Remembering our family veterans...

Just to set the record straight, it was me that snipped the blanket for Emma. Sure Amy did the sewing but I had to do the painstaking effort of cutting up the edges. This was a pure act of selfless love for Amy and Emma and resulted in some temporary nerve damage in my finger and thumbs. I had numb-thumbs for a few days. Oh and I set a record by doing it within 45 minutes. :-)

On the day before Memorial day, we went to visit the graves of my two grandfathers at the Tahoma National Cemetery. The weekend prior, we attended a ward service project to clean the headstones in this area. Fortunately most of the stones were still clean but the birds did get a few. It was neat to be able to clean these for the families of those that did so much to preserve our freedoms and liberty.

Grampee's headstone. We were able to see many other family members at the cemetery as well including Gramee, Jeff and Shirley, and Brad and Andrea. The weather was just absolutely perfect, which apparently is very rare for Memorial day in Washington.




Me trying to get Casey to walk.... He still prefers to crawl though.
We also stopped by Grandpa Jackson's grave and saw that other family had already visited. They left flowers and a balloon.


It was cool to see all the US flags lining the streets and next to every grave, especially with Mt Rainier as the backdrop. It invokes a sense of patriotism and solemn gratitude for the sacrifices made for each US citizen.


And of course for those of you wondering, this is a random side-profile of Amy to show how big the baby is getting! She's gi-normous!!

A Blanket for Emma

I've finally completed the rag blanket for our sweet baby girl! The embroidered E took me the longest but I'm really happy with how it all turned out. I used purple and green instead of pink because she just seems like a purple and green girl. Once we have a room for her, those are the colors I want to use.

Our First Anniversary - Day 2

Our second day turned out to be a beautiful sunny day, which is a rarity there in Forks. We stayed the Dew Drop Inn (which was quite nice and Nate and I very much enjoyed it!) and I loved what they had on their sign:

Across the street from our hotel was the Outfitters store. It was where Bella worked in the book. It really is the biggest store they have in town.
The night before, we got the Twilight sub at this Subway. We also saw some high school kids all dressed up for prom there and they were apparently having it at the Quileute tribal center that night! Nate and I thought it would have been great to crash the party, but we decided not to...lol. It was just ironic that we were there prom weekend because prom was the event at the end of the first two books.We left Forks that morning and headed back. On our way we stopped at Lake Crescent again to get more pictures and to take a short hike to Marymere Falls. Here are some pictures of the view driving there:


This was a little view spot we stopped at and learned that this lake is a glacial lake. It is apparently 624 or so feet deep in the middle. Deep lake!



Here are the pictures of the hike and the waterfall:




This was the creepy tunnel we had to go through that went under the road to continue the trail.


The trees were SO tall and really big around. The pictures don't do them justice. It was absolutely beautiful!

After the hike we headed into Port Angeles to get some pictures at the dock. We then had a little picnic that we brought with us and ate it on the benches there. It was a really nice day so there were a lot of teenage kids out doing stuff on the dock. There were definitely some interesting ones there and a cop even drove out onto the pier to stop some of them from riding their bikes in places they shouldn't...lol. We also walked around the little free marine aquarium they have. It was neat to see and even touch some of the sea animals (sea cucumbers, starfish, etc.). I thought it was so crazy that in 20 minutes we went from mountains and lakes to ocean and ships. Washington is great!

Those mountains in the distance below are actually Canadian mountains. The border is somewhere over the water. There's a ferry that goes from Port Angeles to Victoria in Canada quite often without needing a passport. Starting June 1 this year they will be requiring passports though.




This was my attempt at getting the "Welcome to Port Angeles" sign. It didn't work very well:These were my souvenirs. Yes I am a dork!
Our anniversary was really fun and it was so nice to be alone together and get away from the hustle and bustle of work and extended family. I can't believe it has been one year since we got married. It has all gone by so fast. I have been so blessed to be married to Nate. I love him with all of my heart and he loves me more than I know. I can't imagine my life without him. He is my best friend, lover, confidante, protector, provider, and spiritual leader. He is everything I could ever want and everything I need. I love you Nate!! We've had a great and eventful year together and we're so excited to be growing our family by one this year!

Our First Anniversary - Day 1

For our first anniversary we decided to take a weekend trip to Forks, WA, home of the Twilight story. I'd been wanting to take this "tourist" trip for a while and we finally did it! It was Nate's present to me. Most of the trip was driving around the Olympic Peninsula and seeing all of the beauty there was to see.

This was at a park by Hood Canal. It was rainy and cloudy but still very pretty.

We also stopped at a famous local burger joint called Fat Smitty's. It's a really unique little place that has been there since right after World War II. Inside the walls are covered in dollar bills (some with messages), business cards, pictures, etc. There were a lot of random things on it, including this pass-a-long card I happened to notice on the wall behind me! It was great!

The ceiling was also covered with hanging one dollar bills. It's really a sight to see!

We decided to split their famous Fat Smitty Burger because it's really big. It was delicious!! It's costs 9.50 for a burger there. Crazy!! But people love it and keep coming back.
The sculptures outside were fun and we thought I had a resemblance to the Fat Smitty guy...lol.
We also saw some beautiful views as we were driving. I tried to get some good pictures of it and was somewhat successful some of the time. Nate's definitely better at taking pictures so the good ones are probably his.
This is Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park. It was incredibly beautiful and peaceful and water looked like untouched glass.
The road around it was pretty windy and if you've read the Twilight books, Edward drove these roads at 100 plus mph going back and forth from Port Angeles to Forks. Driving those roads made me think how scared Bella really would have been riding in that car!
This was the view as we approached La Push's First Beach on the Quileute Reservation. Breathtaking!
Here are pictures of the beach itself. I was in love with the view. How gorgeous!
Nate saw some dog prints and bare foot prints in the sand and called them the werewolf and vampire prints...lol. We had to take a picture of it!
The heart may be odd but it was still fun to make! And we had to add Emma to it too!
We started taking a hike to Second Beach but thought it was too long so we turned back and headed into Forks. The trees out there were huge and Nate is hiding in this one. :)
This is what you read as you cross the line into the reservation:
Yay we made it to Forks!!
They had lots of stores selling Twilight stuff but this one was dedicated to it.When we got there we took a drive around town to find the sites in the book. It took us all of 5 minutes to go around the town and find them. That's how small it is.
Forks High School:
The City Hall where Bella's dad Charlie worked:
Their tiny jail:
The hospital:
The vistior's center. I love the sign in the window!:
Bella's truck!
In the hotel we stayed in they named their one and only suite "Bella's Suite." It was great. We didn't see what it looked like but I had a feeling it wasn't much different from the room we had. Small town hotel you know?
This was the view from our room:
After the short tour of town, we got out the top layer of our wedding cake that we froze for the year and ate it for our first anniversary. It was still just as good as it was on our wedding day! We definitely had a top notch cake maker!