It's Official!

Jack is officially a Nursing Home Administrator! He finished his AIT program, passed the state boards, passed the Oregon State test, and yesterday passed the National exam! I am so proud of him. The pass rates for these tests are not so great so Jack had been nervous for the past three weeks or so. We found out that we are moving to La Grande, Oregon. Jack starts his new position tomorrow morning. Hopefully we will be able to find a place to live this week. After we found out we were moving to La Grande my boss called and promoted me to Regional Marketing Director, which will mean I get to keep both my buildings here and add the two buildings in La Grande. I am overwhelmed but so excited and grateful I will not have to go on a job hunt. So after Jack passed his federal exam yesterday we went to our nursing home in Milton-Freewater and helped the residents pass out candy to kids that came through. The residents loved it and it was so much fun. After that Jack wanted to celebrate passing his test by getting sushi! Then we watched Hocus Pocus and ate candy and cookies the rest of the night. We had such a great Halloween and are excited for our upcoming adventures.

After Jack passed his Oregon State test his boss got us a hotel room and sent us to an amazing restaurant. The steak was sooo good!! Jack got octopus as an appetizer but I refused to try it, we definitely have different taste buds!!

FALL

Since both of us are from Southern California we normally do not get a chance to see the pretty colors of Fall. Yesterday we drove out to Portland for work and had the opportunity to drive through the Columbia River Gorge. We have driven this countless times and it is always beautiful. But with the trees changing colors it got us so excited for Fall and the holiday season coming up. We stopped at Multnomah Falls, bought some hot chocolate, and went for a hike. It was a great day!

Elder Webster!!!

So Melissa's brother, Tim, is serving in the Eugene, OR. Mission and recently got transfered to Salem. I had to be in Salem this past week for work and so Melissa decided to take a couple of days off and come with. Our hotel was about 3 miles from Tim's apartment so we decided to make a surprise visit! We staked out his place and waited for him to come home for the night. It was so fun to see him. We got to talk to him for about 40 minutes and he is doing great! I was proud to see that he keeps a USC hat in his car at all times. Here are some pictures...

California Vacation

We had such a great vacation this past week!
We landed in L.A. on Saturday and met up with my family after Sarah won 1st place in her volleyball tournament. Of course we had to get a little In-N-Out for dinner! We had a blast right from the start.

The girls-I miss them so much already!!

Monday morning my Dad took some time off from work so we spent the day with my parents shopping and getting some lunch. Then we went to Matt’s water polo game where he did amazing! They were tied 5-5 and he scored the winning goal with less than a minute left in the game. I could not believe how tall Matt is now. Last time I saw him in May we were the same height, now he is close to 6 feet tall!

After that we raced over to Sarah’s volleyball game. I have never seen her play before. She did incredible as well! She can jump so high and just slams the ball in the 10 foot line! Check out how high this girl can jump (the pic came out a little bit blurry because of the gym lighting)!

On Sunday my cousin got baptized so I was able to see a lot of my family! Grandpa and Grandma came too and it was so fun to see them!

On Tuesday we went to Disneyland for Will's 10th birthday. Jack had not been for about 6 years and it had been about 4 for me. It was Jack's first time at California Adventure and we loved it.

The happiest place on earth! = ) After Disneyland Gammy and Papa drove down there to eat dinner with us, we were so glad we got to see them!

Wednesday we went to the beach with Mom and Jack surfed. It was so nice to be back on the beach! It had been way too long.

Look at this guy go!

Of course we took a break for Malibu Seafood. You have to, haha even though I just get the chicken!

Jack surfed everyday we were in Agoura. He saw dolphins each time. Look how close they got to him!

That night Erika, Bryce and Caro came! We were soo excited. Look at this cute girl!

On Friday we went to the USC campus and Jack got to meet one of his Professors who we ending up talking with for over an hour.

Then we met up with Dad, Erika and Bryce at the Giants/Dodgers game. We had so much fun, even though they lost by 4 runs. Oh well... all of the crazy people around us made the whole game a success! Jack made sure to get us seats in "Mannywood" so we could get a close up of Manny Ramirez.

The whole gang

After the game there was a firework show and they let everyone on the field. Neither of us had been on the field at Dodger Stadium. Of course Jack got a little more excited than me. = )

Jack pretending to rob someone of a home run to win the game! Just to give you an idea of how excited he was he started picking the grass and putting it in his pocket to bring back home- he's cute!

Where the outfield grass meets the warning track...

G & G came down to see us all too. It was so nice to see them. Here is Jack and Grandpa playing Wii bowling.

What a good looking group!

Jack and Caro just hanging out before we made the trip back to Washington.

It was such a fun trip and we are so happy we were able to go home and see everyone! We can’t wait to go back!

Walla Walla County Fair

Last Friday after work we went to the Walla Walla County Fair and had a blast! We haven't been to a fair in a couple of years and it was a nice date night together.

To start out we could not decide on what to get for dinner but we heard the curly fries were amazing, so we decided to get one and then get dinner after…..bad idea. The fries were huge and pure grease. Talk about way too much grease in one night. We ate over half of them and lost our appetite (the picture below was when we were finished eating the fries, so you can just imagine how big they were). After we looked at all the animals and walked around a lot we decided we should get something to eat besides fries and I got a delicious hot buttered corn on the cob and Jack got really good fresh tacos.

You can’t go to the fair without going on a ride, right? Of course most of the rides at the fairs are all ones that just spin you around in circles which are not my kind of rides. So we went on the two that would work for me, the ferris wheel, which I loved, I don’t think I have been on one in years, and the drop zone, where it brings you to the top and drops you, it was really fun!

Drop Zone

(I look just a little scared, ha ha)

So before we went to the fair we had a “Fair Day” at work for our residents. It was a lot of fun! Jack was in charge of the popcorn machine and I was in charge of a ring toss game and pictures. We had cotton candy, funnel cake, popcorn, and sodas. They also had a camel come to the facility and some goats and a little piglet. The residents absolutely loved it and it was neat to see them have such a great time.

Jack and Bernice

Jack giving out the popcorn

Izzy the camel

Labor Day Getaway

This weekend we decided to go out to the Oregon coast and Portland for a couple of days. The day before we left the weather reports said rain and temperatures in the low 60's. We chose to go anyways and were so glad to find out that the reports were wrong. It was beautiful.

We went to Cannon Beach, the Portland Japanese Gardens, and the Portland International Rose Gardens. Here are some pics:

Even though the water was freezing it still felt so good to lay out on the beach. The scenery was incredible. We just wish it had the Southern California waves and water temps. to go with it.

Jack loved using his new camera from Uncle Jeff. He was like the paparazzi, but he got some great shots!

The Japanese Gardens were immaculate.

It was a nice getaway. Now we are packing our bags for California. Can't wait!

August

USC Grad School

Jack started grad school two weeks ago. Our weeknights and Saturdays are done for. Just as an example last night we got home from work at 6 and then he did 4 hours of homework!

Harry Potter

I did it, I started the Harry Potter series! I never saw any of the movies or read any of the books until about a month ago. Now Jack has bought me the whole series. I have read 1-4 and just started 5 and have seen movies 1-3 and we are about to watch number 4. I really enjoy the books and am glad I finally started them, especially with Jack in school now. Book 4 is my favorite so far!

The Green Lantern

So when Mom and Dad were here they heard this bar had good fish tacos, so they went during the day and loved them. So Jack and I decided to go after work on Friday night because we wanted some good food. Well, we were the only ones eating food in there and the only ones with water in our Bud Light cups. I don't think we stood out too much.... do you?

The food was amazing!!

Work

Jack has been the administrator this past month and has been doing great. I went in his office the other day and saw all these pink sticky notes on his desk and had to take a picture. Instead of an agenda he uses sticky notes and a lot of them. Whatever works, ha ha.

In Milton-Freewater they have a Muddy Frogwater Festival. I set up a booth there for work and made this poster with all the pictures that I took and below is the booth. I forgot to take a picture and remembered after I closed it down for the night, so thats the best picture I have. We gave out all kinds of free stuff and had a wheel people could spin to win things like bottle water, pens, key chains, etc.

Visitors!!!!

Mom and Dad Sanofsky came to visit! They are our first visitors here and we had a blast! I swear this is not all we did, it is just the only picture we got. We toured Walla Walla and ate at all of our favorite places. Of course we only had so many days to eat at all of our favorite restaurants so we did end up eating out quite a bit. We miss them so much but are so excited to see them in one week! We are using our vacation time and taking off to California for a week. Can't wait!!