Wedding weekend palooza!

I'm exhausted!!! Ashlyn is exhausted!! Jered is exhausted!! We had a four day wedding palooza in Monroe. One of my favorite little cousins got married on Friday. Well I guess she's not that little anymore, she's 24 with a 2 year old of her own! A wedding in the Ballard family means visiting relatives. We had family in from Wisconsin and North Carolina. The bride had family in from Reno and Ohio and friends in from South Carolina (I've never been called ma'am so many times!). It was a family filled weekend!

We drove down on Thurs after work and as soon as we got there we started working on wedding appetizers. Friday morning it was time to start decorating! They got married at the same place Jered and I got married. Such a beautiful venue! Once the ceremony was over it was time to make sure things ran smoothly. Jered and I were refilling waters, making sure the salad bowls were full, etc. After it was time for clean up. It was a whirl wind! I know there were lots of people that helped behind the scenes with our wedding and I just want to say another big THANK YOU!! Its a lot of work! ;)

All weekend we were up till 2 or 3 am. Ashlyn was up till 11pm a couple of nights, yikes! We went wine tasting (of course), we had bbq's, we went swimming, we had a bonfire. It was a very fun tiring weeeknd.

Ashlyn got to play with her cousin Arie from Wisconsin. They were thick as thieves all weekend. They even had a slumber party on Sat night. Arie is just 2 weeks older than Ashlyn. They're both bossy as can be but they got along great. There were only a couple of fights and tears. Mostly there was lots of play and giggling!

 Grammy and Grandpa in the photo booth with

their three granddaughters

Mommy and Daddy

 the happy couple "tying the knot"

 me with the bride's little sister Kourtney

me with the bride, Ashley

 Ashlyn and Arie having a water toast

Cheers!

 relaxing

 playing in the pool, the raft was their "island"

I love this picture of Ashlyn. She is having SO

much fun!

4th of July, Family and Fun

We had such a great week camping in Florence at Honeyman! We got over there on Wed afternoon and Ashlyn hit the ground running. She really pushed her boundaries this year. There were many trips to the park with her cousins, she ate lots of marshmallows, we walked in the parade, we stayed up late, it was pretty awesome! One of my cousins counted 161 family members. Yep, 161! Crazy, I know. All of my mom's brothers and sisters were there and almost all of my cousins. We went to the lake a couple of times, I even swam out to the dock. Jered tells me its a yearly tradition to do it at least once. We celebrated two anniversaries at the coast. My Aunt Gwenda and Uncle Louie: 57 years! and my Auntie Andi and Uncle Rick: 35 years!!

So I was a total loser and forgot my camera this camping trip. Most of these pics were taken with my cell phone or I stole them off Facebook so I don't have as many as I'd like:

 I found this one on Jered's phone. 

Him and one of his co-workers at one of his job sites

This is just a small portion of Grandma and Grandpa Lenhardt's yard.

I'm constantly talking about it and now you can see it. Next time

I'll take a picture of the garden. This is where we get all the yummy 

vegetables and fruits, baked goods etc and all of our flower baskets.

 Ashlyn's first concert: Old Crow Medicine Show at the Zoo.

It was HOT but we had a great time!

 Packed and ready for camping! We didn't forget anything!!

 Ashlyn and Paisley after the parade

I couldn't get both of them to look at the same time!

 Playing at the lake with Paisley.

 That's Krissy and baby Ivan in the background. 

The Ballard's

back row: Uncle Bob, Aunt Jean, Aunt Judy, Uncle Gary

front row: my mom, Uncle Rick, Uncle David, Aunt Gwenda and Uncle Jerry

VBS and Singles Week

SUCCESS!!!

We all did great during our singles week! Ashlyn had a blast at Grammy and Grandpa's house. She went to two birthday parties, five days of VBS, played with her numerous cousins, went swimming, shopping with Grammy and who knows what else! 

Jered and I went out every night, yep every night! We met friends downtown for dinner, met some other friends out at Edgefield one night after work, we tried new restaurants and we went to two weddings. It was a whirl wind of a week but we really enjoyed ourselves. We were exhausted at the end of the week!

I'll admit though there were quite a few times when I really missed her and wished I could give her a squeeze. She on the other hand really didn't have much time for us. We talked to her every night and she would talk for a few minutes and then it would be, "ok bye, love you!"

Here's a few pics, mostly taken off Facebook:

 having fun with Paisley at her birthday party. 

These two are little bff's in the making!

 Ashlyn in the front row in the orange dress with
her VBS class

being silly!

 coloring in class

last day of class, same orange dress :)

 at one of the two weddings we went to. In the Gorge, 

90 degrees, everyone was a little shiny!

one of our nights out, dressed to impress

 so happy to have her back!

she was TIRED after her week away

We leave Wed morning for 4th of July Honeyman camping. We are SO excited! This is our big camping trip every year. We've been "staging" in the back room for a week now with all of our camping essentials, groceries and toys. I've been WinCo, Costco (twice), Albertsons (three, probably four times) and Target (at least twice). Today Ashlyn and I baked three different kinds of gluten free cookies. We did good ol' chocolate chip but fancied it up a little with some cream cheese and cornstarch to make them really fluffy and yummy. Brown butter, oatmeal, butterschotch and toffee chip came next and then last but not least peanut butter sandwich cookies with Nutella, marshmallow cream cheese frosting. Yep, I think we're ready!

Father's Day Sand Camp

How is everyone enjoying the beautiful weather??? We are loving it at the McGrath House! Ashlyn loves to help water the flowers, especially in the front, because she gets to run around on the sidewalk. We have some strawberry plants in the front and she loves to pick them and eat them. They went pretty quick this year!

We have continued the yard work extravaganza. We mulched the whole front yard and it is amazing what a difference it makes! I told Jered we've got curb-appeal and its time to put it on the market :) We still have to find a spare weekend to do the back yard, but its looking pretty spiffy!

Father's Day weekend we did our annual Kacalek camping trip. This year we went to Florence and camped at Siltcoos Sand Camp. I've never camped in the sand and I think it was actually less messy than camping in typical campground sites. We borrowed the quads from my mom and Ed and we had a blast! We were a small group this year. Just Uncle Jim, Zach, Leslie, Nolan, and us.

Jered's cousin Zach was there with his son, Nolan. Nolan is just two months older than Ashlyn and they always have the best time together. Nolan was pretty anxious for us to arrive on Friday morning. He kept asking "when is my friend going to get here? when is my friend to get here?" He called Ashlyn "my friend" all weekend. Those two hit the ground running as soon as we made it to camp. They enjoyed the little bit of freedom they had and were constantly pushing the boundaries. We were the only ones camping on Friday so we let them roam a little further than we normally would. They climbed and played all over the quads, they pretended the quad trailers were pirate ships, they pretended the sand was fairy dust. They "wrestled" in the sand and didn't seem to mind a bit that they had sand in every crack and crevice. They got to eat a lot of sweets and treats, watch movies in Uncle Jim's trailer and stay up super late.

Uncle Jim brought a 3-wheeler, it was our camp bike, and they loved getting rides around camp on it. Uncle Jim had also brought a swing that he looped over a tree and they were constantly on that thing. They only got in a couple of fights over it and we just let them work it out. I think they both probably learned a thing or two from each other that weekend. Some good, some not so good! :)

At one point they were on a walk-about in some tall grass and trees and we heard Nolan say, "Lets go over here and look for monsters." Ashlyn said a little timidly, "ok, but if we find any are you going to take care of me?" Nolan said with all confidence, "Yep I'll take care of you!" Luckily, no monsters were found.

We had a blast riding the quads! But our first trip Friday morning was a dismal failure. I was pretty nervous and so was cousin Leslie. I've never ridden on the dunes and climbing the steep ones really freaked me out. So of course they take us up a steep hill the first day! I was following Leslie and Jered was following me. Leslie went up and turned a little to the left, I thought that looked good because it looked flatter to the left so I followed her. She got stuck in the sand, I stopped my bike and it died, Jered was behind us and almost made it to the top when he realized we were stuck, so he stopped and got stuck. Total train wreck! My bike wouldn't start again, like nothing, no turn over at all. We stood around for a few minutes twiddling our thumbs and then Jered and Uncle Jim decided to tow my bike back to camp. He came back without Jered, Jered stayed in camp trying to get my bike going. So now we're on top of the hill and we decide to go for a little short ride. I've got Jered's bike and Ashlyn on the back. Ugh, I was not confident enough for that. Made me super nervous. I climbed no more hills and just tooled around a little on the flats. We headed back pretty quickly because Leslie kept getting stuck. I tried to act cool, but it was not a fun first trip out. Ashlyn loved it though!

We hung around camp, ate some lunch, etc. A while later, the guys start talking about going riding again. I looked at Leslie, she looked at me and she said "Yeah, I'm just gonna stay in camp." I quickly agreed with her, "Yep me too!" :) The kids were playing in our tent so we let the guys sneak off before either of them wanted to tag along. We thought they would be mad but they just both poked their heads out of the tent for a minute and went back to whatever it was they were doing. The guys were gone for quite a while and when they came back Zach was dripping wet and Jered was clutching his shoulder. I think all three of them were glad they got to have a guys ride even if they did come back with war wounds!

On Sat a friend of Zach's came over with his wife and 6 yr old son. They had one of those bigger 4-seater things they wanted to try out in the sand so we made another trip out. This time Jered took me up the side of that first hill and I was able to make it because it was not quite as steep. We headed out for the beach and when we go there the kids wanted to put their feet in. Before we knew it their boots were wet so off came the boots and pants. Nolan and Ashlyn were running around in their sweatshirts and underwear. It wasn't long before the sweatshirts were soaked as well, but you should have seen the two of them running and screaming and laughing and jumping in the water. They had so much fun and neither one of them seemed to mind having to wear their wet clothes back to camp.

We took another ride later in the afternoon and this time I was a little bit braver. We rode around for a while then Uncle Jim wanted to show us a spot where you could see for miles and had excellent of the sunset. The only problem, it was up a steep hill. Steeper than the other hill I was afraid of. So Jered went up it twice, once fast and once slow. Ugh, I was not excited but he said I would make it and it was flat on top. So I pushed the throttle in all the way and just went for it! I didn't let up on that throttle till I was at the top. Whew!! It was exhilarating and Uncle Jim was right, the view was incredible.

All in all a very successful weekend!

We dropped Ashlyn yesterday morning with my mom. I was sad, but I know she'll have a great time.It worked perfectly that next week is VBS. My Aunt Jean and my cousin Kourtney are going to help out by dropping her off  and picking her up from VBS. Aunt Jean will have some of her grandkids and they're all within a few years of Ashlyn so I know the kids are going to have a blast. Mom (me) is going have fun as well but I know I'm going to miss her like crazy! Jered has started calling it our "Singles Week!" We've already made plans with some friends to see a concert at Edgefield Tues night. There's an awesome restaurant/bar close to our house called Fireside Grill that's adults only so we'll definitely be hitting up that. We're going to enjoy our time together but miss our kiddo like crazy at the same time.

Here's a few pics of V's wedding and Sand Camp:

The beautiful bride: my friend Virginia and her husband Justin

Ashlyn loved seeing her name on the place setting

The aftermath: Ashlyn ate most of the chocolates at the table

Having fun with old friends

 Sassy Ashlyn

 Sweet Ashlyn

Multnomah Falls, always beautiful

 Playing on the camp bike

 The guys: Jered, Zach and Uncle Jim

 S'mores Time

Too tired, passed out watching a movie

May flowers and May showers

Rain, Rain, Go Away! All of that nice weather earlier this month was just a big tease darn it! We were loving it at our house. We did a lot of weeding, trimming and general yard clean-up. We were able to play outside in the yard, it was wonderful! We sure are looking forward to summer now!

Its been almost a month since my last post and we've been busy bees as usual. Mother's Day weekend we took Ashlyn to another play. This time we saw Frog & Toad. Another Oregon Children's Theater production. They read the book at school, so she was very familiar with the story. There was a lot of singing and dancing so she loved that part.

Mom and Ed came up that night because the next day was Mother's Day and I had planned pedicure for Mom and I. Well as were walking out the door Grandpa handed me a hundred dollar bill and said it was on him. So, we got the deluxe pedi! It was fabulous!! They soaked, scrubbed, oiled and massaged! There were hot rocks, hot towels and paraffin dips. Our little tootsie's have never looked so good! I almost fell alseep when she was massaging my feet. Ashlyn came with us and she got her toes painted with a sweet little design. She felt pretty special. At the end of it all, Grandpa only had $5 change!

One of my roommates from college, Virginia, got married the weekend after Mother's Day in Hood River at the Columbia Gorge Hotel. Ashlyn was one of the flower girls and she looked so darn cute! She was very excited and sure she wanted to do it. I gave her the option of saying no, but she insisted she wanted to do it. She did pretty good, she made it about half-way down the aisle before she realized there were 120 people staring at her!
The wedding was beautiful! The sun came out just in time to shine during the ceremony and for the cocktail hour. As we went inside to sit down for dinner, it started sprinkling. Perfect timing! We were able to catch up with some friends from college that we hadn't seen in years. One of them we found out lives just a few miles from us.

Ashlyn had her third dentist appointment last week and she was such a big girl. I was so proud of her! She laid in the chair and let the assistant look her in mouth, poke around in her mouth, floss her teeth, polish her teeth AND she got x-rays for the first time! It was pretty cool because you could see her permanent teeth coming up below the primary teeth. After the assistant did all the work, the dentist came over and looked around in her mouth and gave us an A++ for dental care. We need to floss more regularly but otherwise everything looks great. No cavities! She does have a little bit of an under bite, but they're just going to watch it. It may correct itself when she gets her permanent teeth, but if not she'll need braces to fix it.

Memorial weekend was busy but a lot of FUN!
Friday night after work I went to bed at 830pm and slept until 730am the next morning. It was wonderful!! I felt so refreshed Sat morning. We headed to Monroe later in the morning for my cousin's bachelorette party and Memorial Day BBQ. We got there early afternoon and since the party wasn't till 7pm we decided to try a couple of wineries in the area. One of them, Sweet Earth, we found last June. They do delicious Pinot and a really good Pinot Rose. The owners recommended their neighbor's winery, TeBri and told us we could just walk through the fields to get there. Another great find!
The bachelorette was party was a lot of fun later that night. We played some silly games, drank some champagne, told stories, etc. Jered came in to Eugene to pick us up and we didn't get home till 1am! I was a tired girl the next morning because my kiddo was the first one up the next morning at 7am.
Sunday Grammy and Grandpa had a BBQ and Grandpa bbq'd ribs. Yummy! There was lots of family and lots of Ashlyn's cousins there. Those kids had the best time! The climbed trees, they played hide and seek, they ran around with the dogs. There was lots of giggling and laughs.
Ashlyn played so hard, she almost didn't make it to the potty. She was wearing a dress of course and she got her panties and tights a little wet so I told her we had to change. She wanted clean tights but I didn't have any so I told she could just put her sweat pants on under her dress. It was getting cold outside anyway. She said, "but Mommy, then I won't look pretty!" Oh goodness! It didn't matter that her dress was dirty from rolling around in the grass and her tights were torn from climbing trees.
We had planned to go home after the BBQ because I had to work Mon but the BBQ didn't get over till after midnight! We ended up staying the night and driving home Monday morning. I didn't have to be at work till 11am so it worked out ok.
Work was slow and boring. I only had 4 patients and no one after 330pm. I was there till 11pm. It was a long night!

The big news in our Ireland trip plans is that we bought our tickets!!! We are so excited!! We have airline tickets, car reservation, all of our B&B's reserved, the itinerary just needs a few more tweaks!

They've been learning about airplanes and airports at school so the other day Ashlyn asked me, "Mommy when do we get to fly on an airplane again?" I told her when we go to Ireland. She said, "but Mommy I want to fly on an airplane again to Canada to see Grandma and Papa Mac!"

What's up next for us? We have a graduation party, two weddings, one camping trip, a birthday party, and who knows what else will come up! Ashlyn is going to spend the last week of June with Grammy and Grandpa so she can go to Vacation Bible School at Bellfountain Church. I used to go to VBS every summer when I was kid too. That's just the month of June!

 Our buffed and polished toes

Flower girl is ready for her moment

 She's got her lead on and she's ready!

such a big girl! Mommy was so proud!

Bailey, Ashlyn and Macy

First Friday...YAY!!

Today is my first Friday, meaning I have tomorrow off. Yay me! Those of us at work still working 4-10's lovingly refer to the day before our day off as our first Friday. Ashlyn lovingly refers to my day off as her "stay home day". Either way, we both really look forward to it!

What do we have planned: blog time, car wash, tire rotation, drop some stuff off at UPS to be shipped, pick up dog food at Costco, hopefully have time for a pedicure, laundry, etc etc. As you can see, we definitely stay busy on our "stay home day"!

What have we been doing since my last blog post. Not a whole lot and its been great! We visited with Papa and Grandma G the other weekend and Jered helped Grandpa get his boat ready to be sold. We also got the chance to visit with Grandma K. Then we spent the night at home only to realize the next morning that our hot water heater had sprung a leak. We've been pretty lucky not to have too many major home repairs happen. The water heater probably came with the house when it was built in the 70's so it was reasonable in its need to be replaced. Neither one of us was excited to spend $500 on a water heater. We'd much rather spend that money on an overnight date in Hood River, lots of wine tasting, wine buying and a yummy dinner. We were grown-ups though and we headed off to Lowes. It took Jered most of Sunday to get the old one out and the new one in. He only needed my assistance a few times :)

Last weekend Jered had an all day survey meeting at Spirit Mtn Casino so Ashlyn and I got to have more girl time. We were going to a bbq later in the day so we went shopping for fruit for the fruit tray were bringing. I found a great recipe on Pinterest for a fruit dip, OMG it was so good! Love Pinterest! We had a lot of fun at the bbq and Jered was able to meet us after his meeting which made it even better. Our friends have horses and Ashlyn had a blast feeding the horses and playing with a new puppy that was at the bbq too. 

Sunday was family day since Jered was gone most of Sat. We did a few errands, hung out at home and went out to dinner. It was really really nice except we waited a little too long to get Ashlyn her dinner. She gets awfully crabby when she's hungry. Kind of like her Mama says Daddy! :)

So now that we've have a few restful weekends, in a row no less, what's next? Would you believe another relaxing weekend? We don't really have too much on the schedule for this weekend. This weekend is supposed to be amazing so I'm sure we'll be doing some yard work. I'm real tempted to get some flowers planted in the ground but I'm holding out. According to Grandpa Lenhardt we're not supposed to plant anything until after Mother's Day. If you've ever seen his green house, garden, yard etc, you'd listen to him too. So it looks like more weeding and general yard clean up is in my future. 

What's up with Miss Ashlyn? Well she is very independent! She loves to wear dresses! Everyday, most of the time with her new light up boots from Grammy and Grandpa, even when they don't match her outfit. She loves to wear her hair down. This drives me crazy because its constantly in her face. She's at a point where she wants to do everything her way, in her own time. She thinks we should jump when she says jump. She definitely wants to be in charge of her own life, already, and she's only 4! She's so smart and constantly amazes us both. She loves playing with her friends at school. She told me the other day she wants to spend the night at Elsie's house (Mommy is definitely not ready for that).

She loves music, especially pop music. She loves to sing with the radio and she knows all the words! This morning the radio dj said a song was by Taylor Swift and Ashlyn was adamant the song was by Rihanna. Sure enough she was right and at the end of the song, the dj corrected himself. She's going to be really good at that game Jered loves to play, "who sings this?" A song came on the radio the other day, it was that Gotye song, "somebody I used to know". She says, "Mommy, I used to love this song when I was 3. But I'm 4 and its not my favorite now." She did used to say that was her favorite song, she loved that song last summer! Everytime it came on the radio she said it was her favorite. The music will start playing and she knows whose song it is even before they start singing. It amazes me, because I really suck at that game! :) 

I've made serious progress on our Ireland trip! So exciting!! 12 days in Ireland. We cannot wait, this will be our first trip to Europe, ever! We're taking Ashlyn, of course, because honestly I cannot imagine leaving my kid for 12 days. I've made all of our b&b reservations, I've got our itinerary pretty well planned out, all we have left is to buy our plane tickets. I've been looking but its one of those things where you don't want to overpay but you don't want to wait so long you don't get a good deal. Ugh! Soon, we'll be buying tickets and then there'll be no turning back. :)

 I think this shirt is too small? Half shirts are not

cool. At least that's what Mommy and Daddy told me

 self portrait w/ Mommy

 playing on the swing at Papa and Grandma G's house

 see my flower?

 standing next to the big bear

 at the Woodburn Tulip place

 with Mommy

driving the tractor