turkey stuffer

Here's our Thanksgiving recap:

Turkey Stuffer (and house pics)

After 3 months of losing weight, swimming, running and working out, Casey got himself conditioned enough to run the "turkey Stuffer" through the streets of Thurston this morning. It's a 5K run/walk. He ran the whole way and we are SOOO proud of him! Next year, the whole family has set a goal to run it! There were almost 2,000 people running in the race. It was an amazing sight to see this massive crowd of runners race down Thurston road. We could barely pick out Casey as he ran by the first time. This picture was taken just before he crossed the finish line. He's hardly breathing heavy :) Afterwards, Lively Park Swim center let all of the families of the runners swim for free!

The kids and I made our 2nd annual turkey dinner cake. My kids don't like pie so they enjoy this cake every year. Allison made the peas, Maggie made the cups and plates.

Finally I put some pictures up of our house with new floors.


the hallway...this part took Casey the longest.

the living room. We got rid of some furniture so the room looks bigger.

The family room. My dog follows me everywhere I go so it was hard to keep her out of the pics. That's her tail on the bottom left. :)

The pros to new floors: I can see every spill, accident (mostly by my 3 year old) and dirt mark. The house feels more clean, fresh and light.

the cons: The dust! Holy cow...I didn't realize how much dirt goes into a vacuum (and stays in the carpet) I've got to dust mop these things twice a day...especially under couches. The noise is quite a bit more obvious also. Carpet provides quite a bit of sound insulation.

Frantic Finish

Christmas is just around the corner and I am beginning to think that I'm not going to get Jillian's baby book finished before then. As a result, I've been frantically completing pages. I thought I'd share some of them with you!


Do you like my cute 90's hair? Perms were all the rage back then :) Funny thing...Casey looks just the same...10 years later! (now that he weighs the same as he did 10 years ago)

Temple trip!

How time flies! On Saturday, I was privileged to go on the Youth temple trip for our Ward. A sweet sister in our Ward (Debbie Brown) volunteered to watch my 4 younger kids so that I could be in the temple with Charlotte for her first time. I can't believe she's old enough to do this! She was really nervous about everything but she did great. Casey was able to baptize a majority of the youth, including Charlotte. What a special day! Here is the picture of the entire group (not including myself as I was taking the picture) Charlotte is in the front in green.

Here's our last week. I can hardly believe there are only a few more weeks to 2010! Time just keeps marching on.

FINISHED!

THE FLOORS ARE DONE! Casey nailed in the last piece yesterday, put up the remaining baseboards, caulked them and touched up nail holes. I caught him in mid victory jump last night! We are so hapy to put our house back together now!

My Memory

In order to lay down these floors, we of course had to clean out closets. When i cleaned out my coat closet, I opened an old file cabinet that had been stored there for many years. Inside, I discovered all of my old tests and notes from the last 2 years of my college career as a Microbiologist. I thought that maybe I'd quiz myself and see how much I could remember. I was HORRIFIED to discover that I've gotten dumb! I looked over one of my Hematology finals (taken back in 1996) and I barely understood one word of it. Back then, I was getting A's on most of these exams! Now....I can't even remember what the words mean. Isn't that sad? Is it all still up there in my brain? Someday, when I am resurrected, will all that knowledge that I spent 5 years cramming into my head be restored? What was it all for if, 14 years later, I've forgotten everything? I guess if I hadn't pursued the Major that I did, I would never have received a job offer from Sacred Heart Medical center in Eugene, Oregon. (A city I had never been to by the way...) Had I not received that job offer, then I would have never met Casey, we would have never been married and the beautiful family that I have would not be here. So, if I look at it that way, those 5 years of stress and cramming were more than worth it....even if I can't remember a darn thing anymore.

you've seen most of these pics but here's my weekly recap anyway:

Randomness

One room is finished!!! It took 3 days (working a few hours a day) to get it done but here is the finished product (without furniture). We repainted the baseboards and they are as good as new. We were worried that we would have to replace them but fortunately, a little paint did the trick. Last night Casey and I worked until 11:00 tearing out the family room carpet (it was disgusting), carpet tacks, staples and baseboards. We were soooo tired at the end of the night. We hadn't eaten anything since lunch so at 11:00, we wolfed down a salad. (Healthy, I know).

Didn't Casey do a nice job? Really, I am impressed.

Before he went to meetings on Wednesday, I made him take this side picture. (He looks thrilled doesn't he?) These clothes are one size below what he usually wears. He's gone from weighing 212 to 178!! I can hardly believe it. As for me...I've been stuck bouncing between 15 and 16 lbs. lost for about 2 weeks now. I'm trying not to get frustrated. Slow, slow going but I know it will come off...it may just take me a year to do it! (Notice the fine layer of dust covering the blinds. My house is COVERED with dust! No sense cleaning it until we're done though.)

Finally, we had a little weekend getaway to Seaside, Oregon for a Oregon Student Counsel Conference. Casey had a booth at it and he invited us to share his hotel room. So, while he worked, we played! Here are a few pics.

Ice Cream at "the BUZZ"...a must see ice cream and candy shop on the main strip of Seaside. If only Grandpa Millar was with us this time...he loves ice cream!

Nothing on the planet is more gorgeous to me than the Oregon coast. Seriously...nothing. I LOVE to be out here....and so do the kids.

New floors

We'll start with our last week:

Sorry we haven't updated in a while. We have been engrossed in a new home renovation project. After almost 10 years of wear and tear, we finally pulled up our old yucky carpets. After a summer of saving for this project (and a generous donation from my parents) we went to Home Depot, picked out a new hardwood floor, some tools and finishing materials and this week, Casey started putting them down himself. It was slow at first as Casey learned how to be more efficient. Today, we've got 3/4ths of the front room done. I am amazed at how handy Casey is. He is usually the kind of guy that just wants to "hire" the job out. But, when we realized that the installation would cost us about as much as the floors themselves, he got on the internet and watched hours of tutorials on how to lay down a hardwood floor. It is taking longer this way but it's November and our business is always slow this time of year so he has the time. I just have to learn to live with the sawdust that now fills my house! We are re-doing the living room, family room, kitchen and hallways. It's a HUGE project but will be so lovely when finished!



Casey called it quits last night at about 10:00 p.m. so the neighbors could sleep. He's got a little under half the room done in these pictures. We hope to finish the whole front room tonight which means I need to go paint some baseboards! More pictures soon, I promise!

election day

Hey everyone. It's election day! Did you all vote? Hopefully you all did your civic duty. Oregon has mail in ballots so Casey and I voted two weeks ago. We (of course) voted Conservative straight through the ticket. Will it do any good here in Oregon? Probably not. Oregon is so darned liberal. But, I have my election day chili cooking and in about 2 hours, I'll start watching the election returns. Am I a political junkie? You betcha!

though you've probably seen most of these pictures, here's our last week:

trunk or treat

I just purchased this new digi kit and I was anxious to try it out so I am being really efficient with my Halloween scrapbooking. Thought I'd share:

The T-shirt that Charlotte was wearing is kind of an inside joke with the Booren's. Casey had originally planned to dress up as Jared Booren (His brother in law.) Jared decided to go as Orville Redenbacher..which is pretty much who Jared looks like when he wears a bowtie) so that option was out. Instead, he made t-shirts that said "official member of the Jared and Charlotte fan club." A bunch of us wore them to the trunk or treat. It was pretty funny and we all had a good laugh.

Just for fun, here's Orville and his bag of popcorn. (picture taken by Erin Otmann)

Finally, when describing the cake incident to my mom, her comment was, "I can't wait to see the scrapbook page you do about it!" I hadn't thought about scrabooking this horrible event but someday, we'll look back on this page and (hopefully) smile. So, here you go mom!