Seven years ago today, Arizona was getting over the worst flood it had ever had.  Okay, I MIGHT be exaggerating.  All I know is that it was enough rain to make me change the venue of my wedding the DAY BEFORE MY WEDDING. I'm a pretty laid back lady... it takes a lot to unnerve me... but this was totally unacceptable.  In the end, of course, the place of the ceremony doesn't matter as much as what it's all about.  Do I still get kinda mad when it rains on or around my anniversary? Yes. Don't get me wrong, I love it when it rains just not right around now.


We have enjoyed many years of laughter and love together.  We've been to lots of new places together. We've brought two beautiful children into this world together.  I get to hang out with Ryan all the time and I wouldn't ask for it any other way.  To this day, he makes me laugh until I tear up and it is my mission in life to do the same to him.  I am happier than I ever thought I could be. 


So, three years from now when we are celebrating our 10th anniversary... I expect you all to be in my parents' backyard with bells on... that's right, we're doing it again. If it rains, then we will all be dancing in bare feet and getting wet. It'll be epic. It will mostly just be a HUGE party, but I'm definitely wearing my wedding dress. I'll even get it cleaned for the occasion. PS, let's hope Mom and Dad are copacetic with these plans!

I cannot believe that it has already been a year since we moved to Portland.  We love it here and still speak often about how happy we are that we made the decision to move.  It does make our time in Arizona extra special as we don't get there nearly as often as we'd like to.  We were able to make a quick trip down over St. Patrick's Day.  We hadn't seen the family since Thanksgiving. Some of Ryan's family made a trip up to visit which made it even better.

St. Patrick's Day was a blast, as always.  My Dad was playing this year so after the first part of the day at the Dubliner, we headed down to a bar in North Phoenix.  It is so cool to watch him do something he really loves.  He and the band played mostly Irish music (obviously, it WAS St. Patrick's Day!).  I got to 'win' some free St. Patrick's Day flair and the day is never complete until I do so.  I have a hat... I don't know if you all know this, it's a green hat. I won it MANY years ago at a bar in Vegas.  I wear the hat every year and every year, I get compliments.  I will never part with this hat... unless I find an exact replica. Two years ago, a girl offered me $100 to buy the hat, I said 'thanks but no thanks', she said, 'it's your loss' and I said, 'nay, I believe the loss is yours'.  The year before that, the hat came in handy when I 'borrowed' some St. Patty's Day decorations from an Irish bar in Vegas that could neither be called A) Irish or B) a bar.  They were serving NO Irish beer and were playing NO Irish music; the only thing they had were some sad looking decorations.  My hat happens to have a hole in the top, it's the perfect place to put things if you don't have a purse... it was also the perfect location for some decorations that I use in my home to this day.  St. Patrick's Day is a fantastic holiday.

We had a great time with Auntie and Uncs and got some quality time in with Josh and Brody. Brody and Cooper do SUCH a good job of tiring each other out. I can't wait to see them together again.

We also got to have Friday Night Party Night.  The clan is ALOT bigger now with 6 kids running around. It's also a lot more work for the big kids who now call themselves parents to the little ones, have I lost you yet?  Joshua, Dad to Brody; Colette and Jake, parents to Waylon and Toni; Courtney and Jon, parents to Connor; and us, parents to Cooper and Olivia.  Back in the day when it was just Josh and me and Courtney and Colette, it was so much easier!!! Now, when we try to take pictures of the group... we get something like this.  I don't know why we can't get 6 kids under the age of 5 to sit still for us to take 100 pictures of them... weird.  Our time together is never long enough!

It was so great to visit everybody and it was also great to be home, back in Portland.

Here are some pictures from the trip!

~Ahna

Some of you may have heard about a little movie called... GOONIES. Yeah, it was a little known production out of Astoria, OR back in the 80's.  A couple small stars that were in it, Mikey (Sean Astin), Brandon (Josh Brolin), and also, Sloth.  When my cousin Steven was in town last weekend we drove out to the coast.  We started at Canon Beach, it was REALLY windy there though so it didn't last long.  We did stop at a toy store where Cooper got to play with this; a track not unlike the one he has at home, but that's beside the point.  On our way to Astoria, Cooper looked like this.  He was not happy that we took him away from the toy store!  We got to Astoria in time for lunch, which was at a Brewery.  On our way out of town, we were discussing the fact that Goonies was filmed in Astoria. At first I thought this maybe wasn't a big deal, but then I decided how it would be AWESOME to see the house that Goonies built.  We pondered the best way to find the house when I gave the boys this nugget of information, 'Google it.'  Sure enough, Google had the answer; it had the exact address actually.  So away we went! About 5 minutes later we pulled up to this.  Right when I got out of the car to run up the hill and take pictures the mailman was delivering mail.  He said 'hello' as all strangers seem to do in this area and I said, 'How exciting, the Goonies house, huh!!!!?!?!'  Ryan told me later that as he walked away from me, he was shaking his head in that 'what a crazy lady' way.  On our way out of town, we also stopped by the jail (in the beginning of the movie, one of the bad guys gets broken out of the slammer), and the museum where Mikey's Dad worked.  


It was certainly the highlight of my weekend (besides just my cousin being there with us!!).  I made sure we completed the day by renting the movie and reminiscing.  I proceeded to tell everyone I saw on Monday about it and how exciting it was.  The town of Astoria is pretty cool too with a huge bridge and fun roads.  


It turns out one of my favorite phrases comes from Sloth in that movie, 'HEY YOU GUYS!!!!!!' It was epic.  


Cooper got into the 'holiday' spirit by making Valentine's Day cards,  heart cookies, and chocolate covered strawberries or 'strawber-erries' as Cooper now calls them.  We finished up our weekend in a neighborhood nearby with a lunch at a place called 'The Grilled Cheese Grill'.  Delicious food, although, what grilled cheese sandwich isn't??  


Pictures!


~Ahna