Valentines Love

Could there seriously be a better holiday than Valentines Day?  I LOVE it!  This year all the grandkids came for the weekend for our first annual Valentines Tea Party.  It was up to She She standards and no detail was overlooked.  There were heart shaped cucumber sandwiches, raspberry lemon tarts, and chocolate covered strawberries just to name a few.  We had china from Harrods in London, Portobello market in Notting Hill, and from my grandmother that she has had since she got married.  

We spent the rest of the time soaking up the greatness of the best holiday ever. 

Made in Oregon

I've been spending lots of time in Oregon.  

I often find myself thinking, "only in Oregon", when I see 65 year old hippies that missed the memo that the 70s are over or women who haven't shaved during the last decade.  Since my best friends idolize Hello Kitty, the Hulk, and Disney, I spend a lot of time at kid friendly venues like the zoo or the children's museums.  These venues provide perfect examples of Oregon's best.  Case in point: the Portland Science museum encourages kids to "be a chipmunk" and suggests parents to encourage their kids "to be animals".  They even have a place where kids can dress up like chipmunks and hide acorns in trees.  Only in Oregon.  

We love the zoo.  And one of the things I love the most about the zoo is this bench:

May you all have dreams of buttercups and teddy bears.  Only in Oregon. 

And now the best part, my besties at one of their favorite places.  

Mele Kalikimaka

Ten years ago the Smarts took the Hawaiian islands by storm.  We looked something like this:

Without wanting to rub in the fact that Sydney looks like Howard Stern and Shea wasn't looking his best, I'll just say we have all changed a bit.

It has always been mom's dream to take her whole family to Hawaii for Christmas.  I'm never one to get in the way of someone's dream so I (and the rest of the clan) obliged and the trip was planned.  My sisters posted ALL 589, 924 pictures we took on their blogs which can be found here and here.

Highlights include a Bacheloresque helicopter ride, playing football on the beach on Christmas day, seeing one of my childhood best friends who happened to be there with her family too, learning to paddle board, babies with beach bum, getting a tan, drinking enough POG juice to get canker sores, Grandma Phyl coming with us, and getting our daily fix of snow cones.

It was the perfect holiday and helped distract us from missing Keith.  Since the trip was our present (except for the grandkids...Grandma She She would NEVER miss an opportunity to spoil them) it was such a low key holiday.  I didn't miss opening presents or the traditional food.  I would go away every year...hint, hint.

Arizona

Three of my mom's siblings live in AZ and when I was in college I would try and go every year for a visit.  I haven't been since I moved to DC and thought it was time for a visit.  It was so much fun to see so much family.  I didn't get pics of every one but appreciated everyone making time to see me.

Jes and I lived together at BYU and it was the best two years of school for me!  We survived a bat in our room, some interesting roommates, and lots of fun adventures.  I really miss living with her!  Can you believe she just had her third girl?  I got to meet her second this weekend and hope its not another 2 years until I get to see her new addition:)

Thanks Meneses family for being such great hosts!

Holidaze at Home

It's a Burnett family tradition to visit the Portland Zoo during the holidays to see the Zoo lights.  The zoo opens at night and decorates everything in lights including animals made out of lights.  I have always wanted to go and got to crash the family tradition this year.  It was better than expected.  We rode the train through the lights and tried not to freeze.  

Ram Power Can't Be Beat!

Thanksgiving was a blast!  My bestie flew out all the way from DC to spend the holiday with the Smarties.  Mario and Luigi also visited sporting support for cancers that effect men. We played our traditional football game and ate She She's goodness. We passed the time going to movies and playing games. 

 

Dottie does Europe

Our family has tried to get Darcee to Europe for over seven years.  Every time one of us went, she would be invited and it just never seemed to work out for her.  FINALLY when I was getting ready to move home from London she "volunteered" to come help.  Since it was her first trip to Europe she let me plan the itinerary and check of a few bucket list items I wanted to do before I left.  Not only did she help me drag 4 giant suitcases all over Europe, she left her cute family to do it!  I won't bore you with the details but we did the London norm, the English countryside, Bruges Belgium, and Prague Czech Republic.  We haven't spent that must time, uninterrupted in so long.  It was great sister bonding time and so fun to go to places neither of us had been too.  Here is a photo dump.

Doesn't she look hot in her giraffe pants?  Syd and I had to talk her into them. 

Blog Blitz

Studying in London feels like a really great dream I can't remember actually happening.  I've settled into life as a west coaster.  The only problem is I still don't have a job and I am STILL living out of suitcases.  Just living the dream: jobless, homeless, and living with my parents.  I'm exactly where I thought I'd be at this point in my life...I guess there are worse things like getting a root canal or going blind.  But I'm trying to focus on the positive like spending abnormal amounts of time with my favorite little people.



I love being able to do regular, everyday things with my family with no pressure to fit things in between when my plane lands and when I have to return to real life.

Here's what I've been doing when I'm not filling out applications and writing cover letters:

-I have NOT been blogging.  There are a million reasons but I'm going to do a week long blitz and try and catch up

-Working for my dad part time.  He has had several trials of late and I have been helping him prepare.  The first one was a jury trial and I was able to help select the jury members.  I basically felt like I was in a John Gresham book.  The best part is we won the case and when I say "we" I mean my dad but as it felt like a win to me.  I kept telling my dad how great it felt to win my first and only case; never mind that the only words I spoke during the case were to the client to interpret the proceedings into Spanish for him.  A couple weeks later, "we" won another case I helped on.  If I knew practicing law was this easy, I would have gone to law school:)

-Babysitting. I spent a long weekend watching five kids between the ages of 3-9.  They are good family friends of ours and while they are seriously the best behaved kids ever I had to call in reinforcements...Darel.  We make a good team--she plays with the kids and I make sure they are fed and dressed and alive.  Then I spent a week watching my cousins' two girls while their parents went on holiday.  It was so fun and a lot more calm then my earlier experience.  Moral of the story: parenthood is hard.

-I've been visited old friends and family I haven't seen in forever.  When I lived in DC and London I'd only come home for a short period of time and only really wanted to see my family.  But now that I'm back, I'v wanted to see some people I haven't seen in years.  So I've been doing lunch, starbucks runs, dinner, hangouts, etc with friends I've known since I was a kid and some of them I haven't seen in 10 years.

-I've made trips to UT (twice), AZ, ID, and HI (more on these to come later)

-Helping my Grandpa with his personal history.  I've also taught him how to use google reader and what a flash drive is--I love that he wants to learn about technology.  

-Planning my graduation trip THIS month--it will be epic and my favorite brother, who was recently diagnosed with mono, will be coming with me. Looks like I may not be able to do it Chelsea style but it will still be amazing.

Well that is about it.  I really am loving time with the family.  I still can't get over that I get to see them whenever I want.  I don't have to spend a fortune on a plane ticket and plan it months in advanced.  I am really ready to have some permanence in my life but until then I'm living up the flexibility that I have.

Get ready for a bloggity blitz of the last few months!