Portland Playtime

Fun in Portland!  We actually stayed with Kris's aunt and her family in Vancouver, about 30 minutes north, we had a wonderful time, and Marin loved being able to play with her (2nd?1st?) cousins!

Checcking out the Farmers Market, SO AWESOME!  I had to resist the urge to buy, well, everything!  I did bring home some habenero cherry jelly, raspberry honey and spinach pasta.  While we were there, we had the most DELICIOUS tamales....holy smokes....where have those tasty Latin treats been all my life?!  I am SO making those in the near future!

Marin chewing on a totally organic and all red in the middle strawberry, yum!

A super fun park, they even had stuff the adults could monkey around on, nice!

Hey my fans, what's up?

This little seat twirled around and was sitting on an angle, I even took a few rides, WAY fun.

The rose test garden, so pretty!  Marin was too tired to enjoy it's slendor, sadly.

Grumpy Marin and mama....

Oh, the beach....I love the beach, and so did Marin.  She was a little nervous about that freaky sand and it's wierd texture (only for her!), but totally got into the waves.

Marin mid-jump.

Playing in the waves with mama.

Daddy is so fun, he always gets big smiles.

SO CUTE!  I LOVE this pic!

At the ZOO!  Marin loved the zoo :)

Playing peekaboo with the elephant.

Monkeys?

Look at the Zebra daddy!

And, the zebra, Ha!

We had so much fun, but are once again glad to be home in our own beds and hoping to get back to the routine.  Work tomorrow, then a day off to prep for Saturday which is....KRIS'S GRADUATION!!!!  My hubby is graduating with his MBA and I am SOOOOO proud of him!  What a blessed journey that we are glad to be done with.  So much harad work, late nights, frustrated days and tears have gone into this moment, and my hubby has persevered through it all, good job babe, I LOVE YOU :)

So....we will be having a small gathering on Saturday at one of aour favorite restaurants, then home for cake and games.  I had made invitations to send...and was so busy...I couldn't send them!  Good thing too, I had typed up the wrong information!  Ahh well ;)

Oh, What a Day

Let me be so sadly honest....I am not patient.  I have never been blessed with the godly virtue, and have managed to sneak away from my time with parenthood with a few teeny-tiny jewels of patience left in my pocket....the rest must have fallen out through the holes along the way.  I wake up in the morning with a renewed and freshly polished awareness to smile and kiss and deep-breathe all my worries that the day my bring.....away.  And when nap time finally arrives....my precious patience jewel is dirty and disgusting....buried beneath clenched teeth, bitten cheeks (weird, i know), and rolling eyes.  I lay my sweet girl to sleep and sigh in shame at my disgraceful display of patient mothering, and hope that in the next hour and a half, I will be able to uncover my precious jewel again and finish off my day a little better.  Sadly, when nap time is cut short, mommy has not yet found her patience.  I scramble inside myself to uncover my precious little gem as I work my way up the stairs to my yelling child....WHERE IS MY PATIENCE????  I open the door with a stone face and work my way to the curtains, "Is there no one to help me?  Think of the child?!".  I realize, help is always there, I just have to ask for it.  I have brushes and water and shovels to find and clean my tiny precious patience gem, I only have to ask for them.  Lord, I may have only been blessed with the tiniest amount of patience known to man, but please help me find it.....and use it, please?

Li'l Cheddar Meat Loaves

Li'l Cheddar Meat Loaves.  Such a great take on an original favorite...if you don't like meat loaf, try this, it will change you rmind, learn how to make it HERE.

Pictures A' Plenty!

I have finally gotten myself around to getting a few things done around here....Phew!  I feel like I haven't been able to catch my breath since we got back from Europe and I have just been scrambling to keep my head above water! 

Today will be a nice day though.  Just my little Marin and me, go to the gym, lunch, nap, grocery shopping, dinner, DONE :)  I like those days! 

What has the Lyman family been up to you ask?  Haha, not too much I suppose.  Friday night we packed up to go camping, and believe it or not, landed the EXACT same camping lot we stayed in 18 months ago when Marin was just 6 or 8 weeks old!  CRAZY!  I started a fire and got to work with our tin foil dinners, and Kris putting up the tent.....but the wind had other plans.  It blew so hard, Kris had to lay on the tent to keep it from blowing away!  And Marin and I had to huddle with each other to keep the sand from blasting our faces and eyeballs.  Not the best experience....but, we ate our crunchy dinner. packed up and went home to get out of the wind.

Saturday was a little more successful.  We all slept in and went up to Mesquite to go swimming!  Marin was so excited the whole time, and we set one foot in the pool and realized....it was NOT a heated pool!  That makes such a difference I guess, it was FREEZING!  We did our swimming in the hot tub, and Kris and I took turns sunbathing....it's really sad how pale we are for living in the sunniest place in the US.....

And......I FINALLY remembered to buy bottled water for our 72 Hour Kit!  Yay!  It's about freaking time, no?  I packed that up and we are on our way to being done!  GO TEAM!



I can barely believe it myself, but Kris will be graduating in less than 2 weeks!  I have no word to bold-a-cize that expresses my excitement in this matter.  And I can't tell you all how proud I am of my hubby.  He has not only worked hard to get his homework done, he has worked hard to get it done despite having a frustrated wife (I don't share well) and irresistible little baby girl to play with.  Good Job Babe!

Wednesday we embark on another journey....a trip to Portland!  Kris's aunt and her family live there and we will be staying there and enjoying all that Portland has to offer....I can't wait! 

Picture Time!  (the very top is the best piggy tail pic ever....she has such cute piggy tails!)

And, my bottled water.  I have found that it works well to pack everything in diaper boxes, it keeps things so well organized.

Want to learn how to make this?  Chicken Oriental Salad, a family favorite is a perfect, light and filling summer dish...click HERE!

Marin assisted me in the kitchen as I made a thank-you-cheesecake for a friend of Kris's.  No WAY she would let me rinse off the beater without getting ahold of it first.

Mmmmmm, it's pretty good, mom!

And take a gander at my hubby's marshmallows!  He is just so talented.  I will have to do a post on how to make them, because they are WORTH it!  And they roast....beautifully, I have never had a creamier marshmallow in my life!

Slicing them up!

Marin having taste of toasted marshmallow.

Yum-O!

Marshmallow Job

I do enjoy camping, it's a great way to get away without getting too far away.  Tomorrow night we are heading out for a one night camping trip just to.....get away, together!  My husband has a pre-camping job, though.  His job is the official Lyman-family-marshmallow-maker....for camping trips, and he is great at it!  Yes, my hubby makes marshmallows, it is just too cute :)  So, hopefully tomorrow I will be able to snap some pictures of our rapidly growing little monkey girl, she is getting so big and growing so fast, I can hardly keep up with her.  It has been far too long since I have had some good Marin pictures up, so...soon my friends!

Check out the second batch of pictures in my Paris journal, the conclusion of your pictorial journey!  I have a few more journal entries to log in, so stay tuned for those....enjoy!

Finally Home!

Marin and I are finally home!  What a long journey, we are glad to be home and sleeping in our own beds.  Marin did beautifully on our flight home from Newark...I was glad, I sat next to a very tired looking couple who, when Marin and I took our seats on the plane, muttered something under their breath to one another and immediately popped some pills.  Mmmm, what a relief to not be living out of a suitcase anymore, too!

I have had such little opportunity to blog or do ANYTHING really since we have been home.  We got in Wednesday night, and I worked Thursday and Friday, and I reeeeeally struggled those days, I flopped into bed as soon as I got home!  Saturday was our first day together as a family and we took advantage of that!  We all slept in and had a nice breakfast, and headed out for a hike with the dog...can I say, it is really starting to get hot in Las Vegas now!  I had some last minute shopping to do, so Kris stayed home and did homework while Marin napped, and I came home and cooked dinner for ourselves, and two other families in just over and hour (with my hubby's help!).  Then I started in on picking up and sorting through mail and my YW lesson.  Phew, I am STILL not unpacked yet! 

Our next travel opportunity is coming up soon, we will all be heading for Portland in a few weeks!  Kris has an aunt and her family that live there, so we will be staying with them and checking out all that Portland has to offer.  I am very excited, our summer is just going to be full of fun things!

And FINALLY!  Check out the Paris Journal, I have uploaded my first entry and some pictures for you all to see, I will be loading my entries one at a time, so keep checking!

Halfway Home

I can barely believe that Europe is already done and over and 4,000 miles away again.  What a trip!  We had an incredible time and saw so many things, I wish I could remember every minute.  Sunday our flight from Oslo was delayed, but sadly, they boarded the flight early anyway, so we sat on a stationary aircraft for an an hour and a half awaiting takeoff.  We finally took off and our flight was redirected around Iceland to avoid the volcanic ash, which tacked another hour and a half onto our flight, so the 7 1/2 hour flight took 10 hours to complete!  Needless to say, I was climbing the WALLS!  Yuck, I have such a hard time getting through sacrament meeting, so 10 hours on plane next to the window was torture for me.  I need to wear one of those signs that says: "Does not travel well", as an advisory to innocent bystander....but, the trip is, well, halfway over.  We made it to Newark just in time to miss our connecting flight to Las Vegas.  It wasn't just us though, 2 other flights missed a ton of their connecting flights also.  After we went through customs, we made our way to the growing line in front of Customer Service to wait our turn, and by the time we made it to the front of the line, it had grown by about 250 to 300 people!  Glad we made it when we did!  Since I wasn't working until Thursday, my hubby suggested I just reschedule my return flight for later in the week and spend some time with my family...I hesitated knowing Marin would want to go back with daddy, but I finally agreed and here I sit in New York until Wednesday evening.  I am anxious to get home so I can stop living out of my suitcase though!

My little girl is well, though.  She had been sick for most of the time she was staying with my parents, poor thing.  Another respiratory illness, to the point she wasn't hungry and not eating...my poor baby lost a pound and a half!  I am working on fattening her up now that she is eating some.  The first night I came home, I gave her a bath and put her pajamas on and she snuggled on my my chest until she, and then I fell asleep :) Mmmm, happy mama.

And so, I will shortly begin my work on posting my Paris Journal and my countless pictures.  I would start now, but my journal and half of my pictures are on the computer Kristoffer took back to Las Vegas with him (he couldn't stay as he had to work Monday).  So nothing yet, but I will try to post as soon as I can, and I will make a note on the main blog page when I do finally post for my journal.  In the meantime, I am hanging with my family for today and leave tomorrow afternoon.