Beautiful Oregon

After we got back from our trip to Houston for my Dad's sealing, the next day literally we packed up and drove to Salem, OR to tag along with Ryan for a week long orthodontic training he had at the IHS clinic in Salem. Salem holds a special place in my heart, because I grew up there from kindergarten through 7th grade. I haven't been back since I was 13. It was crazy driving around and recognizing landmarks, parks and restaurants that I remembering going to as a child. The public library, minto brown park, my elementary school Candelaria and of course my old house we lived in. It was actually shocking to see because its obvious that no on has lived there for sometime, of if they did they let it get really run down. But since we could tell no one was living there I took a few pictures and walked around. It brought back ALOT of memories, some good, some really bad. This is the house I lived in when my Dad and Mom divorced and I saw and heard alot of things that a kid probably shouldn't. It was a little sureal being there, because I have blocked alot of those memories and don't think about them much. I have hope for the house though, because there were ladders and tools laying around and I think someone maybe has bought it and is working to restore it. It was the coolest house ever! It felt like a tree house. Because it was perched at the top of a cul-de-sac, surrounded by trees and lush green plants with wrap around decks and sliding doors out of every room. It was a fun house to grow up in, I hope someone takes care of it.

The Crestview house

Oregon is so beautiful! Can't say that enough. We throughly enjoyed seeing some beautiful sites. These waterfalls are at the Silver Falls National Park. This is another place from my childhood. My dad would take me hiking here when I was little and I haven't been back since I was child. It was fun to take the girls there to see these amazing waterfalls and lush landscape. It feels like a rainforest. It rained the whole time we were hiking around and when you get close to the water falls (you walk around them), the spray plus the rain, means we were pretty wet. But so worth it!

Family pic at Silvers Falls

Us on the trail, it was so green!!

Of course we also took a day to visit the beach, but again it was a very rainy and cold day, so no sun bathing for us, but we had fun driving up the coast and jumping out for a few pics. And eating at Mo's clam chowder house was so worth it as well. Yummiest clam chowder ever!The Oregon coast is so dreamy looking, I love it.

Devil's Punch Bowl

One day after training we drove a little ways to Woodburn, Or where a beautiful Tulip festival was going on. It was unbelievable! Rows of tulips as far as the eye could see, in so many beautiful colors. Gorgeous!

Jules in the wooden shoes

One of my favorite pics of Jules and Claire, best friends!

We had a wonderful time in Oregon, it was nice to get away for a week and spend time together and see so many beautiful sites. Ryan and I both agree it wouldn't be a hard decision to move to Oregon someday, there are lots of IHS clinics there. Guess we will wait and see.....

A Beautiful Thing

A few days after we got home from Utah, Ryan and I (alone), packed our bags and left on Friday afternoon and took a long flight down to humid, but beautiful Houston, Tx to see my Dad and his wife Brandee and their six beautiful children be sealed together for time and all eternity in the Houston Temple!!

This has been a long time coming, and when my Dad got the approval letter for the sealing there was no doubt that Ryan and I would be there. We left the girls behind because it was such a short trip and they couldn't go in anyways. It is amazing how much easier it is to travel without kids!!!!

My Dad got married to his sweetheart Brandee six years ago, a week actually after Ryan and I got married! I wasn't even there to see because we were on our honeymoon. They quickly got married by the bishop in his office, they were just to excited to wait any longer! In these six years they have worked so hard to both be ready and prepared for this moment. When they married, Brandee already had three boys from a previous relationship, Cole, Clay and Nathan. My Dad stepped right in as a much needed father figure and they completely see my Dad as their father in everyway. They had special Malachi shortly after getting married, he was born premature with Cerebal Palsy. He can't support his weight or have much control of his limbs, but he can talk and understands everything and his spirit is so sweet and happy, I love holding him and talking to him. Shortly after I found out I was pregnant with Juliet, Brandee was also expecting again, much to my surprise, they found out they were having twin girls!!!! Olivia and Ingrid (named after the nurses who helped deliver them), are energetic and strikingly beautiful with clear blue eyes and long curly hair. They are such a wonderful family and it is so fun to watch my Dad go through parenting again, since Matt and I are grown and he really relates to all my parenting issues, because our kids are the exact same age! Its crazy that I have sisters and a brother so much younger then me, but its awesome at the same time.

I am so unbeliveably proud of my Dad and where he is in life. I am so happy for him that he found a wonderful and kind person to spend his life with and has been blessed with amazing kids and have the opportunity to love them, teach them and raise them.

To explain how I felt in the sealing room, is almost impossible to do in words or writing. Simply to say it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. To see Brandee and my Dad sealed and then be surrounded on the altar with all of their children and sealed as a family forever, it was just beautiful. It was an amazing testimony and witness to me of how families are the absolute core of the gospel and our purpose for being on earth. Families are everything and what a priceless gift from our Heavenly Father to allow us to be together forever. I know families are forever and am even more grateful for my own family and eternal companion. It was a beautiful day.

Ryan and I in front of the Houston Temple, it was gorgeous!!

Me with Ingrid and Olivia (I still can't tell them apart very well!)

The Newlyweds!!

The Bonner Family, together forever!

Graduation, Big 4 year old, Anniversary and Easter!!!!

So alot has happened to the Davis family in the last two months! I will break it up so you won't fall asleep reading a long never ending post. I will start with our celebration weekend, as I call it, over Easter weekend in Utah. We flew into Utah to spend some time with my family the Thursday before Easter, the girls were great on the plane, they shared a seat together and watched a movie the whole time so eager to drink their special juice with a straw and eat bags of peanuts and pretzels. After we got our bags, and two carseats, which is pretty funny to watch us walk through the airport carrying all of this because Ryan refuses to pay for one of those carts! We make it down to the car rental station, which has a super duper long line, and they messed up our reservation, but we got everything figured out and started driving to Springville. We of course were starving so thankfully we see beloved IN and Out and stop for a cheeseburger and fries. But of course right before we get our food, I smell somthing stinky in the back. I get Claire out to change her, and her back and legs are covered in poo! GROSS!!! So we had to clean her up on the side of the road and bag up her pants till we got to a washing machine. Granted I wasn't feeling very hungry anymore after cleaning her up! We finally made it to Springville and dropped off the girls and zoomed back into crazy Provo to find a quick spot and rush into the Marriott Center for Bryn's graduation ceremony. Elder Scott spoke and it was wonderful! It was great to see Linda and George and also Ryan's sister Amber. We all went out to a nice dinner after at the Art City Trolley, which luckily there was a cancellation of a reservation so we were able to seat down right away. The Carrot Cake there is to die for!

The next day was Friday, Ryan and I's 6th anniversary! Wow time has gone by fast!! We spent the morning walking around BYU campus, the bookstore, eating lunch with my mom, Linda, George and Bryn. Claire was being really silly in the Wilkinson center while we were eating and she ran away so fast from us, she ran into a storage closet and shut the door, she was locked in!!! LUCKILY, the gal who had the key was only a few feet away and was able to open the door. Could you imagine if she was off duty or something??? It could have taken awhile to get the door open. Silly girl! That afternoon we left the girls with my Dad and drove up to the Bountiful Temple where my grandparents work. My grandfather is a sealer there and we decided it would be very cool to sit and do sealings in one of his sessions. It was beautiful and I saw a whole new side of my grandfather that I will never forget. He showed us around the temple and the celestial room was gorgeous. After leaving the temple we drove into downtown Salt Lake and went to dinner at the Roof at the Joseph Smith Memorial building. It was such a perfect dinner, so romantic and delicious! It was a big splurge, but so worth it. I wish we would have brought our camera, but Ryan did take a beautiful pic with her phone of the SLC temple when we went outside. Ryan proposed to me at Temple Square so it is a special place for us. We walked around, toured the visitors center, chatted with the sister missionaries, saw the Christus. Funny story to me at least, when Ryan and I were sitting in front of the Christus, I thought Ryan was in deep thought and would talk to me about it, but when I asked him what he was thinking about, in a duh kinda voice he said, "Jesus?" It made me laugh. It was a wonderful anniversary, for gifts I had an old watch Ryan received at the SLC olympics fixed and he had my UNLV degree put in a beautiful setting and frame. Thanks Babe!

Saturday was spent shopping with my Mama, which I love oh so much and wish I could do all time. I scored getting two new pairs of jeans at a consignment shop (a pair of seven's and gap jeans) and then a new pair of capris at Gap, and a darling dress and new shirts from Downeast Outfitter's which is my favorite store. Fun, Fun! Saturday was also Juliet's 4th Birthday!!!! We already celebrated back home in Yakima as a family and with her friends, but we made her another cake, (she wanted strawberries) and opened the gifts my mom, mimi and my grandma bought her. New dresses, sparkle light up shoes, new books and a kite!

Easter sunday, was wet and rainy and cold!!! We didn't get a single pic of the girls outside, we did a little egg hunt, which they still liked and we hid their easter baskets that morning. Sadly, didn't get any pics, I know very lame, I will try to make up for it next year. But had a lovely time at church and had my grandparents and aunts and unlces over for a big dinner after. It was great to see everyone!

Monday was spent packing up, cleaning, doing laundry before we left that afternoon. But I did squeeze in a lunch date with my high school and old roomie Jaime. It had been awhile since I had seen her so it was great to catch up and laugh like old times. She is my one and only friend from high school that I see regularly and talk too! So it meant alot to see her.

Monday afternoon we flew home, girls did pretty good, a little more whiny, but no serious meltdowns or anything. The drive home from Seattle was long, but we had to get home to get ready for out next advernture to start in a few days. Post about that coming soon. Here are a few pics from the trip, but again didn't take that many.

Salt Lake Temple


At our home celebrating Juliet's 4th Birthday

Little birthday party at Sarg Hubbard Park, friends in attendance were Chambray, Caroline, Evan, Riley, Marshall, Malec, Logan. It was very windy and kinda cold, but kids had fun!

Opening presents, her favorite part. She really got into her birthday this year, telling me what she wanted everyday etc...

Celebrating again at my Mom's house

Ryan and Bryn at Graduation! Congrats Bryn!! Going to graduation made me so thankful that Ryan and I are done with school. I can't believe its been two years since Ryan graduated dental school! It goes so fast!

In a routine

I know, I know, I won't even get into how lame and guilty I feel for never updating my blog, but part of it is because I feel I don't have much to blog about! Life is definetely pretty routine around here, literally. I find that each day of the week we do the same thing, which is acutally fine with me, I like consistency and knowing what to expect. Typical week looks like this, Monday we go to storytime at the library and are usually there for awhile playing and picking out new books and DVD's for the next week, we LOVE the library system here! Then lunch, naps, dinner, FHE. bed. Tuesday goes like this, 6:20 am run, breakfast, get ready, drop off preschool, grocery shopping, errands, pick up preschool, lunch, naps, teach violin from 4-5, dinner, bed. Wednesday I watch two of my friends kids from 7am to 8:30, then two other kids from 10:40-Noon, ironing and chores inbetween, lunch, naps, bed, American idol. Thursday I teach community orchestra 7am-8:30, preschool, errands, pick up preschool, lunch, naps, teach violin from 4-6, dinner, bed. Friday, 6:20 am run, breakfast, get ready, playgroup and lunch, naps, dinner, movie?, bed. Saturday, long run, breakfast, chores, laundry, errands, maybe a date?, naps, dinner, bed. Sunday, church, lunch, naps, dinner, bed.

So, yea, that is my life in a nutshell. We also keep busy with occaional church callings and meetings, and there are alot of baby showers so I usually go to one of those ever other week it seems. The latest news is the Juliet did have to get glasses about a month or so ago. We noticed that her right eye would turn in wards, doctor said it is due to overfocusing in that eye and we are hopeful that these glasses will train her eyes to work together. It took her a little while to get used to them, but she is pretty good with them, and they are very durable. I tried to get a cute pic of her in them, but you know Juliet, very hard to take a good picture of!

Lets see what else is going on...oh, yeah, I did sign up for my next race. I am going to do the Seattle Rock and Roll Half marathon on June 25, so I am getting really excited for that. It is a huge race and runs into downtown Seattle. There is live music all along the race course, I think its going to be a cool experience.

Another thing I have been getting into lately is couponing. Not obessively, but I am pretty into price matching at walmart. Almost half of my groceries each week are price matched now and I usually have a few coupons on top of that. It feels soooo good to save money and I am always on bargain hunts and bargain store shopping. I just feel that if you look hard enough you can get something second hand or on really good clearance and pay so much less then just blindly paying full price for something!

Oh, we finally got our new home buyers tax credit back with our refund, so some new home projects will hopefully be in the works soon. I have a blinds consultant coming tomorrow to pick out blinds for our house. We are probably going to plant a few trees also in a back yard and hopefully build some shelves in our garage to make room for all the food storage I am starting to accumulate. So excited about that!

Next month we are planning an easter trip down to Utah. Its a fun packed weekend! Thursday we will arrive and go to Ryan's sister Bryn's graduation from BYU and celebrate with them, Friday we celebrate our 6th anniversary with a fun day together, maybe on overnighter, Saturday we will celebrate Juliet's 4th birthday and Sunday we will celebrate Easter with my Mom's family! Can't wait!

We are also in the works right now of planning a quick trip down to Austin, Tx to see my Dad and his sweetheart and all their kids be sealed in the temple together! They have been waiting for this for along time, and I can't wait to be there with them! It will probably just be me and Ryan or just myself going. We will see...

Well, thats about all I have, here are a couple cute photos of the girls, I literally haven't taken any pictures of them the last two months, kinda sad, but I think I am a live in the moment type person, I am horrible at taking pictures. They are so sweet though and doing really well. Can't believe I will have a 2 yr and 4 yr old soon. Why can't they just stay babies, then I don't have to start having baby cravings. Ryan is already chomping at the bit for #3, but I am still waiting for the right time.

Juliet in glasses
Claire in her chinese jammies

Playing in the rain

A big update

WOW! I can't believe thats its been three months since I lasted posted, I feel pretty pathetic, not that anyone really reads this blog anyways, but I need to be better. Now that we are hunkered down in freezing Yakima for the rest of the winter I will have more time to blog! So anyways, here are just an array of our adventures the last three months, I have been pretty lame taking pics, I didn't take a single picture of Thanksgiving and only a few at Christmas and disneyland. I am the type of person that loves to live in the moment and enjoy what I am seeing right then, rather then seeing it through a camera, or it could be that I am just really lazy, probably the later. But we did get some cute pics including some great family pics in November. Enjoy!

I can never get tired of this grin, Claire since she was born has been so smiley and happy! Love my baby girl!

My Dad came to visit in October. We drove into Seattle and picked him up and then toured some areas around the Puget sound where my Dad actually served his mission almost 30 years ago! It was fun to see where he served and have us tell him stories from his mission.

We took the Bremerton ferry back to Seattle and the girls LOVED it! It was fun to park our car, then go up to the deck and see Seattle, it was a beautiful sunny day! We were lucky!

Juliet on the ferry

While my Dad was here we went to this charming family farm called Bill's Berry Farm, and had a fabulous time picking out pumpkins, taking a hay ride through the orchards and riding the animal train! Juliet had to ride on this like 5 times! It was darling!

Picking out pumpkins!

Theres that grin again!

For Halloween (yes it really has been a long time since I posted!), Juliet was Cinderella and Claire was a fairy.

I love her little pose in this picture!

Trying on wigs from our costume box

In November we had our good friend take some pics of us, we only got a few good family shots and one good one each of the girls, but thats all I ask for. Juliet is infamous for NEVER looking at a camera! Its so frusturating, but hopefully she will grow out of it!

LOVE this picture! So happy that we caught it!

Beautiful Juliet! Her hair is getting so long, to bad she screams at me whenever I come around with a brush! Update on Juliet, she is loving preschool and just started Sunbeams this last week in church and did really well! She loves to read and after hearing a book once or twice can pretty much read it back to me. She loves to sing and dance, we have dance parties daily. She loves her disney musicals, her favorite right now is Beauty and the Beast. She loves to play with Claire and is always concerned about where she is and if she is alright. She is a good big sister. Love her.

I've seen that grin before! Claire is at such a fun age right now, she just turned 19months and is growing up way to fast. She is in the 95th percentile for her height and weight, she is huge, she is already wearing 3T outfits! She loves to play and tease and is always super smiley and ready to give hugs and kisses on demand. She loves to dress up and loves her collection of bears. She feeds herself, undresses herself, loves to read and dance with her sister. She is already talking alot and is just a joy!

Another great shot!

I am so blessed to have such an amazing sweet family!

For Christmas and New Years we headed to Vegas, it was definetely a little warmer there and sunnier, but still kinda cold. We did all of our Christmas with the girls before we flew down, so the girls only had a few presents to open, but we had fun hanging out with all of Ryan's siblings and spouses and their families, it was a packed house but still really fun. My sense of taste came back just in time, after having a nasty cold the entire week before christmas, to enjoy Christmas dinner of Prime Rib and all the yummy salads and desserts. Then a day later I came down with 24hr flu bug and was confined to my room for a day. Not fun! I hate being sick on vacation! But we did lots of fun things in Vegas. Saw TrueGrit and Tron, ate at all our favorite restuarants, went bowling, shopping, saw old friends and most fun of all we went to Disneyland for a day!!!

Girls in matching Christams pjs, love it!

Jules crashed out on the couch on Christmas night! It was a fun day!

SPACE MOUNTAIN! Yes thats Juliet next to Ryan! Ryan was so excited to take Juliet on the "big" rides at Disneyland because she is so tall! I wasn't sure what she would think of Space Mountain, we walked right on because we had fast passes and just put her in it, she didn't know what was coming. But she liked it! She said, "that was really fun DAD!" I'm glad she liked it, I thought she might be tramatized! She also went on Big Thunder Mountain railroad and the Matterhorn! So proud of her!

Juliet on Autopia, I love her expression!

On the carousel! Juliet was really excited to go on this, though you can't tell from her face! She was actually not feeling very good this day, the night before she had a fever and was still warm in the morning so she was drugged up on tylenol all day and I think that made her a little out of it. Poor thing! But she still had fun!

While we were in Vegas we went out on the boat to Lake Mead. Yes it was cold while we were on the boat, but we found a beautiful beach and it was so sunny and clear, just an absolutely gorgeous day and we actually started getting hot and shed some of our layers. We had a yummy BBQ on the beach and took a little hike.

I think Claire looks like a boy in this pics, except for the pink sweatshirt, someday she will grow some hair!!!

I love this pic, she loved the boat and the water was like glass. We had a great time in Vegas but were glad to be home!

Oh, and here is a little video of the girls on Christmas at our house, its cute!