Sarah Turns an Undisclosed Age

This week, as my mom would say, I turned twenty nine and some months.  I felt the love of family and friends near and far who called, texted, sent cards, and Facebook messages.  I was asked countless times if I had a good birthday and I did, but really when you have kids (and a job) your birthday, in many ways, is just like any other days.  I took Merrick to preschool, watched my niece and nephew, ran errands, pretty much the usual.

Once Jeremy got home from work, he did his best to make the day special.  We had a special dinner (ribs and delicata squash), opened gifts (I got some new sweaters for the impending cold), and my card from Merrick (which was the highlight of the day).  After we put the kids to bed Jeremy and I watched a romantic comedy and ate really expensive desserts from a French bakery.  It really was a good day.

What I was really looking forward to though was the weekend when Jeremy and I had planned to get a babysitter (this is groundbreaking for us) and go out to celebrate.

Saturday, our big date night, finally came around.  And despite almost being foiled by gale force winds and super slow people at the AT&T store, we did make it to our date.  We ended up going downtown to this place we have never been before called Punch Bowl Social.  It is in the mall, but since the mall is downtown they built it up rather than out so it is a 4 story ring with escalators in the middle.  Punch Bowl Social takes up the entire third flour.  It is this super awesome behemoth of a place with a restaurant, bowling, retro arcade games, darts, karaoke, marbles, shuffleboard, and probably lots of other things I am forgetting.  We ate dinner first and bowled after that.  It was a great time.  The food was fantastic, as was the atmosphere.  It was out of the ordinary for us, but in really good way and I hope to go back sometime soon.

   

I Simply Remember My Favorite Things...

I know that I am preaching to the choir to many of you who read this blog, but looking for a job is really discouraging.  It is hard to wait for good job posting to come up and when they do to be passed over.  Jeremy has had a particularly hard week this week as we continue to struggle through the uphill battle of finding our first, post-law school attorney job.

For my part, I have been really blessed this week.  I have had little reminders all week of how many good things I have in my life and it is hard to feel down for too long when you are surrounded by so much happy.   Much like Maria from the Sound of Music "I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad".

I thought today I would share some of my happy moments with you.

The weather is still inexplicably good and that provided time for a stroll through the "park forest" with my littles.

It also allowed for a family walk/bike ride.  My sweet, tender heart Merrick picked flowers for each member of the family along the way.

I was also spoiled by my husband who took the kids pretty much all Saturday so I could go the church and craft.  I was working on this really fun "25 days of Christ" ornament project for Christmas and while I still have lots more to do, was able to get everything painted.

Then I came home to flower and candy for an early birthday treat.

Lastly, there is Carrigan with her shoe fetish.  She just loves shoes, whether they are her own or Daddy's.  How cute is she???

See what I mean?  It is difficulty  to stay down for too long when I have so much to be positive about.  Life is good.

Fall Break(ish)

In Arizona the kids have a week off in October for Fall break.  In Oregon we don't get that because the kids get the full week off at Thanksgiving, but in early October the kids do get half a week off for parent/teacher conferences and a statewide teacher training.  This means that I also get a little break from work.

This year our non-Fall break coincided with a business trip that Jeremy needed to take to Seattle.  I debated taking the kids and going with him, but we would have had to drive up on our own and really just do our own thing for two days because Jeremy was going to be very busy.  In the end we decided we could have more fun if we stayed home and fun we did have.

On Thursday we went to the bounce house with our Brown cousins.  Since the kids not in our school district had school this day and the bounce house is across town, it was pretty dead.  Let me tell you, there are not many things more fun than having a bounce house more or less to yourself.  And to make it even better, part way through they turned off the lights and turned on black lights and music.  As Merrick put it, it was "magical".

Friday we, yet again, took advantage of the AMAZING weather we have been having and went with the Brown cousins to the zoo.  Unlike the bounce house, the zoo was really crowded, but we stayed until close and the last hour or so it really cleared out.  With so many kids around I was nervous about Merrick getting lost so I took a pen and wrote my name and phone number on his arm just to be safe.  We didn't need it, but it cracked me up that Merrick kept showing it to me and saying "mom, we have been here like 8 hours and I have not even gotten lost yet".

Friday night Jeremy got home.  I had let Merrick stay up past bedtime to wait for him.  When he got home, I sent him up to say goodnight to Merrick.  He found him standing, waiting at the foot of his bed.  Merrick quickly told him all the fun we had had while he was gone (bounce house, zoo, hot dogs, taco bell) and then collapsed into bed and was pretty much instantly asleep.

It was a fun non-Fall break but we are glad to have our Daddy back home now.

Swearing In, Sunshine, and Pumpkins

This week had two main highlights.  The first of which came Thursday when Jeremy and I headed down to Salem for Jeremy's swearing in.  It was such a proud moment for me to watch as the final chapter of our law school experience came to a close.  As with much of this experience, the swearing in itself was not without drama.  As the justice of the Oregon Supreme Court invited all the candidates to stand and started swearing them in, someone shouted for someone to call 911 and get a medic.  Apparently someone had passed out and the whole proceedings came to a stop while he got medical attention.  Jeremy and I wondered if it was a bad omen that something so dramatic would happen in order to stop the swearing in.  In any case, the man got help and we were able to carry on.  A few minutes later Jeremy was official.  He can now practice law in the state of Oregon (well as soon as someone hires him anyway).

The second highlight was yesterday's trip to a pumpkin patch.  This year we decided to try a new one and headed out to Sauvie Island to Bella Organic Farm.  Jeremy's Aunt Kristin (and Uncle Richard, but he was working) is in town so we picked her up and all went out together.  The kids had fun on the cow train and grain train, petting the horses and other animals in the petting zoo, having a duck race, and exploring the hay maze.  Probably the highlight of the whole day for Merrick was when he and Jeremy were picked by Radio Disney to compete in a contest and he won a "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" backpack full of fun prizes.  It was really fun to get to spend some time with Kristin and I think everyone had a good time.  All in all though I don't think the pumpkin patch was quite as good as Lee Farms that we had been to in the past, but it wore everyone out so I count that as a success.

I am so thankful that the weather has been so nice and we have been able to still get out and do these fun things.  The sunshine is supposed to hold out throughout the week and I see a lot more time outside in our near future.