Portland

We just got back from a great visit with Jessica and Adam in Portland.  It was Rose Festival time, and being from Southern California and growing up with the Pasadena Rose Parade, I felt I needed to go.  So we did.

Got to the Rose Parade Saturday morning, didn't even have to spend the night for  curbside view!

Llama all done up for the parade

Portland's version of white suiters--they're called Rosarians

The Rose Garden was amazing@

While we were there we went up the Columbia River Gorge to Multnomah Falls

The New Year in Portland

For New Years we were able to take a quick trip to Portland to see Jessica and Adam...

And their sweet new kitten Meeka...

Jessica gave us a great Christmas present.  A book about Oregon with pages all clipped with suggestions for what we can do when we come to visit.  We got started right away....

A dinner cruise down the Willamette River (a couple even got engaged on the cruise--we called it, but probably won't be invited to the wedding)



A visit to Pittock Mansion

The requisite stop at voodoo doughnuts for a voodoo doughnut.  



Dinner at Marrakesh, a fun Moroccan restaurant where you sit on the floor--not too old for that yet!



And lastly, pictures with the umbrella man in Pioneer Square with some Hot Chocolate from Starbucks!

Fun times--can't wait to go back!

all I wanted for Christmas

 Everytime anyone asked me what I wanted for Christmas, all I said was that I wanted my kids home.  That is exactly what i got. 

But now my big kids have gone back to their homes, to resume their lives.  And although I know that they are doing exactly what they should be doing (and doing it very well) I miss them dearly.

 

 



A walk back in time

A couple of months ago I started what has come to be known as "the negative project".  I found that Costco will transfer your negatives to a DVD for a fairly reasonable price.  So I started going back through all my old pictures and taking the negatives one year at a time to Costco to have them put on a DVD.  All our pictures from one year are on one DVD--brilliant plan--the people at Costco hate me.  I'm up to 1994....

Love my kids--Happy fall!

Wedding Day

My beautiful daughter was married on Saturday.  It was a perfect day and I love her dearly....

Wedding Plans

I visited Jessica last weekend to make the wedding plans. We were very, very busy AND very, very successful.

She has a beautiful site for the reception--the Wasatch Room of The Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We picked out linens, chairs (who knew I cared if it was a bow or a knot?) and a delicious buffet menu. They have a fantastic wedding coordinator who made the whole process a lot easier.

Then.... it was off to meet with the florist. I used the words simple and small and hopefully that helped. She seemed to get the idea that we didn't want this to be really over the top and came up with some great ideas for purple flowers which is the color Jessica chose (and which also are not very plentiful)

Then....the bakery! She chose to have a cupcake tower with one small cake that she and Adam can cut at the top of the tower. It's going to be beautiful--the one task I have...to find purple cupcake liners.

On Friday our one and only task was to find a wedding dress. I thought this would be easy, but as beautiful as Jessica is, not all the dresses were equally as beautiful. At the third place we looked she found it! The perfect dress, she fell in love from the moment she put it on. (Jessica apparently missing a hand is the result of having to "take in" the dress--it's a little big)


What a happy girl! To have this big job finished!

Then....it was off to look for purple shoes. Turns out this is no easy task (unless you want purple suede 5 inch heels) We looked everywhere with no luck--She'll keep looking...

I was going home Saturday night so it was crunch time on Saturday. We found her temple dress first thing and then headed back to Salt Lake. More looking for purple shoes (still no luck) and then ordering the invitations. She had already picked out the ones she liked, so it was easy to finalize all the details (and as with all other plans there are apparently a lot of details that I was unaware of) But they were selected and ordered and we're on our way!

So after an exhausting 48 hours I believe the major parts of the wedding are all planned. Small decisions left to finalize and some little things here and there--but for the bigdecisions--checked off our list!

Grandma's chocolate chip cookie secret!

Well my mom has always made the best chocolate chip cookies in the world and I have never been able to duplicate them--no matter how hard I've tried (mine always turn out looking a little bit like cat barf--actually a lot like cat barf--but that is another story). When we were visiting at Christmas Jessica wanted to make chocolate chip cookies and Grandma pulled out her recipe. I was skeptical; but they turned out perfectly--beautiful and delicious--and not a bit like cat barf!

So come to find out I had been using her recipe correctly, but I wasn't greasing the pans with shortening--and I think that is the trick! Yesterday Michael wanted to make chocolate chip cookies and so I told him to call Grandma and get her recipe and do them her way.


In no time at all (thanks to the help of my lovely new red kitchen aid mixer)

Michael had perfect, beautiful, non-cat barfy cookies!

After all these years, such a simple secret......