Last night, Dustin and I went to see Mat Kearney at the Roseland Theatre in Portland. Two words - FANTASTIC.SHOW. If you have the chance to go see him, he is pretty darn good live in concert. With a dark venue and bright lights, it's not easy to take good pictures but here are a few.
This year, our Halloween was a pretty lazy day! I was home sick the day before with the flu/cold, so I was pretty lazy....well, we both were. If you can't tell, we spent the day watching some Oregon Football. Go ducks! Dustin did a fantastic job carving the pumpkin...and the baked seeds were delicious too.
Last week, Greg Mortenson visited the Concordia University campus, where I work, as a guest speaker for a public lecture and several other events. If you aren't familiar with his story, you should definitely check it out - www.gregmortenson.com. He has done some amazing work building schools over in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the co-author of the book, Three Cups of Tea, and was also recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. If you have a chance, you should read the book!
I was one of the lucky four Foundation team members who got my picture taken with him before he headed out of Portland.
My mom and dad came out from Colorado for a visit this weekend and we had a great time, even amongst the rainy weather! We had to alter our plans a little bit, but the four of us have a great time spending time together. Here are some photos from the long weekend:
Friday - we had planned to take them crabbing on a boat out at the coast, but the swells were predicted to be so high that they may not rent boats out. Instead, we hit up the Roloff Farms (folks from the TLC tv show, Little People Big World) to get our pumpkins this year. We were lucky enough to catch a quick glimpse of Matt and Amy Roloff, too!
I know...I know! I am finally getting around to posting some updated pictures of the house, now that we have moved in (for the most part!). We absolutely love our new home and are slowly getting things put away and settled in the way we want them. However, our walls are still white, so keep that in mind as you look through these photos! It's my disclaimer. :) They will get painted at some point, hopefully in the not to distant future.
The fall decorations outside our front door.
The dining area...it's a little dark in the photo, but not in person. 
The kitchen...I love our kitchen!
The living area/family room! NOTE - the boys are taking a nap (dad and Dustin). Another disclaimer here...nothing is on the walls yet!
The loft/reading area. Just got these new chairs and we've used them nearly every morning for our morning reading time and drinking coffee!
Our bedroom - view 1
Our bedroom - view 2 (that door is the master bath)
Guest bathroom
Guest bedroom
Office (but right now, it's our catch all room!)...it will eventually be set up nicely! My apologies - this post is way overdue! These are the last few from the second half of our trip to Colorado in September to visit family and meet our new neice, Avery! We got some great family shots...but she has grown so much since these were taken.
The bottom pictures are of the boys on their hike up Mt. Princeton, one of the many "14-ers" in Colorado...that means the elevation is at least 14,000 feet. They got up bright and early to make it over there by 8 AM...hiked all morning and into the afternoon and made it home for a great dinner at the Robinson's. They had a great time, but were all 3 pretty pooped by the end of the night.
Just a few pictures of the MOST adorable baby girl in the world...ok, ok, we may be slightly biased since she is our niece! Miss Avery weighed in at 10 lbs, 1.5 oz at her 1 month check up....and she's 21.5 inches long! Here are just a few pictures that Kari and Sara have sent to me over the past few weeks....oh HOW I WISH I was there to watch her grow up. She's going to be so big when we get there in December.
Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to post with this one, but I thought it would be nice to post a quick update. I do promise to get pictures up soon, though. We are moved into our new home, thanks to the help of family and friends over the weekend. Dustin's parents helped us with most of boxes, cleaning the old place, and {partially} installing the garage door opener - it was a huge help to have 2 extra set of hands with this stuff during the day. Then after work on Friday, we had 8 or 9 friends help us move the heavy stuff and tie up the loose ends. THANK YOU DONNY, TREVOR, MEGHANN, KATRINA, ALEX, JOHN, HEIDI, AND AARON!!!! And it was great to see our new neighbors, Stacey and Sarah, too! :) We have unpacked 98% of the boxes and have all of our "essentials" out of the boxes and put away. Now, we just need to find time to personalize and really make it our own. Hopefully we'll get the pictures hung, shelves up, curtains in place, candles burning, etc. soon....not to mention paint on the walls. It's all white, so I am dying to add color. I guess it's not that bad, I just prefer a little color on the walls. And of course, Dustin needs to finish installing the garage door opener so we can fully utilize the garage.
With all that said, I must say this WE LOVE OUR NEW HOME and we both feel so incredibly blessed to be in it. It feels so nice to be home owners and it's absolutely wonderful to come home to our home every night after work. The only thing that would make it better is if I wasn't at work so long every day! :)
We look forward to meeting our neighbors and truly getting settled into our new home in the great neighborhood! Stop by and say hey if you're in the area....or if you're out of the area, we have room!
Some more pictures of the house, for those who want to see - mainly our family, I'm sure! :) At any rate, Dustin was over there today while the home inspector was over there and was able to snap some of these interior photos.
Kitchen
Dining room and sliding doors to back yard and patio
Family room/living area
Landing area
Guest bathroom
Master bathroom
Master bathroom shower
Master bedroom - looks out to the backyard
Master closet - a walk-in will be so nice again!
Upstairs hallway view from master bedroom
The backyard view from the 2nd level....it's not a barn! The just lay hay down for us so it doesn't turn to mud if there is rain.We were on vacation for the last week - wahoo! - so it's been a while since we've had a chance to go visit our home and see what kind of progress they have made. So we drove by this afternoon to get a look. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get inside because the locks have already been changed, which I guess is a good thing; that means strangers can't just walk through our place. But, from the outside a number of things have happened - paint, landscaping, fence, mulch, and probably more! We could also look inside from the back porch and see that all of the floors and carpet has been layed. It's exciting and now we just want to get in....2 inspections this week and closing next week and then it's ours!!!!
