Encouragment

When Eldon was in Arizona, I would get pretty down being all by myself so I created a list to cheer myself up. I thought about some of my favorite things that made me smile. I thought of each of the five senses and picked five things that I loved in each one (actually since taste is really just my favorite foods, that's boring so I skipped it and I made my list four favorite things from four of the senses). 
Now, since I'm just bored, I thought I would share my list and encourage others to create their own. When you're bummed about something or just stressed out, take a moment and focus on the things that make you happy and smile. Look at pictures, listen to music or whatever it is that calms you down. It will pick you up and you'll feel better. Try it.


Just so you know, I know most of mine are about the beach but I can't deny that's what makes me smile.


Sight: 

Sunsets over the beach

Any water feature (waterfalls, lakes, rivers etc.)

Fire- I just can't look away

Flowers

Sounds:
SPORTS SOUNDS -This might need to be explained...I love hearing the sounds of sports like the crack of a bat hitting a baseball, a basketball hitting nothing but net, the sound you hear when catching a football, pounding of running feet on pavement and so on.
CRASHING OF THE WAVES -Especially when it's late at night and you hear the waves while lying in bed falling asleep...mmm love it!
LAUGHTER -It can be little babies or a group of friends but laughing is one of my favorite things ever
STEEL DRUMS -I think the steel drums are one of the coolest sounding instruments


Touch:
I absolutely love the feeling of the SUN ON MY SKIN.
The WARM HAND OF A LOVED ONE wrapped around my own hand, especially when mine is cold
A LIGHT SCRATCH on my back or arms
WARM SAND in between my toes and surrounding my feet


Smells: other than the obvious food, candles, flowers and lotion
SALT in the air from the ocean... you could just call this the BEACH (but not the stinky beaches that smell like fish)
CEDAR WOOD (sometimes I smell the clock I made that's hanging on our wall- yeah I know it's weird)
LEATHER - I don't think this really needs explaining
SURFBOARD WAX- It's sort of sweet and delicious smelling, even my young women think so

Beach Boys!

Eldon, knowing how much of a Cali girl I am and how much I love the Beach Boys, took me to their concert last Friday night! It was awesome!! Unfortunately, only three of original Beach Boys were playing but it was still cool.

Yeah, our seats were actually this close to the stage, pretty great huh?

They sounded just as great as they did years ago and put on a fantastic concert!
We had such a good time!

Woodshop Beginnings

Who needs vacation when you can just take the money and buy a super sweet router table with router lift instead? Amidst the merger and everything going on with Eldon's old company, they paid him for his unused vacation time. So we decided to get a router table with it. We are pretty stoked! Here is a video of us using it for the first time.

Winners!

Eldon and I went to the Fair here in Hillsboro this last weekend for an evening of fun and games. Eldon said he was gonna win something for me so he picked out a difficult looking darts game. He easily went three for three (actually he got five balloons with three darts but they only count one for each shot). Very proud of my man, I walked away with a very soft and silly frog. Then I decided to try my hand at beating a Fair game and winning a prize for my Significant Other. I chose the race-to-blow-up-a-balloon-by-shooting-a-water-gun-at-the-target thing. I was up against quite a tough looking group but I zoned in and, much to the surprise of many, popped my balloon first. Eldon picked the blue elephant for his trophy. After a night full of laughing and fun, we headed home. 

I rocked this test!

So I took the Educators' Skills Test in reading, writing and math and I killed it. Check it out!

All that stuff above it is saying a minimum passing score is 240 

and scores are scaled from 100 to 300

Go ask Kristin

I was going to put up pictures and blog about our super fun-filled week with Kristin and Lee but 1) Kristin is way better at posting things in a timely manner so it is on her blog already and 2) she also took all the pictures...I only have a few that were taken on my phone. So to feel like I'm contributing, here are a few of the pictures Kristin didn't have. To see everything else, go to Kristin's blog (there is a link on the left hand side towards the bottom of our blog).

Boys like to climb on everything

This was the waterfall we hiked to the top of

Memories from Memorial Day

I apologize for really not being on top of things and always taking so long to update the blog but, here's what we did for Memorial Day Weekend. Eldon and I went 4-wheeling and camping with Chelsea, Loni and Jordan, their two cute kids and, of course, Duke. We went about 45 minutes west of us to the Tillamook Forest where we found a nice little camping spot next to a beautiful creek-river-thing. We made foil dinners, which tasted so good, hiked around a little, played card games and sat around the fire (which Chelsea and I started the first night on top of wet grass cause that's all that was there to work with- go us, it was tough getting it started). While we were sitting around the fire not doing much, Kyren and Duke kept each other entertained...they are a great team when it comes to mischief. After not watching their every move for a while, Duke came back with yogurt all over his head and back. We realized that Kyren had taken the yogurt, Duke opened it with his teeth, and Kyren poured it all over Duke...funny but messy. Kyren also was constantly trying to eat Duke's food, we had to put it under the truck so only Duke could get to it and not Kyren. As for Parry, he did great on his first camp out, just sat around and ate since that's all babies his age do. Here are a few pictures from the adventures.