Got Clams?

Sometimes you just need to drop everything you had planned for the weekend and go meet your family for camping and clam digging at Fort Stevens and so that is what I did.  There were campfires, guitars, and campfire songs. We had fresh peach cobbler cooked oven the campfire in a dutch over. There was clam digging and dog walking. We even had a little rain, but that's okay.  And did I mention lots of food? We had lots of food - not that that ever happens at our family get-togethers. PS. we missed you mom and dad!! 

Cheers! <3 BB

my little sister is growing up

Eeeeeek. So my little sister is graduating high school tonight and I can't handle it. She is supposed to be the little baby of the family still - not a beautiful, young woman. Being the oldest and wisest of 4 children I sometimes take on the role of 3rd parent - which my siblings hate. As the 3rd parent I have come to the realization that none of my siblings are little any more...Especially Brittany. Brittany and I have something special going on.  I think you have to form a special bond when you have two brothers in between. Us females have to stick together.

Brittany is stubborn. She is smart. She is strong. And she only reads my blog when it's about her. She has gone through not 1, but 2 ACL surgeries during her high school basketball career and yet she still has a positive attitude. She is basically a rock star.   

Over the weekend we got together with family and friends to celebrate her achievement and tonight we head to the graduation. I will confess tomorrow whether or not I cried. 

Also you can check out her, senior photos that my fabulous friend Anne Blodgett took, here. 

Can't wait to see all the great things you do in college and beyond, sis!

Cheers to Brittany!!! 

<3 BB

Things I Learned Over Mother's Day

Happy Monday Everyone, 

This girl had a fabulous weekend at home for Mother's Day and I learned a whole lot that I want to share with you all. To do so I figured I would link up with Katie Que, read this, then hop on over to her blog and see what she learned this weekend (it's probably much more entertaining than what I learned.), and then link up with us to share what you learned.

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//Surprising my mom and coming home for Mother's Day was probably one of the better decisions I have had in a long while. 

//Rifle Paper Comany makes the best cards. 

//The only thing that has changed about my mom in 20 plus years is her hair style. She's still got it. 

//Outkast Pandora station will play hit after hit on your 3 and a 1/2 hour drive. Including this song.

//Tupac knows how to honor Mother's Day. 

//The movie Neighbors not that good, not that I expected it to be. Sorry, Helene. 

//When you're in Southern Oregon, you do Southern Oregon type things - like shoot guns in the mud. Don't worry though, my little brother is getting ready to into the Police Academy, he knows what he is doing. Me.. not so much. 

//My mom's pond is the best place to drink your morning coffee.

//Hiking in the sun is fun.

//And the most important thing (that I already knew, because I'm so smart) family is the bestest.

Cheers to Mother's Day! 

<3 BB 

labor day shennannies

Oh man,

Happy Tuesday or for me this is my Thursday already since I leave for a wedding in Chicago on the real Thursday! Definitely not complaining to only have two days of work after coming off a great Labor Day filled with lots of shenanigans. Sami would be proud.   

Celebrations even started a little early, because our friend Cory had extra tickets to the Hillsboro Hops game last Thursday annnnnd they had a free buffet, sign me up. 

The rest of the weekend consisted of family time, cards, eating, swimming, more eating, working out, hiking, and did I mention eating?! 

The weather was perfect all weekend, which made for great hiking. Hit up my favorite spot on the North Umpqua River. 

Oh and here is a sneak peak of my sister's senior photos! Anne did a fantastic job and I can't wait to see the rest!!!! 

Hey hottie, stop looking so beautiful... Actually, it's really crazy to see my sister all dolled up, she never wears makeup, but I think she should. She is so pritay, like model or cheerleeda. 

Cheers! 

<3 BB 

surprise. dad got another day older

Oh Hey Monday, 

I'm not ready for you. Then again I'm never ready for you, unless you're a Holiday and we're celebrating by not being at work.  Although this weekend was kind of like a holiday, or at least my father thinks it was, being his birthday weekend and all. My sibs and I all decided we were going to surprise my dad and be home for his birthday, mom was even in on the plan. Friday night, Brad and I left Portland at 10pm and arrived at the parents' house by 1am and my other sibs had gotten in earlier in the evening. Brad HAD to watch the US Men's National game, which is why we had such a late start, but it was definitely worth waking my dad up and confusing him ;) 

The weekend was perfect, food, family, friends, and nice weather. 

My parents purchased a new home a little over 2 years ago now and their pride and joy of the place is the backyard so far.  Last summer they focused on putting in a pond and this spring they just finished putting in a 9 feet tall water feature. It's awesome. 

Mom's pretty pond. Mom recently had 2 very traumatic experiences, one featured birds and the other was caused by a power outage, both killed all her koi fish in the pond. She's still not ready to talk about it.  

Dad's project.

This thing is massive. twss.

The weekend was super relaxing.  The guys golfed a lot. The girls went hiking, and lounged in the pool and we ate a lot of food weird, I know. We did manage to get some circuit workouts in to counteract all the eating though, so there's that!

Look at those grill marks. Perfection.

Putting my old sous-chef skills to work on the grill.

PUPPPPPPPY!

And here is where my brother thought it would be funny to lounge in the water feature even though my parents have an above ground pool.

It didn't work out very well for him.

Sister, sister.

One of the best parts about the weekend was picking up a new lens from my friend Anne.  She is who I bought my camera from and was selling her old lens now that she has a bigger and more bad ass camera! I am in love. 

I took way too many pictures of the backyard testing it out. Sorry, not sorry. 

Mallows. Nom. nom. nom.

My sister, evidently, had a few too many s'mores and broke the hammock. What a fatty.

True story: I only ate one bite of s'mores. Okay, that's a lie, I had two bites, but still! I was impressed with my self control, okay?! Lay off me, I'm starving. May or may not have dabbled in a little carrot birthday cake, but who's keeping track? 

The crew. 

Also, just realized that I forgot to add any photos of my Mom and the birthday Dad and now I am at work and the photos are at home. I suck at blogging. Sorry my favorite parents :) Still love me please?!

Anyways, that was my weekend. how was yours?!

Cheers,

<3 BB

national sibling day?

Rumor has it, yesterday was national sibling day. Evidently I am a horrible sibling and had no idea. ... Although, the rest of my siblings must be horrible too, because I didn't get tagged in status updates or fun photos by any of them on my facebook. (Since that is how you show real love... not a phone call or visiting the person, just giving a shout out on social media, duh) Ok, that's a lie my litter sister did put up a photo of the four of us, but she didn't tag me in it, so it doesn't count.

Anyways - my sibs, there are three of them.  I am the oldest and obviously the wisest. They all look up to me and wish they were half as awesome.

This photo pretty much sums us up.  Good looking, awkward, and always entertaining.  My parents thought it would be cool nerdy to name all of us names that start with the letter B, so it's me Brooke, then Brannon, Braden (Brady), and Brittany. Don't you wish you were an alliteration like us?!

Brannon is super funny, the type of funny that catches you off guard, because you have no idea where he came up with whatever he just said, but you're dying laughing.  He is also enriching the lives of children daily or something like that, because he is a teacher and high school basketball coach.  Brannon likes to make fun of me a lot for my blog.  His token phrase is 'what, are you gonna go blog about this too?' and always gets really mad when I pull out the camera to take pictures for the blog. He is a hater. He also calls me a hypocrite, because one time I wrote this post about bloggers that don't smile with their teeth and then put up the same type of photo myself. Good news is, I know he reads my blog!

Brady, is too confident for his own good, but it works for him, I suppose. He likes to play the whole, I'm the middle child, feel bad for me card, but he is totally lying when he says that ;) Although, one time when he was really young Brannon and I hung him up in our garage (which was not actually attached to our house) by his overalls and left him there until our neighbor found him (so maybe he is onto something).  He is in school right now getting his degree in criminal justice so he can eventually become a police officer...He better get my ass out of a ticket if I ever need it. Not that I ever drive over the speed limit or anything like that....  

Lastly, there is the bebe of the family Brittany. She is still in high school, but is probably more athletic and cooler than the rest of us (don't tell her I said that). I have blogged about her before, so the boys are probs jealous and think I like her more which I do. Britt definitely gets spoiled by the rest of us. She says she wants to go into law enforcement too when she grows up. (Is anyone else picking up on the theme that my siblings want to go into fields of work that are like beneficial to society or whatever... Who does that?!)

So yeah, those are my siblings, in case you didn't realize I had any. Not sure how my parents put up with us when we were little, but we turned out pretty awesome, so they must have done something right!

Cheers to sibs!

<3 BB