In search of the Great Perhaps

I have moved my website once again to http://erinholdren.shutterfly.com/ Check it out there!

As most of you know I have decided to move yet again but this time it's back in with another person. A different roommate. It's a friend I have had for quite awhile and I am excited for the move but I have come to one conclusion. PACKING IS THE WORST! The one good thing about moving though is that you get to purge alot of stuff if not just for the fact that you don't want to pack it and haul it all with you. I think I have listed more stuff on Craigslist than ever before!
Another bad thing, especially for those of you who know me well, is the disorganization it causes and the stress that goes along with that. I am the type of person that has everything in its place. I hate things just laying around and cluttering up good space. Therefor my place right now is stressing me out! I just started really packing today and here's what it looks like thus far.



Most of you are probably thinking to yourselves, well that's not so bad, but for me it is! I move Sunday and had to start packing today because for the next 3 days I work 14 hour shifts and cannot pack so the disarray began early. Too early in my opinion because now I have to set eyes on the hazard that is my living room for the next 5 days.
Don't even get me started on the bedroom.......

Amber, here ya go! The picture of the shameful "mullet convention" that used to be my hair. (and my sisters at that) Enjoy and laugh away!

3 months and 5 days on the market, 2 price drops, hundreds of walk thru's, ALOT of praying, and voila: House sold! It is official, my parents have sold their house. Contracts have been signed, move out dates have been determined and moving companies have been notified. My parents couldn't be happier. Richard will be coming back into town on July 10th and their plan is to be on the road by the 16-17 depending on how all the packing/loading goes.

I don't know what my obsession is with scary movies or when it really started but they are my favorite. When asked by people why that is I always say, "I don't really know. I think it's the feeling of getting all scared and feeling silly about it after." Which is true. I KNOW scary movies aren't real but at the same time I find myself coming home after watching one and checking under all the beds and in the closets before I go to sleep.
Today I went and saw what is in my opinion, one of the scarier movies I have seen in awhile. It is called "The Strangers" and is inspired by true events....which I nor my friend knew before we went to see this movie. It wasn't just the movie that was scary though. Since this movie has been out for a couple weeks and it was the early afternoon when we went to go see it, the movie theater was pretty bare...except for 2 men. My friend and I walked in and sat down in the front where the 2 sections of the theater are split. (and there's that bar you can put your feet up on) One guy sat about 3 rows up on our right and the other guy sat in the row behind us to our left. It was creepy to say the least. I watched the 2 guys out of my peripheral vision all the way thru the movie! They moved one inch and I was craning my head their way to see why the movement....I was a freak! (and I am pretty sure they knew it)
Besides the 2 guys the movie was pretty freaky in itself. Combine a house in the woods (of course) a couple in a rocky relationship, and 3 killers on the loose all sporting LOVELY masks, and you've got yourself an hour and a half of heart stopping fun! Needless to say it is now 10:17 at night. I saw the movie almost 12 hours ago and it is still fresh on my brain.
We will see how much sleep I get tonight.

Since attempt #1 at geocaching was so fruitful we decided to do it again and test our luck...this time with Ben and Amber. We set out pretty early again in the morning (around 10:30) and it was a BEAUTIFUL day! We decided to do one at a park very close by as our first and go harder after that. Ben found the first cache pretty easily. We documented it and were off to find the second.



Our second cache was located somewhere in Forrest Park, which if you have been there, is HUGE! We found the trail that our clue told us to follow and started walking. We walked about a mile into the forrest and the GPS "stopped" working because there were too many trees for the satellites to find the unit. We knew the general area it needed to be in so we went off trail, 4 separate ways, and started searching. It said it was by a fir tree...which there were about 100 of. It said it was by a stump...which there were about 1000 of. After about 45 minutes of looking, various scratches and bugs all over us, several times where one or more of us fell and slid down hills and debating whether or not to give up about 10 times, the GPS honed back in and we were about 100 feet away from where we should have been. Ben started leading us in the correct direction and about 15 minutes later found the damn thing! Needless to say a few choice words were left for the creators of that cache. Good job Ben!

Linds and I were talking yesterday and towards the end of our conversation we made plans to hang out today (Saturday) and go geocaching. For those of you who don't know, geocaching is pretty much a worldwide treasure hunt using GPS. (you should reasearch it online, it is pretty neat)
We tentatively made plans to head out at 10:30 depending on the weather cause we didn't want to go in a downpour...that is no fun! So this morning when I woke up it was partly cloudy and the sun was peeking through and it looked like it was going to be a pretty nice day. I got to Lindsay's and we printed out some caches that we wanted to try and find and headed out the door. After a few pit stops (this would consist of Noah's Bagels for breakfast and Starbucks) we got to our first cache off of highway 99. We found it within 10 minutes of being there hidden in a hollow pole by a tree. This cache was conveniently located on the grounds of a 7-11 so Linds and I HAD to go in and get slurpees. (they just sounded soooo good!)


Off to find the second cache. It was located somewhere in forest heights park. After finding parking and following the GPS unit we had we ended up in the middle of a HUGE open space surrounded by towering spruce trees and lots of hiking trails. We split up and started searching for this cache. After about 15 minutes of looking and nothing found we decoded the clue that would hopefully help us to find the cache. It told us to look by a stump. We looked around some more and STILL couldn't find it Linds decided to check to make sure we had put in the coordinates right.
Sure enough....they were wrong.
After putting in the correct coordinates and getting back in the car we then drove the almost 4 miles we were off by to the correct park. As we drove to the park it had started to snow and gradually began to hail. I am not talking about a little hail here either. Hail the size of small marbles at times and coming down in masses! It hurt to walk in it was coming down that hard and fast. We got into the forest where we were mostly sheltered and saw about a thousand stumps that this cache could be hidden by, under, or in. We started searching the stumps and Linds found it about 10 minutes into our quest. Got back to my car which was now covered in about 3 inches of ice pellets and drove home.
It was a great couple of hours in which I don't think I have laughed as hard as I did in quite awhile. It also taught us that in Oregon, the weather can change in a split second so go prepared!

I innocently went over to my parents house one Sunday afternoon 2 weeks ago and was chatting with my mom when I heard a strange noise coming from the family room. I tried to ignore it for awhile as I was having a pretty good conversation going but after about 10 minutes I had to go investigate. The "banging" noise turned out to be my brother...not so strange. What was strange was the contraption he was hitting which looked like a set of drums but did not sound like one. Upon looking closer I saw he was playing a game on his XBox 360 entitled Rockband. This game might be the single most coolest invention EVER!
I watched him for about 5 minutes then could stand it no longer, I HAD to have a turn. Needless to say I found out I am not a drum player, a guitar player, or a singer. (as I knew almost none of the songs and could not hit the correct pitch at the correct times) This did not stop me from playing though. As my brother laughed and played the guitar, I unceremoniously banged away at the drums in an attempt to hit the right notes as they slid (way too fast mind you) under the bar. After about 2 hours I could rhythmically play a few songs and get in the 90% level for a song. (on easy mode)
I then tried medium mode thinking I was too cool for the game and therefor could (of course) take on a higher level. The game put me in my place. I made 3 attempts, got 3 X's and lost the gig for my brother and I.
Good thing my brother doesn't care.....

A few weeks ago my parents sat my brother and I down and told us that they were going to be moving back to Texas. I wasn't too surprised at the time because they had been talking about moving for quite awhile and with Drew graduating high school this summer it was the perfect time for them to do so. Needless to say, it was a sad time.
At the time my brother was thinking of moving with them to Texas so that he could stay rent free in their house and go to a community college there for awhile. This saddened me even more because then I would have no family in the area at all. Closest would have been Billy, Holly, and Jamie in San Clemente, Ca which is a 17 hour car ride and not close enough.
After thinking about it for awhile my brother has decided to stay here in Oregon and rent an apartment with a friend and go to PCC. He got a full time job at the church and is now not worried about finances being too difficult for him to handle. My sister, Jamie, also decided that California was not working out for her so she is moving back to Oregon sometime within the next month and a half. God works in miraculous ways!
Rchard took a job in Texas working with his son Evan in real estate. Evan owns a buisness entitled "The Matteson Group" and is the leading sales agent in real estate in his city. Richard is getting his license in the next few months and is also continuing his buisness of life coaching on the side. They found a house down there for sale that they liked and put an offer on it and the offer got accepted so now all they have to do is sell their house here. Please pray that it sells within the next 2 months as that is the time frame that my mom will be going to join Richard in Texas. (Drew graduates early June)
Richard and my mom are both excited to be moving back to Texas where they enjoyed living but it will also be bittersweet because they will be leaving behind 3 of their 5 kids. Family has always been VERY important to all of us and we are a close knit family. It will be healthy to sever some of those ties but also very sad at the same time.

You know when your brain is so full that you can't even begin to put down into words, much less sentences, things that have been going on in your world? Well, that's me right now. I have Thursday off so I am hoping to be able to sit down then and hash out some of what has been swirling around in my noggin so that I can make a ledgible post out of it all.
Stay tuned for the rantings of a few long weeks past!