Ridgefield Fun Run

My work sponsored a 5K this weekend here in Ridgefield. Aaron and I have never run in one before so we thought we'd give it to try! I suppose we wouldn't have been doing anything better at 7:30 in the morning... just sleeping. Malia's auntie Laura also came along and was the designated stroller pusher. (Thanks Laura!)

It was freezing cold on Saturday during the run. The roads were still pretty frozen, and there were patches of ice along the way. We had Malia in two pairs of pants (with leggings underneath), a long-sleeved onesie, long sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, AND coat. Then we topped her off with a blanket. I think she survived ok.

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Maybe you are wondering how we did? We weren't fast or anything, okay, we weren't fast at all. We placed 69-71 out of 130, and our time was 38min and 22seconds. I am just proud to say I ran in a 5K :)

All Decorated!

Here are a few pics of the finished product. I LOVE decorating for Christmas! It was late Monday night, so Malia was in the process of getting her P.J.'s on... thus the onesie.

I absolutely love this next picture! Malia was having fun posing by the fireplace, and then would scream (in excitement) and run at me so that she could see what the picture looked like on the camera. This one has to be my favorite... too bad she isn't wearing something cute! We could have used it for Christmas cards!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree... How lovely are your branches!

It's tradition for us to get our Christmas Tree and decorations up over the Thanksgiving weekend. I was a little worried that we wouldn't have the time for it this year... we had an incredibly busy, sleep-deprived, yet fun weekend. We headed over to Windy Hill a few miles away from us and spent over an hour looking for the perfect tree. In our quest we ran into these funny shaped ones. They were super triangularly, and too perfectly shaped.

Malia wandered off a bit, and when we caught up to her, she had found our tree. Once you go noble, you can't go back.

This cute little tree farm even had Santa Claus! I had the camera all ready to go so that when Aaron sat Malia down on his lap, I could snap a shot before she freaked out. Surprisingly though, she didn't even budge! She never looked at him (which is what she does around strangers in the hopes that they'll disappear), but she didn't cry! I was super happy with Malia's first Santa Claus picture ever.

We got our Christmas lights up too!

Stay tuned for pictures of the tree decorated!
Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Day

It was my side of the family's turn for Thanksgiving this year, and we got the chance to host! It was a lot of work, a lot of dishes, but A LOT of fun! I was mostly worried about cooking the turkey. I don't mind eating turkey, but all the preparations up until it is sitting neatly on your plate ready to eat grosses me out. So... I put Aaron in charge of the turkey.

He found a good turkey rub recipe that goes UNDERNEATH the skin. Here he is stretching the skin from the meat. Yuck!

We popped the turkey into the oven and headed out for our annual Turkey Bowl game! Aaron usually has a group of friends that show up behind Columbia River High School, but this year most people were a no-show. So we headed up to the middle school to meet up with my little bro and his friends, and put on a pretty good game! It was nice having a smaller group this year (some are not pictured.) Everyone got to participate which was nice. I even spend the majority of the game playing QB, and scored a nice touchdown after catching the ball with my neck. Ouch!


Malia was a trooper for hanging out with us in the rain. She stayed dry and warm on the inside, but I think she was a little upset that she couldn't move since she was bundled up and waterproofed.

After the game we headed home for some warm showers, finished preparations for the meal, and had a really great time visiting with family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

First sledding trip of the year!

We decided to kick-off our Thanksgiving Weekend with a trip up to Mt. St. Helens for sledding!

We found ourselves a perfect little hill... Steep enough to gain momentum, but short enough not to be exhausted from one hike to the top.

Malia was just OK with the idea. I think her least favorite part was being bundled-up so much. I am sure she felt like that poor little boy on "A Christamas Story."

Getting ready for a run down! (We kept trying to call it a "slide" in the hopes of sparking some enthusiasm from Malia. Obviously it didn't work out to well...)

Aaron took this fabulous action shot. I am sure Malia thinks her parents are CRAZY!

New beginnings...

Aaron and his former place of employment, Columbia Credit Union, had (we'll just say) their differences.

Needless to say, Aaron felt pretty good burning their crap.

It was his way of letting go of the past, and looking forward to his new job!

Crazy hikers in the winter...

Aaron and I have officially grown tired of rainy weekends indoors, on the couch, watching T.V. I'm not sure we can say the same for Malia... that girl is addicted to her shows! She'll turn into a zombie the very moment the T.V. is turned on. But hey, it sure allows for the chores to get done. :)

Anyways, we figured it was time to get out and embrace our rainy fall and winter. We decided on a beautiful waterfall hike along the Lewis River. We didn't get the chance to hike it over the summer and figured that the changing colors would make it all the more spectacular. But, we hadn't realized how long it would take to get to, and hadn't even considered the possibility of snow! I can't tell you how many times we stopped the car for Malia, (she's been a nightmare in the care lately) and how many times we contemplated turning around with the present weather conditions. But alas, after two hours we made it, and boy are we glad we stuck it out! The hike was AMAZING with the changing colors and dusting of snow, and it was pretty easy... just over 5miles.

We were planning more for rainy weather and didn't think to bring our winter coats. Luckily we brought Malia's coat just in case. Look how cute she is in it! We bought it on sale last year and to be honest, when I bought this in 2T I NEVER imagined that she would ever grow to fit it!

This is Lower Falls, the first falls you hike to.

We just couldn't believe that we were hiking with snow on the ground! Malia was very good on the hike in, but on the way out... let's just say we did not see one bit of wild life. She screamed everyone and everything off the trail. :)

This is the third falls you hike to, the Upper Falls. I forgot to take pictures of the Middle Falls. I think it was because we realized that we had to keep up a good pace. See, we left at about 11am for the hike but not realizing it would take so long, we didn't trail till 1pm. That only left us with a couple hours of daylight and with the heavy clouds above, the dark seemed to creep in ever so quickly.

The happy family! What a fun and random fall/winter activity!

Grist Mill

WARNING:

LOTS OF PICTURES!

Working in Woodland and LaCenter has opened my eyes to places around the area. Alot of patients have told me about this beautiful and scenic place in Woodland called Grist Mill where they make homemade apple cider, and freshly milled flour and corn. We decided to head out for a nice fall picture opportunity. It was gorgeous, however, had we headed out a week or so earlier, we would have been able to capture more of the red and oranges of fall.

Our attempt at a family portrait. Too bad we didn't bring someone with us!

Malia is making the sign for "candy." Aaron kept tricking Malia to look at the camera by telling her to "Look at mama! She has candy!"

We got some random bystander to take a picture... too bad Malia was being really shy because this could have made a GREAT picture!

We hiked on a beautiful trail around the Mill.

There were lots of fun puddles for Malia to splash around in.

I just loved how Malia's feet were posed in this picture as she strategized how to run through this puddle.

And there she goes!

Playing with the leaves...

And we had to capture this old historic bridge. You don't see many covered bridges anymore.

This was a fun picture...

Doing some dance moves!

Like I said, tons of pictures! What a beautiful place Grist Mill was!

Trunk-or-Treat!

The night before Halloween we got to participate in our first Trunk-or-Treat ever! It was so much fun getting to decorate our trunk; ours was pretty much the awesomest. Every kid that walked up to get candy from Aaron got sucked into the scary music and strobe light... they didn't even notice if Aaron gave them candy or not. It was hillarious to watch! It took Malia a little while to adjust to the whole "walk up to a stranger" thing, but once she noticed that she was getting candy in her cute little pumpkin bucket, she started laughing and running from trunk to trunk!

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Aaron, the candy passer-outer, and our awesome trunk!

The LadyBug costume seems to have been the theme of the year.

Malia and Auntie Laura

Waiting patiently for her turn at a trunk.

Oooh!!! Candy!

My cute little ladybug princess.

Mama and Malia!

Malia just thought that the whole unlimited night of candy was the best!

Happy Halloween!

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We didn't take many pictures on actual Halloween. How many more walking ladybug pictures did we need? :) Plus, everytime Malia knocked on someone's door to trick-or-treat, she'd run inside the person's house... we were a little bit preoccupied. But we did get a picture of our glowing pumpkins.

And a picture of cowgirl Auntie ZZ!