Last 6 Months Update!

In March we flew down to lovely Palm Desert and visited my Grandparents for a week. We golfed, visited an Oasis, saw wild desert flowers, ate great food, admired the most tricked out and fancy golf carts in California and visited with two of our favorite people.

Jonathan (Matt's brother) married Breezy and her kids in March at Cannon Beach, Oregon.

It was so great to have friends and family visit us this summer in wonderful little Ashland. Here is a pic of Melissa with Lotus and Naomi! We had a great time hanging out!June 24th we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. This year was my turn to decide the event (we alternate every year). I chose to raft the Rogue River. We dropped in at Ennis Riffle and rafted about 5 hours to Grave Creek. I only got stuck once, on Agness riffle in the middle of the rapid on a large rock. Poor Matt had to watch me struggle off the rock as he gracefully floated by. But I eventually made it off without bailing out of the raft! We also saw a baby black bear take a dip in the water across the river from us as we ate lunch.

Matt Graduated from Southern Oregon University in June with a business degree in Marketing and a certificate in E-Commerce and Internet Marketing. Yay. We were so happy all the parents came to show their support, and Lauren too!

I had my 28th birthday July 24th. My Grandparents hosted a lovely dinner with family. I was excited that my friend Chelsea came too! The food was great and the company even better and I had my favorite, Lemon mereingue pie! It was a wonderful evening on the river.

Before I left work at FMG, some fellow co-workers and I had a nice farewell get-together. I will miss my job and all the great people I became friends with. I am now and forever a FMG model and jewelry artist!

This last pic is me and my friend Chelsea at the FMG annual picnic. We finally got r faces painted and they look fabulous!!!

It's been awhile

So we have not posted in awhile, but we have been busy in the world of living and working.

We did recently get a chance to make Angie's famous ranch dressing and it was delicious! We added it to rice and tamales for dinner. Thanks Angie!

Matt's parents visited us a few weekends ago! We had a January Christmas. It was fun. We even busted out the new scrabble game and gave it a try.

Matt and I started a game that has been going on for about three weeks. We have less than ten letters left and it's a close game.

The holiday

Christmas Day......we had a great morning at our Grandparent's house opening gifts, eating breakfast and enjoying the family! We played games in the afternoon and Matt entertained us with some Christmas music on the piano. Then we had a nice light lunch and more game play! In the evening we went to the the jam packed movie theater to see Sherlock Holmes! It was a great holiday to share with so much family.

Christmas Eve... we had a lovely dinner at my great aunt Leta's house. We participated in the family gift exchange. It was hilarious because every time it was one of the men's turn to give their gift to their recipient they had to ask their wife which gift under the tree it was. Then we headed back to my mom's to open family gifts!

The cousin's, mom and grandpa! He was bombarded by a photo shoot but he was a good sport! It was fun!

The Charity Tree

The hours, days, and months of preparation has all led to this one day. During a cold winter day in southern Oregon, the teddy bears come to have their picnic.

The "Bear" tree before all the decorations
50 handmade bears sit waiting for placement.

What's a picnic without a little fishing? (STUPID BEAR CAUGHT ONE!!)

Tasty ceramic berry pie.

The Final picnic.

Whew. Glad that's all over. Now time for the auction!!

Thanksgiving Fun

As another year inevitably comes to a fast close, we get together with family and friends to gorge ourselves with mass quantities of delicious food and spend time reacquainting ourselves with the joys of quality time at home. The time inevitably speeds by too quickly but it is nice to have at least one day where we can just sit down and relax, if even just for the day. Here, is that day!!

Everyone is all smiles. We have not eaten yet.

Mariana's stomach grew 3 sizes this day.

Gathered around the table. Let the feasting begin!!

Thanksgiving isn't just for turkey anymore.

The Mutt.

Yummy good!!

My Artist Studio and Gallery

Recently I have been exploring the artist in myself. I took the opportunity join the Ashland Art Center Community and now I have an artist studio/gallery downtown. It's only been a week, but I have a few pieces of work finished and many more in processes. It's a place for me to have an office workspace, interact with other artists, freelance and even sell art.

First Friday is when all local galleries open to the public to exhibit art. Lauren and Nate came down to my studio/gallery on 1st Friday. It was great for them to see my new space and sign my guest book. This pic is of me and Linnie. Linnie is a local artist I share my space with. We have great chemistry together and have already become friends. She has inspired me to explore art again. I have so many ideas and blank canvas's to fill. Maybe the blizzard in our living room will become a real piece of art!

lauren and nate visit!

This weekend we were lucky that Lauren and Nate came to visit us! We love it when company comes ~ since they made the trek down, we made sure to support their favorite team, the Blazers, by watching the game and rooting them on. It worked because they won.I did make plans prior to Lauren visiting. She joined me early Saturday morning to helping my mom and her girl scout troop. We helped the community by assisting a local farmer load and deliver 19000 lbs. of pumpkins the the food bank. The pumpkins will be turned into food to feed local families. We were so silly and wore garbage bags around our feet so our pants and shoes stayed clean! We were definitely not photo shoot ready, but a took a few for the blog anyways!

Of course we walked down to the fabulous Paddington station. They are in the process of bringing out all of their Christmas items. It was so overwhelming and wonderful. Everyone female I bring to that place loves it!

We had a great time and the weather was perfect all weekend!

Halloween 2009

Halloween 2009 This year Matt and I had to dress up. We found a geisha costume and Matt an Army outfit that were perfect! We spent the afternoon watching the town parade, which seemed to consist of everyone in the Rogue Valley willing to get dressed up on a Saturday afternoon to parade around in the streets of Ashland! By all means, it was entertaining!

Our favorite costume was the mobile ZOLTAR which dispensed candy to all that wanted a wish granted. We figured it was probably a guy that had a Segway and box. Very creative.
This year's pumpkins turned out to be (Matt) Jack the pumpkin king head, and (JJ) Mike Wazowski head from Monster's Inc. We were sad that the pumpkins seemed to lack seed this year. We barely roasted a bowl's worth, sniff. Although, I was so happy that a cute little trick-or-treater knew that my pumpkin was Mike Wazowski!

Origami Saturday

Matt and I walked by the new gallery about a month ago. We thought, "Just what Ashland needs; another art gallery." Not that we don't like the art galleries, but there is like 30 of them that always seem to have the same art showings and some have even closed down because of the poor economy.

This week Anna was visiting us in Ashland and we decided to walk into town and spend the afternoon cruising the strip. On our way back to my place we stumbled upon this same art gallery that was having a grand opening this weekend with an Origami theme. To my surprise the gallery is actually different then the others. They teach classes and they rent out lots of spaces to local artisit as studios to work in and to display and sell art. There is probably 25 different artisit and kinds of art!

Anyways, Anna and I walk in and they had classes all weekend. They were anywhere from $10-$30. We were talking to the lady at the front desk and she explained that someone donated money to pay for all of the classes that weekend, so they were free to anyone. EXCELLENT! I signed up for a box class for Saturday morning, and then I signed Matt and I up for a wet folding class Saturday afternoon.

Here are a few pics of our work! I think the box class was a better class for beginners and lots of fun. The teacher was a true art teacher , eccentric, which in my art experiences meant the class would be good and I met a few really neat people. The wet folding was for more advanced origamists, (not sure if that's a word), and there were a few of us not up to par. Matt and I did learn that the beauty of wet folding is that you can shape the paper to have more character and personal style. The same folded piece of origami becomes unique for each person depending on how you form it. Even though Matt was sick the whole time we had a great time!