Thursday, May 31, 2007

More fun....

Ok, well, the next couple of weeks we enjoyed Jordans martial arts belt ceremony, spent time with our good friend Char and enjoyed some walks on Centennial Trail. On May 5th a family friends son passed away. His name is Tyler and he was 13 years old. He had a tumor in his brain and was treated for eleven months before passing. On May 19th we attended a memorial BBQ. He wanted a time of joy, laughing and remembering. It was what he wanted after he passed. It was a wonderful time to see old friends, to see how big Tyler had grown to be and share many memories with those who love and care about him. The family had an opportunity to have a fundraising interview with the local radio station KMPS, it was a bittersweet time to hear his voice again, but today Tyler is free of a body that was no longer cooperating. I pray he is blessed and peaceful today.






As for us, our homeschool has been going great! The kids were learning about weather in our last unit and here is a picture of their rainbow cakes they made to close out the unit.






Jordan also hosted a full Thanksgiving dinner. It was great fun! He planned the menu which consisted of turkey breast, which he cooked in the crockpot, corn on the cob, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and of course, pumpkin pie! (Which he baked himself by the way!) We had his grandparents (both sides) over for dinner and it was a great success. He even had games and a door prize!



This is Jordan and Grandpa Curt playing the feather blowing game, that had everyone cracking up!





And last, we have experienced a couple of "see you laters". Here is a picture of Jordan and myself with Rabbi Harley. He has been our Hebrew teacher for the last several months. We have really enjoyed sharing time with him and learning with him and our entire class. It has become a little family and we look forward to each Thursday night. With sadness we pray that Rabbi Harley goes to his new adventure with many blessings, we will miss our classes and spending time with him but at the same time we are so grateful for the time we did get to share.

At the same time we learned that our Pastor, Carl Smith decided it was time to retire. So, he too will be greatly missed on Sabbath, however we are blessed he is still in our area and we will be able to see him and celebrate festivals with him and his wonderful wife Hank. We are so grateful to him for his teaching, friendship and support. He has meant a lot to us and in our lives.

Last, we had family visit! It was wonderful! We were so happy to spend time with Scott's dad and stepmom, Russ and Barbara! They went on a road trip and came up and spent a couple of days with us. It was not nearly long enough, but the time we shared was so special. We will hopefully have some pictures to share soon of their visit. I was so in the moment this time that I completely forgot to get out my camera and capture one of those moments! Wish you could see the memories in my mind.

So, May was wonderful, emotional, exciting and memorable. And June starts off with a bang as Atira is turning 7! Check back soon, hopefully I will have another update of a fun horseriding birthday party to share!
Love to you all,
Tina

Well, it's almost June 1st

And I thought it was a good time to update my blog!! Anyway, things have been busy, fun, exciting, sad, hopeful, just all kinds of emotions lately. So...I will take you on a walk through our calendar for May.

Here is a shot of us at Pioneer Farms this was a great family day and outing!





Here are the kids and us enjoying different events while on our tour:
Here they are learning how to make their own candles!
Then they had the opportunity to ride a horse drawn carriage.


Here Atira is working with Mrs. Short on her candle dipping.
Jordan and Atira are in an original cabin from Pioneer days that has furnishings that were from the same cabin! It was really amazing to see such history.

Atira and Teigan are dressed up here like Pioneer girls.


Jordan is hard at work learning to saw the way a pioneer would have done it.

This was incredible! Jordan was able to bring up the fire on the coals, all the while he had a horseshoe in the blaze, when it was glowing he took it out and hammered it on the anvil. So cool!
The kids really enjoyed the barn and animals.

This was a wonderful day....lots of memories and a really good time. I will save this for now and start a new blog for the next event.

We love and miss all our family! Enjoy the pictures.

Love,

Tina

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Ya think it's time for un update???

Sorry everyone...life has been pretty busy lately! So, here is an update....
Ok, here is the latest:
Atira and I had the opportunity to attend the play Junie B. Jones with our good friends the Barlow girls...we had a delightful time and enjoyed a dinner out with the families afterwards. Sorry, but I do not have a picture of this event to share with you.
In early April I was asked to dance on public access television with my little dance group....here we are...

Sorry the picture is blurry....but that is me in the back left wearing the black shawl. It was great fun, we aired live that night in Olympia. We taped two additional shows that night that will air later on. We will eventually have the shows aired at different stations throughout the area soon. It was a great experience and the kids got to see how tv shows are made. Now I tell them I am a superstar...they don't seem to agree. HUMPH!

Well, we have lived in our home for 5 years now and I am happy to say that the yard is just about complete! HA! Can you believe it? Only 5 years it took! Whew! So, in the middle of April, along with our neighbors, we brought in beauty bark and made the landscaping look very nice and neat. Then we decided to add more grass and less garden. We are not sure who we thought we were when we decided to have these big gardens, that were only full of weeds since we don't really have time to keep up gardens. So five years later we got a clue and opted for lawn instead. So, that led us to have hydroseed blown in (of course along with the neighbors, I am thinking we share a brain) and we are just now starting to see the first beautiful blades of grass. We are very excited! Here is a picture of the kids watching while our grass was installed.

And here is a shot of the guy blowing in the seed where grass should have been all along...


Isn't it purdy? We also added that maple to the front, it was by our front steps and now it is where it really belongs, out in front.

And last to tell about was last weekend we headed out for the U of W College of Engineering open house. This was our fourth year to attend and it was great fun as usual. This year we met up with some friends there and we all had a blast. Here are several pictures, the kids are running and having there speed recorded by a radar gun.




Here Jordan and Atira are building bridges with gum drops and popsicle sticks....they will test the strength of their bridge by setting a brick on it. How'd they do? Let's just say I ain't driving on anything they have belt yet!

Here the kids are filling the cups on their heads with water and transferring it to three different jugs, one for land, one for plants and one for drinking....



Now the kids with their friends are working on programming the Lego robot on the computer. They set what they want it to do and then watch it go! This was a lot of fun.

Here is Scott helping Emily in the race with water...the orange team won!

So there are our updates...sorry for being such a slacker! I am so glad our families enjoys these little updates on the computer. We love you all!