Oh what a weekend!

Friday morning I woke up at 5am to get ready and get to the airport for my flight that left at 7:30am. By 9:00am I was on Oregon ground in Portland having breakfast with my sister, Mandy. We had a wonderful time chatting and catching up and eating yummy food! Around 1:00pm my best friend, Jess, picked me up and we drove 3 hours East(ish) to Bend, talking the entire drive. Friday night we had a "congrats on your new job" dinner for Jess with her family, we went to a restaurant called Ariana, it was amazing. Later that night around 10:30pm (after a rockin game of Settlers with Jess's fam) we went out to Bend Brewing Co with my great friends Dave and Majell Beach and had a beer. It was great to see them as always. Saturday morning I went again to see Dave and Majell at their home and we had a wonderful cup of Stumptown coffee, oh how I miss such wonderful coffee. I met up with my mom a little later and she took me and my liitle 12 year old sisters to breakfast then shopping! We went to Target and I stocked up on all the goods, then we went to Macy's and my mom bought me a wonderfully cute Franco Sarto purse and I am IN LOVE with it. Oh how I love being a girl! After the shop-fest I met back up with Jess and we got ready for Kari's wedding (the main reason I went to Oregon). Kari and Aaron's wedding was perfect. It was set at Broken Top in the Club house, very beautiful. The ceremony was great, the food was amazing and we danced the night away like you should at any wedding. Overall, we had a great time. Jess and I were exhausted and after the wedding went straight home and slept. We woke up early Sunday morning and Jess was wonderful enough to drive me all the way from Bend to Seattle where Derek was waiting to pick me up and take me home! Oh what a weekend!

To see a few pics of Kari's wedding check out my photo blog.

The cute kidos that surround me in one way or another

I just wanted to give special mention to the cute kidos that surround my life in one way or another. I didn't ask permission, but stole pics from their blogs :) Hope ya'll don't mind.


Cute Baby Sam, son of Chris and Jenni, friends from Bend.
I am yet to meet this little guy, as he is just a month old, but
soon I hope.













Precious Sienna, daughter of Jeff & Lara. They have
recently moved from Vancouver to New York and I
miss them dearly. Sienna just had her 1st bday! Yay!












Zach and Conner, sons of Amber and Asa. Amber
and I have recently touched base again and have become
great friends via email, etc. I have not met her boys, but
they sure are cute. And #3 is on the way!









This is the futre baby Reimer, son or daughter of
Jeff & Jess who will be born in January! Yay!











Amy and Naomi, daughters of Ger and Lizzie
who used to be our landlords and are fellow
Regent folk and good friends. They're getting so big!












And these are my nieces, Bella and Maici.
My big brother's daughters, they are growing
up way too fast!










Hope you enjoyed all the kids. They have all touched my life in one way or another and as you know, I love kids! So much fun to see them grow and change and watch their parents grow as well. What an amazing thing. And oh so cute!

How was New York? What did you do??

sorry for the delay

How was NYC you ask?? Well, let me start by saying that it was AMAZING!!! We had the best time and we did not want to come back. Words cannot describe and pictures cannot even tell what a great and unforgetable time we had. We arrived in NYC around 1:30 in the morning on Sunday technically, we checked into our "okay" hotel and were starving, luckily for us, our hotel was just 1/2 a block from Times Square. Times Square, at 1:30am was as hoping and bright as ever. The streets were packed, families with their bright eyed kids were exploring the stores, the street performers were in full swing. We were shocked. We knew that NYC was the "city that never sleeps" but goodness! Needless to say we had no problem finding us some food. We went to bed and woke the next day at noon (oops!), but since they are 3 hours ahead over there it was really only 9am for us. So we didn't feel too bad. We got ready and walked out our hotel and there was a hige Street Market happening. It was amazing! Lots of cheap jewlery and good food, all the "I heart NY" t-shirts for sale, and really anything you could want. We enjoyed that. From there, our vacation really began and we were ready to "Do New York".

This may or may not be of interest to you, but I thought I would give you a quick run down of what our days held. You can skip onto the pictures if you'd rather but here are the main events of our week in NYC:

Day 1:
-Guggenheim Museum
-Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park
-Walk around Midtown and saw Rockefeller Centre, NBC Studios, St Barts Cathedral
-Had Thai food for dinner
-Explored Times Square and went to the Hershey Store & Virgin Records

Day 2:
-Walked to the Hudson River
-Went to Ground Zero (World Trade Centre Site)
-Saw the Chrysler Building
-Went to Grand Central Station
-New York Public Library (sadly, they were closed the day we went)
-Had dinner in Little Italy
-Dessert in Times Square

Day 3:
-Saw some of the Today Show
-Dean & Deluca coffee shop
-Cirlce line tour (a 3 hour boat tour around manhattan)
-Stood in the TKTS line and got tickets to see The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway
-Had Appetizers and martinis at a pub
-Went to The Phantom of the Opera (amazing!)
-Hung out inTimes Square some more
-Went to Jamba Juice (we went probably 5 or 6 times while we were there)

Day 4:
-Empire State Building (waited in line for 2 hours)
-Shopped at the 4 story Old Navy
-Hung out in Grennwich Village, saw NYU
-Saw RENT on Broadway (holy crap...amazing!)

Day 5:
-Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
-Switched hotels and moved to the Upper Westside
-Went to the Seinfeld Restaurant
-Walked around Columbia University Campus
-Riverside Park at 91st Street
-Rain storm!!!!!
-Had dinner at Manhattan diner (across the street from our hotel)
-Went to Stand-Up NY (a comedy club)

Day 6:
-Went to The Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
-Lunch at Gray's Papaya
-Explored Central Park (walked around a bit and rode bikes all through it)
-Went to Zabar'a (a famous little grocery store on the Upper Westside)
-Our last night out and we went to a fancy Italian dinner at 'Cesca

Day 7:
-Rolled out of bed and had breakfast at Cafe Lalo
-Walked around the neighborhood
-Checked out of our hotel
-Hopped on the subway and went to Yankee Stadium
-Spent the afternoon with the Yankees and the Angels
-Went to "Big Nick's" for dinner (their menu is 27 pages long!)
-Rode the subway allllllll the way to JFK
-Goodbye NYC :(

We did a lot and feel like we were able to do everything we wanted to do. People have asked what our favourite part of our trip was and I would have to say that seeing the shows on Broadway were one of the most amazing things I have seen in my life. I only wish we could have seen more than 2. Our other favourite was the 3 hour boat tour around Manhattan. We were able to see so much of Manhattan and learn tons and interesting facts and it was very much worth every minute and every dollar.

While we were there, we took over 750 pictures and that doesn't even include what we haven't gotten developed from our "real" camera. I figured most people probably don't want to see all 750 of our digital pics (except maybe my mom, and you Shell), so I made a very much abridged version of 102 pics for my blog. If you have any desire at all to see more pics of a certain event, then feel free to let me know and I am happy to e-mail you more pics. Anyway, as always, you can find the pics on my picture blog. ENJOY!!

The Browns are off to "do New York"

So tomorrow is the day. We will leave our comfort of Vancouver and head east to New York City.
We could not be more excited!! I am sure you have all heard about the extreme heat that has been rolling through New York. Luckily for us, that is now passing through and the weather should be perfect with highs in the 80s and lows in the 70s. The Lord is good to us. Bring on the subways, bring on Times Square and bring on NEW YORK CITY!

peace

First Canadian Wedding

Monday night I experienced my first Canadian wedding. It was wonbderful. You wouldn't think that things would be that much different, but oddly enough, it was. I can't totally call it "canadian" because the groom is from Norther Ireland and the bride is from Canada. But it was in Canada and I guess held most of the canadian traditions and norms, so whatever.
Some examples of differences are this: they sign the marriage Certificate (which is called "The Registry" here) during the ceremony. It is fully an important part of the ceremony. Also, the wedding was at 3:00 (3 on a monday...yeah who knows!) and the reception wasn't until 6:30. Which for us worked out because we didn't have a present yet. So after the ceremony we went to the mall and got a present then I went home and had plenty of time to change and get all fancy for the reception. It was kind of nice, but strange. The reception then lasted HOURS! we mingled mingled, sat down at our assigned seats, had some speaches, ate dinner, more speaches, more speaches, dessert, mingled, cake, first dance and then more dancing and it was about midnight at this point and we were tired and left before the bride and grrom. Crazy! But I kind if loved it. In the states the "leaving of the bride and groom" is kind of a big deal, but in canada, not so much! It was also the most fancy wedding reception I had ever been to. The reception was held at a place called the Brock House which is pretty much right on the beach..amazing! When we got there, the servers were walking around with appetizers and there was an open bar and it was in the most gorgeous location. You will see in the pics. I must say, it was quite a great experience. Congrats Tim and Jen!

holy crap, I am going to NYC the day after tomorrow!