My Sister's Spring garden

Ahhhh Spring......she has finally breathed her life into our chilled landscape.......

Surgery time!

Well, I had to have a surgery to remove 4 large alien eggs from my uterus. OK, they weren't really alien eggs, they were fibroids - non cancerous tumors that are fairly common among women. I started out with the plan to remove 2 that were "discovered" during my annual. But an ultrasound revealed there were actually 3 - and then when my surgeon was in there he found there were really 4 - one had been hidden behind of of the other big ones.

ANYWAY, the surgery was done laparoscopically on March 10 and I recovered for 3 weeks and went back to work. We removed them to make room to make a baby-yeah!!

I'll save you from the horror of the photos my surgeon gave me of the surgery and the fibroids and instead will share with you a couple of the journal pages I did while recovering - once I got back to being able to sit up awake (without pain meds) for a couple hours at a time!

Photo Crawl - Pike Place Market

My friend Gwen has been trying to hook up this photo crawl for a long time and we finally got together on March 6 down in Seattle. The day was glorious and we met up down at the AmTrak station to pick up Paula and Jan who rode up from Portland. I arrived a bit later than planned so I met the gals at Pike Place Market. We walked through the market, inside and out. Then we strolled down near the Seattle Art Museum to grab a coffee and lunch and do some journaling in these awesome little journals Gwen made for us for our photo crawl. It was so much fun to hang and shoot with some like-minded artists. It's very inspiring and really re-ignites my creative energy.

Olympic Peninsula & the Hoh Rainforest

Collin and I went on a weekend getaway last weekend. We drove up on Friday afternoon and stayed at the Chito Beach Resort, based on Teesha's recommendation. It was a cozy little place to stay and we spent Saturday exploring the Hoh Rainforest inside Olympic National Park. It was awesome! We saw 3 herd of Elk, about 5-6 Bald Eagles, some river otters, and many other various size birds and critters, including one cute fellow with a pinecone (see below).

Daytime Seattle Trip

We decided to go to Seattle to have lunch with Collin's sister on a beautiful Saturday a couple of weeks ago....looks so different in the daytime:

Found some cool graffiti and stencil art...

Early Valentine from my honey

I came home to the most beautiful surprise: My sweet husband had MADE me a valentine card and had it set up on the dining table along with 6 shiny pink heart balloons, and a dozen red roses. I am spoiled beyond belief.

My dear husband Collin,

You are the light of my life. You are the man I have waited for and looked for my whole life. I am the luckiest woman alive to have a man like you. I must have made someone upstairs pretty happy to end up with you my darling. Thank you for being there for me no matter what. You make every day like Christmas. I will spend the rest of my days trying to become the person you already see me as.

I love you with all of my heart.

Now & forever

Love,

Your wife Dawn