VACA!!!

I love summer! Although the weather hasn't been exactly what I would consider to be "summer" weather, it's still time for VACATIONS!!  Here's a recap of the Olsen's most recent adventure with my parents to the Eagle Crest Resort in Redmond, OR:


Miss Emmalyn is ready to hit the road! Sunglasses and a magnadoodle (the wonderful suggestion from a mom of 3!) are essentials for our 4 hour road trip!  After spending the night in Grandview, we load up and follow mom and dad to our vacation destination.

While the magnadoodle entertained Emmalyn for a good hour, that hardly made a dent in our road trip. So...enter, DVD player!

The movie captured Emmalyn's attention for awhile, but not long enough. 

 So...enter, Grammy!

Grammy hopped into our car and rode with us for the remainder of our drive. A plus side to traveling with grandparents: build in entertainment!

Finally, after some road construction, crazy drivers (anyone drive a red Toyota Camry??), and a few stops, we finally roll into our final destination: EAGLE CREST!

I've been coming to the Eagle Crest Resort with my parents for over 20 years! Now I'm excited that Emmalyn gets to come and enjoy what Eagle Crest and the surrounding area has to offer.

We visited the High Desert Museum in Bend, OR.  The High Desert Museum is an indoor/outdoor museum that showcases some native animals to the area in the animal exhibits, but also shows a lot of history about the area.  The otter was sleeping, and we had to leave Birds of Prey show before we were asked to leave on account of Emmalyn's squealing (apparently it startles the birds), but we did enjoy seeing a bobcat, a lynx, a porquepine, and two huge bald eagles. 

Then, of course, there is swimming!

Emmalyn's teeth chattered most of the time, but she loved it anyway!!

Mom, Emmalyn and I had a girl's day in downtown Redmond while dad and Mike golfed.  Emmalyn took time to stop and smell the flowers...and suprisingly did not rip off too many of the petals!

One of my favorite things to do in Oregon is shop...TAX FREE!!! Emmalyn, however, was not so impressed.  Talk about shop til you drop!

I'm willing to bet that my parents' favorite part of this vacation was all the quality time with Emmalyn!

My most memorable part of this vacation was all the wildlife!

There were ducks and geese...lots of geese, which Emmalyn enjoyed feeding, and chasing!

Then there were chipmunks, which Mike enjoyed feeding by hand!

Our favorite animal encounter was with Bambi!  This deer had no fear and cozied on up to us, even tried to come into our townhouse!

Mom said it would not be a good idea for us to feed the deer...we did it anyway...

I really wanted to get a picture of Emmalyn with the deer, but as I inched closer to this few hundred pound wild animal with my first born in my arms, I decided that nothing about that was a good idea. So I passed Emmalyn off and snapped a picture of mom posing with the deer, as it took a few steps closer to our front door!

Three days flew by and it was time to come home.  Our vacation was way too short, as most vacations are, but we had a wonderful time! I'm already looking forward to our next vacation!!

Pinterest Weekend!

I am addicted to Pinterest!  However, I decided there would be no more "pinning" for me until I actually used some of the tips, ideas or recipes I've pinned.  So, I declared this weekend "Pinterest Weekend" to accomplish just that.  Thanks to Pinterest and Emmalyn's 3 hour naps, I have 8 meals in the freezer, a batch of soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies, handmade wall art, felt flowers to make headbands for Emmalyn, an amazing chocolate peanut butter dessert, and a sparkly clean shower!  Here are my projects for the weekend:

Peanut Butter Fudge Brownie Trifle

This is an amazing dessert! I do not have a trifle bowl so it doesn't look as pretty as it should, but it's delicious anyway.  It's a little time intensive, but completely worth the time (and the calories).


















Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've never been able to make soft chocolate chip cookies, until now!!  My search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe is over. 

















Felt Flowers

I plan on gluing these super cute felt flowers to headbands for Emmalyn.  It took me about 15 minutes to makes these 5 flowers, and it only cost about $1.

















Wall Art

It took some time to cut the leaves for this project, but I love how it turned out! I also love how cheap it was to make!  This whole project cost about $10. I already have lots of scrap booking paper, I had a 40% off coupon for the 16x20 canvas at Michael's, and a small tube of paint to add color to the canvas was less than $2.00.  P.S.  I have lots of leftover leaves already cut, if anyone would like to use them...













Crockpot Freezer Meals

I'm very excited about this one! I have 8 meals in my freezer, ready to be thrown in the crockpot.  There are 2 of each of the following: Teriyaki chicken, Savory Vegetable Beef Soup, Healthy BBQ Chicken, and Beef Stew. Yummy!










Tub Cleaner

for soap scum: equal parts hot vinegar and blue Dawn dish soap.  I used 1/3 of a cup of each and coated the shower, and because my shower was pretty soap scummy, I sprayed another round of 1/3 of a cup of each about an hour later.  After a good 2 hours, I scrubbed.  This was not magic by any means, it took some elbow grease and a bristle brush, but the soap scum that I've never been able to get rid of is GONE!




My house is not clean (with the exception of the shower) and the laundry is not done, but I sure had a fun weekend with these projects! Oh, and I started a blog :)