A weekend to remember

This past weekend James and I had tickets to see Cloud Cult in Seattle Friday night.  We arrange a few months in advance to have Sharolee watch the kids for us so we could go.

Of course the night before our big day Gwenevere came down with a nasty cough.   James stayed up most of the night helping Gwenevere and her cough.  I was a bit afraid we'd have to cancel since her cough was so bad, but Grandma assured us she'd be able to handle everything.  So once we knew she was okay with it we were okay with sticking to the plan.

Grandma Sharolee drove up Friday afternoon and picked the kids up.  The kids were so excited to spend the weekend with Grandma.  It was a bit crazy packing bags and getting everyone ready but it all came together and four happy faces drove away while James and I stayed behind.

This was our first staycation and I was so excited.

After the kids left James and I took some time to clean up the house so we could truly relax.   Then James and I decided to take a nap and try to catch up on some sleep.

After nap time, I showered, shaved my legs and painted my toes while I watched a cheesy chick flick.  James got up did some date night planning and enjoyed some relaxing alone time.

When we were all ready for our date night James took me to Pac Island Grill.  The food was amazing and we looked through old facebook pictures and reminisce about our time in Hawaii.   After eating haupia pie and Chocolate Lava Cake we made our way to to the Neptune Theatre in downtown Seattle.  The concert was awesome and the venue was intimate.  It felt like we were good friends with the band and were enjoying a fun evening hanging out with our friends (everyone who was at the concert).

funny faces at the restaurant 

Here at the Neptune Theater waiting for the concert to start

After the concert we came home on a musical high feeling young and in love.  It was awesome.

We brought our DVD playing into our bedroom and fell asleep  watching reruns of MASH.  There was other stuff that happened multiple times during our date but we won't talk about that.  Just know it was an awesome weekend.

The next morning we woke up refreshed and excited for a fun filled day of cleaning.  Yep.  That's what we planned.  We've been reading the book "The Simple Magic of Tidying Up"  and we were both very excited to have some time without the kids to do a few projects we've been wanting to do.

James made a wonderful breakfast of bacon and eggs.  As we sat eating our food we talked about how much fun it would be to drive down to Portland and watch Cloud Cult perform one more time.  It was so nice we wanted to do it twice.

James called up Grandma Sharolee to see how the kids where doing and to see if she wouldn't mind watching the kids a bit longer.  She was super supportive of the idea and even offered to let us spend the night at her place after the concert.

With excitement in the air,  James and I hurried through one of our projects.  organizing, filing and shredding all the paper in our house.

Once that was done, we packed our bags and excitedly left our staycation to go party in Portland.

The drive down to Portland was fun.  We  had uninterrupted time to hash out our dreams for the next 6 months.

When we got to Portland James took me to his old house in Southeast Portland.  We got of the car and walked around the neighborhood while James told me stories about his days living there, and the neighbors he remembered.

Then we met up with our long time good friends Michael and Sherilyn.  We attended BYU-Hawaii together over 9 years ago and it had been almost 6 years since we had last seen them.  Reuniting with such good friends felt so good.  We laughed all through dinner and then made our way to the Aladdin Theater to watch Cloud Cult once again.  We where happy to see a few familiar faces from Friday's concert there.  The show was even better the second night dancing and grooving with our friends.  We almost impulse bought (bid on) a 1000.00 painting for our bedroom or living room.  Today both James and I are a bit sad we didn't do it but we are hopeful that we will get a cloud cult painting someday.

Cloud Cult's picture of the audience.  I spy a James, Michael and Elizabeth, Sherilyn was covered by hands.  

After the concert we watched the paintings find good homes and then slowly left the theater happy and sad all at the same time.

Connie Minowe's Friday night Seattle Painting titled-Celebrating this thing we call Life

Scott West's Saturday night painting.  They paint all through the concert while the band plays and then auction the art off at the end of the night.  

Connie's art Saturday night titled Letting Go  (my favorite) 

We drove over to Michael and Sherilyn's new home and visited some more.  Sherilyn co-owns a Montessori  school  and we got to see one of the three schools opening up this fall.  We also got to meet all their pets and cuddled a baby tortoise.

Finally around midnight we said goodbye and drove back to Longview where we spent the night

This morning we woke up, visited with Grandma Sharolee and Grandpa Don for a bit and then drove back home in time to go to church.

This afternoon James has repeatedly said "I don't want this weekend to end.  I can't believe how much fun we had this weekend.  This has been an good weekend."

Yes it has.  This will be a weekend to remember.  I hope to do it again soon.

Dating advice for no one

A few days ago we where having Family Home Evening with several other families and the topic turned to dating.  These families have children dating age or close to it.  But I was surprised by what they talked about.  They talked about how scared they where that their children had no interest in dating.  They discussed how the youth in their ward don't do group dates.  That in young women the girls don't talk about crushes or what happened at the last dance.  Then one mom started talking about the mid 30s single adult guys she plays soccer with and how they don't know how to date.  This surprised me.   President Hinkley once told the youth that we must not just hang out but we most date.  I found the advice strange at the time.  I didn't want to date I just wanted to hang out but now I'm glad he gave that advice.  I want you, my children to date.  Getting practice on how to be in a relationship is very important.  It may make or break your marriage.  

I never was into dating while in high school but I still attended several dances, went on many awkward dates and lived to tell the tell.  James didn't date much either but he did have a short period of time where he was interested in one particular girl and they did stuff together one on one.

Hearing this conversation made me start to think.  How am I teaching you kids to prepare for dating?  Yes.  I should be thinking about this now.

As I've been pondering this idea of dating, a friend from high school, who was very well liked and involved in student government and so on, posted on Facebook an article about how men have a hard time getting married because too they see so many pretty faces on social media and other places that it all starts to run together and it's hard to find "the one".  The article talked about how men and women need to start viewing beauty differently.

Anyway, the long story is this friend was truly confused and asked a very sincere question about why he was still single.  Was it because he couldn't see things clearly?

This was my response.  And I wanted to share it here for you my kids to read.

Lately i've been thinking a lot about beauty. My two girls hear they are beautiful 20 times a day from different people strangers and family alike. One daughter doesn't seem bothered by the comments but my other daughter really seems bothered by the remarks. She has even gone so far as refusing to look at the camera when I try to take pictures. I think it's connected. I felt the same way as a little girl. I had older teenage brothers with friends who would comment about my looks when I was 7 and it really confused me. along with other stuff not needed to be shared. But I've had a hard time becoming comfortable with the idea of beauty. 
Long story short. I'm still trying to find my own beauty and becoming comfortable with it. In our world where we all get bombard with "what beauty should look like," no wonder both men and women are confused in the matter. For this I'm starting to think beauty isn't a look it's a feeling. And instead of trying to pinpoint what I find to be beautiful I'm trying to teach myself and my girls how to feel what is beautiful. For me this takes unplugging, and reconnecting so that I can commune with myself, with others in person and with my father in heaven. One thing is for sure, your lucky lady is out there and you will be forever grateful you waited for her. I hope you find her soon. Good luck with your search for answers. May you find the enlightenment you are searching for.

I remember while James and I where dating, James attended the temple weekly often times he went with the question "Is Elizabeth the one?" Or "Am I supposed to marry Elizabeth?" Guess what? He never got an answer. 

Yep. That's right. I knew from the beginning that Heavenly Father approved of me marrying James but James never got that same conformation. That was frustrating at times. Several times during our dating period I would get frustrated that he hadn't been completely convinced we should be dating and I would tell him time and time again if ever want to break up just let me know.

 James would honestly think about it and then decide he didn't want to break up. He was content with our relationship and we seemed to work well together. one day James re-read a conference talk that talked about moving forward when revelation isn't given. That is how we've built our marriage and I'm honestly the luckiest girl. We got married when it was convenient not because we where soulmates but because we could work through this life well together. And since then we have become soulmates.


I guess what I want my children to know is romance isn't what the movies make it out to be.  I love telling Papa and Mine's dating story.  I feel like fate brought us together and I believe 100% we are capable of having a happily ever after.  But that doesn't not mean we have a fairy tale.  We work hard to work together, we try to help each other become better and that is what romance is all about.  

So kids,  someday if you want to be romantic let me give you a few tips.

1.  Kind acts of service.  This could be done by the way you ask your date to the dance, how you help your friendship grow, how you thank your date for their thoughtfulness and actions.

2.  Be positive.  Date an array of friends,   Don't turn down a date unless you honestly feel uncomfortable in a not good way.  Dating people you didn't think you'd date will lead you to a better perspective of who you want to end up with.  I never knew James exactly the kind of man I wanted to marry until I started dating him.  He didn't fit my list of an ideal man at all, but he is exactly what I never knew I always wanted. 
 Sometime when you choose to go out on a date with someone everyone around you thinks you might be becoming a couple and then stand off, that's fine but don't let other people standing off stop you from dating others.  you can date lots of people and that's what's best until you decide you want to be serious with just one.  

3.  keep an open heart.  You never know when you will find love.  



After mission/college dating advice

1.  Date the way you want to date.  If you like biking, take your date biking,  If you like swimming take your date swimming,  if you like hiking or camping take your date hiking or camping (group dating and separate tents should be included.  But you can learn a lot about a person just by being who you are.  That's what James did for our relationship.  

2.  If you don't like what you see around you change sensory.  Grandma Thomas went to BYU and decided she wanted to marry a boy from Idaho because of what she saw,  low and behold she married an man from Idaho. 

After living in Idaho for a few years I knew I could never marry an Idaho boy.  So I made sure to pick an out of state college.  

Uncle Will went on a Mancation with several of his bacholor friends to the San Juan Islands in WA.  He loved it there and jokingly told his friends he would marry a girl from there.  A few months later he met Jenny through LDS singles and noticed she was from that area.  They lived 4 hours apart but they dated for several months before moving closer together and eventually getting married.  

So if you have dating around and you are happy with your choices it might be a good idea to look somewhere else.  Even try relocating.  New faces and new places might be the trick to find your one.  


Rebecca you may be the only person you reads this,  If you have any more advice will you please share I'll edit the post later to include any advice I think might be helpful and I would really like to hear you and Max's thoughts.  

Great Grace

Grace's friend Adelaide told her mom this about Grace

Adelaide:  I like to call Grace Great because great sounds like Grace and because Grace is my great friend.

Family getaway

Last week James sent me a text telling me he wanted to do something fun this weekend.  We discussed going to the spring fair but after re-evaluating prices we decided against the idea.  Saturday morning while lying in bed wondering what fun thing we'd do this weekend.  We decided to check the weather and see if a beach trip would be fun.  The weather was going to okay for Saturday but Sunday was suppose to be super warm.  We checked groupon and found a great deal for a hotel in Tillamook and we decided to just go for it.


Within a few hours we where packed and out the door.

The drive down to Tillamook was beautiful.  We drove through Longview and down.  The kids read books and played games while James and I held hands and chatted the whole drive down.

We stopped at a beautiful campground to use the restrooms and decided we need to rent one of their cabins sometime.  The park was practically empty and the the cabins had a wooden swing on the porch.  I can't wait to go back.

We reached Tillamook around dinner time and decided to get Tillamook ice cream before checking into the hotel.  YUMMY.

After checking into the hotel we had about an hour before sunset.  James and I wanted to go see the sunset and possibly take some family pictures but the kids where tired of being in the car and where dying to go swimming.  So James went exploring and to get some sunset pictures while the kids and I went swimming.  It was the best plan.

James brought back dinner and we ate dinner while watching UP on the disney channel.

After dinner we put the kids to bed and everyone fell asleep quickly.

The next morning we went down for breakfast and then went back to swim one last time before checking out of the hotel.

We checked out about 11 am and found a fun hike to explore.  The hike lead us to a huge waterfall.  The kids loved walking in the stream, climbing over fallen logs, and picking flowers.

When we got back to the car the kids where hungry.  It took some patients but we drove to a Light house and had a picnic.  We explored the octopus tree, tooks more pictures and the girls even got to go up into the light house with Papa.

Once tummies where full and kids where tired we got back into the car and started heading north up the coast.

But before we left Tillamook we decided to get more ice cream.  You can never have too much ice cream.

By this time the sun was hot and Gwenevere was slightly upset that we still hadn't been to play in the waves.  It took more patients but we drove towards haystack beach in search of a good splashing spot.

It was Hug Point beach that won our hearts.  Who couldn't love such a beautiful beach?!  The kids where super excited to finally be playing at the beach.  We found a cozy spot and enjoyed the rest of the evening in perfect bliss.

Hug Point Beach.  Yes we did a lot of hugging

Gwenevere's artwork

Everett helping put sunblock on Papa's back.  

and off to go play in the waves

the waves where very big

After a few waves Everett decided to work on his sand castle building skills while his big sisters played in the waves.  I helped him build his castles.  We had a lot of fun.  

running back to Papa after her water break.  

perfecting his skills

Papa and Grace

Everett ready to go play in the waves again

random time lapse pictures from our playing

Exploring around Hug Point bend and finding a waterful

coming back to our stuff because the tide was coming in and we didn't want to get stranded.  

When the sun was just right we took a break from playing to take a few family  pictures.  

Once we got back to the car there was still enough sunlight to take one more family picture.  

James set up the tripod and we call gathered together to remember this moment in our lives.  

I love that this moment was organic.  The kids where happy.  We all counted down from 10 and waited for our moment to be forever/  

After the sunset we realized we where all hungry.  So we packed up and continued into Seaside to find some dinner.  We ate at Beach Burrito and loved everything about it.  The server at the counter was super nice and friendly, the food was amazing and the frozen yogurt samples made the evening perfect.


We put PJs on the littles and then back the long drive back home.  Hand in hand.