Ode to the Man I Love!

On Monday Aaron and I will be celebrating our 7th anniversary. We've been together for over 11 1/2 years. I can truly say I am more in love with him today than I have ever been in my life. To many my husband is a mystery, so today I would like to take you through a lesson of Aaron. I think Emily is the closest to knowing Aaron as the town of Banks knows him. Most people think he is quiet and shy. Shy he maybe for a little minute, but its just not Aaron. To you left is my husband jumping through a fire out on a farm in Banks. This is how we have fun where we come from. He
Might have burnt some leg hair here, but it made us laugh and like any boy thats the goal.

We were fortunate enough to grow up in a small town. The boys around the fire here all graduated with Aaron and I am so happy to say that they are all still very close. They were on the baseball team together and most of them were in our wedding. They still get together and play poker as often as they can and they play softball with Hillsboro City League.


This picture is Tim, Aaron, Jake and Mike. Jake was our best man in our wedding and Mike is now in the middle of Iraq. We think of him often, as he is in one of the most dangerous parts. Before he was deployed their drill Sargent told them to look to their left and right, because half of them weren't coming back. I think that really hit Aaron to realize that one of his best friends is in such a dangerous situation.

This is the boys all spruced up for a wedding in the Summer of '01. My husband is the blond....oh yes I said blond....he goes through his weird spurts! Its Mike, Jimmy, Jake, Brian, Tim, Aaron and Doug. (Doug is the one that street luged down Wier Rd hill by our house...he is insane)

A little about my husband, he like the Oakland A's and Raiders. (You can bring that up in casual conversation if you want to get to know him better!) Aaron has a total of 3 tattoos. A tribal band (token male college tattoo!), Payton's name and My initials. My initials are on his inner bicep, so he flexes his arm and points to it every time he wants to make me laugh! He is way behind on getting Chloe's name and now Stella's. He has 3 ear piercings as well, although he loses his earrings all the time and now only has 2 in.

Aaron is very funny and makes me laugh all the time. I've put in all the manly things about him, so I can tell you what makes me love him the most now! I love how sensitive he is to me and my feelings. A man isn't supposed to be that intuitive, but he is. He encourages me to hang out with my girlfriends, but he feels real guilt when he leave me and the kids to something with his buddies. He may act tough, but his is my softy husband that I love with all my heart. A lot of
people didn't understand the pair of us so long ago. Aaron was the bad boy and I was the innocent Christian girl. However, no knew how much Aaron respected me and my beliefs and how if it weren't for him I would not have gone back to church ever. God put him in my life for a reason and I am just beginning to understand how Aaron fully completes me in all the places of my heart that are wanting for something. All my hurts and insecurities are fixed by the gentle hands of my husband. I can't believe that 7 years have past already since our wedding, but I also can't wait to see what the future holds for us and our family! I love you Aaron Johns!

The Johns Family Road Trip of '08

Since this last weekend was so hot, Aaron and I decided to get a hotel room at the beach and take the kids away! We haven't had any vacations this year and don't have any planned, so this was considered our vacation of the year. A little pathetic considering that we could only find a cheap little hotel in Pacific City, OR to stay in! Hey, I'm not complaining though, we had fun. The ironic thing is, there was an airport.....or more a landing strip right behind our hotel. So I spent the entire night thinking, "Now that one is going down for sure, it sounds like a vacuum cleaner". Anyways, our journey started off on Hwy 6. We past the landmark of "Papaw & Nana's house" and felt like we were on our way when I hear the little voice of my daughter say, "Have to poop Mommy". Great! So I call my Dad to make sure they were home and let Chloe do her thing and we are back on the road! Woohoo! I took the above picture just outside of Tillamook on Hwy 101, yes this is a highway. You can only see this in Tillamook. There were about 200 cows, we had to wait for about 10 minutes while they stopped and looked at us and then slowly meandered their way to the other side.
Aaron then wanted to show me where his Grandpa's land was on the beach, so we took a 5 minute detour. Now when I say 5 minutes, that is more like 30 minutes to the rest of us. Aaron was just a little off! We finally made it to our hotel after 2 1/2 hours in the car. Good Old Pacific City! We unloaded our car in the 65 degree weather and headed to the beach. It was windy! We sat there and froze for about 5 minutes and let the kids run and around and then went back to the car and drove 20 minutes to Lincoln City for dinner at Mo's.

My son's favorite dinner is clam chowder, or anything seafood. So he was very excited to get his cup of clam chowder and so was I. Mainly I was excited to get out of the car, because I was about to pull my hair out from all the arguing.

The beach outside of Mo's was not windy at all and there were 5 seals swimming in the water. The kids got a kick out of it. After we were worn out we headed back to our hotel and took showers and went to bed.

The next morning we headed out around 11 and headed up Hwy 101. We didn't want to go home until late, so Aaron had scoped out several
spots we could stop at along the beach. Our first stop was a lookout thing, that turned out to be a view of some houses and bushes. Really, we could make out the ocean if we looked really hard. We continued up Hwy 101 where we kept running through little towns that made me say, "Oh, this is where Happy Valley is" or "This is where Nestucca is".

Our next stop on the Johns family road trip of '08 was Munson Creek Falls. Its just a mile walk up a path and you are supposed to see this amazing waterfall. We hiked up the trail, only to have it caution taped off because of the fallen trees. Note to Oregon State Parks.....a sign at the beginning of a rocky trail would be appreciated!!

Luckily for Aaron and his hopes of broadening our children's view of Oregon, our next stop was a guaranteed success. The Tillamook Cheese Factory! We ate lunch, checked out the cows and headed up the stairs to the viewing area to watch all the cheese be made. Oh, but wait, it was a Sunday! And who wants to work on a Sunday?? No one apparently! We just got a view of the vacant work floor and the non-moving conveyor belt. Payton was like, "Wow...can we get some ice cream now?". Of course we got ice cream and I just have to say, it is so much better from there than in the store!

With their bellies full, we loaded them up and headed to Cannon Beach. They fell asleep somewhere in between, and Aaron and I enjoyed some uninterrupted talking time! Very Nice! When the kids woke up we bought some wood and walked to the beach. It was a beautiful day. We started a fire and roasted hot dogs and marsh mellows. Payton and I walked up and down the beach and collected enough firewood to last us until 8:30pm. That's when we decided we should drive back and deal with the heat! We arrived back at our house at 10:30 and it was still 83 degrees! It was so hot! I was grateful that we were able to get away from it while we could. Its not Disneyland, but it will have to do!

We had a very busy 4th of July! Normally we head down to the beach for the day/night, but we decided to stay in town this year as the weather wasn't supposed to be great. We first went to the 4th of July parade in Hillsboro. Here you will see my two timid children watching the parade. It took them about 30 minutes of the parade going by before they would chase down candy. They were lucky though, every time someone caught Chloe's big puppy dog eyes, they would hurl a handful of candy at them! She knows how to work it!

After we got more than enough candy, we loaded up in our car and headed for McDonalds with our $1 happy meal coupons in hand! The toys were Transformers and Littlest Petshop. I can't begin to tell you the joy that gave both my children! Oh, the little things in life!








After we were sufficiently stuffed, we drove to the movie theater and decided to watch Kung Fu Panda...with my free movie ticket vouchers. I was on a role with my thriftiness!! The movie was ok, Payton loved it. Chloe was doing tricks on the handicap poles in front of us, she was not into it.

Now by the time we got home it was 4:00pm and we were exhausted. So we decided to take a family nap until 6:00! It was soooo nice! We woke up starving though, and I still needed to go to the store! My neighbor and I decided to go together and get a BBQ started. We BBQ'd some hotdogs and hamburgers and waited for it to get dark. We were so excited to light our $30 worth of fireworks. As soon as it was dark enough we lit the first one! Hurray! Both my kids immediately ran into our neighbors house and hid until all the loud ones were done. As you can see Payton did his own sparkler at the end of the night. Chloe however wouldn't even touch hers.....yes, if you are wondering the sparkler is silent.....but she still felt the need to plug her ears! We all fell into bed at 11:30, exhausted and happy. The best part of the 4th....my kids both slept in until well past 10:00 the next morning!!!

Girls Beach Weekend!

After plotting and planning, we finally had our girls beach weekend! We started planning almost 4 months ago, and we couldn't have picked a better weekend to do it. While it was sweltering hot in town, the beach was around 80 both days. It was one of those rare weekends at the beach that you could actually wear a bikini and layout. The brave ones of us did this, but I was forbidden to take any pictures! Almost all of us left with some sort of a sunburn. Some burns were worst than others....Jill hows that going?? Anyways, Friday night we went down to the beach and built our own fire....we felt very good about ourselves. We made some smores and just hung out. It was so nice! This picture above is all of us with my self timer camera. Its Jill, Mimi, Me, Donia, Dara (on fire) and Liz. I really wish the fire hadn't got in the way. It is a super cute picture. We could pretend that Alisa is behind it, because we all know how she feels about not being in pictures!

This here is Donia moving the log that some of us sat on because the smoke kept getting in peoples eyes. She was pretty much doing it by herself! Notice Liz really thinking about helping her here!

Nothing too extraordinary happened this time. Just the weather and of course our amazing food! Donia made us the most delicious tacos! She is so great at that! We had Emily's Shrimp Friday night with baked potatoes and Jill's Beer Bread! Oh my goodness, it was so good! One thing we do know how to do on these weekends is eat and eat good! I will now feel full filled for the next year while I lose my freedom to a newborn! I look forward to my coming out weekend sometime next August!!

She's Crafty!

The title is from an old Beastie Boys song, but I don't think they were referring the 'craftiness' that I will be discussing in this post. Anyways, I was truly inspired by my friend Jill when I read her post about Stawberry Jam, so to Jill I give you all the glory and accolades. I know you will appreciate that! BTW I want your recipe for the Beer Batter Bread, it was devine....You hear that Emily?? I said devine!

Anyways, after reading Jill's post, I wanted to make some strawberry jam in a bad way. I hadn't done it since I was young and I really got a hankerin'. So coincidentally my Mom mentioned to me about 2 days later that she wanted to make some freezer jam and wanted to know if I was interested in doing it with her. I love how these things always work out. So yesterday was the designated day for out fun filled jam making extravaganza.



I loaded Chloe up in our new Expedition...yes I am still excited about our car...and we went to Nana's house. Chloe didn't quite know what was going on, but as soon as we got her apron on, she was excited. She helped us stir the sugar and pectin together and smash the strawberries. She felt very much like a big girl!




This is Chloe holding up our first completed jar of strawberry freezer jam. She was very proud of her self, and I don't think I need to say how stinkin' cute she is in this picture. She is actually saying 'Strawberries' instead of the always faithful 'cheeeese'.

We made 3 batches, but it only took us an hour. It was quite a team effort and I was very pleased with how it went!

Now that I felt all crafty with my crate of Strawberry jam, I went home with another hankerin'. I decided to finish making the quilt I had started for Chloe 2 years ago. So, when I got home I started up the old sewing machine and went to work. I am proud to say that I finished it last night a 9pm! You will see below...however not too closely because I am by no means a perfectionist and it looks better from afar! Now you may notice some strings hanging off the bottom of it. This is not a design errror on my part. If any of you know my daughter well enough, you will know that she has carried around her bumper from her crib since she was about 2 years old. It is long and annoying, but she loves to run the strings through her fingers. So being the loving mother that I am, I cute 4 sets of the strings off and sewed them to the top. I brought it in to her at 9pm as she was almost asleep. Her eyes got huge and she said in a very Anne of Green Gables way, "Oh, thank you Mama!". I could get used to being crafty!

This is my brother Daryl, and my other brother Daryl.

I just thought I would share a little tidbit about my children. We've been talking about baby names with them for a long time. We thought it was good to get their input and make them feel like their were part of the decision. Chloe at first said she wanted the baby to be named Bella. Then she quickly decided that she wanted to marry the neighbor boy Marshall, and when they sleep in the same bed she was going to have a baby and name HER baby Bella. This freaked us out a bit! Then she decided we should name the baby Alice.....all I could imagine was a housekeeper in a blue dress. Payton's only request was that if we have a boy that we name him Shark. I was glad when we found out we were having a girl, so I didn't have to get into a debate with Payton about why we could not call our baby Shark. (He's great at arguing, and actually comes up with valid points....which is frustrating being out debated by a 5 year old!)

Anyways, we finally told them we were going to name her Stella Rose. At which point Payton told us he like the name Ella and thought we should name her Stella Ella.....right. He told us that was what he was going to call her. Chloe then started crying and said we needed to name her Chloe. I told her that that was her name, but she insisted that we have 2 Chloe's. All I could think of was Payton saying...."This is my sister Chloe and my other sister Chloe". Then we could officially say we have Banks blood running through our veins!

Goodbye my dear old friend!

I finally had to say goodbye to my '97 Ford Expedition this weekend! It has been a faithful companion for me since Chloe was 5 months old. However, our history goes back further than that. This fine vehicle was bought with my college money, when I decided that I did not want to attend college for lack of a direction. I was in Mexico on my amazing vacation that my Aunt Diane took me on after graduation. I decided to call my Dad and see how things were going without me. Apparently they were going well because he said they had just bought an Expedition. He told me they used the loan that was going to be for my college on the car. Since then, we as a family have taken this amazing beast of a vehicle on 3 road trips to Disneyland, and racked up 179,000 miles on it. Sadly, the last year has been very hard on it. As it would not pass DEQ after several attempts. We replaced the spark plugs and then the wires and dropped over $500 on the two repairs. However, it still did not fix the sputtering and stalling. Aaron took it in again and they said it was the transmission, which is a $3,000 to $5,000 fix. Now, as much as I love this car, it was not even close to worth that much! The mechanic told us it would be better off to scrap it or trade it in before she completely died....tear!

This is not completely a sad story however! We have purchased a new very fuel efficient Ford Expedition....ha ha! When we went into the dealership, they asked us why we really wanted to buy an Expedition right now. Not that they weren't completely thrilled to get one off their lot! They even took our old Expedition in on trade, although they will be scrapping her!

Anyways, this is our 2003 Ford Expedition. It has tan leather interior, which I am most excited about because my kids! It also has a 6 disc CD changer, which our former Expo did not have. I had a nifty little tape deck in it....very useful!

Its such a cool car, that I can park on the sidewalk now....actually Aaron told me I'm not allowed to drive it into the garage. Whatever! I bumped our other expo 2 times pulling it into the garage and I will forever have a bad wrap!

Never mind the Beavers license plate....it was there when we bought it. Aaron is thrilled, but I am fearful for my life sometimes. My dad hasn't seen it yet!

Anyways, I am very happy with our new car, and it only cost $90 to fill up. UGH!