Sunny Weekend = Yard Work!

The weather was absolutely beautiful this weekend! We started our new garden project on Saturday, and it was completely finished on Sunday afternoon, thanks to my most-wonderful husband!!! I should have taken a before picture, but the garden size has doubled! Brent had to tear out and about 6 different bushes and he transplanted about 4 of them...We decided to keep the big tree...as it will provide a little bit of shade for our yard. My cousin Bob came over and rototilled the existing garden. Then Brent re-built and added to the brick wall, leveled out the rototilled dirt, then filled the top off with new compost. Then I got to plant my garden! I planted celery, green beans, green onions, carrots, tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, cayenne peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, acorn squash, pumpkin, cilantro, cucumbers and lots of strawberries! Yes, I know...I am sure that I over-planted, but I say that every year and still end up with a beautiful garden somehow!!! We'll just have to water, wait, and see! I threw in pictures of the girls in the hot tub...they played in the water from the hose for a while, got cold, then asked to go in the hot-tub! Silly kids!

Easter at G & G Dukes

After Easter at the Gabel's, we went out to Grandma & Papa Dukes' house to celebrate Easter and Pop's and Peyton's birthday (once again!) Thanks to Kelsey for making Peyton's beautiful birthday cake! The kids had a great time hunting eggs outside...the actually held off until later that afternoon! The kids didn't get naps that day because of the excitement, but as you can see, Peyton actually fell asleep in the car on the way home! She NEVER sleeps in the car, that is why I snapped the shot!

Easter at G & G Gabel's

After Peyton's "friends" birthday party up here, we drove down to Grandma and Papa Gabel's house to celebrate again. After cake and ice cream and presents, we colored Easter Eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide. In the morning, the girls discovered right away that the Bunny visited and hid lots of eggs and left fun goody baskets to enjoy!

Happy 2nd Birthday Peyton!

This morning we had Peyton's Birthday Party at a park near our home. All of our friends came to help us celebrate Peyton's 2nd birthday! We did a flip-flop theme and each of the kids took home a pair of flip-flops to enjoy this summer! The weather was a little chilly, but most importantly, it didn't rain! The kids had an excellent time running and playing before and after they had their Krispy Kreme donut! We are very thankful to have such wonderful friends...thanks everybody for making Peyt's birthday so special!!!

Last Weekend of Spring Break

This last weekend, we all drove up to Tacoma to celebrate Aunt Cely's 80th Birthday! We left on Friday and stayed until Sunday. We stayed with Aunt Aldy...and the girls totally enjoyed being spoiled by their Great-Aunt! She made them root beer floats for dessert, Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes for breakfast, and TONS of goodies in between! Surprisingly with all the goodies, they still managed to take great naps and sleep well at night! On Saturday morning we drove down to Point Defiance on the Puget Sound to play around. There were lots of things to do down there, including the zoo and aquarium, which we didn't get to do because we ran out of time. On Saturday night, Aunt Aldy invited tons of family over for Sukiyaki dinner (one of Uncle Ray's favorite recipes)! It was fun to watch all of the little cousins run around and play! On Sunday, we drove to Puyallup to Aunt Cely's Birthday Party. That was a great event as well. The last picture is of Dad (62) Aunt Cely (80) Aunt Aldy (78) and Uncle Howard (82). We got to see a lot of family there as well, and the weather was beautiful so the kids got to run and play together outside! It was a great weekend trip!

Spring Break

The girls and I went to Lebanon from Tuesday until Thursday of Spring Break. Since they didn't have swimming lessons Logann didn't have preschool, I decided that it would be a good week to head out of town. Of course, we missed Brent, but we still had a good time. On Wednesday, we took Grandma and Papa Gabel to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport. On the way there, we stopped in Philomath to look at the first house they lived in together after they were married. That is the first picture above. As you can see from the rest of the pictures, the girls had a BLAST at the aquarium. We didn't get a chance to go down on the beach because the weather was pretty misty and windy and cold. We went out to lunch, stopped for salt water taffy, then headed back to Lebanon!

Liezen Visit

On the first weekend of our Spring Break, the Liezen family came to visit! We went to OMSI on Saturday, Brent and Matt took Logann and Andrew to the Civil War baseball game at PGE Park on Sunday, and then we hung out in Vancouver on Monday before they took off for the remainder of their vacation in California. As always, we had a great time together!