Wedding Weekend!

Wow, just WOW! Such a fantastic weekend in Bend with family and great friends. Kari and Greg's wedding couldn't have possibly gone any better or been more amazing, and we are SO happy for them! And so happy for us! :)  For now, here's just a dump of photos of the big day. The beautiful, big, day.

OH....and, we set up a photo booth at the reception that was a real hoot'n holler'n good time!! :) 

These are just some highlights, all the other hundreds are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/heidi_hagman/sets/72157634179734893/

Adventures in Portland

Now that Ben's in kindergarten we can't just take trips whenever we want. WHAT?!  I know. Not that we're taking many trips these days...but I jumped at the idea of some time for us all to get away on an adventure. SO, Portland is what I came up with when looking at the map of fun places within driving distance, and Mike was on board with the idea! This was the FIRST TIME we've ever all stayed in a hotel room together. We've taken trips, but usually to my mom's time share where we're spoiled by multiple bedrooms, or the occasional vacation rental in which we ALWAYS chose a house for the same reason. Luckily now the kids are older and SO MUCH more flexible. Or maybe we are. :) So...off we went.

Oscar only made it as far as Meridian to spend a doggie vaca with my generous mom. But, not the back of the car wasn't even stuffed to the ceiling with STUFF...we took way less than we need for a weekend at the cabin! Which, much to Mike's dismay, left plenty of room for Heidi's shopping treasures. With the modern-day luxuries of iPads and iPhones, the 7 hours passed so very quickly with so very few complaints. One stop for a potty break and then on to the Bonneville damn fish hatchery, which was worth the trip itself. 

The kids RAN like wild animals and were so excited, it's a beautiful place. They even got to feed the trout, a big ol' handful of food for a quarter. That extremely large fish in the pictures is Herman the sturgeon, he's 70 years old, 450 pounds and 10 feet long. He was definitely a highlight! 

Then we got back in the car for our next stop just a few miles down the road, Multnomah Falls. ALSO beautiful and worth the trip alone, and the kids were equally excited! Again we got to get out and run, and the kids asked to take the short but steep hike up to the bridge you see in front of the falls. SO pretty! 

                                     

We decided we definitely earned some treats. Some LARGE treats. 

Then we were on the road again for just the few minutes to Portland. I'll do another post with those adventures!

Wow...time to catch up.

WHAT?! This site here says it's been since October since I blogged. Okay well, it's time. It's WAY PAST time. I feel like it's been a while since I've done the "here's what's going on in our lives" kind of blog post. Because well, this blog is mostly so that I can remember what goes on in our lives...some day! Heck, I can hardly remember what was going on 3 months ago! SO...
Today is my mom's 70th birthday! Happy Birthday Mommy! She says she doesn't feel 70, and she sure doesn't LOOK 70, nor act it. I hope I'm like that at 70. Because well, at 34 I feel exhausted. That will pass right? I realized a couple weeks ago that we're at the lone point in our lives where I'm basically half her age. I will be 35 in a couple months, so she was about my age when she had me! Never again will I be half her age! Anyway....to celebrate we leave in a couple days for the wine country. Oh who am I kidding, we leave in 36 hours (yup, counting) for the wine country...me, my mama, and my seester. And it can't come fast enough! It's going to be an amazing 3 1/2 days together.

It's the end of January...usually the point I realize that spring needs to come. FAST. Luckily, each year our kids get hit a little less hard by sickness (knock on wood...why would I even type that????) and the winters get slightly easier. We can get out a bit more, and some days hey...it's OKAY if we watch too much TV. AND...this year...this is big news...THIS YEAR, we have a cabin to go to. My mom bought a cabin. And it's FANTASTIC. She closed on it on Seester's birthday, June 29th. It all happened SO fast, Mike and I had been looking JUST for fun for a year or so, finding a great one, then talking ourselves out of it. I just left my job for pete sake, obviously we weren't serious about a second house payment. But Kari happened to show our mom the link to a place we'd found and well, it planted the seed. It all seemed a little crazy with my dad just passing in April, but you know what? I think we all needed something to be excited about, and realized just how short life is. And just how many great memories would be made at that cabin together as a family. So you know what? She went for it! WE went for it! Best decision ever. We go up there a lot, and it's SUCH a treat to have such a lovely place in the woods to escape to.

Another thing that's happened, I'm kind of a photographer! Okay, I AM a photographer. It still feels a little weird saying that, but people DO indeed pay me, and keep asking me, to take their photos. And I LOVE IT. It just sort of happened, without planning it, which makes it all the more fantastic. Now looking back, I've always LOVED taking pictures. I got a camera as soon as I could ask for one, and made my best friend Julie dress up and pose so I could take pictures of her. We were probably....7? 8? I couldn't wait to get through a roll of film, take it to Osco Drug (is that what it was?)  and wait those painfully LOOONG 7 or so days to get the photos back. I loved family vacations when our parents would drive us to some awesome place to experience nature and I'd take a LOT of photos of mountains that all looked the same. So....I guess it makes sense now. When I turned 30 my awesome husband bought me a nice Nikon camera and well, the rest is history.

So, Ben's in kindergarten. And ROCKING it. He full on reads. Kind of anything....well, within reason for a 5 year old. Over Christmas break it just totally clicked for him, which is what they say happens. He went back and his teacher (who is awesome btw) was all amazed, but not surprised, as she just knew he would be one of her "readers". He also loves math, and can add and subtract double digit numbers. Which seems kind of hard to me, without my iPhone. :)  He loves football. Not just the Packers like the rest of the Hagmans, any football. He loves the statistics and knew all season the standings of each team. Or whatever it's called. Obviously more than I know. He's starting to shy away from Mommy's smothering a bit, when I tell him I love him he just says "okay" and pulls away from my hugs. Sniff. But he's the kind of kid who totally plays it cool and then one day, out of nowhere, will grab on tight and randomly tell me. And it makes pretty much my whole year.

Brooke. Ohhhhhhh Brooke. Such a character, as she always has been. SUCH a girl. When she's upset, WATCH OUT, but then is so quickly over it. She tells me I'm the bestest Mommy in the WHOLE wide world and she loves me so so so so so so much. Her favorite thing in life right now is dance class with Miss Savannah. It's once a week through the Boise Parks and Rec, we pay hardly anything for it, and it's the best part of her week. She was doing just ballet for a while, and now is in a tap/ballet combo class. Those tap shoes rock her world...I think the fact that the sheer sound of something can draw even MORE attention to her is super exciting. She really takes after her cousin Hailee SO much, bright like her and her brother, but outgoing as only the girls are. Her deep-bellied laugh can cheer me up any day, but her stubbornness can be WAY more than I can handle! I keep telling myself her strong will can only serve her well in life! Right? Pretty sure it's Karma from my younger years.

But I do know this...those two kids love each other to pieces! Fight like dogs, but would do anything for each other. So SO so happy we have them, which is kind of hard to spit out because we had a frustrating day today. Mostly because of dumb things like taking FOREVER and a year to put on shoes and coats. But they are amazing, I love them to death, and we are so very blessed. Speaking of...in May Mike and I will celebrate our 10 year anniversary! TEN. YEARS. Does that seem like a really long, really weird, amount of time to you? Because it does me. But...Ben's almost six. SIX?!?! So ya...makes sense. So again, along the super blessed lines, the two of us have booked a trip to Costa Rica to go celebrate! AND another thing? Seester and Greg are getting married!! Man...it HAS been a long time. This is entirely too much information for one blog entry. June. Bend. Again, CANNOT wait...this is a pretty amazing year. Which is great, because last year kinda sucked. Which brings this all kind of full circle and back to my mom's 70th birthday! So so SO happy that we have her here with us, and SO blessed that I have an amazing family full of absolutely top-notch people. Not sure how I got so lucky, but I am!!! xoxoxo