Trip to Corvallis

We returned last Thursday from a wonderful week in Corvallis. We had such a great time with my folks. We always feel so welcome and loved, we never want to come back :)

We went down for a wedding of some friends of mine from highschool- Chrystal and Ben. Chrystal and I have been friends since middle school. I've always felt really close to her, even after high school as we lived far apart and lived our seperate lives. Whenever we'd get together again, it always felt like old times and we were as close as we'd ever been. She is such a beautiful person. I just love her. Our senior year, this cute, new boy from Alabama moves to Corvallis. He fit perfectly in with our group and friends and we all became really close. Chrystal and Ben were meant for each other from the start. They started dating sometime during our senior year (I think only they know when that exactly was) and have been together ever since. They are such a cute couple and so in love. The wedding was so lovely and so them. It was really, really fun to see a bunch of my corvallis friends, including Matt and Lucy who'd just arrived from Turkey! Vince and Kyle came from Chicago. Brenna came from Cali. Tim from Washington. Sally was there too. It was great. I love all those people so much.

Here are some pics from the wedding. The first three pics are from the photographer's website- www.briellemcclain.com. She did a fabulous job!





This one Rob took


Most of the remainder of our Oregon trip was spent with our hands in the dirt. I have only a few true favorite things in the whole wide world and one of them is gardening. My dad took three days off to work with me on their landscape. We got so much done and planted over 100 plants around their home. Rob was on kid duty. I am so grateful to have such a loving, patient, kind husband who would spend his spring break being on daddy duty 100% so that I could spend some time doing what I love (not that I don't know being a mom, it's just that it's really nice to have a chance of pace and responsibility every so often). My mom went to Garlands together and picked up some lovely plants and she spent quite a bit of time with us with her hands in the dirt. As did Rob and the boys. The kiddos dug around in the dirt for hours looking for dinosaur bones.

Here is us planting Gideon's Witch Hazle tree:





My dad hired this guy to do some excavation and terrain work around their property. This guy was sooo nice and took both boys on a ride. Jasper got to help drive it!





Jasper said he didn't want to go back to Seattle. I asked him if he liked it better in Corvallis and he said yes. I asked him if he felt free there and he said yes. He spent hours running around in the grass fields, riding his bike, digging in the dirt. All the things that kids should be able to do without having to worry about getting runover or kidnapped or whatever. I love it in Corvallis too.



Last of all, Rob and I got to go on a date!!! My mom and dad treated us (early birthday present) to an Indigo Girls concert! It was incredible. We both had a great time rocking out and singing along to our favorite hits. I was really into them back in high school and I kind of forgotten about how great they are. It was fun to fall in love all over again over rock and roll, like we did the first time:)