Ladies Night Out!

Last night a group of us ladies got together for a night out on the town. All of us dressed up in our fanciest, and had a progressive dinner around downtown Roseburg. We started out at Mark V (shown above) for Tapas, which means 'small portions'

This Tapa was my personal favorite. I'm a sucker for cheesy dips on bread. Yum!

Look how fancy they made these up! This one is a pork mixture on bread with some bright, ah, confetti? I learned a valuable lesson at this restaurant. If you see some bright green paste, you better make sure it's guacamole before eating a big bite. I didn't, and it was wasabi. Ayecarumba was it hot (and not all that tasty)!

Next we went to a Sushi Restaurant. Taking this picture was as close to the sushi as I got. I can't stomach seafood- not even slightly. Check it out, some of that fish still has the skin on! I felt like I was watching Fear Factor. We had the cutest little waiter, though. I wanted to put him in my purse and take him home for Matthew to see.

I didn't get pictures, but after the Sushi Restaurant, we went to Anthony's for authentic Italian desserts (gelato, cheesecake, tiramisu... yum!). Afterwards, a few of us went to Dino's, another authentic Italian restaurant for espresso and tea.

Krystal and I at the end of the night. Fun times!

Sunday,Tuesday

Proof that Spring has arrived in Roseburg, Oregon!
This is the flowering tree in our front yard.

Our new friends Will & Krystal, inside their soon to be house.
Look how cute they are all covered in sweat and paint :)

Krystal showing off her fabulous paint-covered self!

Matthew, and the 'before' deck.
We were so determined to finish, that we worked way past dark.
Good thing, too. It rained the next 2 days in a row!

Cristina and the 'after' deck.

Check out those sweet clouds!

Bertie's first (and hopefully last) taste of escargot.
It started oozing out green flourescent slime and foam!

Cleaning up the green slime nastiness...

Here is our new solar powered umbrella that will go on our deck. It has lights inside!

We are big fans of keeping it in our living room for now.
It's much too fun to play with, plus it feels like 'vacation'.

Bertie rolling her eyes at me.

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If you haven't guessed it before now, this is where I work. R&J Tours out of Willmar, MN. I love this company, and thoroughly enjoy working for them as their graphic designer and marketing director!

This one's for you, Kim!

Matthew and I live in Roseburg, Oregon now... since November of '06. Matthew is a graphic designer for a Christian media company called Inerseshen. I still work for a tour company back in Minnesota- just out of our house now :) Does that answer your question, Kim?

Today was another crazy hot day. I heard it was supposed to be around 75, but I think it was hotter than that. I was wearing a tanktop and flipflops and was still overheated. Crazy, right? It was beautiful! It's neat seeing our neighborhood come alive with the warm weather. Since we moved here in the rainy winter months, there hasn't been much going on. Now, we have little flowering trees in our yard, kids are running around the neighborhood, everyone's out mowing... it's great! Today I was out on our deck a lot, hanging up some plant bucket things... and trying to outwit the wasps that have been emerging from hibernation. Tomorrow we are going out to buy some patio furniture, and we're really hoping we can actually enjoy the high balcony off the back of our house. But how do we do that with giant stinging wasps hanging around? I've been looking up all sorts of traps, pesticides, and natural repellants on the web. It really doesn't seem like anyone knows what to do with wasps. You can't squish them b/c the others will smell it and come running. You can't swat at them, b/c they will come after you like there's no tomorrow. You can't wear perfume or bright colors... or leave food out for any length of time around them.... AND you shouldn't kill them in the first place because they are 'good' and they eat other bugs. Besides, 'they won't hurt you if you don't come after them'. What!?! How are we supposed to relax with these things flying around us with their creepy dangly legs, googly eyes, and ginormous stingers... building little condos under our balcony railings at rapid rates? If anyone has ideas, please feel free to interject. So far I've put out 2 wasp traps and 2 soda bottles with orange pop in them. They've been there 2 days and I haven't gotten a single one. Apparently it attracks them around the neighborhood enough to want to hang out and party with their friends, but not actually go into the traps.

Tomorrow we're trying out another new church with my parents. I think we have 2 or 3 more to go, before we've visited every church within a 100 mile radius. No, not really... but we have gone to a lot!

beautiful country!

So tonight we had Will and Krystal over for meatballs and they proceded to take us on a little tour of the area right around our house. Being that we moved here in winter, we haven't done a lot of exploring. Now that it's warming up a lot, we are venturing out and discovering some really neat stuff. So tonight we discovered that we have a river running right by our house. Well, pretty much. It's less than 1/4 of a mile away. I'm looking forward to a really hot day this summer, when we'll float lazily down the river on giant innertubes sipping strawberry lemonade from straws that loop around our faces like glasses.

Oh, and we currently have wasps building condominiums on our house. Get your own property, you nasty bugs... we paid a lot of money for this chunk of land!

Sa-tur-day.

Today Matthew and I spent the day at my grandparents' house. Grandma made us bean with bacon soup and grilled cheese sandwiches... and we worked on a big jigsaw puzzle. It was great.

I love you, Grandma and Grandpa!

Absolutely Monday.

Today was, well interesting to say the least. I kept hearing these crazy, loud noises in our house, which definitely put me on edge. Not long after the noises started, Bertie started barking at something, so I went to inspect. I found her by the front door and decided to humor her, even though I didn't hear anyone knock. As I opened the door, I saw a lady walking away from our front door. Bertie, of course, barked louder which made it hard for me to hear what she wanted. So I pulled the door closed just enough to where she couldn't get out, but not completely shut because I knew the door was locked on the inside. The lady asked me if our house is for sale... or if we recently bought the house. I told her we recently bought the house. As she started to walk away, Bertie jump-kicked the door shut, locking me out of the house.

I looked under every landscaping stone, thinking maybe the previous owner had one hidden. Nope. I tried breaking in through a window. I got as far as removing a screen and killing one spider before giving up on that one too. Finally, I went knocking on doors, looking for someone that might let me use their phone. Looking quite attractive in my glasses and sporting one goopy eye (I have a slight eye infection), I was just thankful that I'd changed out of my pajamas when that lady came snooping around our house. Does it seem weird to anyone else that she never knocked or rang the bell, yet she was walking away from my front door when I opened it? Anyways, I finally found someone with a phone and tracked down Matthew to come home (20 minute drive) to let me in. My knight in shining armor.