She's Off!

Cali is on her way to London!  We dropped her off at the airport and she has left for Minneapolis.  She has a layover there and will fly out to Heathrow about 10:00 p.m. CST this evening.  She will arrive in London at about noon on Tuesday, London time which will be about 5 in the morning here in Portland..

Cali succumbed to pressure and even though she said she would never have a blog - she now has a blog!  You can follow her exciting London adventures here - www.quirkycali.com  The blog is still a bit under construction and we have a fun and quirky picture to add to her header soon!  She chose the name because quirky means - crazy, kooky, nutty and strinkingly unconventional - all words that could be used to describe Cali!!

She will be met at the airport by Jen Clarke who is the daughter in law of Margaret Clark (Cali's great grandmother's sister)  I think we need Grandma Best to figure out how we are related - cousins, second cousins, first cousins three times removed????) 

It makes me feel better that someone we know will be meeting her at the airport.  They will then drive out to their country home - The Pointe where they will spend the night.  They will then deliver Cali to Kensington to where she will be living for the next 7 weeks!

It was a crazy 24 hours getting her ready to go.  We hope she has everything she needs.  A big thank you to neighbor Caitie who just got back from London who let Cali take her London compatible blow dryer, cell phone and adapters!!  She gave Cali some great tips too!

There was a celebratory toast before we left for the airport with Hannah!

We stopped by Escape from NY Pizza on our way to the airport for a quick bite of lunch and Jim met us there.
From there we went to the airport and we all walked her in to make sure she got checked in o.k.!

She hit it right on the mark - 50 lbs!  I guess there is no room for souvenirs!!

We then said our goodbyes and she headed to security!!

It was at this point that the security  lady very nicely told me I was not allowed to take any photos looking towards security - I guess they were afraid I was going to steal all our big security secrets and sell them to some terrorist country or something!!

Can't wait to hear from her when she arrives in London!  We love you Cali and will miss you!!!

Saturday Adventures

A little blog catch up.

The weekend before we left for Utah was a fun one- at least for Tessa and I.

Jim was a good boy and went and helped with a ward service project.  Our ward is in charge of keeping  a section of the road near the highway in shape. It was very overgrown with weeds.  They worked all morning and part of the afternoon - Jim was tired and reported that he doesn't even work that hard in our yard.  He also said it was evident which men are use to working in the yard and which aren't!

Tessa and I played that day with our friend Meg.  We were out to explore and discover a place for Tessa to have her senior pictures taken.  We were looking for an antique/vintage store that would be fun to use.

We headed over to North Mississippi and had fun exploring the shops.
I fell in love with this little food cart!

It was simply charming.  We weren't hungry yet or ready for lunch although their food look marvelous - especially that waffle we saw!  We did buy a maple steamer though which was quite lovely!!


We explored some more and met this little fellow in a garden shop on the street

And found a fun new fabric store we will be back to visit!!  We have a project in mind and I think they may have just the perfect fabric selection for it

After some more wandering we were hungry so we headed over to our lunch destination - a food cart.  The Grilled Cheese Grill.

A food cart soley devoted to grilled cheese sandwiches! Yum!

They had brought in an old school bus and painted it up and turned it into a dining bus!  It was so fun!  The ceiling was amazing. They counter and table tops were covered in hundreds of old school photos!

We thought it would be so fun if we actually found someone we knew in all those photos but we didn't!

We enjoyed several fun combinations of sandwiches which we can't wait to try and make at home now!

From there we headed over to another vintage store but I'm saving those pictures for a separate post because they are so fun!!


After shopping and working at the service project Tessa headed out to go babysitting and Jim and I headed north to Longview to have dinner with my parents.  We also did a little plant shopping for their front yard (not really a yard but a strip of dirt in front of their home)  Jim got them all planted and they look great!

AMI Gala

Last Friday was the American Mothers annual Gala.  I was asked to be the Master of Ceremonies for the event - I guess I was really the Mistress of Ceremonies.

It was held at the Embassy Suites at the airport.  The Gala is where they present Oregon's Mother of the Year and Young Mother of the Year for 2010 as well as honor other Mothers of Excellence.

It was a very nice evening.  The NW LDS Symphony performed as well as some other very talented musicians.

It was fun to be a part of it and I don't think I embarassed myself too bad - I didn't try and tell any jokes!

Don't I look official - not sure what I was doing with my hand.

Here I am presenting one of the Mother's of Excellence.

I liked holding out my left arm I guess!