When the family gets together

We've loved having visitors so far this year!  The first week of April Dustin's sister Nicole and her friend Emily came to visit.  It was Nicole's birthday on April 1st so we made her an April fools birthday dinner of "hamburgers and fries" and then served a real dinner of manicotti. I was at work during most of her stay but Dustin had a great time with Nicole hiking waterfalls and such.

The same week my family came to visit for their spring break. We did what Jacks do best... eat lots of good food!  Some Rheinlander, Sushi-go-rounds, Mancakes, Voodoo Doughnuts, House of Beijing, and Cinetopia, Saturday Market, Rhododendron Gardens, and old school arcading made a great vacation!

It was great to see family and spend time with them in our crazy Portlandia!  Thanks for coming to see us!

The offer is still extended to anyone that wants to come visit us.  We love visitors!

Lincoln City

For our anniversary trip and Dustin's break between quarters, we took a little weekend trip to Lincoln City over Easter weekend.

The best way to start a road trip is with an ice cold Sonic (not available in Portland, which is what makes it so exciting!)

We stayed in the exact same room that we stayed in last year, which I loved because it's the jacuzzi room. :)

We spent some great time relaxing at the beach, shopping the outlet, and eating good food.  On Saturday we went on a whale watching boat tour down in Depoe Bay.  It was so cool!  We hadn't seen Life of Pi yet, but I felt like the moment when the whale jumps over the small raft.  Of course it wasn't that dramatic, but it was really cool to be boating right next to a pod of 6-8 whales.  I got soaked on the way out from the Bay. SOAKED.  Good thing it was nice weather and I could laugh about it.

It's a whale! And we're so close to it!

Being at the beach felt like a little piece of heaven.  After such a crazy time at work it was a much needed getaway!

4.0

This March we celebrated our 4 year anniversary.  It was a busy week with overtime at work and Dustin prepping for board examinations, but we made sure to celebrate a little. We thought about going to dinner and a movie on our actual anniversary, but decided that we were too tired for both so we just went to Cheesecake Factory and then home to bed.

Dustin gave me a new purse I picked out a few months earlier and I gave Dustin our March date of the month:

 Dustin, 

Our love is no joke.

Love,

Brianne

Dustin couldn't wait until Brian Regan to eat the Laffy Taffys, hence the opened bag.  The date pack included Laffy Taffy, an Old Chicago gift card (because Calzones are no joke... which is an inside joke of ours), and tickets to Brian Regan the next week, at the end of finals, which was a perfect day for celebration.

Once again, due to overtime at work, we only had time for a quick bite to eat before heading out to the Schnitzer  Auditorium for Brian Regan.

One of the famous Portland signs.  If you ever see Portlandia, it's part of the opening segment.

Dustin excited for some Brian Regan.

 You're technically not supposed to take pictures in the auditorium so we felt like rebels.  Of course a whole bunch of people were taking pictures, but we tried to be sneaky about it.

I can't believe how fast time has flown but I'm so happy for the 4 years of marriage and for forever more years to come!!

Back on the Grid

The cause of overtime... so many invoices to enter and pay.

Lately I feel like I've been off the grid.  Things got crazy at work in February, but were supposed to be better in March... except then they got crazier... and stayed crazy in April.  But hopefully May will be looking up!  Our Accounts Payable left the beginning of March and when we finally got her replacement, she was basically awful.  She didn't last long.  And she made us more behind than when we were down one person.  At that point I decided that I should take over Accounts Payable and we have a new Accounts Receivable/Purchasing starting this next week.  Fingers crossed that she works out and there will be no more overtime weeks ahead!!!

My boss brought me daffodils from her house.  She appreciated my hard work and overtime hours 

March was also sharing time for me and holy cow, it is hard to plan a lesson to entertain and teach a whole primary!  But I feel like my lessons went really well. My favorite one was probably my Time Machine with visitors that were Witnesses of Christ's resurrection. 

The awesome time machine I made.

It was pretty epic and the kids absolutely loved it.  And I got to let my visitors do all the talking so win win win. 

Some of my Witnesses.  They even dressed in costumes I brought.  Such good sports!   Thank you missionaries and Mataus!

In March we of course we had our 4 year anniversary, which deserves it's own post as well as everything else that went on.  We had a pretty good St. Patty's day, Easter, Dustin took boards, we had a Lincoln City weekend beach trip, and more dates of the month. 

Good thing I'm back on the grid so I can catch up on blogging and catch up on stalking everyone else's blog. 

Slowly but surely I'll get there.  We're still alive.  We're still having fun.  We're still busy as ever.

Stay tuned.

Date of the Month Club

For Valentine's Day I made Dustin a "date of the month club" packet.  I found this idea on pinterest a while ago and was reminded of it when my BYU freshman Relief Society president from Love Actually blog announced that she was selling them for Valentine's Day.  But I wanted to do a "Bachelor" style packet so here's what I put together:

Every month Dustin gets an epic Bachelor proportioned themed date!  Ok, so we won't be traveling via helicopters or limos, but we will have a really fun date!  I also included bonus romantic "getaways" (see Love Actually's blog for ideas, really, she's awesome!), and a love coupon book (coupons like cleaning the bathroom.  Super romantic.)  The night before, or early if needed, Dustin gets a "Date Card" he can open and an envelop with everything needed for our awesome date!

I've planned out an entire year's worth of dates (once a month) and am so excited for them! 

I'll admit that February's date wasn't as cool as the others will be, but that's because we had a groupon for dinner at Multnomah Falls lodge that was expiring soon and needed to use it.  So I based the date off a waterfall theme. 

The Date Card said:

Dustin,

Falling for you is Paradise

Love,

Brianne

Inside the envelope was our groupon for dinner, a coupon for a "couples waterfall shower", and the movie UP!  We also revised our budget to save money (I said it was a lame date, right?) and add to a Paradise Falls fund to save up for that epic vacation we want to take this year.  So far our jar is not very full....

 As we drove up to the falls, all of a sudden there was SNOW!  Which was kinda exciting to see.  We don't get that here very often which I am very happy about, but it was fun to see that slushy white stuff.  We took a quick picture at the falls and then browsed the gift shop for a souvenir.  Dustin got a Multnomah Falls pocket knife and I got a magnet.

 Dinner was very very good.  I want to go back.  For breakfast.  And lunch.  And dinner.  We also had the best seat in the restaurant! A perfect view of the falls for a short while until it got really dark outside.

Then we headed home for our movie night and budgeting.  I told him it was a "non-rose" date so he didn't have to worry about being sent home.  hahaha. 

 March's date will be MUCH cooler. 

Resolutions

From our Valentine's Weekend date at the Melting Pot.

I know it's February, but someone said sometime that a goal isn't a goal until you write it down.  Well, we wrote down our resolutions but I thought I'd write it down on here so that we could be more accountable for them.  So may I present to you: The Creer Family 2013 Resolutions! aka

Making 2013 Epic!

Fortune cookies never lie.  I guess we need to do some investigating!

• Save money.  Don't worry, we have a goal amount we want to get to.  But I'm not putting it down here.  Cuz I would feel weird.

• Lose 50 lbs.  So far we suck at this.  We are both fat.  And could both lose 50 pounds.  We need to get busy on this one but it keeps getting hard to do when we are trying to get pregnant, then got pregnant, then weren't pregnant again.  Too many changes!  Only 10 months left to go! 5 pounds a month is totally doable.
• Dustin pass all his classes. So far, so good.

• Brianne read 2 books.  I enjoy reading but NEVER read anymore.  Hooray for Taking a Night Off so I can read a book!  I can't believe that I set such a low goal for how many books to read.  So we're going to change it to read a book each quarter. Sound good? 
• Daily scripture reading.  We are working on this.  Still not great at it.  But working on it.
• Make new friends/Hang out with our current friends.  We need some good friends.  And some of our friends here will only be here for a little while.  Couples need couples.  How I Met Your Mother was so true about that.

• Brianne finish 2 quilts.  Again, why such a low number?  I've changed it to piece a quilt a quarter and finish 2 quilts for the year.  That sounds better, right?  I still am loving quilting and feel like I'm getting so much better at it.
• Dustin find a new hobby.  Still working on this.  But he did start playing church basketball this week.  That's a hobby, right?
• Go on a vacation.  We have lots of possibilities we've been contemplating.  There's the possibility of Washington DC over the 4th of July, San Francisco and the Redwoods, an Alaskan cruise (that's dreaming big), or of course there's always Utah. Which isn't a real vacation so we need something other than that.  Any other thoughts for us?  

 And that's all we got!  I feel like we've made decent progress considering it's only the 2nd month!  Despite the craziness, this year will be epic.

Taking a Night Off

Lately things have been SO crazy busy for us!  I thought life didn't get crazy busy until you were running five kids to five different sports/music/school activities.  I was wrong.  Between school, work, and church, we are busy busy bees!

Things at work have been a little crazy too... people taking vacations and I fill in for them; people getting married and I fill in for them;  people giving 2 weeks notice and I have to contemplate if I want that job.  Which I decided not to take.  But until we find a replacement, I'll still be doing that job.  Work is just madness! I hope and pray the day soon comes when my work will be in the home with adorable little babies that are pooping and screaming and throwing objects.  That sounds like a dream.

Dustin started the Masters of Exercise Science program along with his doctorate of chiropractics this quarter (have I already mentioned this?)   He was able to apply and get into the program a quarter earlier than they normally do which is FANTASTIC because that means we could be graduated the end of September 2014 instead of December 2014.  It's only 3 months difference but think about how much better it would be to move in September vs. December.  Yeah.  It's a big deal.  It also means his work load is a lot heavier with an extra class and extra weekend labs.

Church callings keep us busy busy too.  I'm the 2nd counselor in Primary (I feel like this post may be redundant and I don't know if it's cuz I've blogged this all before or just in my head.  Sorry if it's redundant!)  and over the cub scouts... which I know nothing about.  Sure, my mom was the Webelos leader when I was around that age, but I never paid much attention, those boys were gross.  For some lucky reason all my months of teaching sharing time this year have 5 WEEKS instead of the normal four.  And does the primary manual have lessons for those extra 5 weeks ever? Nope. Which means I get to make up lessons!  Blarg.  I will be teaching in March and while February has been a super exciting month of the creation and bodies, my lessons get to be the heavy Atonement, Death, Resurrection type lessons.  Yikes.  Our primary is SO young so I am struggling to find ways to teach little babies these deep topics.  It will be an adventure.

Look how adorable this Primary is.  This was when we were trying to take a picture for a Thank You card for the previous presidency.

Dustin is the ward mission leader and those missionaries sure love us!  They keep him busy with weekly meetings and frequently ask him to go out with them to lessons.  The Relief Society and Music Director have also asked my help in enrichment activities, sacrament meeting numbers, and so on.

We are super grateful for my job and that Dustin is progressing well in school.  We also like our callings and want to help the ward.  But MAN are we stressed out. a lot. and often. 

That is why we decided to come up with the "taking a night off" rule.  One night a week we get a break from everything: no cooking, cleaning, school, work, church, budgeting, nothing.  We can do what we want to relax and de-stress from every day life.  One night of quilting, reading, blogging, Nintendo time, working out, just whatever we want to do!  It has been a life saver! Because we know that we can't really have a night off, we switch off weeks so one of us can still keep the house running smoothly.

Tonight is my night off! Which is why I get to present to you a blog post!  I also got to watch some Survivor, work on my latest quilt, and I'll probably read more of Bossypants  when I'm done with this post.  Hopefully these nights off will mean that you, my dear friends, will get to hear more on this blog.  Maybe I'll resurrect my long lost recipe blog.  Maybe I'll make a cookbook from all my pinterest recipes I'd like to try.  Maybe I'll organize the millions of pictures on my computer that are lost!  The possibilities are endless!

And this keeps us sane.  Best idea ever.

Maybe you should give it a try too? Take a night off.