updates (and recipe!)

Life is pretty perfect right now. It's SO awesome living with your best friend and having a blast. We love being married!

Brolin is having a "guys trip" at Lake Billy Chinook this weekend, so it's a good time for me to do some updating. (Don't worry though, I have my pint of Ben & Jerry's Half Baked to keep me company!)

A few weekends ago, we ran into Kelton and Mackenzie at a party and it was SO great catching up with them. (They've both worked with Brolin in the past and have become good friends of ours.)

  

Had this DELISH Citrus Salmon for dinner with a tasty red cabbage salad (recipe to come!).

Joined our spinning instructor and some friends for a Saturday morning run at the McDonald Forest in Corvallis. It was a 4 mile trail with 1500ft of elevation and a beautiful view.

Longboarding around the Hoopla Festival in Salem.

And my favorite part about this blog post....FLOWERS! When I came home from work I found these beauties on the kitchen counter. There's nothin' better than fresh flowers in the summertime.

summer garden

 Our plants are growing so much! They are outgrowing their home, so it's definitely time for a bigger box. The poor strawberries are pretty overtaken by the tomatoes, but everything's still lookin' good. YUM! Can't wait for fresh Tomatoes!

 This little guy is starting to turn red.

And our Strawberries look great!

We are so proud of our little children!

camping with family

We had so much fun this past weekend with Becca, Skye, Granny and the kiddos. We met up in Tillamook and spent three days camping and exploring the area. We already miss being with them (they left this morning) and hope we get to do something again SOON! 

(Disclaimer: This is a VERY long post because we took so many pictures!)

We started Thursday night, by finding a random spot to camp where it was pretty secluded. We set up tents, and made a bed for granny in the back of our car and called it good! Becca and Skye had prepared foil dinners for us earlier in the day, so we started cookin' them right away. MMmmm MMMmmm!

 Friday was LOADED with fun. First we packed up and headed to the beach.

Then on to the air museum...

Next was the Tillamook Cheese Factory. It was amazing because we sampled cheeses and ice cream, PLUS had the best lunch there. Mmmm...SO DELISH!

 

Then Skye called a friend of his and we were able to get the tour of a local dairy farm...

Getting tired yet? Next stop--Pacific City for some bocce ball and playin' in the sand!

After the beach we were all exhausted! We finished the day with some Mexican food, drove to Lincoln City where we set up camp, had smores around the campfire and crashed for the night. 

The next morning we went for one last day at the beach and it was FREEZING. Still, that did not stop the boys from touching the water.

Aaaannnddd....that concludes our weekend fun! We are so happy to be blessed with such awesome family. We are thankful for our freedom to be with them, to worship how we choose, to follow opportunities we are given, and to live life to the fullest! What a great weekend.  

4th of july

We have had so much fun this past week! On Wednesday, we started the day with a flag raising ceremony at church. There were a lot of people, a lot of fruit and a lot of cinnamon rolls.

We showed up with these (which were a total hit!)...

...and came home with this.

Then we went to the Monmouth parade and festival with the missionaries and some of our friends

Last, we ended the day at the coast, in Lincoln City, where we long boarded, ate clam chowder at Mo's, snacked on salt water taffy, and watched the AWESOME firework show on the beach with friends.

Happy 4th. Hope y'all had a good one!

bonne chance

Brolin's math class has been pretty tough for him. It's a 4 week class, so ALL of the normal semester information is smashed into that time frame. He pretty much does 8-10 straight hours of math everyday! He's been working so hard and he has two weeks left, but I'm not sure if that's a relief for him or just more stress! 

Tuesday, he had TWO tests and he studied his brains out! I wanted him to not be as stressed, so I decided to get up early and make him a big breakfast to keep him going throughout the day. I stayed up late Monday night (after he was asleep) and did all the prep for a breakfast casserole that was to die for! I'll include the recipe at the end.

 Here's how the casserole turned out. This picture does no justice, because I PROMISE, it's good. :) Of course, Brolin being Brolin, (he would eat the whole fridge if I let him), he also had to eat, a smoothie loaded with supplements, toast with jam, and a bowl of cherries and kiwi. Needless to say, he was totally prepared for his test.

  

A happy guy!

"Bonne Chance Aujourd'hui" - "Good Luck Today" in French :)

 Click here for the breakfast casserole recipe. I did some tweaking and left out the bread, but added shredded potatoes and mushrooms. Oh, and I also halved the recipe. So basically you can add whatever you want. I think maybe it's the stone ground mustard that made it so good. It was SO moist. Enjoy!