We had the Powell Family Reunion this past weekend and had fun doing it. Powells: this blog update is really for you this time. I have teased you with some of the pictures that I took this past weekend. Out of all the family pictures we took, this first one was the only one that was decent. Sorry about that. I have included just some of my favorites, on here so don't be offended if your child is not included on my favorites. It doesn't mean they were my favorite but since I take pictures at such high mega pixels, I can't post more than four pictures at a time. You will just have to visit my picasa page found on my blog to check out the other pictures. I put them ALL on there. Let me know if you want something specific that you can't take offline or something edited and I can do that too. Thanks for letting me photograph your families. They are all adorable!

A week ago on Saturday we had Eva's Second Birthday party. Like usual we were joined by our favorite people (not all of our favorite people of course because many of you weren't there). It's always fun to have all her little friends over at once to play. I know what you are thinking, a 2 year old with friends, but it happens, I tell you. However, the fourth of July must have left her traumatized because she was afraid of lit candles on her froggie cupcakes. In fact, we had to blow out the candles in order for her to be content in front of the cupcake. I am starting to think I have a big wimp on my hands. The last couple pictures are the berries that we have picked( not all of them, believe me). Rasberries and blueberries are one of my favorite things about summer and every year now we go and pick some. This year Eva was especially cute but for two years running I fail to bring a camera. There is always next year I suppose. Next up? Peaches!!

Since the weather has been so great we have spent many days watching Eva bask in the sun in her pool. Here she is receiving a bucketful of freezing water, but I guess on a hot day anything feels good.

We spent the fourth like many from Hillsboro watching the parade. She's so cute in her glasses.

And lastly, we went to Salem in the afternoon to visit Natan (this is how Eva says it) and her baby Owen. They are so cute!

We made yet another trip to Urgent Care today. I think we must travel to the doctor for emergencies than most people. Here's what happened. This morning Eva was playing with my wedding bands. I didn't want her to lose them, so I had to pry them out of her hands. Well, then I felt bad because I know she just wanted to wear what mama wears, so I went into my jewelry box and found her an old ring that she could wear. Matthew warned me not to give it to her but I didn't listen. Can you guess where this story is going? The next thing I knew she is choking on something and it was the ring. Matthew pounded her on the back but nothing came out. She had managed to swallow it without any problems. However, this was a tramautizing experience for Matthew because I guess Nathan swallowed a penny? You will have to explain to me later, Nathan. Anyway, we took her to urgent care and this is the bummer with having Kaiser, we didn't get to keep the x-ray, with a nice round ring in her tummy. They told us it wasn't a big deal. She will pass it in her poop. But for now we think it is funny that when you ask her where the ring went, she just opens her mouth wide for you to see that it went in her mouth. Kids do the craziest things sometimes; especially mine! Still working in aperature mode. This is where I can't stand the lighting in my house!

My brother got a super duper nice camera and now is interested in taking pictures. So, lucky for me, I have someone who is now going to help me get better at something that I don't have the time to learn on my own. Together, he says, we are going to learn how to take better pictures. My first assignment was to put my camera in aperature mode and to learn to play with the f stop and the ISO. I have been doing it for awhile now, a couple weeks at least, and I don't know if I am getting better or not. It is really challenging to get the right lighting. Nonetheless here are some of my attempts. I love these pictures because it shows Eva with her babies. Especially, her Dion. Dion was a gift from her Pap her first Christmas and she loves him to death. Some kids have their blankies or a teddy, but mine has this funny lucking Asian cabbage patch doll with crazy hair. The reason why it sticks up is because everynight she has to stroke the hair until she falls asleep. Crazy I know but it works for her. Well, here you have my pictures, unedited. There is something about them that I like, even though the shadows are bad. And if you look closely you can see the beginnings of our fence in the background!

We have had so many graduations these last couple of weeks that I think we all pretty much have the routine down pat; especially Eva. She has been nothing but super duper good at sitting and listening to all those names being read. In fact she knows the routine so well that by the time she got to my graduation she finally lost her fear of the graduation attire. We couldn't figure out why she wouldn't go to Matthew at his graduation and then at my little brother's high school grduation. But we realized she was freaked out by such weird clothing. By my graduation I think she thought they were kind of neat. I wanted to take the time to say thanks to all that came to our little celebration! We had a nice time even though we are still recovering from the fumes inside our house. I blamed by mom but it was totally me. Any ideas for how to get rid of fumes are totally welcomed.

Here is Eva being a gem and entertaining herself at all graduations. The bottom picture is of my brother Ricky messing with her. They all LOVE to bug her. Poor child. She is telling him, "No icky!"

I am not a blogger so forgive me if I'm not as good as Verenice. I am finally a college graduate. Hurray! Last Sunday was my graduation from Linfield. We went to the McMinnville campus for it which was weird because I had never been there before. I had to show up early for a graduation meeting and had no idea where to go. The day went really well. Mom, Dad and Grandma came and so did Verenice's parents. Afterwards, we went over to Nathan's and hung out with "baby Owen" as Eva keeps saying. She's been pretty stuck on him for the last couple of days. We might have to go to Salem again soon to see him. The last picture of Eva in the fountain was from the day before. We all went to a pizza party for the Health Sciences majors. It was nice, the family finally got to meet my professors and a few of my classmates. After the party the real fun began when mom and dad wanted to check out Linfield's Portland campus. The street car runs right by it and we all hopped on to see where it would take us. We ended up at a fountain in the Pearl District. The fountain floods the area and then drains just to do it all over again. There were a ton of kids and Eva loved it. She got soaked and we didn't have any extra clothes or a diaper. We had to dress her in just her pants and a hoody for the ride back. No one wanted to hold the diaperless Eva on the way back to the car.