Getting ready for Halloween

We have been promising Belly for the last week or two that we were going to take her to the Pumpkin Patch. Unfortunately for her things kept getting in the way, someone was sick, then work was calling, on and on. Finally (!), on Tuesday afternoon she got her long awaited wish-- a trip to the patch.

We headed just south of Aloha to a small farm called Baggenstos Farms. They have a small hay maze for kids Belly's size, a petting zoo, a play structure, and of course rides out to the patch. We had a great time just running around and Belly picked out a couple of pumpkins for Greg to carve. Our list of Halloween stuff to get done is starting to dwindle... costumes are done and pumpkins now carved. Up for tomorrow? Trick or treating! Check back later this week for more horror...

Hay! A maze.

Tending the wild goat.

Ready for the ride.

Belly and Greg

Amongst the gourds...

Belly's first photography shoot. We are her faithful models.

I want these two!

The ride back to civilization.

The family. 10/30/07

Greg's annual company pumpkin. (I'd say brown-noser but in the spirit of the holiday, maybe just more of an orange-noser. haha!).

Five innocent pumpkins slashed to death.

Later, in an act of pure cannibalism, this one eats one of the smaller ones. **evil laugh!!!**

Time for a little cash accountability in life.

**The only man who sticks closer to you in adversity than a friend is a creditor. ~Author Unknown
**Creditors have better memories than debtors. ~Benjamin Franklin
**Debt is the worst poverty. ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732
**Today, there are three kinds of people: the have's, the have-not's, and the have-not-paid-for-what-they-have's. ~Earl Wilson
**The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. ~ Proverbs 22:7

January 2007: financial future forecast -- bleak. LOADS of student loan debt, no budgeting for day to day stuff, bank accounts only padded on payday.

October 2007: financial future forecast -- on the up and up!! Still loads of student loan debt but now an emergency fund in place, budgeting for EVERY single dollar spent per month, AND the beginnings of a debt snowball.

How did this happen? What propelled us to this place?
The proverbs verse did it for me. Not sure what the turning point for Greg was but it happened all about the same time somewhere late last year. A little book called My Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey helped us to see that we were falling into a pattern that would lead us not to a better place but a life held hostage by paycheck to paycheck living.

We decided to try out some of his ideas which were easy enough to follow and see where it lead us. Thank GOD we decided to give it a whirl. We are happier, more content, and feeling in control of spending and designing our future around being debt free. Granted, it is a long haul. We don't even own a home yet and we are saddled heavily with student loans. Yuck. We are making major sacrifices by reducing things we have always loved to do (travel) and things we thought we were going to do this year (buying our 1st home) but as DR loves to say, we are living like no one else so that one day we can live like no one else.

In the next 12 months we hope to have eliminated all but our student loan debts. Those loans will take at least a couple years of sacrifice. We hope that by the time this is all over we will finance our first home with at least a 20-25% cash down payment. Some things may change as the course continues. We hope to be blessed with another baby, whether it be through adoption or just by gettin' lucky! With continued hard work we should be able to contribute more thanks to a bigger "shovel" for our "hole".

I decided to put it all out there so that there is an accountability factor for us. In our October 2008 post I hope to say that we did it, we made it past the 1st part of the long term goal. Check back for updates, I promise we will keep you posted. :o)

enjoying a fall afternoon

YAY!!!! Fall is here and in full swing now!!!

Fall is by far my favorite season. I love the changing colors of the leaves, the crisp air, the beginnings of the holiday season feel, and the cooler, rainier weather. In CA we didn't really have "seasons", it just got less hot somewhere near November. That isn't very exciting. Here in Oregon, there is a definite fall feel. You know when summer is done.

With Halloween fast approaching we still have to make a run to the Pumpkin Patch, carve our gourds, and finish up Belly's costume. This year she will make her Halloween debut as a bat. She is looking forward to getting dressed up and going trick or treating.

Yesterday Belly and I took a stroll through a local park. We went late afternoon as the sun was starting to set through some of the trees. It was blustery, cool, and you guessed it-- very fall like.

Isabella, 10.25.2007

Showing off her stylin' rain boots.

Hamming it up.

Strolling through the leaves.

The sun setting over the trees.

Orders stay, Chris deploys.

For those of you who were following the continuing saga of is he going? is he not going? well... he is going. Official word was confirmed on Friday Oct. 19th that 10/22 was his date to report for training.

Chris is a naval reservist in the Seabee division, he will be a land unit deployed somewhere in Iraq soon. While I have mixed feelings about the war and the current administration running our country, I think it takes a lot of courage to be willing to be sent at a moments notice to another part of the world to serve for the United States of America.

May God keep and protect Chris safe and sound while he is there. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. Maybe while we are at it, we should keep our fingers crossed that he will meet some hot Iraqi woman, or maybe an unmarried with no baggage military gal-pal, fall in love, come home with her, get married, and give me a niece or nephew!!!! :o)

We love you Uncle Chris! Come home soon!!

Greg and Chris about to chow down at Port San Luis

Belly and Uncle Chris

Enjoying a day at the beach together. 10.08.07

Travels...

We are back in the blogging business folks!

Admittedly been a little lazy at updating the posts but I noticed we have had a lot of visitors from near and far (some of you DR forum readers too!!) so time to get back on the horse.

Late last month while I was slaving away at work I sent a text message to Chris (Greg's brother) asking if he thought he might be coming up to PDX for Christmas. He sent me this message back saying, Call Me. Uh oh. What? Why? So I actually took a break off the floor because my spider senses were tingling telling me something not so good was up. I was right. Earlier that day he had reported for duty at his naval reservist weekend drill and was told he and 2 others were being mobilized for active duty in Iraq with a deployment date of Oct. 22nd. I'll tell you what, this had been a pretty good week until I heard the news. Greg had just gotten the promotion the week before and now this. We chatted for a bit and then I realized I better go back inside to work and take some calls. Later that night I called Greg to deliver the bad news and we waited to call home to Santa Maria as Chris hadn't relayed the news to their parents yet. ug. It was a long weekend and we were both filled with dread and a general nauseated feeling.

We decided if this is what is happening we better spend a little time with Chris. It would have been great for everyone to come up north but since the reality of that was slim to none we planned an unexpected jaunt to CA. So, plans were made, a car was rented, a budget established, vacation dates secured, and off we went. We left Friday Oct. 5th.

While we were down we figured we would spend a little time with our other 1/2 of the family in the valley. It was perfect timing since Karnig was (and now is!) turning 9 and had a birthday party already planned out for that very same weekend. Belly was so excited to visit! Matter of fact as soon as she heard there was going to be a bounce house at this party all she could talk about was her cousin is having a birthday party and she gets to go! hahaha.

We stayed over at Sheila's for the night and hung out with one very emo teenager Alex and the now moving independently Shayley. It was a nice night and also perfect timing as it was Sheila's birthday on the 8th. I guess if we are going to come down we might as well make it as worthwhile as possible and get everyone's birthdays out of the way. :o) The next day we drove into our old haunting grounds, Visalia, and spent a couple hours visiting Grama Rachel and Aunt Candi. It was a nice visit and great to see that everyone seemed to be doing well. Matter of fact, Grama was looking pretty great. We scooted along to Dinuba and met up with the partiers and we had a great rest of the day. Belly enjoyed visiting and playing with her cousins (especially Melina!) and eating cake.

Santa Maria was the next stop. We spent three days hanging out with the family, enjoying some quality time with Chris. We had a great day at the beach in Avila (hands down coolest day ever at Avila-- great weather and more sea lions doing tricks and hanging out than we have ever seen here. It was amazing!), spent a day out at VAFB, and the last day we had a low key day while Belly spent a solo afternoon with Nana and Papa and the Greg cooked up a delicious lamb shish kebab dinner for all of us including his Grandma Tognetti, Annie and Corey.

We left Thursday afternoon to head back home after having lunch with Greg's mom and dad. Greg and his dad were able to clear up some long standing father/son stuff so after we left Greg felt pretty good and felt like the trip was complete. Nice. The trip back home was pretty uneventful, good weather and traffic were nice for a change.

Check out some pictures below of the trip. We miss everyone and can't wait to see you all again. (Hopefully next time will be Christmas in PORTLAND for Greg's mom and dad).

Beautiful Mt. Shasta shrouded by a cool cloud formation.

Belly and Great Grama Rachel

Aunt Candi, Great Grama, and Belly

Grama and us.

3 generations.

Belly, the cousins, and the Gunkamire.

Belly and her girls.

She has this one wrapped around her finger!

Karnig, Belly, and Arlen.

Aunty Rose-- purveyor of used People Magzines. :o)

Port San Luis on 10.08.07

Belly and daddy-o.

Close enough to pet the sea lions! Cool!

Nana Debbie and Belly.

Sea Lion doing some modeling for us.

Demonstrating superior writing skilz.

Bel and Ma

We are sooooo sexy!

new postings coming to the blog SOON!

Just wanted to give my faithful few that I will have a new posting up (hopefully) by Friday this week. I have to download some pictures, etc. before I start adding here.

xoxo!