Budget

While taking a walk we ran across this car and had to take a picture. How ironic!

Live from Portland

State number 45 down for me as I attend a business conference in Maine.

Good times - had steak and their famous lobster last night. :)

That Portland to Portland red-eye flight is tough. I think I was running on 2 hours of sleep at the end of 2 days yesterday.

Got to run - more later. E

Welcome - GOP PCO

Breaking news - the GOP nominated a new PCO to precinct 335 - and it is me! :)

It was a grueling race but I managed to come out ahead. The race consisted of really quality candidates: me, me, and me. I am humbled to have won...

For those who do not know what a PCO is - no worries. I did not either until a week ago. ..

ttyl, Eric

Autumn Walk

Eric and I have a little traditional several-mile-walk that we take all the time. We start off at Officer's Row in Vancouver (our little apartment was a block away - thus how the tradition began), walk through downtown Vancouver (stopping at Starbucks for coffee) and then over to the Colombia River waterfront and back. We especially love this walk during the fall. As soon as leaves start falling all I can think of is taking a stroll through the fallen leaves of Officer's Row. Of course, this walk nearly kills Greta. Poor fat lard can heaves for air, tongue all the way to the ground, literally being pulled by the leash to keep going.

Here are some photos from our last stroll (waterfront behind us)...

Eric's Girls: Me and our Fat Lard

Shaunna's Personal Giants: My husband and my Fat Lard

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

I did not come up with that, in case you are wondering. :) Two more I liked:

Seeds of discouragement will not grow in the thankful heart.--Anonymous

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some.--Charles Dickens

Shaunna and I year find ourselves deeply thankful to God and our friends for how richly we have been blessed as the year ends. We can only hope to be grateful and content as the exciting potential of a New Year unfolds. ttyl, Eric

Thanksgiving Thoughts!

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A few pictures

I wanted to throw a few quick pictures on of a few things that have been keeping us busy:

Shaunna's Note: Those cheesy curtains aren't staying...but we don't have blinds yet so we needed something on the window for now. Talk about high-water curtains!

The new nursery with HAND painted stripes. Yes - I know - we are crazy.

And the ugly rocking chair cushions are being recovered too. Nice Craigslist find though.

But they came out looking awesome. And thanks to Miller Paint - who has a new VOC (aka bad for baby chemicals) free paint we are able to enjoy the work of Shaunna's very steady hand.

And in case you you see this politico - wacko on the road...

its me...

:)

Eric

Our Anniversary

On October 2nd we celebrated our 3rd anniversary. We took a weekend trip to Lincoln City (a vacation we had won through Eric's work last year). We stayed right on the water; it was beautiful despite the horrendous weather we had.

A king sized bed...we have no idea how couples can sleep on a king! I felt like I spent the whole night stretching and straining to find and cuddle up with him.

What we look forward to the most when staying at a hotel...CABLE! It's life's simple pleasures. And boy did we enjoy the unusually large tv...and the gas fireplace. Felt very homey.

We spent one afternoon at the Newport Beach Aquarium. We had been there before, but it was still fun. Here are some photos. Sorry, Eric had the camera so most pictures are of me.

These are Japanese crabs. They're bigger than our great dane. A little too much like spiders for my comfort. Not sure how I managed a smile for this picture. I was creeped out.
The otter who refused to wake up from his nap to smile for our picture.
Eric's anniversary gift (he had lost his wedding ring and I bought him a matching one):

My anniversary gift...3-diamond (for 3 years) necklace.
The Happy Couple:

My Vote - Ron Paul

For those of you who have not heard - I am voting for Ron Paul in the primary. A lot folks are saying he can't win. It is sad - because I think Paul would have a harder time in the primary than in the general election. Quite frankly I don't think any of the Republican candidates get it. Except for Paul. He is not status quo and never has been. The other candidates talk doing something different - Paul has been doing it. I am reading his book and it has been intersting. He is not the polished politician. Quite frankly, he could use a couple sessions in Toastmasters. But I find that refreshing. He is guy campaigning for something, rather than against something (or someone)

Brief Overview of Congressman Paul’s Record:

He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against regulating the Internet.
He voted against the Iraq war.
He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S.
treasury every year.

Ron Paul is a gynecologist who has delivered more than 4,000 babies and has
never wavered on his pro-life position. It's who he is.

Ron Paul, the man from Washington with no scandals, has been married
faithfully to the same woman for 45 years, loves America with a passion.

More on this later...

Eric

Back - Months Later

Well, as it has been pointed out to us, we haven't exactly been very good at keeping up with our website. There are a thousand reasons for it (or at least a couple dozen) - our camera broke, I had morning sickness for 5 months and spent all my "leisure" time kneeling at the porcelain throne (or with my face shoved in emergency zip-lock bags while sitting in traffic), and...and...and...the list keeps going.

But now we're settling down a little. Just in time for our son to be born (due in 9 weeks) and for the holiday craziness to kick in. So we've decided it's time to get back online. We've given up on our website and have decided to join the easier realm of blogging. This might inspire more consistency.

For now, here is an update on our autumn:

One evening we discovered that our dog can eat an entire loaf of french bread in less than 2 minutes. She stole the loaf off the counter when our backs were turned and absolutely inhaled it. I still can't believe ANYTHING (even a dane) can eat so much bread so quickly. This is Eric disciplining her, making her submissively afraid of bread (her consistent weakness):

Learning to be near bread without licking her chops (although we assume she could smell the bread over those muddy boots - ew):

Here I am at 5 months - quite obviously still sick as a dog. I stayed this size pretty much up until recently. People at church even stated to get concerned and ask Eric, "Is she still pregnant?" Even at almost 8 months, my total weight gain has been, um, 3 lbs!
Yup, I was that sick:

Here is Eli's very first piece of mail. Auntie LeAnne sent him a cute froggy outfit and hat.

The next day he got another package in the mail. Grandma Debby sent him a little basketball outfit that should fit him for Hoopfest 2008.


Finally really "showing" at 7 months...I have the pointiest belly on the planet and it isn't my belly button - its the baby! I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to give birth to a YIELD sign.

Well that's it for now. More to come soon.

~Shaunna

Testing One Two Three

We are listening to the requests of our friends and family and looking to get a blog going again soon.

Working on style and formatting now.

More to come shortly