Aloha!

Well, I've finally moved, and more or less feeling settled in. It's been a long haul and I'm tired and want to have a night out without the kids and the stress of moving, but all in good time. So where exactly did we move? To a suburban areas just outside of Portland (10 miles) called Aloha. The place name is pronounced "A-low-wa" instead of "A-loh-ha". Out of curiosity I researched the reason for this pronunciation and discovered that Julius Buck was the first postmaster and that he named the office Aloah after a small resort on Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin. During the application process the last two letters were transposed by the Post Office Department, resulting in the shift from a Midwestern Indian name to a Hawaiian word. The pronunciation, however remained the same. Just a little tidbit of information for all you who are interested. Aloha is not actually a city and in fact we live just outside of Beaverton city limits, in unincorporated Washington County. So if you're ever searching for us on a map or even trying to find our address in GPS or something it may not show up. For all intents and purposes we live in Beaverton. Unless of course you come from Oregon and then it would be a crime to say this. Anyways, I realize that I'm sort of going on and on about nothing so here's 10 things I love about Oregon.... 1. Beautiful green, green, green! 2. Winco on ever corner 3. Fred Meyer on every corner. This is a bonus because they have great deals (I'm a couponing freak in case you didn't know) and a free day care center where they'll watch your kids while you shop. It doesn't get much better than this. 4. Alberton's - also great if you're an avid couponer 5. Once a week the local newspaper, The Oregonion, delivers all the weekly ads to your home whether or not you take the paper. Can you say free SmartSource? Again I'm a couponer. 6. Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation take care of all your needs. Parks are everywhere and right in the middle of Beaverton they have 222 acres of land they refer to as the nature park with trails and ponds and all the beauty of nature right at your doorstep. They also have an excellent recreation department where they set up just that, recreation opportunities no matter your age. All you have to do to participate is live in Washington County. They have indoor soccer, swimming, karate, dance, basketball, and the list goes on and on for anyone, any age. They also have classes for a number of interests from yard care classes to do it yourself classes. I've already taken advantage of this and I think it's great! 7. There's a temple 15 minutes from my house 8. Love, love, love our ward 9. They Go Green! We use 100% clean and renewable energy to power our house. We have 4 different garbage cans and the actual "garbage" can is very tiny (32 gallons). At first I thought "what the crap is this, I'll fill that thing up in a day". But then you have a recycle can about the same size as the huge ones they use in Utah and you can put just about anything in there. Anything plastic, doesn't matter what number it is. You can put paper, scrap metal, aerosol cans, paint cans, and whatever else you can think of that's recyclable. Then there's a separate glass recycle can for all your glass items, and last but not least a yard debris can as big as the recycle can. You can go to your local yard debris dump and pay pennies for fresh compost that they use your yard debris to make. If everyone did this what a difference it would make! 10. Cannon Beach less than an hour from my house More posts to follow with pictures.