2 in 1 day!!!!

So Rick and I had a fabulous day!

We met Brandy at the Saturday Market, not because we really wanted to buy anything or even look at what was there to be bought (not that you could, because it was so packed) but because it was 76 degrees outside and we just wanted to be in the sun.

We waited in a line at the only food vendor that offered limeades, only to discover when we got there that they were OUT of limeade. As we begin to walk away very disappointed, the lady shouts, "I have sweet tea!" Our frowns immediately turned upside down.

"Are you serious?!?!"
"Well, I am from Louisiana!"

We were so happy. I can't even describe it. This was the first time we have had sweet tea in Oregon. And boy was it good!

So, we people watched for awhile and then walked to Waterfront Park to people watch some more. Then headed back to our apartment to have coronas on the porch in the bright sunshine.

Absolutely the perfect ending to a very stressful work week.

The Saturday Market.



Brandy and I drinking our sweet iced tea.

Waterfront Park. (That would be the Willamette River and the Burnside Bridge.)


A photo of Mt. Hood through our balcony railing.

Mt. Hood with a sun kiss.


We hope everybody had as good of a day as we did.

Love,
your sun-kissed richmonders.

inspiration.

When I originally set up the poll about where we should live as Mr. & Mrs. Rice, it was supposed to be a comical thing, something to make our blog a little more interesting...

Funny that Richmond is winning and that is where we are headed.

The more and more we have thought about it, the more and more it seems that we are who we are because of where we come from, family AND city. Richmond is a great place to raise a family.

My dad and I were talking about Washington DC and what an amazing opportunity it has presented for kids growing up in Richmond. People in Oregon can't even fathom going to the White House or the National Zoo. I can't understand that because I have so many memories of playing frisbee on the lawn at the mall and riding the merry-go-round with the Washington Monument as the backdrop.

I was telling a coworker about visiting Jamestown, where everyone still dresses like it is a colony and about the 100-year-anniversary with the HUGE ships pulling into port. She was amazed to say the least. (I mean even the Queen of England came to celebrate!)

My dad made a comment to me that people west of the Rockies just think of themselves as a different country and it is so true. Even though the West may have a progressive view of life that is very inspiring, they don't have the history that kids are exposed to on the East Coast.

Oregon has given me a different view on Richmond. I used to be scared (for lack of better words) to move back because I didn't want to be part of the black hole of Richmond that sucks you in, but now that I am able to see Richmond from 3000 miles away and for what it really is, I see why my parents picked it and why I will pick it for my children. And for the first time, I am very excited about it.

Now for something not completely different...

My mother has inspired me.

She had this wonderful idea of opening an art studio/school for kids and has asked me sister and I to come on board.Perfect idea, too, because it combines my 2 biggest passions in life (aside from LSU football of course!)

Once she mentioned it, my wheels started turning like crazy!

So on to my next endeavor... We will be spending my first months back in Richmond figuring out all of the details.

Between my sister, my mom and I, we pretty much have it all.

This is going to be fun!

Love,
your blessed richmonders.

oldies but goodies.

So I was going through my photographs and realized there are some I never posted so I thought I would share them with you guys. The first ones are from our cross-country trip.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota



Badlands, South Dakota


Guess where this one was taken!


The next ones are some I never posted from school.

This was from Teacher Stephanie's last day. We had an ice cream party and took a group picture. The class photograph shows about 3/4 of my class.



This is from the playground. When I asked Howie what he was doing, he responded, "It's a rainbow, Teacher!" And it really is beautiful!


For Easter, we made bunny masks in the morning and had an Easter egg hunt in the afternoon. The kids had a blast hopping around looking for eggs!






That is all the photographs for now. I am sure there are some on my camera still, as well, as I have been a bit of a slacker. After all of our company the past week we have been spending our nights resting because my parents will be here in about 3 weeks! We have lots to look forward to!

And now for something completely different...

For those of you we have not told yet... Rick and I have decided to move back to Richmond.

We originally were thinking South Carolina, but have really thought about it and decided we don't want to spend the money to move some place new unless we are very sure that is where we want to be. We don't know if we will stay in Richmond forever or if it is a temporary thing but it feels like the right move for now.

Our current plan is to come back around the beginning to middle of summer so we can finish up all the details for the wedding. This way hopefully Rick and I will be able to afford a tropical honeymoon!

We will let you know more details as we figure them out.

Even though we are moving back, we do not regret our decision to move here. Portland has provided an amazing opportunity for us to create a firm foundation for our marriage. We have had to rely on each other for pretty much everything, emotionally and financially and have learned a lot about who we are as a couple.

We love you all very much and thank you for your support in our crazy move out here to Oregon. We are so blessed to have so many people that love us and support us but most of all have kept the I-told-you-so's to themselves!

Love,
your soon-to-be-richmonders oregonians!

Ps. My grandparents are on a cruise to the Panama Canal, so please keep them in your prayers for a safe return.

best weekend week of my life so far.

We have had an extremely eventful last week and I will do my best to remember all of it but I can't promise anything.

Friday, March 21
Matt flew in from Virginia and we celebrated our Portland friends one year anniversary of living in Portland.

Virginians in Oregon, bringing the Richmond-style to a Portland world.



Saturday, March 22
Matt, Brandy, Rick and I drove to the coast an a spontaneous car-camping trip. We stayed at a tiny cabin in a KOA near Seaside, OR. Once we got there we mostly drove around looking at the cute towns including Astoria where the Goonies were filmed and Seaside which has a VA Beach feel to it. We also when to shipwreck beach which was REALLY cool. Brandy and I also rode the Tilt-a-Whirl in Seaside and we were laughing so hard we were crying!



Shipwreck beach if you can't tell.

Brandy and I showing the vast size of the only portion of the ship showing.

A Rick and Erin Tradition...


Sunday, March 23
We spent the day at Cannon Beach but it was so windy we didn't make it long. As you can tell from the photos, it was near hurricane weather. But surprisingly our group was really good sports about it! We drove back to Portland late afternoon so I could get some rest for work on Monday.

Trying to capture the windy day...







While souvenir hunting we came across a hat shop...



Monday, March 24
I worked. But we went to the Crystal Ballroom that evening to see one of the guys from the Clash, which Rick and I were not impressed with but Matt loved.

Tuesday, March 25:
I also worked. And then we went out to eat at Rock Bottom and played some pool.

Wednesday, March 26:
Careyann and her friend Brandi flew in from Virginia to spend the second half of their Spring Break with us. This day we kept it pretty mellow since the girls had been flying all day.

Thursday, March 27:
We drove to Wahkeena Falls, which were beautiful and then took about a half mile hike over to Multnomah Falls, which were even bigger and better. We spent the rest of the afternoon making sure everybody had everything they needed for our trip to Mt. Hood the following day. That night Matt and Rick cooked a big feast for us girls!
Wahkeena Falls.

On the hike... that is Lake Carson and then just past that is the Columbia River and just past that is Washington State.

Multnomah Falls.




Friday, March 28:
We drove Matt to the airport and then headed to Mt. Hood to do riding. Rick, our friend Keith, Careyann and Brandi all snowboarded. I skiied because I already know how to do that and although it has been about 6 years since the last time I went... it was like riding a bike. I picked it back up in no time. Keith goes once a week so he helped everybody get acquainted with their boards. Rick did really well too for his first time boarding. It took him about an hour and a half of falling before he finally got the hang of it. We stayed until about 230pm or so. All of us were in bed by 5pm and slept until this morning. Apparently, yesterday took a lot out of us.

Just beginning our full body workout.

Rick and his sister, Careyann.

Careyann and her friend Brandi.



About turn in our gear because we are beat.


Saturday, March 29:
Most of us are pretty sore, some more than others so we will probably just keep it mellow, especially since the girls have to spend the whole day tomorrow flying.

Well that is it. I hope you guys have enjoyed the pictures. Maybe some of you will be persuaded to come visit before we move back to become east coasters again.

We hope everybody has fun at the 60th wedding anniversary tonight!

We love you,
love your exhausted oregonians.

quick update.

Rick's buddy Matt is here and Rick's youngest sister Careyann and her friend Brandi just got here today.

We have been busy little bees.

I just wanted to write and promise lots of photographs of our amazing weekend at the coast and we are going to the Multnomah Falls tomorrow and skiing on Friday so there will be much to report!

Check back probably on Sunday!

Love,
your soon-to-be-east-coasters oregonians.

a breakthrough kinda day.

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING!
And a happy one it was...

So I finished my classroom's evaluations about 2 weeks ago which was a bit of a pain BUT turns out it was a blessing in disguise because it gave me a black and white picture of where all my students stand.

I don't know if I have mentioned this but my school runs on a mixed creative curriculum plan where the preschool rooms are mixed ages. So instead of having a 3s class, a 4s class and a pre-K class we have 2 rooms that have all 3 groups. This presents a little bit of a challenge for planning our activities since they are all at different levels but I think it is a positive thing because the younger kids are encouraged to meet milestones (like cutting a straight line) because they witness the older kids already doing those same milestones.

Anyways... So even though the evaluations where extremely time-consuming, I was able to understand where each child was in their gross/fine motor skill development, emotional/social development and their academic progress.

This has created an opportunity for me to create activities that fit the the needs of my kids at all of their levels of progress.

Their are some kids who couldn't put on their own coat themselves and have achieved that with patience and determination as I mentioned in a previous post. But this week we might have had some of our biggest breakthroughs...

One kid who couldn't put his coat on last week can now not only put on his own coat but we have been practicing lining up the zipper (which can be very difficult and requires fine motor skills and a lot of patience) and yesterday he zipped his coat! You would have thought this kid won the lottery he was so elated.

To see these kids proud of themselves is pretty cool because most of the time they are just responding to the reaction they get from adults. At the moment he realized he zipped his coat all by himself you could tell it wouldn't have matter if I was standing their or not, he would've been just as happy.

There was another kid that I mentioned previously who is extremely hyperactive (Max). With his evaluation I sent a note home hoping his parents would consider having an assessment to discover what kind of difficulties Max is facing. Well, the good news is that it wasn't my imagination and the parents were already on board and had already begun the process. The bad news is that the assessment conclusions said Max has ADHD. So they are trying a new medicine that seems to be working (although we are only in week 1).

Sorry I am rambling I just realized there is only the long story to explain this...

Anyway back to the breakthrough....

So today during our stations we were coloring lightening bolts for part of our letter Z week (zig zags) and Max sat down until he was finished. He was very focused and he even relatively stayed in the lines. He didn't scribble like most of the 3s do in our class, he was coloring. This doesn't seem like a big deal but this is the first week he has even participated in stations and today he completed something he had never done before in his life.

When his mom came to pick him up I showed her the lightening bolt and she almost cried. I am warm just thinking about it.

I am really getting that teacher feeling of being so insanely proud of my students that it makes me feel fuzzy.

But enough of that sappy stuff. I just thought I would relay the positive stories I have right now. This is the feeling that makes me want to got back to school so I can have more knowledge of teaching children so I can really make a difference. And although I feel like God has pulled and directed me on the path to teaching this is the first time I have felt 110% confident, not only in that this is what God wants me to do with my life but that I CAN do it. I now have the confidence that I was lacking even when I got to Portland. I am making a huge impact and a positive one at that.

I hope you all can have this feeling in your life because it is one of the best I have felt.

As always, we miss everyone of you and wish nothing but peace upon you all.

Love,
your enriched-souled oregonians.

erin go brea!

Happy St. Patty's Day!!

We don't have any crazy drinking festivities planned as we do have work, but we are going to meet our friends Brandy and Keith (both from Virginia) to go to Brandy's work party, where there is going to be lots of irish eats!

Portland has gotten colder over the last week or so, but I am told that the warm weather is coming soon so I am very much looking forward to that!

Rick's friend Matt (one of the groomsmen) gets to Portland on Friday and we are celebrating Brandy's one year anniversary of living in Portland.

Rick's youngest sister, Careyann gets here in about 10 days for her spring break and our plan is to go snowboarding on Mt. Hood.

We will be sure to take pictures of all of our festivities we have planned!

We wish you all would come out for a visit before we move back to the East Coast because it is definitely worth a mini-vacation and we will gladly open Hotel Rick&Erin to anyone who needs a break from their daily grind.

We love you all!

Love,
your green-clad-so-we-dont-get-pinched oregonians.