On a completely random side note, let me share with you one of my greatest pleasures... it's called, "the laundry walk".
I did it this morning like I do so many other mornings.
I walk through the house, going through every bedroom, both bathrooms, the kitchen, the living room, the front room, and I gather up each and every piece of dirty laundry.
Oh the indescribable joy when all the darks fit into the washer making a full load, and I have all the whites sitting in the laundry basket waiting patiently for their turn to be washed. Every article of dirty laundry is accounted for! Before I walk out the door, I put the darks in the dryer and the whites in the wash. And for that brief fleeting moment, all is right in the world.
Well, not exactly "grew up in". I lived there from birth to eleven years old. Even though we moved to Salem when I was fairly young, I have so many good memories from my time here. We didn't have a TV when I was a kid, so my two older brothers and I spent every spare minute running around outside, riding bikes, making forts, climbing trees, sleeping out on the back deck in the summer, skiing to the grocery store in the winter. I remember even jumping off the roof of our house into the snow. Just looking at this picture brings back so many memories. In fact, every time we drive through Bend, I am always flooded with memories....Good times!
My brother Jeremy on our back deck.
On Mother's Day weekend my two brothers stayed at our house. Nate flew in from Texas and Ben drove down from Seattle. On one of the nights, my adorable little brother Ben cooked an authentic organic, Seattle-hippy-style dinner for all of us. :) I was so impressed: Grilled eggplant with humus, spinach, red peppers, kalamata olives and feta cheese. And it was actually amazingly delicous! Both of my brothers are actually very talented musicians, and can sing VERY well. So the three of us competed against each other singing High School Musical songs on the Wii. Nate was undefeated, so Ben and I kept trying and trying to beat his high score, but no such luck. Although, I did take them both to school in Wii sports as we played into the "wii hours" of the morning. And I must let you know I'm the undisputed tennis champ!
Olivia absolutely adores my brother Nate and followed him around everywhere he went.
That's my adorable, little sister Abby on the left. And once again, we celebrated with more food!
We feel very blessed to be able to get away for a few days. It has been so refreshing! Yesterday we spent the day at Eagle Crest, and now we are enjoying Sunriver for a couple days. I've been a little camera happy, so you'll have to endure a lot of pictures!
We are really enjoying our short time away...if only it didn't have to end so soon!
As you may have guessed, life in the Garland house has been quite busy lately. Which would explain my one lonesome blog post for the whole month of April...ouch! That's an all-time low!