New House, Same Shirt

We had an unusually sunny Friday a few weeks ago and Matt decided to pick me up from work and go see the Pittock Mansion. I for some weird reason had never been there before but Matt knew all about it! It a huge house built back in the early 1900's. It is beautiful but the view of Portland is amazing!

The best part about these pictures is my husband...When he came to pick me up from work I started to laugh at the shirt that he had on. He had worn it the day before but forgot. I am sure that the guys at work were feeling sorry for him for one of two reasons. Either his wife hadn't done the laundry or we just can't afford more than 5 different shirts for him to wear during the week. Matt always makes me laugh!

Christmas 2007

We were able to spend Christmas at home this year! We spent 2006 in Utah with my family so we stayed close to enjoy this year with the Cope family. I was pretty excited to be able to get a real tree and decorate our house. Matt was a trooper and put up the Christmas lights right before Thanksgiving. (Don't worry..they weren't turned on until the Monday after Thanksgiving)

We went up in the hills to cut down a Christmas tree a few weeks before Christmas.

The tree ended up being a little too big and took a tumble at 430 AM on a Wednesday! Thank goodness my little brother was asleep in our living room and heard the crash along with the ornaments popping! (The mess would have been way worse if we had found it a couple hours later.) Only 30 minutes later with a few broken ornaments, some wet Christmas presents, and ALMOST a few tears shed we were back in bed.

We had a wonderful Christmas with Matt's family. It was the first year that I was not with my own so I did shed a few tears but I enjoyed every minute with the Copes.

This pictures cracks me up. I came home from visiting teaching one night in December and Matt had baked these pre made cookies. He had left to go play basketball and rather than throwing them out he left them for me to see with this note. "i wouldn't eat any. Pretty gross"

November 2007

To keep up with the updating...

In November we were able to take quick weekend trip to Utah for my niece Elle's baptism. I can not belive she is 8 already! She looked so beautiful dressed in white! Can't wait for her wedding day!

It was fun to spend the weekend with my family. After the baptism on Saturday we took the kids to Thanksgiving Point. My Dad was bit by a donkey and we were able to witness a few other things that I can't even put into words...

Miriam came down from Rexburg and was able to experience some Sautter fun as well! On Sunday we went to Vernon to see my Grandparents and go to church with them. I LOVE going to Vernon! Visiting always brings back lots of fun memories! I love being able to take Matt out there and hang out with the family! Look forward to making more memories there with our own family someday...

As my dad would say "Who are those two cool dudes?!"

Thought I would throw in this picture. This was our first trip to Utah together. Christmas 2006!

Bear Lake-August 2007

The Olson family reunion was held in Bear Lake again last July. We were excited to be able to go even though we had already taken time off work for the wedding. The reunion was only one week after our wedding so it was great to be able to see my family who were unable to make it to Oregon. Matt was excited to meet the rest of my extended family and experience the craziness of a big family reunion. I think there was around 60- 70 of us there! We had a great time playing on the beach, playing cards and eating way too much food. I can't remember much else about the trip...but we had a great time and look forward to this summers trip! I thought I had some decent pictures from the trip...apparently they are on someone else's camera. Here is one of Matt going of a rope swing into FREEZING water. I sat and watched :) You can barely see him in the air in the middle of the picture.

After the reunion was over Matt, me, and my dad were going to Idaho Falls for a memorial service for my Grandpa Sautter. We decided to take Matt to Island Park and show him where my dad spent a lot of time as a kid and where I have lots of fun summer memories. We stayed at my uncles house and we took my Great Grandpa's old fishing boat out on the Snake. It was fun to be able to go out and "look" for fish while my dad tried to catch a few. I was excited about it until I saw the poor guys die at my feet in the boat. After the adventure on the river we decided to drive to West Yellowstone for dinner and just to go :) Wish we would have had more time than just a couple hours of daylight but it was a fun quick trip. While we were driving around Matt was really wanting to see a moose. My dad turned off a few different roads where he thought that they might be. With no luck we decided to take Matt to Big Springs...as we pull up Matt sees the moose he had been hoping for. It was a "baby" moose! (is it called a calf?) As we walked up closer we see the "momma" moose, who had a hurt leg. Needless to say, Matt was pretty excited about it. We tried to take some pictures but they were too far away and it was dark. So this is the best one we have of the "baby" moose. And one of Matt watching the moose.

Congrats if you made it through this whole post!

The Honeymoon...

To continue on with the "back blogging".... We went on a mini honeymoon to the Oregon Coast for 3 days after the wedding. We were pretty happy with the decision to lay low and not do anything too exciting. It was so nice to sleep in and relax for a few days. I have a family friend who has a fantastic beach house in Cape Mears (outside of Tillamook) who kindly let us stay there. We had one day of beautiful weather so we drove to Lincoln City and hung out. Other than that it was pretty low key. We took a few pictures nothing extraordinary....enjoy!

March Madness 2008

I now understand why they call it Madness. For the past couple of years Erin and I have entered 2 brackets each in the ESPN.com tourney challenge just to see how well we can predict.

So of course I watch college bball and think there is no way that Erin will be able to predict as many games as I will be able to, but man did I underestimate the competition. Not only did Erin beat me, but she beat over 97 percent of the entries. She ended up in the top three percentile of over three million brackets!!! (I know it was at least that many because I unfortunately was in 3 millionth place at one point). Although, to redeem myself, I did end up around 1 millionth place. 1,025,280 to be exact.

The best part is that as we were watching the championship, with a few mins left Memphis was up by 9 points and Erin had figured my bracket had won because I picked Memphis, she said, "Good job, honey, you win." For the first time I had seen her be less competitive than me. I quickly responded that it wasn't over yet, figuring it really was. Then after Memphis missed about ten free throws and Chalmers popped a three to tie it up in the last seconds, I knew Kansas would take it in overtime. Secretly, I wanted Kansas to win because I wanted to see how good Erin's bracket could do, because she was in the top 2 percentile the whole tournament.

Madness? I would say so...

or amazing ESP from Erin? Either way props to Erin. She amazes me every day.