It's in the Mail!

Got a call from my personal photographer/brother, Spencer who flew out to OR to do some family portraits before we moved.  Turns out the envelop was from him!  (I KNEW it was boy handwriting!) The bad news is that the envelop contained the flash drive with all of the photos from his trip to OR.  :(  The good news is that he still has them on his computer and will resend them soon. (Yay!)  I've been looking forward to getting those pictures for a long time, and this set back just makes me laugh.  A sad kind of laugh.  But a laugh nonetheless.  It seems it has been nothing but a comedy of errors trying to get those pictures sent across the country.  The files are so big they are difficult to email, and there are A LOT of pictures from what I understand. He did send a couple, one of which is my new banner.  See, his work is awesome and you would be sad too if you had to wait even longer to get your hands on the files.  

So, somewhere out there is a flash drive with tons of photos of me and my family.  I can't help but wonder who's hands is it in? If anyone's?  Is it on some mail room floor? In the garbage? In my mailman's computer??  Glad we didn't shoot any boudoir photos...  (As if!)

Have you noticed how much I like my photos?  Well, today I finally downloaded all of the random photos I've taken with my phone.  They are all of the random pictures that I capture when I didn't think or know to bring my camera.  They're awesome because they capture some of my favorite and most spontaneous moments from our summer.  Here are some of my favorites:

The Ferris wheel at the Spectrum in Irvine

Henry takes good care of Alice. They are buds.

 On the Ferris wheel:

Beach sunset in southern California

Painting with pudding / pudding fight while visiting Abby and crew in Las Vegas

Oscar lost his two front teeth this summer!

The only acceptable form of a goatee:  a chocolate one.

Dr. P, treats, and So You Think You Can Dance with Abby after the kids went to bed

I thought it was hot in Vegas. That was before we came to Austin.

One day while we were living in the apartment in Irvine we came down to the pool and hot tub only to discover that someone had put soap in the hot tub!  The water looked normal until we turned on the jets.  I know it can't be good for the maintenance and all, but it was probably the most fun we had at the pool all summer.  Fun + bath for the kids = A win for mom!

Eat your heart out, Lady Gaga!

Maintenance had cleaned out the soap by the time we came back the next day.   :(

"ART SHOT"  appropriately taken as we were leaving The Getty Center in LA. I love this one. 

Alice held up her pear and said, "My pear has a BUM!"

A much-needed haircut for Joe

Alice has decorated her bedroom wall. She is very into art projects these days. Just like Waverly at her age.

And this is what you get for sending me this picture on my phone while I was at church, Abby.  

I love a good photo memory.
And a bit of blackmail.
And regular mail, when delivered properly.

I was lost, but now I'm found...

Tonight I decided to clean out a bag that had been sitting in the corner of my bedroom since we arrived in Irvine.  It was a bag that had come home with Taylor when he surprised me by getting my minivan detailed after our long drive here.

( I must insert here that I have been driving the van for almost 8 years and it has never been detailed!  You can just imagine what it looked like.  And smelled like.  I mean, I've done my best to vacuum out the inevitable crud that accumulates while chauffeuring 5 kids around.  But it looked shiny-new... almost!  Amazing! I feel a little embarrassed to admit that it is one of the best gifts anyone has ever given me.  And I am proud to tell you that I have kept it just as clean, even after a road trip to Las Vegas and back.... which I promise I will still write about.  I am the queen of broken promises these days.  Sad to say.  But back to the minivan, because apparently that is the most happiest, exciting thing that has happened to me in a while...  I don't let the kids eat in the car anymore. I honestly can't remember why I am on this tangent. Hold on.  Let me think...  )

Oh, yah. I found my camera! Apparently it was somewhere in the car, which amazes me.  Because I had looked there several times for it!  It is just a little bit sticky, so I can only assume it was found under several layers of kid crud.  But I have it back! And what is most exciting is that I have the pictures that I took the last few weeks before we moved!  It is like a little photo time capsule.  I had forgotten what exactly was on the memory card.  Now I know.  And I am so happy I have these not-so-long-lost pictures.  Seeing pictures of myself and my family in the cottage and in Sherwood almost took my breath away.  There is nothing like the feelings of familiarity and "home" that we felt there, and seeing these pictures brought back some pangs to my heart that I felt as we were preparing to leave.  I don't know if these photos will have the same affect on anyone else.  Some of the photos were taken by Waverly and I didn't know they were there at all.  Like this one of the view I saw several times a day as we came and went about our daily routine. This is the long walk from the bus stop to the cottage.  She always said she hated it. But deep down, I think she loved it as much as I did. Thanks for capturing this, Waverly!

Oh my goodness. I already miss all of that green!  There is nothing like it anywhere that I've seen!

And these next photos, oh they just about break my heart.  They remind me of when I moved in the middle of middle school. I took so many pictures just like these!  It makes me feel horrible all over again for making her leave her school and her sweet friends.

Forget it. I was not nearly as cute at that age as Waverly is.  And she is handling this move with way more grace than I did.

This next picture was taken at the last book club night that I attended.  I was a part of that group for 8 years.  People came and went, but the food was always good, the conversation was always delightful, and the ladies were some of the most outstanding women I have had the pleasure to call my friends.  I hate that I only took a picture of the food that night.  As delicious as it was (and it WAS), I am kicking myself for not capturing the faces of those wonderful women all sitting on the couches and gabbing it up.

It amazes me how different Joe looks already from these next pictures. It was only two months ago!  Here he is at my favorite park of all time. I miss it so.

I have so few of these pictures!  My brother, Spencer of Oscarson Photography came to visit in June.  And thank heavens he brought his camera and good eye! He took some great shots which I hope to share soon.  I love the candids I took of him with my kids.

This is my favorite one of all!  My youngest brother with my youngest son:

We visited the Japanese gardens in Portland with Spencer. Gorgeous. Simply serene. So naturally, we brought along our two rowdiest kids.

Did I ever write about my amazing birthday party? Taylor surprised me!  It was a genuine, bonafide surprise party!  He really pulled it off, and I felt so loved!  It was at the Kennedy School in Portland: an amazing place that deserves its own gigantic post. Which will probably never happen. It is a school that was built in 1914 that has been converted into an enormous restaurant/hotel/bar/party place.  It is amazing, but so difficult to describe. Pictures do it best, but unfortunately I don't have very many.

The surprise party was in one of the old classrooms.  Here I am reenacting my surprised face.  :)

Taylor also surprised me by having us stay the night in one of the hotel rooms converted from an old school room. So weird and SO COOL.

Here is a random shot Waverly took of me.  I was a day late returning something to the library and we were late getting to some other place when I finally dropped it off.  So very much the story of my life.  This picture captures the "crazy" very well. And it captures Sherwood's fun blue light posts.  :)

Eventually Spencer had to go home.  Sad.  What? You think we look alike?

Oh yes. And I turned 35.  This is a self portrait captured on the big day.  I think it captures this time in my life rather well: Me in my minivan as I'm waiting at the bank drive thru.

I love running errands with Waverly.  She's just fun.

So here it is really, super late and I can't remember if this post had a point at all, other than to show the pictures I thought were forever lost with my camera.  If you hang on til the very end, you should be congratulated.  And I'm sorry.  But I am grateful you cared enough to stick around.  But I am mostly sorry.  It was rather self-indulgent.  But wait. This is my blog where the very point is to be self-indulgent. It is about me and my life.  And these days it is changing so quickly.  I miss my old life. My friends.  Having a church calling. Well, kind of.  My feelings and emotions and insides are all a big, swirly, up-and-down mess these days.  It is heart-wrenching and comforting to look at these pictures.

And that is why I blog.


P.S. A great big, huge, ginormous THANK YOU to my thoughtful sister-in-law who sent me a camera she wasn't using when I thought my camera was gone forever.  I love you tons!

I'm in love

I swear to you that this photo has not been "doctored" or edited in any way.  I took it out the passenger side of the minivan as we were speeding down 84 back to Portland after a little day trip to see Multnomah Falls in The Gorge.  An artist could not even conceive of such beautiful clouds.  Is it just me? I'm in love with these clouds.  And with a few other things in Oregon... 

 I am kicking myself for not going to all of these neat places to explore sooner.  There are several waterfalls to hike and explore in The Gorge. Why have we only been to one in the eight years we have lived here? Because you don't appreciate what you have until its gone.

 OK, so my kids don't all look as thrilled to be there I as do.  That's just par for the course these days. My kids are moody and just darn grumpy.  I'm blaming it on the big life change that is just around the corner.  Have I mentioned we are moving this Saturday?  I can't believe it is really happening.

 A fun day with the family would not be complete without a self portrait featuring the underside of my nose.

And this was one of those random shots that you ask a stranger to take in the spur of the moment.  Looks like Christmas card material to me.  It may be coming to a mailbox near you soon.  OK, not so soon. 

 Yes, so we're moving.  But we still own our house here that is being rented out.  One more thing it finally took us eight years to do:  "Landscape" the outside of our fence. (Our neighbors are grateful, I'm sure.)  I use quotation marks around "landscape" because I am not 100% certain bare bark dust constitutes "landscaping".  All we know is that it looks better than the weeds.  Goodbye hill that we never really knew what to do with, and we're not going to start worrying too much about you now... I guess there are a few things I won't miss after all.  Like road closures in our little town.  Orange signs that say "detour" are just part of the scenery.

 OK so this is a little random to throw in here.  But I am really going to miss our dentist!!  He is one of Taylor's dearest friends.  He's the guy that calls at 9:30 at night and says, "Hey, Taylor! Let's go see a movie!"  My kids LOVE going to the dentist because of him and his friendly staff.  I promise this is not a paid advertisement.  But they are seriously the nicest group of people that have every occupied the same office space!  We've been squeezing in appointments for all of us before we leave so we don't have to worry about finding a dentist right away.  I feel like I've been living in his office for the last week.  There are definitely worse places to hang out.  :)  He and his wife have been our dear friends from the very beginning of our time here.  I have been in several preschool co-ops with her and their kids.  We have a happy, comfortable relationship that is one in a million.  Come to think of it... I have a lot of friends here like that.

 I love this park.  It simply has the most beautiful trees and views of any park I've ever seen.  I haven't been crying a lot about moving, but I did find myself sitting in a park here by myself as I watched my kids play so happily in our comfortable, calm, happy, safe community and I bawled.  Just bawled.

 The city.  Ahhh, what a great place.  And what a fun vibe.  I'm gonna miss you, too.

 You are quirky, and artsy, and you make me laugh.  You are not too big and not too small.

 You are juuuuuust right.

 You are gorgeous.  You are the perfect backdrop for a fun snapshot.  When the sun shines in Portland the whole city comes alive and is happy, happy, happy. (Except maybe for my grumpy kids.)

Will you miss me, too?

 I get to take this guy with me wherever I go, and that is all that really matters.  Who knows.  Maybe in a few years we'll be in love all over again with a new city.  When it comes to cities, I say it is OK to have multiple lovers.  ;)