Crazy Love Gamble-Style

 It has been raining and stormy all weekend.  We've pretty much all just stayed in our jammies the whole wekend, why not?   John's been busy cleaning up the outdoors before the storm hit and I've been making all sorts of food with the last of our garden bounty.  These girls have been entertaining us the whole time, love it!!  It's impressive how well they play together! Hope everyone had a great weekend!! : )

 Yesterday John took a little break from work to enjoy the ONE DAY of good weather we were due to have.  It was great!  We got to walk to go pick up Ava together and then off to the park to play.  We went on a nice walk after the park too.  I just love sunny Fall days.  Last night was also Back to School night, which was pretty lame but I think Ava likes to have us go there and hang out in her class none the less.  : )  Happy Weekend Everyone!

We've been having a busy week, we had 3 sets of visitors on Tuesday, first coffee with one of my favorite friends, Rachel.  Norah is so funny, she says "Oh Rachel is coming over!  Hers my friend!" So sweet.  After that John & Judy stopped by to visit with the girls and give them some fun Halloween goodies.  They each got a little coffin that cackles a spooky laugh when you open it and an eye ball ring that changes colors, they adore both items.  They don't really know what a coffin is, Ava suggested it would make a good jewelry box.  Her latest plan is to fill it with candy and use it to hand out treats to the trick-or-treaters in a scary fashion on Halloween. Next Ashlie & her kiddos came to play, so fun!!  Love that family! Ava is fascinated with the star inside apples, now she always insists I cut them in half this way, pretty cool since I used to spend a lot more time cutting them up for her.  : ) I spent yesterday get...

 Little Alayah came for the day to play while her mommy & daddy packed up and moved, they are headed downtown so Chris can be closer to OHSU, where he attends medical school.   The girls had so much fun together, as they always do!  I may or may not have had to have a talk with Ava about how some day she will value these photos of her childhood with Alayah, they will be special to her and she will be glad she has them, so SMILE DAMN IT.   Thankfully she agreed. : ) You never have to convince these two, they are both total hams!   They both loved taking Ava to school, Alayah was especially excited about this idea of going to school, when we got there she saw a big yellow school bus and ran to try to climb in it! : )  Well hello there! Alayah was pretty sure she didn't want to take a nap so I took her on a run with me and 3 seconds later, she was out!   Love our little Alayah so much!...

Another great weekend has come to pass. Friday, although for a very sad occasion, I got to go spend some time with my friend Becca and her family.  I needed a little fun after that, and these girls didn't disappoint!  I spent the evening with my good friends Kahli & Alma, it was great! Saturday, John and I were both super excited because Linda wanted to do a slumber party with Ava and Norah!  Which of course means date night for us!!   How cool is that that she ASKS US to borrow our kids???  We feel so blessed and lucky to have such a wonderful auntie for our kids.  And Norah and Ava both were totally crazy excited to go and be there, they would never leave if it was up to them... John and I went out to dinner at the Harborside which was perfect because we still had a gift card left over from many moons ago (Thanks Dad!!).  We had the most amazing dinner, John had the blackened chicken fettuccine and I had this wonderful salmon th...

She's kinda cute.

 Ava is a little under the weather but it hasn't stopped her from wanting to go to school.  I've just been having her rest all day then go & come home and rest some more.  She doesn't have a fever or anything so I guess that's what you are supposed to do.  Hopefully she will be back to her happy, healthy self shortly.  Norah LOVES taking her to school.  We walk there every day and then sit and wait until the teacher comes and leads them into the class room.  Norah spends that time balancing on beams, running around, playing, jumping in and out of line, jumping down from the wall to the bench and just hamming it up all over the place.  As cute as she is, I can see the look of relief in the teachers eyes that they don't quite have to deal with her yet, that that level of energy will be departing soon and coming home with me.   Ava just seems so grown up these days!!  While she is at school I've been working ...

Love this girl.

 For my birthday (back in July) John promised to take me to hike Saddle Mountain followed by an overnight trip to Manzanita, our favorite little beach town.  We've really been looking forward to this.  We both love having some fun thing planned on the horizon to look forward to, I guess it's time to figure out what the next one is... ; )  The hike is 5.2 mile out and back, with a pretty steep incline.  I've done it before, forever ago and I remember struggling.   Not this time though!  It really makes me appreciate the hard work I've put into being in good shape, hiking it this time was totally cake.  I love this shot!  It was so cool to be up above the clouds.  The people are tiny in this photo, but it was really cool how you could look up the mountain and see several sets of people zig-zagging up towards the top. So pretty!  We made it!!  Up at the top we sat a...