Weekend getaway - Vancouver BC!

Greg & I got to get away by ourselves for a whole weekend! We went up to Vancouver BC to explore and run in an 8K! We had such a great time...this was a much-needed break.

Strange that we only had to drive 3 hours and we were in a different country! :) Neither one of us had been to Vancouver before...

This was our first view of downtown Vancouver...and I have to admit that we were not impressed - it is very industrial looking and not at all like the beautiful cities I have grown up in and around (Portland, Seattle, even Chicago!).

But we did find some neat areas to eat and shop...this is in Yaletown where we had dinner on Friday night...there are about 5-6 blocks of neat restaurants with outdoor seating like this one.
And on Saturday we found this Crepe place...YUM! Greg didn't have one (he missed out!), but mine was SO good. It was really rich and I ate the whole thing - and then wanted another one even though I felt a little sick. :)Then we found Stanley Park and this was definitely more like what I expected. It was beautiful and the views of the city from this side were much nicer. We drove all around and parked at different points to see the sights (we had already walked about 5 miles earlier in the day!).See the lady sunbathing on the rock? It's a statue...This was a really neat viewpoint...it was SO windy, but worth it. There is a restaurant up there and some trails to walk around on. The gardens were gorgeous too...it was the perfect time of year to be there...everything was in bloom!

And here we are on Sunday morning getting ready to start the run! Just in case you don't know...I have never run in my life, until January. I signed up for this 8K last year to keep me motivated and I asked Greg (the Marathon runner) to run it with me. We didn't have the best weather (it was sprinkling when we started and pouring when we fnished!), but it was really fun!

Look...I'm running so fast I'm just a blur! Hee hee!

I finished in 48 minutes...which is a little bit faster than my training pace. It works out to be 9.44 minutes per mile...not bad for a first try! I am looking forward to running more (and longer) races in the future!

So glad we did this together!

Thank you Mimi for watching Joel & Maren so we could do this!!

April Recap

Here are a bunch of pictures from April...starting with more funny hair from Maren!
Her face is so expressive...I can see her in drama already!

Joel has Green eyes?! Remember when they were so bright blue? Some days they are more on the blue side, but there are just as many days where they are green like this. He is looking more like Greg as he gets older!
Grammie & Grandaddy came over for a little visit - Maren had fun climbing around on the couch where Grammie was sitting and then sitting with her and showing her the balloon. It was nice to see Grammie smiling and interacting with her.

7-layer sandwich: couch, pillows, boy, blanket, pillows, girl, blanket.

Greg took the kids on an adventure one Saturday afternoon. There is a great spot by the river in Orting where they can ride their bikes, play by the water and explore!

(don't know why this one is sideways...)

Look at those lashes...and we thought Joel was the only one!

There is also a little dirt bike course that Joel likes to ride on. He is really fast! If I knew how to do video on this, I would post it!

A little trip to the Zoo...the peacock was showing off today!
Joel's class did a little program during church one Sunday...all the kids wore these fish shirts that they made!! Aren't they cool?

Silly kids...I love to see them play and laugh together.

Helping to make Banana bread muffins

Maren & I got to go on a field trip with Joel to a Dance Studio. They did tumbling and some songs with motions (like hokey pokey, etc.) It was really fun! The not so fun part was when we found out we had a flat tire right afterward! :(

We also spent a weekend in Portland to visit family - including my brother Kevin his girlfriend Lisa, and their friend John, who were in town from LA.Grandma has fun mini-mugs for hot chocolate...yummy!

We got to see Dean (and Dave & Beka!) one evening. These three had a lot of fun together (a little too much fun, maybe!).

At Mimi's house Joel & Maren got to paint these bird houses...

And Lisa brought a fun craft for us to do.

We made these paper flowers! They actually look really good in these pictures, but they were SO HARD to make! We only made about 6 in all (in about 4 hours)...but it was still fun! Thanks Lisa!

All things Easter

The day before Easter we went to an egg hunt at the church where Maren is going to attend pre-school in the fall. The kids had fun hunting for eggs...

Emptying out the goodies and giving back the plastic eggs...

And decorating their own cookies...

Ta da

...and eating them, of course!

We also dyed eggs at home (not many good pictures...I needed to be pretty hands-on!)

And on Easter morning the kids each had an easter basket with some little (like dollar store quality) things in there (no more candy!!).

After church, we hid eggs inside for the kids to find. Greg hid some way out of reach!

3 jelly beans in each egg :)

Then Maren and I made a blackberry pie to go with our Easter meal. If you know anything about baking pies, you will see from this picture that I didn't really know what I was doing. Note for next time: thaw the berries before putting them in the shell. This pie didn't turn out very well, but I love this picture of Maren helping!

Here are the kids in their easter best (nothing new, just what we had in the closet - recognize Maren's dress from Christmas?!) riding their scooters!

And here are our new friends!! They live right across the street from us and these kids are inseparable these days...we call them the scooter crew. Kylie turned 3 in April and Conner turned 7. It is so fun to have friends so close for the kids and for us too! We are enjoying getting to know the whole family...