thanksgiving!

What a fabulous weekend!

It started off with the turkey bowl. I love the fall for so many reasons. One of them being the delicious turkey feast that gets celebrated with some wonderful people! This year we went over to our friends the Darby's. They have 4 adorable girls who love on Rhys any chance they get. We had so much fun playing wii and eating. It was fantastic. We love this family!

the darby's- gretchen, linda, leah, margret, christian and momo

On friday, we woke up and drove out to the coast to catch up with my family and go crabbing. What a gorgeous day it ended up being out in Newport. We only caught one dungeness, but like 32 red rock crabs, so another feast began.

On saturday, we joined the local gym! Why is this a highlight of my weekend, you ask? Mainly because of the 100+ classes included with the membership, or the 1700 sqft child care center where we get 2 free hours everyday... it is fabulous!

And on sunday, we put up our christmas tree! I wish we could have 4 day weekends every week!

beautiful. A highly recomended read.

uh. oh.

seven months and ready for trouble! I wonder where he learned this one!

GRT- part 3

After Vegas, I met up with the girls from the road trip again at our place. They spent the night, and we had lots of fun talking. It was so funny for justin because he knew Christi and Amelia at BYU way before he met me. The next day they took off and headed to the coast while I got a few things done around here. I met up with them again Monday night in Seattle so we could go to Olympic National Park.

This place was cool!! Its these huge alpine peaks on this penninsula west of seattle. Again, it was kind of clouded over, so we went on this hike to Marymere Falls and walked around Cresent Lake.

River wanted to hold "manos" with Jaycee- which is what he called rhys the entire trip.

dreamy cabin

We ate dinner in Port Angeles and came across this:

So there really is a Forks, La Push, Quilute Reservation, and walking through the woods feels like vampires and warewolves are going to attack at any moment. We only made it as far as Port Angeles (which had a great view over to Victoria, BC) before having to catch the Ferry back to Seattle so they could catch their 10:30pm flight.

Viva las Vegas

So after being home for less than an hour, Rhys and I got picked up for another girls trip down to Vegas. My Aunt, Grandma, Auntie and Cousin flew down to meet my mom, sister, sister-in-law and Aunt from UT. What a trip. We stayed at the Monte Carlo and had fun all weekend.

We had some yummy food. Hard Rock cafe, In-n-Out..... watched the Bellagio fountains.....

hung out by the pool....

played cards...got pedicures and massages....and celebrated my grandmas birthday with a surprise bash down by the pool.

the whole gang- Aunt Ean, Aunt Kristy, Auntie Susanne, sis Courtney, momma Deena, Grandma, Sis-in-law Kristen, cousin Katy, and me....rhys was asleep in his stroller

Thank you for a great weekend ladies!! I love you all!

GRT- part 2

We took a ferry back to the mainland, and I loved catching these images of Rhys. He is so inquisitive these days.

Next on the itinerary was the North Cascades National Park. This was supposed to be beautiful glacier covered peaks through on either side of a river cut gorge, but all I saw was clouds and rain. It did, however, subside enough to let the kiddos run around. And I could tell it would be gorgeous...one day.

I left the gals here to head back to Portland while they went over to central Washington to drive the back side of the Cascades. I had to catch a 1:30pm flight to Vegas on Thursday, so I stopped off at my great Uncle's house in Seattle. It was great to spend the evening with them, meet the newest addition to the Armstrong clan, and get a good nights sleep. This was the prettiest stretch of all the driving. Beautiful fall colors, wispy clouds...

Girls Road trip-part 1

So last week, my friend and her darling little boy (found here) flew out to Seattle for a North west roadtrip with one of her friends from Pittsburg and her 2 little ones. We embarked on a girls adventure road trip. We met up at the airport and headed north to the San Juan Islands. They are a group of Islands between WA and Victoria Island... Gorgeous!! This is where the Orca whales come play and eat right next to the shoreline. We didnt get to see any, but im planning on heading up next year with my justin in tow for a cool weekend.

We found our way up to the top of Mt Constitution on Orcas island for some fantastic views of the surroundings. It was beautiful.

We stopped at these beautiful waterfalls on the way back to the ferry. One thing about the NW is that there are hundereds of waterfalls...I love it!

Then we headed back to the ferry over to Friday Harbor where we would sleep that night. Christi has done this thing called Couch Surfing where basically people sign up on this website to host travelers and let them sleep at their house, instead of paying for a hotel room. Its a great way to get a glimpse into their lives. And this was no exception. We stayed at this "farm" with Ken and his wife, their goats, alpaca, chickens, dog, cats, and endless supply of old machinery. It was so interesting hearing about all his big plans for their homestead while eating fresh sourdough pancakes, and fresh goat cheese, yogurt and milk. They almost live completely sustained off their farm land. Very cool, and the kids LOVED runnig around, picking fresh apples, finding potatoes, and getting out some energy. Both the other firls tried their hand at goat milking, but I was still sketched out and had Rhys in a death grip to try it myself. I even made Christi and Riv sleep with us cause Im a big chicken!