Like Sands through the hour glass.....

The Next Phase!

 Time to get back to blogging! Life has been a little crazy around our place!  We have made a lot of changes in the last few months.  We only have 2 kids at home now!  Allie is going to college at Portland State and living with us at home.  Kaela is doing well and is a sophomore now.  Jalen and Courtney are getting ready to wrap up their senior year of high school!  

All of our little birdies are flying the coop! 

We decided to downsize back in January.  We moved out of our BIG house into a 3 bedroom apartment while we save some major moolah!  Bill and I have been talking about making this move for quite sometime, and it was necessary to take a step backward in order to go 2 steps forward!  Bill and I are concentrating on getting our dream home in the next 2 years.  We want to live on the water!  We have been looking at floating homes on the Columbia River and I have fallen completely in love with one!  It's perfect for us and the marina is really nice!!   Once Kaela graduates from High School and Allie graduated from College, we will be ready to make our last and final move to our home that we will retire in and have fun with our grandchildren.  Okay, that sounds so weird to say considering that we aren't even 40 yet. (A few more months to go!)  No, nobody is having a baby, but in the next 5 years, I predict that we will have little grand babies running around.  Yeah, so weird to think about!  


Jalen and Courtney have prom this weekend!  I'm so excited for them!  Their dresses are beautiful and everything is pretty much set!  We have paid for them to have a limo for the night so they will be riding around town in style.  I will make sure to blog about it for you! 


Here are some pictures of our new apartment. We did a lot of painting and made some changes to our apartment.  It is perfect for us for the time being!  

 Dining Room

 Entry Way

 Living Room

 Master Bedroom

 Kitchen

Of course, I will leave you with some pictures of the kids!  They love to go outside and take pictures! Silly girls!  Also, enjoy the pictures of Kaela's 16th Birthday!!  

Ready for Kaela's 16th Birthday Party

16 today?  What????

Courtney, Allie and Kaela

Allie and Jalen

Allie...Our sweet college girl

Allie, Taylor, Courtney, Jalen and Kaela at Tyler's Birthday Party

Next Up:  PROM
                 OUR ANNIVERSARY
                 MOTHER'S DAY

Be blessed!  I know that I am!

Jalen and Courtney

Blue Letter Graduation Announcement

Get personalized graduation party invites at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Pretty Pretty Princess

Ballerina Girl!

Aaliyah is wearing the little tu-tu and leotard that we got her for Christmas! She is such a little angel! I can't wait to start her in dance and ballet classes! 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2011

Christmas and New Year Happenings

A few days before Christmas, we went ice skating at the Lloyd Center Mall. I hadn't been ice skating in years, and I had forgot how much fun skating can be! It was a fun holiday event to do with the kids.

Courtney and Mommy hugging on the ice...well maybe we were holding each other up! :o)

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We had a really nice Christmas with our family. As tradition serves, we went to Bill's parents house for Christmas Eve. It was a fun evening with a great dinner and presents!

This is such a great family tradition to have the kids line up on the couch and have a picture taken. I am going to have to go search in the archives for a picture of them in the same spot only 10 years younger.

One half of our family on Christmas Eve

The Other Ryan Family! We love them sooooo much!

Mommy and Allie

Brothers! I just love the colors on these guys! Looking good boys!

Sisters! Jaylin and Angie

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After Christmas Eve dinner, we went to the 11pm service at our church! There were so many people coming to the service, we had the service at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Downtown Portland. We packed the house to the rafters! Great night with the kids!

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CHRISTMAS DAY!

What a great day with our kids and family! We had a lazy morning having a big breakfast and opening stocking and presents with the kids. Round 2 was with Mom, Scott, Stacy, Mike and Tyler. More presents and more food. I really felt like I was eating non-stop the entire day! Ugh...The gym is in my very near future!

Courtney, Bill and Jalen

I love this picture! I love that Kaela is smelling her new body spray and Lord only knows what Taylor is saying to Allie. Love these kids!!

The one thing that Taylor and wanted and needed more than anything in this world was a new laptop! We were very fortunate that we were able to give him one this year.

Me and My Sissy! I love you so much Stacy!

Mom and Papa

Our sweet little Aaliyah! She was the light of the holiday! She is really into presents this year, however she was a bit more interested in the paper and bows then the actual presents!

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The Day after Christmas!

Our present from Mom and Papa were tickets to see the Radio City Music Hall ROCKETTES!
What a great present! Bill and I had the best day night! We went to watch the show and then went out for Sushi after. It would be fun to make this show a tradition for us and our family.

Toy Soldiers on Parade

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Bill and I had a very quiet New Year's Eve this year. We went out to dinner at the Chart House (which is our favorite restaurant!), and then we went home in time for the ball to drop and have a nice big New Year's KISS! MUAH!!!!

We hope that this year will bring everyone
health and happiness!
Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas from our family tree

Merry Christmas from our Family Tree!

We had the best time a few weeks ago taking pictures with the family. First, I would like to say how hard it is to get 6 teens together at the same time. With work schedules, school events, and friends, I actually sent out an evite to the kids to coordinate the time and place.

The twins have a friend at their school who does photography and she gave us a great deal! We think that she did a great job! She is only a 15 year old sophomore in high school. What talent!

Here are a few more pictures of our photo shoot.

PEACHWAVE!

Our new favorite HOT SPOT!

Yummmmm.....PEACHWAVE!

There is a new yogurt place in town. Peachwave has about 16 different flavors of frozen yogurt and a million different types of toppings. Flavors of yogurt like cheesecake, fudge brownie, peanut butter, pineapple, mocha, etc...
Toppings such as fresh fruit, candy, cereal, etc...
Literally a million different combinations.

After church tonight, we took the kids out for dessert. Here are some pictures of our adventure.

Wounded Warriors

WOUNDED WARRIORS

This picture sums up one of the most difficult days in our lives. Oh, where to begin....

Jalen was playing in a tournament a few weeks ago in Newberg. She had a game on Sunday morning and during the 6th inning, she slid into 2nd base and tore up her knee. It was swollen and bleeding and looked pretty major. We took her to the emergency room and did some x-rays. The doctors suspected a torn meniscus. They prescribed some pain medication and sent us away with a brace on her leg and some crutches.

The problem was that now the softball team was down a player and asked Courtney to wear Jalen's jersey and play in the 6pm game. Courtney was happy to do it. During the game, Courtney was playing 3rd base. She had a runner on 3rd, and during the play, the first baseman threw a line drive to 3rd and it hit Courtney right in the eye. As she went down, I could NOT believe what was happening. Both of my twin girls were injured in the same day, playing softball at the same tournament!!! Courtney's eye was bad and she was in so much pain. Yep...another trip to the emergency room.

Courtney was put on Morphine and they sent us home with a referral to see a specialist in 5 days. According to the x-ray, it looked like she fractures some bones in her face. After seeing the specialist, the determined that she had a blow-out fracture to her obital wall and that she would need surgery to help re-build the bones around her eye.


Surgery was successful and her eye will heal without any permanent damage. Praise God!
You know, the craziest part of this whole thing, is that my girls have played softball for 13 years and nothing has ever happened to them. What a total FLUKE!!

Balloons from Grandma

Courtney recovering

Summer Fun!

Summer 2010

A few weeks ago we went over my friends BK's house to see her sister Dawn-Joy who was in town from Nashville. Dawn-Joy is a very talented singer and just released a CD. We went over to visit and hear her sing with her boyfriend, Kevin. Kevin is the lead guitarist for Blake Shelton. It was a wonderful evening with great music and wonderful friends!

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Aloha High School - All Class Reunion Picnic

Bill and I had a great time at the 2nd annual Aloha High School All Class Reunion Picnic. It was so wonderful seeing everyone from high school. I love that I am still in touch with some of my friends from high school. It has been 21 years since we graduated so it was nice seeing people that I haven't seen since graduation!

Bk is one of my best friends from 8th grade. We were locker partners, had many sleepovers, fought over boys, and made up tons of dances and performed them for our families.

The incredible shrinking woman!

Down 40 lbs.....so far

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HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY WAYNE!

Lordy, Lordy, Look who's 40!

Happy Birthday to Bill's brother Wayne who turned 40 last weekend. Jaylin threw Wayne a wonderful party! The highlight of the party was the fire dancers at the end of the night! These dancers were simply incredible and it was amazing and a little bit scary what they did with fire!

It was a great party!

Wayne...at the grill! The food was wonderful!

Me and Jaylin



Me and Bill = True Love