Thanksgiving 2011

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday this year. The week prior to the holiday, Naquel's parent's came to visit. We did a lot of sight seeing and just had a fun time hanging out. Naquel's parents left on Monday, and my parents and uncle arrived on Thanksgiving Day. We had a lot of yummy food (Naquel is such a good cook and did such a wonderful job) and we all had a great time visiting and catching up. The kids seem to get a kick out of Nana Ross telling scary stories from her childhood in England. We took the family to downtown Portland to show them this beautiful city (Voodoo Donuts was a hit). We also went out to Canon Beach and Seaside for day of sightseeing and fun. The temperatures were in the high 40's to mid 50's so we weren't complaining about the rain. Now that all the family is gone, the home is quiet, but we do look forward to seeing them all again over Christmas- minus the 12 hr drive. Here are a few photos from the last few weeks- thanks to Anne and Tanya for taking the photos.

The Pacific Northwest- A New Frontier

I finally found some time to compile all the short videos I have taken since we moved, and put them into a movie. If you have about... oh say....11:43 minutes to spare, take a look!

We Moved!

It has been a while since our blog was last updated. We have had some significant changes in our lives that has kept us very busy. We recently moved from Las Vegas to the Portland, Oregon area.

Chris got a new career opportunity with Teva Neuroscience that was very significant, so we decided to take the opportunity and relocated. So far things have worked out. We thought it would have been much harder than it was. After much research, we had come to the conclusion that Camas, WA was the very best place for us to try to move to, given the excellent school system, the more conservative view, and most importantly- no state income tax.

We were very blessed to find a beautiful large home in a quiet little neighborhood, and backed up against a large greenbelt. Pictures are below. The packing and moving was greatly eased with the moving package we were offered. Chris's training has been going well- he has passed all his major exams and has adjusted to his hew role in the Neurology field. We put our home up for short sell and we are in the approval process currently- we should hear back from Wells Fargo in the next few weeks. We are crossing our fingers that they approve us.

The kids have really enjoyed our new home, neighborhood, and school. When we lived in Vegas, we had to arrange play dates and kept the kids near the home with the busy traffic. Here, it is so quiet and there are so many kids their age, that they run off in the fields and woods and we don't see them for hours sometimes. Worried at first, we found our kids in the neighbor's homes playing with their new friends, but we were quickly assured by all the neighborhood parents, that this is the norm and that the kids are welcome anytime! We have also had our share of new kids in the house- much to the delight of Connor, Sydney, and Brooklyn. I don't think they have ever had this many friends, and you can really see a change in their personality- a surge of confidence and excitement as they have adapted to our new location.

They also love school, mainly because they get 3 recesses instead of just 1. They love the cooler weather (We hit an all time high of 90 this weekend- the hottest weekend this year) and they have been readily accepted in our new ward with play date activites. This has been the best move we have ever made, and we feel greatly blessed. Let's see if we feel the same once winter comes and it's raining 7 months straight! We still feel like we are on vacation and that we will be going back to Vegas, and then it dawns on us that we are here to stay... a very weird feeling.

I think we will feel like we are home once our short sale is finalized. We really miss all of our Las Vegas friends and we really hope to see you again! If you are ever up this way, or want to take a NICE vacation for the summer, please don't hesitate to call us- we have plenty of room!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canada Trip 2010

I had a chance to go back and compile our Canada vacation from 2010, into a snazzy new movie. Long overdue, but well worth it. Here it is. Enjoy!

Lake Powell Vacation

Every time we think about going to Lake Powell it never seems to happen. So this time, we made sure that it happened! We wanted to avoid all the crowds and heat, so we went early June, and we couldn't have picked a better time to go. It wasn't all that busy, the water was smooth and warm, and the weather was perfect. We stayed at the Lake Powell Resort this time, and the accommodations were nice and comfy (there is something so cool about boating all day in the heat, and then coming back to the comfort of your hotel room and laying down to watch ESPN)!

The kids had a lot of fun. Most of Naquel's family came so the kids were able to play with their cousins. The 4 man tube was a HUGE hit with everyone. Connor had a fun time sitting on the back of the tube steering it outside of the wake.

So the good news is that we all had a wonderful time together, but the bad news is we sold our boat as soon as we got back home. I promised Naquel that we would get a new boat and now we know exactly what we want in our next boat!

Here is a video I made, as well as pictures I took of our vacation.

Spring Break

For the kids Spring Break this year we took a family vacation to sunny southern California. Chris found a sweet deal at a nice hotel on Doheny Beach. Some of the fun activities included swimming in the pool, playing on the beach, shopping, eating out, going to Legoland, and for Chris, taking photos of the sunset at the beach. We thought we were going to get rain part of the time there, but we got lucky with sunny 75 degree weather the whole time we were there. Here is our week long vacation condensed into a 10 min video. And pictures below that.