Fun in Mt. Angel

So we headed south to Mount Angel to do some German-ey things. We ate at the Glockenspiel, which is this great German restaurant actually run by a family friend. Grams treated us, and we were even there for the big Glockenspiel extravaganza (it goes off everyday at 4pm and 7pm). My favorite part was the boy and girl in laderhosen swinging out an singing "Edelweiss." Good stuff.

After dinner, we headed up to the Mount Angel Abbey to check out their incredible library that was set up on the hill. The architecture was incredible, but sadly, we couldn't go in because they were closed (despite the website saying they were open... i guess technology updates aren't the most pressing of things for monastic life). We did see three Benedictine Monks roaming through the campus. pretty cool.

Then, it was too late to hit up the Tulip Festival which was also there in Mt. Angel, so Gram and I headed back the next day with Audrey. It's free on weekdays, so it was fun to cruise around. Not all of the tulips will be in full bloom for another two weeks, but there were still some. Enjoy these pics!

Hi Auntie Cheryl!

Grams thought we needed a picture of Audrey wearing her, "My Aunt Loves Me" bib so Auntie Cheryl can see. Enjoy!

puppy love

Grandma here for Easter!

We had about 16 people over for Easter Sunday lunch. Audrey looked stunning in her green and blue polka-dotted dress. Grandma loved cuddling with her during her visit (she's here on her spring break for about 4 days), but I think I had the best cuddle-session. We were exhausted.

Don't cry over spilt cake

So for Rob's birthday, Abigail, Shatrine, Derek, Kevin, Lisa and myself went to Vancouver to this place called "Cinetopia." It's an upscale movie theater with a nice restaurant attached. The unique thing about it was they had this wine-tasting room where they have over 100 bottles of wine from all over the world, connected to this system where you can select the wine you want to sample, and it dispenses an ounce for you to sample. Sounds a little 1984, but it was pretty cool. We found this amazing Riesling, too, so we'll see if we can track down a bottle.

Well, before the dinner part, Abigail ordered a cake from this amazing bakery in Portland; Jaciva's. Since I was in Portland picking up my mom from the airport, I swung in to pick up the cake. Sadly, in my attempt to coral Audrey and the cake, we had a slight casualty. it made for a fun story, though, and the once master-piece came out looking pretty pathetic when the waiter brought it out. Thought I'd share the pictures.

Loving the bath...

So I'm going to first preface this post by saying that I am extremely sensitive about posting explicit photos of my daughter on the internet, however, I think these are discrete, and it was too funny to pass up.

We were bathing her before her big night out with the girls (Shatrine went to meet up with Kristy, Shannon, and Shannon's baby boy Peyton, who's only 6 weeks older than Audrey). Well, when I stood her up to wash her back, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and just started cracking up. It was pretty funny, so we thought we'd share.

More Crocheting...

We had a big family to-do at the house this weekend to celebrate Rob's Birthday and cousin Rachel. Too bad Rob had to miss his own party because he was getting over a flu-ey sorethroaty bug (not sure if I described that correctly, but you get the idea). Anyways, I ended up teaching Shatrine's little cousin, Pheobe (she's in 5th grade), how to crochet. So this little bell-hat was one of the outcomes of that session. How cute are my two girls!?!

spring is in the air

I just love flowers and now I see that Audrey does too. She tried to grab the daffodil out of my hand, so here is the action shot. Too cute.

Hello Opa!

So I finally broke down and got a new laptop. My Toshiba Satellite has served me well over the last 6 years, but with only 30GB on the harddrive (that was really big back then), and the motherboard starting to get finnicky, it was time to upgrade. So Audrey helped me test out the onboard webcam.

Audrey Photo Shoot

So we're in the process of sending out some announcements for Audrey (but let's be honest...Shatrine is in the process... but you all knew she is the brains and the talent behind it anyways).

Well, these are some of the pictures that didn't make the final cut, but they're too cute to not let you all see, so here goes:

good times

Glenn, Audrey and I got to see our good friends Ryan & Holly Sharp this last week. They were performing in this cool little place in downtown Portland (to find out more read Glenn's post about The Cobalt Season). A bonus for us was that another one of Glenn's friends was there too! So here are some quick snaps.