Tulips!

Did I mention in the last post that I love tulips?  Well, I love tulips!

In fact this week I have been re-reading Cold Sassy Tree(love that book) and I love the part where the grandmother dies and the grandfather makes rose blankets and lines her grave with them.  She had an amazing garden and one time said she wouldn't mind dying if she could be buried in a bed of roses.  So he makes her a bed of roses.

I want to buried under a blanket of tulips!

I took a lot of photos at the Tulip Farm yesterday - here are some of my favorites.

I loved this sweet little red tulip popping it's head up amongst all the yellow tulips!

Tip Toe through the Tulips

Monday was a no school day but Tessa went to school to take the SAT - good girl!

I have been wanting to go out to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn the last few years but it just never seemed to happened.  I was determined to get there this year.   The plan was to go Monday after Tessa was done with the SAT.  We woke up to pouring rain but I was optimistic, said a little prayer and kept my fingers crossed.

Well, it worked.  The rain stopped and the sun came out (it was acutally too sunny for good picture taking)

After lunch, Tessa,, Hannah,  Debbie and I headed down to the tulip fields. 

They are amazing!  The tulips are at peak season right now. Tulips are my favorite flower and I was in heaven.  I took so many photos!  Thanks to Tessa, Hannah and Debbie for being patient with me!!

I am going to devote another post to some of my photos and just share some of the fun photos in this post.

Note to family and friends:  When I die I want to be covered in tulips - beautiful tulips.  Anyone who dares to send carnations to my funeral will be haunted!  I want tulips!

There were acres and acres of tulips!!

The girls had fun checking out the kiddie games...

and Tessa was excited to see a cow named after her on the cow train!
There were lots of photo ops!

 Who would have known we were in Woodburn, Oregon - we felt like we were in Holland with all these tulips!

We wandered for several hours - 

and took lots of pictures!

So many pretty flowers!!

We were especially glad we had worn our rain boots - it was muddy!

Debbie and I both picked up some cut tulips to bring home and a catalog to mail order our bulbs for next year!

After a little detour through Mt. Angel (o.k. we got lost) and a stop at McDonald's for a beverage we headed home  - a fun day!

Tulips make me happy!!

Happy Birthday Hannah!

Yesterday was Hannah's 20th birthday and I promised her a blog post all her own!

 I told Hannah I would make her a birthday cake - I ended up making her two!  We invited the neighbors over Sunday evening to help us celebrate!

Hannah chose chocolate (the recipe will be on Your Homebased Mom) and I chose lemon (of course!)

Tessa was hungry!
We loaded up the cake with 20 candles!

and all sang Happy Birthday!

After cake Hannah opened presents - a scarf, a head band, fun things from Sephora and a cover for her I-Touch

As usually happens when we all get together we started reminiscing about when the girl's were little (we missed you Cali but talked about you a lot)  Jim had to get out the photo albums and we had fun looking at photos of the girls when they were little!

We even got out the DVD we had done for Cali and Hannah's graduation and watched it - of course Shari cried!!
It was a fun evening celebrating with Hannah (who is now an adult!) and spending time with our amazing neighbors!

The Empty Nesters

So once again Jim and I played empty nesters this weekend - let's just say I don't care for it much!

It was a good week with a Beach Babe lunch downtown at Bijou Cafe and then RS Stake Temple Day on Wednesday.  A CM team meeting Wednesday  night and few other various appointments and meetings thrown in!

Friday night Jim and I headed out to one of our favorite local taco places - Pour Que No over on Hawthorne.

As usual there was a line out the door!

Not only does this place have a lot of atmosphere - they have great food too!

We got four different types of tacos - carne asada, carnitas, fish and chicken - my favorite were the carnitas!  Yum!

We then went down to the street to a new serve yourself yogurt place and then home.  Jim watched a Blazer game and I watched Boy in the Striped Pajamas - a movie based on a book I had read about a little boy whose father runs one of the concentration camp - a very sad story but well done.

Saturday I went to a photography workshop all day out by the airport. It was on taking photos of nature - very interesting and I learned a lot! Now if I could just win the lottery or something so I could afford those new camera lens I want!

Jim got the strawberry patch tilled, fertilized and planted so hopefully we will have lots of red juicy strawberries!!  He worked hard in the yard all day!

Saturday night we enjoyed a game of cards with our friends the Jensens and Hunts.

And such is the life of the empty nesters!

We were glad to have Tessa home safe and sound!

State Thespian Conference

On Thursday Tessa headed down to Eugene for the State Thespian Conference.

They were a little crowded on the drive down there - five of them in a tiny car!  There were bags everywhere!
But they made it safe and sound thanks to Rachel's good driving!

During the conference they were able to attend workshops and watch various plays/productions.

Westview's production of Almost Maine was chosen to perform at State so the Westview kids that weren't in the play all had shirts made that let everyone know they were  big fans of the show!  Here's Kylie and Tessa - cute girls!

And Rachel, Tessa and Kiana!

They had themed dances each night.  One night was a purple dance - everyone wore purple.  

The other night it was an 80's dance.

Tessa got her dress at the costume shop at school but I told her I had one just like it in my closet she could have worn!!

She had a great time and came home Saturday night to catch up on her sleep!