Happy/merry Memorial Day! My family and I spent the first half of our day visiting my great-grandparents' graves in Albany, Oregon. It was something we had never done before... I hadn't been back to that cemetery since we burried my great-grandmother there in 2001 but I'm really glad that we went. There were so many people there! What an amazing holiday that we can all take a day to honor those who have passed on and those who have served our country. The hour car ride there was filled with stories from my grandpa about his parents and about the Korean war that he served in. I sure love that man, and his stories were amazing.

We are making progress here people! All the hardwood floors are in... notice the color of our floors compared to the new flooring they put in. It's all the same kind of wood. Our floors are just well loved :) Bo is loving having a floor to walk on again. The picture of the stairs cracks me up everytime. And the last picture is of the new laundry room with tile and a few cabinets that we moved from the kitchen into there. They'll eventually be painted white to match the cabinets in the kitchen. It's all going to be lovely! My uncle's doing a fantastic job. Hooray for talented family members!

In other news, I went up to Outdoor School for a day this week. For those of you not from Oregon, outdoor school is one week where all 6th graders get to have school outdoors and the juniors and seniors are their counselors. I made a tye-dye shirt and a few bracelets. Awesome.

Day one is over and this is what we have to show for it. Wow. There is a serious echo in the house now... which, by the way, I am enjoying by myself since my family decided to go to outdoor school and leave me here. I suppose someone has to hold down the fort. I spent most of the day out at my grandparents house to stay out of the way and this is what I came home to. I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!

Meet: the Droid Eris from Verizon

Lindsey and I got this phone a few month ago and they're pretty great. All touch screen, lots of aps and other things. Mostly I just enjoyed the upgrade from the ancient flip phones we had before. But now, I've been having some trouble with my phone. It won't download picture texts for some reason and won't let me share videos. Everything else works just fine but it's bugging me. Technology is such a messy thing and definitely one I don't completely understand.

In other news, it's raining in Oregon. Of course :)

Oh, AND, the house prep continues. My uncle is the contractor doing the remodel so he promises to get everything done in a month but we'll see. He brought over a bunch of tile today for the countertops and floors. I'm just not very excited about the lack of a kitchen/living room for a whole month.

Well, it seems my mother enjoys chaos because that is the state of our current home. And if any of you know my mother, you know it's actually quite the opposite. We are remodeling the entire downstairs. That's right. My mother has gone cray. The to-do list includes: all flooring, kitchen cabinents, new appliances, new laundry room, etc. I will periodically be posting photos of how things are coming but hopefully (fingers crossed) everything won't take more than about a month or so. Remember I said hopefully. In preparation, we are clearing out everything from the downstairs. All the cupboards have to be emptied, all the food has to be eaten, all the furniture has to be moved.... everything. It looks like we're moving.

Wow.

Below are pictures instead of words for an epic beach trip with my epic family. Enjoy :)

My family!

   Starfish :)

One time we found a bear on the beachA photo after a friendly game of beach football. It was kids vs. adults.... adults won, but only because they're old and we felt bad. Kidding. I'm a sore loser.

One time I had a blog that I faithfully wrote on, used to update my life and I think we all enjoyed our time together. For a reason I'm not aware of, we had a small/large falling out. And I have missed it.

I'm still here.

It appears, now, I will be in and out of the blogsphere but mostly here :) And this is what I look like in case you forgot... minus the hood. That's not permanent.