Gunner has his own moment....

We decided Gunner is now old enough and responsible enough to have his own pet, so we bought him a kitty! Please welcome Shaggy to our family....actually we decided we missed the dynamics we had when we still had Sheba and Critter. We loved that they were pals with one another and spent so much time together, playing, sleeping, fighting etc. We are hoping to recreate some of that with these two. Things, however, started off a bit rocky. The cat hissed and growled at Gunner in their first meeting. After a quick swipe with his claws, catching Gunners face in the swipe, Gunner miraculously transformed from a lab to a boxer. He would bob and weave, pulling his head back quickly each time he got near enough to sniff the cat. It was wonderfully hilarious! They have now fully adjusted to one another, although Gunner still has obvious feelings of rejection. He has become more needy than he usually is and has managed to get himself into some trouble. The two do enjoy times of rough housing, although Gunner gets a little rough still. Something we are working on with him. And occasionally we will find them curled up together, snoozing. Those moments are very precious and we hope to see more of those soon. I think in time, we will have them happily living together, without too much jealousy. (Mostly on Gunners side, the cat really does not care what anyone thinks.)

a CAPITAL moment!

This was a wonderfully fun day! The whole family had the opportunity to visit the state capital! We had a tour of both the capital building as well as the supreme court. We had the camera balancing on a garbage can to get this shot...but you can hardly tell!

Here is a picture of Jordan in front of the state seal...and the following shot is of his sister..same bat place, different bat time....

Ok, this was so incredible I just had to include it in the blog...this is the chandelier that hangs in the center of the dome, it is so big that you could park a (Russ, you should appreciate this one) Volkswagon Beetle inside it! Near the top are angels, they are about 5 feet tall!

Here they are in front of the offices of the Chief Justices...marble is everywhere in this building! If you fall, it would really hurt, duh.

Ok, this shot is hard to see, but it was rather dark in here, this is the kids playing court IN the supreme court! They all had a part in a mock trial and the amazing thing was, it was a real court case and they voted exactly the same as the justices did in the same trial!

This is just outside of the law library at the back of the supreme court, it is really beautiful out here.

This year we decided to do something different with our homeschool. For the pas several years the kids have participated in a program at another homeschool center, we change for one where we have the opportunity to attend field trips every Friday, and so far it has been wonderful. This was an amazing opportunity to learn so much about our state capital, as well as a really fun family adventure. I hope to have another one of our Friday adventures posted on here soon for you to enjoy too!

a moment from a childs perspective....

Kids see the world in an entirely different way than we do. Atira took pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner...and these are the results. I love how she captured the true essence of each of us! Nice job girly!!




Sorry grandpa, somehow we lost Grandmas picture!! Nice smile though!! We love you guys!
Audra, captured in a fine pose!
Roy looks dapper...as always!

Hi Grandma Joan!

Is Grandpa Curt hiding m & m's in his cheeks?

Well there's a shot of my grandma! And Jeff & his new goyl....she is so sweet!

The photographer had mercy in this next picture...had the person who took this shot knew what their picture looked like they may not have been so kind! (What a true beauty though, huh?)

Grandma Sheila...so cute....

Oh boy, is this how she views her brother??

I just happened to get luckier than most...
Daddy looks a little pinchy, huh?

So, we had plenty of turkeys at Thanksgiving, it was a wonderful time and wonderful memories were made....hope yours was a blessing to you as well!

Star Wars Moments....& other funny stuff....

This was SO COOL! The family had to make a run into Aberdeen as we needed some things that just could not be found in the little town of Ocean Shores. We made a wrong turn and found this wonderful store! It is a complete Star Wars store! We could not believe we were so excited we accidentally took a wrong turn (again) down a one way street! It was very thrilling and we were far too sidetracked to pay attention to little things like street signs.

In the bathroom there were two posters about smoking...and they just had me cracking up. I hope you can read these images. Isn't it amazing what people used to think about smoking and in such a short span of time the entire world feels so very different about it? Something funny that also happened on our trip that relates to smoking, we were at our friends house visiting and I saw a glass ashtray sitting on a table. It was clean and unused, I picked it up and showed it to my kids and asked them if they knew what it was or what it is used for. They sat looking at it completely puzzled, it was incredible, they had no idea it was an ashtray. So funny, it made me giggle while I watched them eyeing this foreign object. Ok, so here is one more shot from that bathroom, and boy did I feel like a dork taking pictures of things inside of a bathroom, but I had to get these on film!

This one says "Before you scold me mom, you better light up a Marlboro"! HA, can you believe it?

More sukkot moments

I am just loading some pictures here that I think you all would enjoy of our vacation....so there is not much to say but a brief explanation under each pic, enjoy!
This is of the kids with A.J., and Hanna, they were teachers in the childrens class along with Jeff. They had a BLAST in there!!

Daddy and the kids in the water park at Ocean Shores, this was a really fun time, even though dad slipped and fell. The kids came to his rescue.

This was great! Jordan and his new buddy Justin figured out that if they sat on these jets of water that shoot up to the ceiling they could lean over and shoot each other with the water instead, I personally thought this was hilarious!

We had some very nice days to fly kites, Jordan has his kite flying a couple of times and Scott did too!

Gunner loved the sand and Atira loves Gunner! We all really enjoyed our time at the beach.

Well, here we are in the little Sukkah City. The wind was so strong that several of the sukkahs flew away, so these creative people attached three together and they stood through the entire festival! This was truly a blessed time for all of us!

Moments with Grisam

This is Grisam, he is the most chicken dog I have ever had the pleasure of getting to know. Usually if you try to go up to him he will shy away and try to hide behind his dads legs. Gunner, on the other hand, has no idea that Grisam is fearful so he jumps around as though Grisam was just as happy to see him as he is to have a playmate around. Well, all that aside our friends who own this very cute and loveable dog wanted us to babysit him while they celebrate their wedding anniversary. So, we had a trial run today. Jeff dropped him off at our home this morning and he had a nice little sit by the front door for about 10 or 15 minutes I would say. After that the kids and I would crouch down (it makes him feel more secure, or maybe it's superior, hmmmm..) and go up to him for pets to welcome him to our house. He did not shy away this time, which was an incredible leap for him! Soon after I started calling Grisam into the house to be with us and to my surprise he obeyed me! I did use a firm tone with him and I tried give off the energy of being in charge so he would feel safe and secure. (Ok, I love to watch the Dog Whisperer, can you tell?) Well, no matter what, it worked. Gris staye with the kids and I in whatever room we happened to be in and did great. I set up a nice little bed for him under a table, it had his mom and dads shirts and his stuffed animal. He came and sat in my lap, gave me hugs (which is amazing this dog knows how to do this, it is so funny!) and eventually made his own spot on our couch. He did not play with Gunner the way he would have wished, but at least he was calm and content while his dad was gone. By the end of the evening he even took a treat from me and ate it, I would say that was a very successful trial run! Here are a few more shots of Grisam during his day at Doggy Day Care.

Gris' little bed I made under the table, he took a nice little nap under here.

Gunner is still wishing Grisam would play with him, but here they are together in the play room.

And one last shot of Gunner trying to get some attention! Gunner thought this little bed was really rather nice. He was just a bit too big for it!

PS Grisam, if I spelled your name wrong...my sincerest apologies.

So many fun times!

So, this year for the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:33-44 & Zech 14:16-19; Rev. 7:9) we went away to Ocean Shores! This picture of us staying in the little house we rented. It was only a five minute walk down to the beach! There was a nice little group of people all meeting to celebrate together. We enjoyed services together and the kids had special lessons just for them. We ate dinner most every night with the whole group. We had about three really beautiful days to play at the beach and Gunner really loved the water, of course! There was also a kite contest going on and we saw some of the most AMAZING stunts with kites!
These kites were HUGE and we spoke with the manufacturer, she said they cost $4,000 EACH! Can you see how big they are by the people in the picture down on the lower right hand corner?




Here we are on the beach together...now doesn't that doggy look happy to you?? He loved playing in the water, so long as he had his tennis ball with him, life was perfect!

The first day we woke up there we went into the kids' room and out there window was this wonderful site! They were so comfortable with us there that they just resumed their business of eating all the wonderful things in our little yard. In total we saw nearly 40 deer during our stay. Of course, not all in our own yard, but on the side of the road, in the fields etc.

Ok...I will continue to add more very soon. I have so many pictures to share with you all!

Happy Birthday Jordan!

This was the coolest present! It is a money tree from Honey and family! It had dollar bills rolled up and hanging from the branches! What a crackup!! The kid was very happy about this one! Can you believe he is 12 already?

Here is dad enjoying the party...great picture huh? LOL!

Birthday sister having fun!

It was a great day, filled with family and friends. Jordan picked the menu, we had hamburgers, BBQ potato chips, watermelon, plums, french fries, root beer floats and cake. Not to mention the huge bowl of mini candy bars and fruit roll ups. We were well filled with sugar and junk by the time this one ended! We all had a wonderful time. It was great to have all the family together to celebrate and a few friends as well. He made out with tons of cash, (well not tons, but more than I got at this moment!), bionicles, legos and things for his computer. He had a wonderful and memorable day and weekend combined.

the zoo

Here are the kids sitting just outside the butterfly tent at the zoo. We had a wonderful day, with beautiful weather out with our friends.

This is Jordan with his best buddy Reuben....I believe here they are sitting outside the chicken coop...Reuben loves to talk about chickens. Funny kid.

And here I am with my friend Julie P. again outside the butterly tent. It was a great day, the kids had a blast and Atira did have fun with her friend Reya too, I just did not get a picture of them together!

Portland, OR Moments

WOW! What a fun weekend! Here is Atira with her two buddies from the conference we attended this weekend. Their names are Julianna and Ally. These girls had tons of fun playing together! Jordan made a good friend too, Josh, however I forgot to get a picture of these boys..oops. We had the awesome opportunity to hear some fabulous speakers, one of which was Brad Scott of Wildbranch Ministries He was fabulous, again! If you check out his website you will see that he is a linguist and has studied much about the origins of the words of the Bible and how to understand it from a Hebraic mindset perspective, instead of from the Greek mindset our world is dominated by. He opens your eyes to wonderful things in the scriptures and just sets my mind spinning! This was our second time to see him teach and we are hoping too see him many more times. He offered a fabulous class that Jordan loved called "area 51", he taught about science intertwining with the Scriptures and it was just mind boggling! We are looking forward to ordering some of his teachings for us at home. Another fabulous speaker was Rabbi Rob Miller of Agudat Bris congregation He has a wonderful style of combining humor with serious scriptural teaching and a very 'unapologetic with the truth' approach. He challenges you to think outside of your Greek box and start digging into the scripture and learning the truths the Spirit is revealing. Fabulous, entertaining and challenging. We thoroughly loved his teachings! And although we really enjoyed all the teachers there, our last couple of faves would be Reuven Prager of Beged Ivri, he is working on restoring the temple and lost instructions from the Torah to the people of God. He is funny and very educational and brings with him lots of fun hands on things to learn from. And finally Scott especially enjoyed Steven M. Collins He has written several books on the Lost Tribes of Israel and the history of the Israelite people, from the true history not the rewritten history the world would rather we know and believe. We hope to make a collection of his books as they would be wonderful for us as well as the kids with their homeschool studies. We had a wonderful hotel to stay in, complete with a pool which of course the kids used as often as possible.

It was a wonderful weekend (well, really 4 days) and we made lots of new friends and memories. We can't wait for the next one! So that is what we have been up to...I will continue to update soon!

Our love from all of us to all of you, our family.

Strawberry moments, YUM!

Yum! We went of to Biringer Farms today and did some strawberry pickin'! It was a wonderfully fun time with our friends the Barretts and the Chavez's. We also had a picnic lunch together and played in the play area for a while. It was a nice time out with friends. And a gorgeous day to enjoy outdoors. Here are a few more photos of our day:

A moment away.

Happy Anniversary! Scott and I are celebrating our 18th anniversay on Monday! We decided to get away to La Conner for the weekend. It was a wonderful time. (Doesn't Scott look happy?!) LOL! He was waiting for the timer to go off on the camera, and I don't look as good in the second picture, so I decided to put this one up to share! HA! So, we stayed at the historic Hotel Planter, it had all the charm of an old home. Although we found out we are very spoiled by the quiet we enjoy in our home, we had a horrible time sleeping with all the noise in the hall and outside. They have original windows, single pane, blocks absolutely no noise. But the place was wonderful anyway. We loved visiting the Gaches Mansion, it is a beautiful place and just filled with beautiful quilts on display.
This is the original fireplace that the gaches had brought over from Europe and the photos above are of the family that built the 4200 sq ft mansion. The woodwork was incredible, doors, moldings, everything was such a joy to experience. The lady there was so surprised to find someone more interested in the mansion than the quilts that she really took some time to chat with us and tell us about the fire and restoration that had taken place at the mansion. She also told us that if we walked a particular path back to the main street we might get to see the family of wild turkeys living in La Conner, so we followed her directions and:

WE FOUND THE TURKEYS!! It was great fun, Scott was going to try to pet one, but he walked away and joined the others in someones front yard. In total we had the opportunity to see six of them! I forgot to tell you all about how we were so blessed while there, on the first night we had visited an art store, and in it was an artist showing how she creates her painting and giving folks an opportunity to try it. Her medium is painting on silk. As we watched she explained that they would be having a drawing for the silk scarf that everyone was working on and for a piece of her original art, but you had to be present to win, the drawing would be later that evening. We decided to come back later to see if would win and WE DID! The artists name is Karen Sistek, click on her name and it will take you to her sight. Go about 3/4 of the way down the page and look for the white poppy painting called "Kay" and that is what we won! It is beautiful! When we find a place to hang it, I will post it for you all to see. The whole weekend was very fun. The kids had a great time with their Grandma Sheila although we missed them much and they missed us too. But it was a nice time for everyone.