up for discussion). Pretty much my dad gave an amazing speech. He was clear, concise, no feeling of rambling, points reiterated, even made everyone laugh a couple times (which he really can't help not to do) really just great. Some sign guy came up and just fed some information like how long it takes to read letters of a certain size i don't really know cause me and Connor couldn't hear him over his loud Santa beard. The high school's principle also went up and gave a good argument. And then hey I had a little something to say and my dad used me as a last point that he wanted to make so I got up and spoke for probably a good 20 seconds, but that was enough to make my hands shaky until the end of the meeting. Then the council discussed it at length. Apparently the by the last meeting it seemed like it was split 3 yes's and 3 no's (but there's 7 including the mayor). Then the actual vote.... which was very intense, I kind of felt like I was on a game show or something..... and





IT PASSED!!! all 7 were yes's. The people cheered, Connor and mom let out a couple of woot's but the best part was the big ol grin on my dad's face. After all his hard work and effort (going to a ton of meetings) it was so good to see it payed off. As a family we felt nothing but proud to have him as our dad/husband. It was just neat.

We celebrated with a delicious meal at Burgerville w/ some turkey clubs, blackberry lemonades and some pepper bacon cheeseburgers.

This is now remembered in my book as one FHE to remember.