... 13 Years ...

This post is a little belated, but earlier this month,

Nate & I celebrated our 13 year anniversary!!

Nate had to work, but we celebrated with a 

late night dinner at Blondies' Bistro!

We enjoyed a really tasty meal and reminisced about the last thirteen years!

It was a wonderful evening and I'm so grateful to be married

to such a wonderful man!!

First Friday

Have we mentioned yet how much we love Grants Pass?

There are so many things that the City does to make life pleasant,

and First Friday is another thing that we are adding to our Favorites list!!

Every First Friday of the month, the local artists come together

and put on an Art Walk downtown. There is food tasting, music,

and of course, amazing art! (By the way, there are also some

AMAZING building spaces here - my photographer eye

was drooling over some of the gallery spaces that we walked through!)

Anyway, Nate had they day off, so we decided to spend the day out

and about because it was GORGEOUS (high 60's - hello warm weather)!!

We grabbed some sandwiches at Luigi's and found our new favorite

sandwich shop!! Apparently, it's kind of a famous shop - people from all

over the world have visited the shop - but apparently we aren't the first

ones from Logan - there was already a pin in that spot!! :)

We headed down to Riverside Park to eat our lunch, enjoy watching

kiddos feeding the ducks, and play a little Frisbee! It was such a perfect afternoon!

That evening, we put on our walking shoes, headed downtown, and

joined the locals in admiring the amazing talents of those that live in the area!

We ended our evening with live music and light appetizers at Ma Mosa's,

another of our local favorites!!

Rascal enjoyed her First Friday too - she took a lot of naps!! :)

It was a perfect day and we can't wait for the next First Friday!!

... a Saturday ...

So it turns out there is a downside to having

an All Wheel Drive vehicle!

In replacing one tire, you must replace all.

Nate & I have been driving around with a

giant STAPLE sticking out of our front tire.

We tried pulling it out, but as soon as he

pulled it, air started whooshing, so we left it in

and took it to the tire shop!

Due to the placement of the staple, it couldn't be patched,

so we are now the proud owners of

four new, beautiful, deep treaded tires!

The upside of getting new tires?

We got to spend several hours wandering around

downtown a few Saturday's ago!!

I really just love downtown Grants Pass!!

We tried out another local restaurant, called

"The Laughing Clam" - it was good, Nate really enjoyed

his fish and chips. I didn't love my meal, but I'd go

back to try something different before writing it off as

a favorite! Plus, they have live bands, so I definitely

have to give it another chance!!

We stopped in at "Blind George's" to get some popcorn 

and ended up coming with with this GIANT bag because

they had a $5 minimum purchase when paying with a debit card ...

We made our way back to the tire shop and relaxed

for a bit (or played a lot of Words with Friends)

while waiting for the shop to finish up!!

 

Later that night, we took a walk down to our local market

to score some ice cream, and saw this beautiful sunset!

I really love it when Nate & I have weekends off together -

it doesn't happen often, but the simple act of doing mundane

things together makes them so much more fun and enjoyable

and I'm so grateful for such an awesome husband!!

Random February Fun {2013}

It's random photo time!!

Nate decided he wanted to attempt his own

homemade buffalo wings for the Superbowl!

As always, he rocked the kitchen! 

We were headed ... out ... one night -

I don't even remember where we were going,

but when I looked out my side mirror and saw the sunset

after a rainstorm, I couldn't resist a photo!

We rocked the kitchen again with these awesome gyros -

thank you Pinterest!!

And we had another beautiful sunset!!

We had a game night - we Battleshipped and Yahtzee'd

for quite a while - although we didn't keep score this time,

so I don't know who won ...

Nate grew his hair out!

This is one of my FAVORITE pictures of him,

I think he's so darn hot!! I mean, really, look at the guy,

how can you not love him?

And, we got our new fridge!!

(Hooray for tax returns!!)

When we moved into our apartment last Fall,

we hadn't noticed that a fridge was not included in our lease!

Given that we had just moved, we just ran to 

Home Depot and purchased the cheapest fridge we could find,

and it was tiny! We were super excited to get our big fridge -

who knew one could get so excited about that? 

Ooh - and now we get to keep ice in our freezer! Hooray!!

I branched out in the kitchen and made 

Sun Dried Tomato Pasta.

This is quite a feat for me, because I had not just

two pans, but three, cooking at once ...

I don't know how people handle more than one pan

on a regular basis - it just stresses me out!!

And here was my reward for making such a tasty dinner for 

my hot husband!! And yes, all of our spoons were 

running through the dishwasher when my need for chocolate hit,

so I used a measuring spoon ...

FYI - they are deep and hard to eat out of!! :)

We also celebrated Valentines Day, which I posted about

already, and we went out on the town a little bit - I'll post

about that next time!!  Anyway, as you can see,

our February was good and tasty!!

Gettin' Crafty: Split Pea Wreath

If there is any one thing that Nate & I disagree on

in this whole entire world - it is wreaths.

I love them. He hates them.

To offset this disagreement 

I attempt to find/make wreaths that

he only mildly disdains - I'm happy 

to stay away from those that he hates.

I'm pretty sure I helped him warm to

mild disdain on this wreath, because

when I saw THIS tutorial on Pinterest

I fell in LUHV!!

I hemmed and hawed for a few days about

whether or not to show it to him,

but the temptation was too great to resist!

So, without further adieu,

here is my new springy Split Pea Wreath!!

And here is a close up - please ignore the

gobs of and strings of dried glue - 

I'm trying to tell myself

that you can't really tell that they're there

and that the wreath is perfect just the way it is!!

 Anyway - I'm pretty happy with it!

If you end up making one, invest in LOTS of glue

for your gun (I probably used 100 sticks

for a mini glue gun) - oh - and

make sure you have LOTS of patience, too!!

Happy Spring!!

Random January Fun {2013}

A little belated, but here's what we were up to in January!!

This first picture is a little icky, so you may want to scroll past it.

I cut my ankle bone when I was shaving, and for some reason,

I just couldn't get it to heal, and then I got some weird rash.

I called my brilliant sister (who is also a nurse)

and she told me what to watch for ... so I wrote it right on my foot ...

You know - that way I wouldn't lose it!! :) 

(Oh, and don't worry, it eventually got better!!)

We found a giant staple sticking out of our front passenger tire

and it was leaking a lot of air! We did a tire fill up one night and saw

this beautiful sunset! (Don't worry, the tire has been replaced).

Ollie, my genius of a cook sister in law, posted on facebook one night

that she was eating curry, and it was too tempting for us not to pass up,

so she kindly shared her recipe and we attempted it!!

Our house smelled for days, but it was SO worth it!!

Look at that beautiful blue sky, oh, and NO snow!! :)

I was grocery shopping in early January, and when I got out of the car,

ALL I heard was birds, birds, birds! I looked up, and

saw that this tree was FILLED with birds!! I loved it!!

We experimented a little more in the kitchen (although

I feel comfortable saying that Nate did most of the work on this one)

and made some Tasty Potato Latkes!

They were delish!!

Through January, it got really foggy around here, and we learned

that although we don't have the cold like Logan, we also have to deal

with inversions. We were super bummed to find that out, but it didn't stick

around for long! This picture is kind of blurry, but it shows a little bit of the foggy nights!

On one of Nate's rare Saturday's off, we had some lunch at 'Sunflower Thai' 

(if you ever come to visit, make sure you come with hungry bellies, becuase

their 'Drunken Noodles' are fantastic) and we headed to the GP library to become

official library card holders! While we were on our tour of the library, we saw this

AWESOME Hobbit House - made out of Cake! It smelled delicious, and we

were super impressed by the display!!

 

Rascal had another trip to the vet - my poor girl is getting old,

but she's still hanging in there good enough! We are wondering if the climate

change has caused some of her problems - I guess only time will tell ...

Anyway - I always feel bad when she has to go to the vet and I tend to 

spoil her a little more - on this day, she decided she wanted to help me work ...

 

And the last picture for our January fun is this awesome shell that Nate's

co-worker brought to him ... I'm pretty sure there's a cool story behind it, but I

don't remember what it is - I'll try to remember to ask Nate at some point!!

We both had a few days here and there where we didn't feel well

and we are wondering if the climate change has caused some of those problems, too,

apparently the allergy situation here is quite intense - so I'm sure we'll be working

through that this Spring, too!

Overall, though, we are really loving it here! The weather through January was so 

delightful, and even though I would have loved a heavy snow storm or two, I did 

not miss the frigid weather that all of our friends and families were talking about in Utah!!

Sunshine

... is good for everyone ...

... even if they have whiskers and a tail ...

It is a B E A U T I F U L day here today!

We've got the windows open

and are definitely enjoying the sunshine that

is shining through!!

Happy Love Day

Happy Love Day - from us to you!!

We had a low key day - Nate had to close tonight

so we didn't do anything super special,

but we did manage a candle light dinner

and he surprised me with some gorgeous flowers!

I'm so grateful for Nate, the love of my life

and the best Valentine that anyone will ever have!

... homesick ...

it's true. i'm adimitting defeat.

i'm homesick.

i'm craving a girls night with my bff's,

cards and dinner with my parents,

snuggles from our nephews & nieces,

seeing familiar faces in stores ...

while it's true that i love living in grants pass,

i'm homesick for my people.

... ... ...

on a different note - rascal had us laughing

pretty hard yesterday while she napped on nate.

here's why:

 

... the benefit of early mornings ...

Nate took this picture as he arrived at work earlier this week

and it's simply too pretty not to share!!

Happy Thursday!