Post pictures! I swear I have been taking them, but I keep forgetting to take them off my camera, so they just sit, waiting patiently, for me to empty my memory card. So here are some great ones from last weekend’s events.

On Friday my friend (and co-worker) Lisa E got married. It was a beautiful ceremony followed by a reception with some of the best food I have ever eaten (just don’t ask me what I ate, because I have no idea how to pronounce the fabulous gourmet treats they provided). All of the pictures from the wedding are over here.

Then on Sunday we got to spend some much needed quality time with the Boisvert clan. We met them for brunch at the Old Market Pub in Multnomah Village then boys and girls divided for some shopping adventure. The boys went to Best Buy and The Mac Store, while the girls (with munchkins in tow) ventured over to Toys R Us.

Then we all met up later to hang out at our house. Miss Lindsay just loves to come over to my house and play with all my toys. New/different things are just so exciting. Oh and I have Harry Potters glasses, and nothing can top those babies!

We ended the evening with some Chinese take-out from PF Chang’s for dinner. It was the perfect way to spend a Sunday.
Pictures from their visit are here.

Another year has come and gone and the world’s cutest baby girl is actually two. Miss Lindsay celebrated her second birthday party on Sunday with all the party requirements: balloons, ice cream, party hats, presents and enough sugar-high toddlers to keep all the adults scrambling for hours.

Here the guest of honor presents her best “smile” for the camera. She was very excited that it was her birthday. And that there would be presents.

I realize this post is suppose to be all about Miss Lindsay, as it was her party, but this is just about the cutest picture of Emery EVER and I couldn’t resist tossing it out there. Come on now, how could you resist that face?

When the time came to open her gifts, Lindsay rose to the occasion. Tissue paper and bows were flying through the air with reckless abandon. The results? Bath toys, crafty coloring supplies, and enough dress-up articles to keep her royal highness happy for days on end.

Lindsay thoroughly enjoyed her clown ice cream cone, but as it neared nap time, she started to eat in what seemed like slow motion. Sadly the ice cream wasn’t as patient as she was and melted all over her tiny hands.

Then when everything was said and done, Miss Lindsay got to have a birthday bath, complete with all the new bath toys she received as presents. All of the pictures I took during the party are over here. Enjoy!

Yeah. Say that five times over! So Simeon (and a few other people) have been demanding that I show you what the kitchen looks like since we finished painting. I am prepared to share the finished kitchen, but keep in mind I still need to add some finishing touches (curtains, rugs, etc). If you need Sarkinen Plumbing serving all of Portland, you can check on this link.  Oh and when we finish the entry/halls we will share that as well. So here is the progression our kitchen made over the last week.

The White Kitchen

The “Covered Wagon” Kitchen

The Primer Pink Kitchen

The “Old Burgundy” Kitchen

I tried to show pictures here of relatively the same perspective so you can get the idea. But all the rest of the pictures are over here. So what do you think? Fab? If not, keep it to yourself. I have already painted this kitchen enough. Give a girl a break, ok? 😉

Can I just tell you that I am glad last week is over? I can breathe again. Not that I didn’t have a nice holiday. I did. My whole family got together at my sisters for Thanksgiving and we had a great time. See?

(You can see the rest of the pictures over here.) But the whole holiday ended up with a black cloud hanging over it. My dad called me last Wednesday to let me know he couldn’t make it over that night, like we had planned. He sounded kinda weird so I asked him if he was ok, to which he replied he didn’t know yet. So I asked him where he was and he said in the hospital. Hello?! In the HOSPITAL?! Apparently his arm had been going numb (yes, the left one) and his chest had kinda hurt him a little. He didn’t think anything of it, but passed it off as indigestion and sleeping on his arm wrong. In a normal situation, this would be understandable. Except this situation is far from normal. Several years ago my dad had a major heart attack which ended in a quadruple bypass. Now ya see why I was worried?

So everyday Simeon and I went over and spent a few hours in the hospital sitting with my dad. And when we weren’t at the hospital we were calling to make sure he was ok. He didn’t need a bypass this time, but they did go in via his leg for a little “look around” in his heart. He ended up having an angioplasty and they placed a stent in his heart. For my dad, this was an old hat. This was his fourth stent. But it all worked out for the best. He was released from the hospital on Sunday and we took him home to rest. He was forced to take the week off from work and I loaned him a lot of DVDs to keep him busy.

Whew. On top of all that, Simeon and I had decided to paint our kitchen/dining room/entry area. Remember back in July when we did the new flooring? Yeah, well we have yet to put molding back up because we wanted to paint first. So this weekend was suppose to be that time. It was the first weekend, not to mention four day weekend, where we didn’t really have anything planned. Boy, did that not work out! I guess that old adage, “when man makes plans, God just laughs” really fits here, eh? So in between frantic calls to/from my siblings, trips to the hospital, and unexpected visits from our friends, we managed to paint.

But as bad things tend to happen in groups, we ended up not liking the paint color. We picked “Covered Wagon” as the color because it was a warm neutral color that wasn’t gonna show dirt or puppy evidence, plus it matched our existing stuff. But once we got it up, it looked like a totally different color on every wall we painted. Seriously. It was brown in the dining room, pink in the kitchen, and orange in the hallway. Not. Cool. So I called in my big sis for some decorating advice and she helped me pick a couple new colors that would tie it all in together. Here’s to hoping it works. Since the color we painted was so dark, we needed to primer the walls before painting the new colors. And the tinted primer was, or course, a lovely shade of pink. But I think Sim said it best, “At least it’s not orange anymore!” So I get to live in chaos for a few more days while the painting wraps up. I’ll post more pictures when we finish. In the mean time, enjoy the transitions from white to pinkish-brownish-orange to purpley-pink over here!


Oy vey. So the stress of the last week finally caught up to me yesterday and landed me in bed with a migraine. I guess some things just can’t be avoided. Oh well, I have to say I really enjoyed the 16 hours of sleep yesterday. Now I hope things settle down for awhile. Knock on wood for me, ok?

Ok, so we made it back safe and sound. We even had a really great trip. Sorry to leave you with all the bad images in your heads. But by the time I wrote that last post all the misery was basically forgotten. Now on to the good stuff:


When in San Francisco one must do all the fun touristy things, right? Absolutely! Despite the fact that I was flying solo during the day, I decided to be a big girl and go adventuring on my own. It’s not so scary in the nice parts of town!


I walked from our hotel down to Union Square (there is a mall there, how scary could that be?) and hopped on the Trolley. I toured San Francisco’s infamous Nobb Hill and winded my way down to the pier. It was the most beautiful day, like 80 degrees, with no wind or clouds in site. How unSan Francisco is that? I packed sweaters because, hello! it’s late November and it is suppose to be windy in the Bay Area. Yeah, not happenin’ while I was there.


Then I needed to slip in some shoppin’ so I went to Ghirardelli Square. Yeah, as in the chocolate company. Mmmmmmm. Free samples never tasted so good. I loaded up my purse with all the candy I could hold and swore I would not eat any without Sim (you better believe I made him sit down so we could devoured some as soon as he finished training!) and tried to decide what to do next. I pulled out the handiest tourist map EVER and realized how much ground I had already covered. And it was only noon. So I decided I wanted to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.


So I took a bus all the way to the point and wandered around the Golden Gate Park. Then, after grabbing a bottle of water (and a quick trip to the restroom), I set across the bridge.


Then I was totally exhausted (not to mention very hot), so I decided to call it quits for the day and head back to meet Simeon. The next day I ventured out and decided to take the trolley again, with every intention of getting off and exploring China Town. But for some reason I couldn’t resist the pull of the pier and headed down there for lunch. While I was eating I kept looking towards the bay. Finally I decided to buy a ticket, jump on a boat, and take a tour of Alcatraz.

There is far too much to tell you about here, because I get so excited and go on and on and on. But all I can say is I highly recommend it. I had a blast and thought it was the most fascinating place. Even by myself. And that is saying a lot. So if you are ever in San Fran and have a couple hours to kill, do the tour. You won’t regret it. (But if you are really curious, I took a million pics to share with Sim cause he couldn’t go with me.)


That evening I took Simeon out to share a little bit of San Francisco with him. I couldn’t let his entire vacation be inside a classroom. So I made him ride the trolley with me. All the way to China Town….


…which was quite creepy. So we only walked in a few blocks and decided that was enough for us. And we got back on the fun, touristy trolley.


During the couple evenings we were in San Francisco we met up with some local friends of ours (thanks Rob and Kristen!!) who took us out to dinner at the Fisherman’s Grotto and for drinks at the Buena Vista; birthplace of the Irish Coffee. We even caught a show while we were in town: Cirque Du Soleil “Corteo” which Simeon was dying to see. You can check out the rest of the pictures from our trip in the San Francisco and San Francisco II galleries. Sorry there is a ton, but I hope you can enjoy them and, if nothing else, live vicariously through me!

Yeah! Megan and Jason are married! Can you believe it? It’s been a long time coming, but they finally tied the knot. And it was absolutely gorgeous.


The ceremony was beautiful. Megan looked as stunning as ever and Jason was quite handsome!


Following the ceremony we all headed down to the Acadian Ballroom for the reception. When the newlyweds arrived they were announced as “Mr. and Mrs.” for the first time. Awwww.


When no one was looking I snuck over to the head table and snapped a couple pictures of the bouquet. It was just too pretty NOT to capture.


There were some lovely toasts made in Megan and Jason’s honor; the story of how everyone knew they were meant to be together before they even knew, about Megan and the infamous flowery shorts, and Jason’s father reading his tear-wrenching poem about how he finally got the daughter he always wanted.


The cake was absolutely amazing. It was beautiful, delicious, and poppy seed (which was fabulous, Megan, just like you said!). They were even very sweet in feeding each other .


But I have to say, my personal highlight of the evening was watching Megan and her uncle cut it up on the dance floor. Man, does that girl know how to shake that thang!


Just look at how happy they are! It is so perfect. So now they are married. And now they get to start on their “happily ever after.” Welcome to the club guys, being married is the best! You can see the rest of the pictures from their wedding in the gallery: Megan & Jason’s Wedding.