It has been AWHILE!!

Wow! It has been a little while since we really made a post on here and I am realizing more and more that some of you (our family) have been wanting updates! So here goes! First of all, we are officially living in Fairview, Oregon. This is a tiny area about 12 miles east of the heart of Portland. We moved the first of June and have settled in nicely. We live in a ground floor, 2 bed 1 bath apartment with neighbors on either side of us and above us. We are re-learning the life of having actual neighbors and living with noise, not a ton, but still it's noise.

Andrew and I with Elli on our first Sunday in our new ward!/ Pic of Elli with Grandma Packham

For the move, my parents, Joel and Marie Packham, drove with us! It was great to have family to help us and Elli loved having Grandma around to entertain her :) Thank you Mom and Dad for coming up here with us! It was such a blessing, especially for me, to have you there.




Andrew started school on July 9th ish? He is doing really well! (Especially in his art classes) You may think, "Aren''t ALL of his classes art classes since he is attending an art school?" Not necessarily! Anyway, his creative talents are finding their way to the surface and he is thriving! What a blessing to see him doing so well! This testifies to us often that we are where we need to be and that our Father in Heaven is indeed aware of us..... Speaking of blesssings, Andrew got a job! He started about a month ago working for Nautilus in their shipping dept. They ship parts for exercise equipment and such. He only works Mon and Tues from 730am to 4pm, then Wed through Fri he has classes. This work is only a few miles away so Andrew gets to ride his bike to and from work always, and sometimes to school if there is time. Sadly, some of his classes have him bringing ginormous drawing pads to class so he can't ride and carry those at the same time.....

An assignment Andrew had on texture drawing. Each level of dark to light is a texture. Put it all together and BOOM!
 He did it of Elli and we LOVE it!
PS,,, so did all of Andrew's classmates and teacher :)

Moving on......

I am staying at home with Elli and for the most part love it! There are days when it doesn't pay to get up in the morning and I swear that I will always have food somewhere on my kitchen floor, in the carpet, or on the couch. But not to worry! Elli is learning to be a helper and I'm sure we'll get better at it. When Elli sleeps I crochet, clean, cook, and play games on my ipod. I have a minor Candy Crush Saga addiction and was stuck on level 125. Elli deleted the game off my ipod and needless to say, I don't like starting over at 1. :)  Anyway.... Elli and I go for walks and love the beauty here! Everything is so green and there are 2 nature paths that I have found so far that are only a mile or less from our place!

We love our ward! The Columbia Ward is another "place we needed to be." We are surrounded by great people and a couple Idaho folk too! About 2 weeks after we moved into the ward, I was called as 1st counselor in the Primary Presidency! Crazy! It has been great and I love the ladies I am serving with. Compared to the last primary I served in where there were over 50 kids in primary, our primary here has about 25 all together and on a quiet week less than 10 kids! They are great kids and I am loving getting to know them all and their families! Andrew was recently called to be the Priest Quorum Adviser. It has been a lot of waiting for this calling to go through with scouting paper work and such, but he is excited to serve in a new capacity and get to know the young men in our ward. :)

 Sorry this was so long! Just had to get the basics over with so there will be more postings but they will be shorter! Whew!!