-We survived our 3rd year in Oregon, huge accomplishment, haha.

-Nyla started crawling in February, walking in May, and talking.

-Nyla had a wonderful 1st bday party

-Josh finally left Phoogoo for an awesome company  that came at the most perfect time.

-Josh started rolling in the dough at the time that was most crucial for us. Six figure with work and freelance all by himself. I couldn’t be any prouder of his hard work.

-Lost all my baby weight finally even though I just had 7 pounds they were sure stubborn. Back to 110, yay!

-Got out of my comfort zone and joined a mom meetup group and a MOPS (mothers of preschoolers group) that i just love and have met awesome people.

-Took Nyla to Maui for her first time when she was one years old and had the best time as a family!!

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Looking forward to 2011:

-February trip to the Carribean

-Hopefully a new addition to the family

-Our 3rd wedding Anniversary

-Nyla turns 2

-Potty training

-We turn 26

It was a beautiful day. It was mainly cloudy but there were peaks of sunshine.  Always a treat. There were tons of people. They had a orchestra band playing Christmas music. It is always a fun tradition every year to start the Christmas season. They have an amazing gift shop filled with some amazing original ornaments and fun Christmas decor.

It was a little more difficult this year with Nyla walking trying to find the perfect tree. We knew she wouldn’t be able to go too long and we could be there all day looking cause it goes on forever. We spotted one right away that we thought fit the criteria. But once we started chopping it realized I think this is way shorter than we normally get. I thought 7′ was what we normally got, which this tree was till we cut it then it loses some after cutting. It ended up being 6.5 feet and we realized it was 8′ we normally get for our living room cause the ceiling height is super super high. So problem solved, I wanted to do two trees anyways like when I was little. One tree for the play room upstairs and then one tree in the living room.

Can’t wait to start decorating the trees!! I just love my house during Christmas time!!

So finally Sunday I already had this Apple Festival at Smith Berry Barn marked on my calendar since August. I was determined to go with or without my husband. Luckily he decided he would escape his office and come with us. I absolutely love this farm. Me and Nyla went here to do our raspberry picking. It is super nice and clean, has a wonderful fancy gift shop, and awesome fresh milkshakes.

I got a yummy pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. Nyla got to play in the hay maze. She loved chasing her daddy through it. We were excited to finally get some apple picking done too. We have been trying the past two weekends but it either rains or one we tried wasn’t open on the weekends. We grabbed our cardboard box and hopped aboard the tractor ride. I was excited to go apple picking with Nyla. I always remembered going apple picking with my parents and loving it. It was always so much fun!!

We started on our picking adventure. We tried to teach Nyla how to pull the apples off the tree but some were a little hard to pull off. She loved the concept of throwing them in the box, and eating them. Once we put her down on the floor and she saw all the apples down there she thought well this is so much easier to pick apples and tried throwing the dirty apples in our box. We found a nice tree that had a ton of good looking apples and starting throwing a bunch in the box. We had a nice box full and were ready to catch the tractor ride back in.

We finished off the apple festival with some lunch. I had a bratwurst with sauteed onions and apples. Nyla was ready for a nap so we had to kinda rush through lunch. There was also a nice band playing. We didn’t do this but they were doing fresh squeezed apple cider and hot apple cider. Oh I almost forgot that they had some Alpacas there and were actually selling them. I swear they sell every kind of animal in Oregon. Do people here really have an Alpaca running around their backyard like a dog. Kinda strange. They weren’t that expensive either. We had a great time and plan on this being a family tradition to come to the Smith Berry Barn Apple Festival. Fun Fun!!

I just love Nyla’s little personality. She is such a joyous happy little girl and she sure does let it be known. When we got there and she saw all the excitement going on, all the people, and of course the play gym she just goes wild. Starts running… as best as she can do, starts letting out little squeals well actually they can get very loud for such a small person. She will start clapping her hands and has the biggest smile in the world. This is why I have such joy taking her places. Even if times get a little rough, which luckily they rarely do I just absolutely love seeing her so happy. It just brightens my day :)

Nyla didn’t sleep too well. She was up every couple hours. Uhh, felt like a newborn again. Every night got better though. The plane ride for her was a little crazy. Now walking she just doesn’t want to sit still so she was quite the hand full trying to occupy her. Luckily we kept her from crying just some whining here and there. She did awesome during all the rest of the trip minus bed time. We were a little sleep deprived this trip.

We had a great time hitting up all my favorite places in OC. Fashion Island, South Coast Plaza, Irvine Spectrum, Laguna Beach, the beach, Avocado street beach shops, In In Out, Mastro’s, Back Bay Bistro, Swirlz Yogurt, Pinkberry, Pretend City….

It’s weird when we were there I felt like everything fell back into place like I lived there again and nothing changed. It was amazing, but then I realized I still had to go back to Oregon and everything really did change. I loved having Nyla there. I just can’t wait till we are back and I can do everything with her.

One of my favorite days was the last day Monday when Josh’s sister Ronie and our little niece Charlie Rain came out to hang out with us. We took the girls to Pretend City on Irvine. It was such a blast. Nyla was all over the place. It is a fun little town for them to play through out. So much nicer than the Portland childrens museum. Her favorite thing was the stage that had music and flashing lights with dress up clothes and music instruments. She always bolted over there to dance with all the bigger girls. She just loves attention already. It was great to see the two cousins together. They look so much alike. I just loved it and I know Nyla will love to be around her Auntie and Cousin one day.

We just had an absolute amazing trip and now we are gonna see what we can do to get ourselves back to the place that makes our little family happy and complete.

She got her own seat for the flight to Cali.

Pool time at my parents house!!

Nyla meeting her second cousin Ayden.

At my most favorite mall ever Fashion Island in Newport Beach.

The best frozen yogurt place out there, Pinkberry!!

Checking out all the boats and seagulls at Newport Dunes.

Me and my Hubby

At Crystal Cove for some beach fun

At Mastro’s for dinner in Newport Coast

My two favorite people

At Pretend City in Irvine

At the park

We were starting to get hot so I thought I would fill her pool up to cool down. I got her swimsuit on and she got excited to see her pool filling up. It was a pretty awesome day.

Who would have thought that we would have decided to start our family after only 6 months of marriage, to which we now have this beautiful baby girl who is almost one. God sure had some crazy changes planned for our lives and though it has been some of the most trying times of my life I couldn’t have made it through all this without my wonderful husband. Can you believe that we started dating back in jr. high. Crazy, huh.

Now we are building the most amazing life here in Oregon with our new Salem friends that I could not live without. We have the most amazing house that will bring such great memories to our family. Nyla Breeze will grow up an Oregonian (kinda weird) but will be a Southern Californian at heart, lol. This day not only marks our Wedding Anniversary but also the end to Southern California living and hello Oregon living.

We started off our Anniversary weekend off with a trip to the Oregon Coast to Cannon Beach where we stayed last year too. It is an amazing ultra modern hotel Surf Sand Hotel that is a few steps from the beach. Nothing like a California beach, you have to bundle up like you are in the mountains, haha. But it is pretty and a nice little getaway. Last year Nyla Breeze was in my belly, this time she was with us.

We had some yummy food, walked along the beach all bundled up (it was freezing, windy, and rainy, ugh). Last year was a bit nicer. Nyla got to kinda play in the sand with her beach toys, we hung out at the pool which Nyla loved, and did some shopping and lunch up in Seaside. We headed back home a night earlier cause it was a little difficult not having Nyla’s crib.

On our actual anniversary date we relaxed at home and got lunch out and then had a nice anniversary dinner at Newport Seafood Grill. Josh got me some nice gifts, “He went to Jared”, haha. He got me 2 nice necklaces and then a gift certificate to get my nails done. Although it was a nice weekend I think we are gonna try a warmer climate and do Hawaii next year and have my parents watch Nyla.

She saw some seagulls that were squawking loudly

Tried some strawberries that I guess she thought were sour

Our beautiful hotel

It was super cold!!

Yes my husband went to Jareds!!

Nyla was too young this year to really enjoy Easter. I got her an Easter basket, we tried to put eggs on the floor and let her crawl and get them but she didn’t seem interested. Next year will be a blast though. We had an awesome Easter dinner. Josh bbq’d some teriyaki chicken kabobs that I marinated overnight in teriyaki and then skewered them with some bell peppers and onions. They were delicious. We also had some pita bread, greek yogurt dip, and rice pilaf. It was kinda a mediteranean meal. Then we ended the night with some cheesecake I made. It turned out to be a great Easter minus the rain. I hate that about Oregon. I normally had sunny Easters. We will see how an Easter egg hunt will go next year.