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.

Can you see the birdies????

What an amazing find! Under our very own front porch we had a robin build her nest and in it we found four blue little eggs. We watched these eggs regularly and last week while sitting in our playroom Jordan heard peeping sounds, quite loud. He jumped up, ran out to the porch and sure enough, we had baby robins! Jordans first reaction was that they were "hideous!" Atira thinks the babies are so cute. But bald little birdies, with a couple of feathers sticking out here and there is not the same as the cute little image of a yellow little puff ball of a baby bird. We tried to get some pictures to share with everyone, but they are hard to see. We had to use a mirror as that is the only way you all could see into the nest. For those of us here, we crouch down on the floor of our deck and peek through the slats of wood. This has made our spring so very memorable!

Todays moment....

Today's remembrance will be that of Scott's Grandpa Dick Hall. To our utter surprise he passed on today. So tonight, I would like to share a bit of my own personal memories about Grandpa Dick. This Mustang is not his, I do not have a picture of it, however this is something I remember about him, his Mustang. A car it seemed he was forever working on. He was always working on something. He was not a man to sit too long, there were no weeds growing under his feet at any moment from what I could tell. In his retirement he was working towards passing the bar exam after a long and succesful career in aviation. He was fun to chat with and always gave his open and quite honest opinion, which I loved. He could often be found wearing a tshirt with a quirky saying on it and it was generally an opinion he strongly agreed with! He was incredibly intelligent and quite witty and a blast to chat with if you ever had the chance to spend some time with him. So, for today, my memories and thoughts are about him. We last saw him about 2 years ago and he was so incredibly alive and vibrant it is hard to believe that his light no longer shines here on earth. His life and memory will continue through those who know him and love him.

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

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!

Updating....

Hi everyone! Well, the latest updates. Things have been (to say the least) a wee bit crazy around here...

As you can see we had MORE snow! It was incredible! We had received about 3-4 inches at once, we went outside, built a snowman and played. THEN we received 8 inches and it completely buried our first part of our snowman! It was so beautiful and SO MUCH SNOW! The kids had the best time out in it. It is also great fun to take Gunner out in snow, you an always see where he is against all the white. Even more incredible is that about a week later we had a day where the temperature reached nearly 70 degrees, and it was gorgeous out. But now as I look out our windows we see flowers blooming and our beautiful cherry tree is an excellent example of that.

Well, that is all for now, Atira and I are headed out for a day with Grandma Sheila. I will post more later.

A different look...

Well, I went to have my haircut today at a new salon with a new stylist. She was recommended to me by my good neighbor Amy. Naomi (the stylist) was great! She is so friendly, listens and understands what I want and is very energetic. She asked if she could straighten my hair for me, so I said sure, why not! And this is the result. I could not help but laugh out loud at myself, I kept looking in that mirror in the salon and I could see my own mouth move, but it was not me in the reflection. Just crazy and super fun. It was a fun day to be doing something a bit different. Thought you all might enjoy this one as well.

SHE'S A GENIUS!!

Atira had a reading assessment done a couple of weeks ago and it turns out she is reading right around a 6th grade level! WOO HOO!! She loves to read (just like her brother) and we are so happy that she has been given this gift, a love of literature. The teacher who assessed her stopped at the fourth grade assessments saying there would be nothing left to assess her on in future years, but that most likely she is reading much higher than 5th...so that led to 6th! She is doing a wonderful job and growing up to be such a smart girl!

ok, really, this is it...

Ok, since blogger was being disagreeable I had to break up my post into three, which really doesn't work very well because you read what I intended to be last first. Stink. Ok, here is the upside, the last post (this one) is sure to be the funniest of all, at least in my humble opinion (either way it cracks me up). So you decide, start here, enjoy a laugh and then go down and read the rest. Or, scroll down to the bowl of cornflakes and read up.

I should probably put in a some kind of warning or rating for the following picture...but I will let you adults decide what is appropriate for you to see and what is not. Now to give you some background, Scott and Josh also played the Wii tennis game. Needless to say they are lacking in skills, and that is not just my opinion, you can see if for yourself on the game system, it ranks your skills right on there and it kept telling them they had no skills. So anyway, here is a shot of them after playing for a couple of minutes, I think it was just a bit too much activity for them. And someone should tell them to not fear the ball....it's only a video game.

now then, where did I leave off??

Wow! What a winter (and even fall) it has been around here! First we had rain, so much rain! We had flooding everywhere making it difficult to even get out of our little neck of the woods! Next came snow, lots of snow! It was so beautiful and the kids could not have been happier! They hit the hills straight away! It is nice to have a driveway that is a hill in the snow, we don't have to travel anywhere for a good sledding spot. After that came the wind, boy what a screamer of a windstorm that was! Thanksfully we only lost power from about 10:30 at night until around 5AM. Not bad for us. But not so for many other people, my grandparents were out for 4 days and some even longer than that. Incredible winter, and we are not even half way through it yet!

And now, Hanukkah! It was our fourth year celebrating and the most fun yet. The kids had a wonderful time and so did mom and dad. We enjoyed the company of family and friends over several different nights as well as one cold, but very clear night spent at a Seattle mall watching a 15 foot menorah being lit up with music and lots of people all around. That was a fun time, not to mention we ran into some friends of ours and it was a true joy to get to see them again. We have lots of fond memories of this year and look forward to it again next year.



And finally, something a little more serious. To the untrained eye, this might look like Serena and Venus Williams, but if you had seen my friend Kyla and I playing their new Wii tennis game on New Years Eve, you would be able to quickly discern that this is really us, rockin' the tennis court! OW! Oh yeah, about 4 hours later we were total pros and even contemplating how we could use our considerable skills to shark people. Ya know, let them think we stink, then go in for the kill. It's gonna be great. I am gonna have to start buffin' up too, my right arm was killing me the next day. But hey, that is the price you pay when you play at the level we are at. Kyla, glad we decided to team up and not kill each other, this will be way more fun and just think of all the fun stuff we will have to talk about!

Ok....I have one more thing to show you, but again...you will have already read it by the time you get here...but wasn't it funny?

WHAT A FLAKE!

WOW! I cannot believe that it has been so long since I have last updated my blog! I have to apologize to my friends and family! And everyone can send out a nice thank you to my neighbor, Kyla for ever so gently (not, *giggle*) reminding me that I am WAY overdue! But really, thanks Kyla! I needed a not so gentle kick in the rear to get in here and get things going again! SO, here we go, I am gonna update ya on everything going on around here since the last post!


Look who got concrete!! WOO HOO! What a great day that was! Our driveway has been poured and we have a street again! We're movin' on up! Although it was nice to pretend we were back in the hood for a while, brought back warm fuzzy memories of days gone by. Our neighbors have been so faithful about making sure we feel right at home. I wonder if they used to live in the hood too?


This is a picture of the kids saying good bye, for now, to our good friend Terri. She recently moved to Israel, Jericho to be exact. She is working with refugees, teaching them english. She is such a wonderful lady and a true friend. We will miss seeing her regularly, but are praying for her safety and protection while she away.


HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
This is the thanksgiving that Atira hosted for our good friends next door along with her brother. They had such fun recreating a kids thanksgiving meal and I just love this picture of them all. We had a joyous holiday here on Thanksgiving day with family from both sides. I think it is so great how my family and Scott's come together to celebrate as one larger family. It truly makes the day memorable and I don't think our kids could ever be happier than when there are six (yeah, count em) six grandparents in one room. I hardly saw those two! Not to mention Uncle Geoff, he truly made the night complete for my kids! Hope everyone else had a wonderful day too.


Ok, blogger is being weird, I was planning to go on with a couple of more photos, so to do that I am going to publish this post and reopen another one and try to finish out my story. Sorry! So, things will end up a bit backwards, you will have most recent first and later next, oh well.
Thanks for taking the time to read up on how we are doing out here!
Love and miss all our family!

Update on the latest....

Well, it has been far too long since I have updated my blog, but here I am getting the news of what we have been up to out to our blogging fans! So to start: here is a little before and after:


This is Atira before her middle tooth fell out...(actually it was her left tooth, it just scootched over to look like a middle tooth. I took to calling her "Jack" short for jack-o-latern, she did NOT appreciate it, athough I got quite the giggle from it!)


AFTER!! Her tooth came out and what a lovely story that is too. We were eating dinner when she felt her tooth had come out, her mouth full of food. Yum. So, I did not know what else to do, so I told her to spit it all out on her placemat! Which she happily did, then dug through the chewed up remains until she found her tooth. A happy girl, she was! That night the mommy fairy left her a coupon for one cake with candles, even though it was not her birthday! She was incredibly pleased. I was a bit worried she would not be happy it was not cash, but she loved her coupon. Worked out fine.



Now, what has Jordan been up to? Well, he has received his junior red belt in martial arts. He is very proud and happy of this accomplishment. He has worked with his blue belt for two years now and Master Chang wanted to give him some motivation to keep on working hard. This did the trick, can you see how happy he is in this photo?!




We had the opportunity to have Atira and Jordans cousin Monique over for a few hours this past week. It was great fun to have her and the girls had a wonderful time together. Amazingly, Atira and Monique are a year apart in age, but they are almost exactly the same height and size! They look very much alike too. No question they are related! This picture is taken of them after they got all dolled up, makeup, dresses, the works! What a fun afternoon! Not to mention, we had Grandma Joan over too, it is always fun we get a chance to visit.

Well, I tried to upload one more picture, and I could not seem to get blogger to cooperate with me, so my last picture will have to be in the form of a new post! So, to all our friends and family, enjoy the update. We love and miss you! And to everyone else, thanks for stopping by!

It's my birthday!

Well, actually yesterday was my birthday, but now is when I had time to sit down and blog about it. So, let's start with yesterday morning when I woke up......

It was about 8:30 AM, nice to sleep in on your birthday! My best girlfriend called me up to begrudgingly wish me a happy birthday! (she just likes to torture me) So we chatted for a while and while on the phone with her Atira lost her front tooth! WOW! I was so excited! Then my girlfriend quickly brought me back to reality, this is my birthday and it is not all about her losing her tooth! ;) After her phone call my loving husband was quick to call and also wish me a happy birthday, so nice! Well, my boy is still sleeping soundly at this point and he really should be up wishing me a happy birthday too. So, I yell down the hall "BOY!!!!" "BOY!!!!!" All I get is, "huh?". To which I yell, "WAKE UP IT'S MY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!" He really doesn't appreciate my birthday like I do, or the wake up call. Weird. So we finally get out of bed, I hop in the shower and my mother in law calls....did she time that? We all get ready to go and I take us out to IHOP for breakfast when my mom calls to wish me a happy birthday too! I have the stuffed french toast, OH MY YUM!! That was so delicious! Then I drag my unhappy little angels with me off to the thrift store for a mini shopping spree for myself! They really don't enjoy themselves at the thrift store when I am shopping for myself, but I figured it's my birthday they can suffer a little for their dear sweet mother!I get a chance to talk to MIL on the way to the store, it was so nice to hear more happy wishes for a wonderful day! We leave the thrift store and hubby calls, he is home! WOO HOO! We head on home (saving my neglected babies from another thrift store excursion). We get home and hubby has bought me a dozen red roses! Then he shows me the cake he bought me, german chocolate! I could PUKE! I hate german chocolate and he knows it! But he is a man, did he just forget, or is he a dork? Do I get mad, or do I love him for at least coming up with this one by himself? Well, as I run all these thoughts through my head it dawns on me that he is messin' with me on my birthday! I try to give him a punch to the gut, and he bursts out laughing! He got me, and he knew it! While still laughing, he pulls out the real thing, my chocolate cake! What a buttface. And I love him. We all sit outside in our sukkah (it is sukkot right now, ya know!) and eat chocolate cake. I could not think of a better way to spend time with my family on my birthday. It was so beautiful outside and the cake was delicious. We then make plans with my mom to meet up for Chinese food for dinner. Another, OH MY YUM! It was fun and totally delish! My birthday was perfect. While sitting on the couch after dinner my hubby reminds that our message clock had been programmed, scrolling across it says "Happy Birthday Brat". Great day, great evening, great food and the best company! I am so very blessed, thank you Abba!

Swimming with Austin

This was a wonderfully fun weekend in Bend, OR. This picture is of Jordan and Atira with their good buddy Austin swimming in our hotel pool. It was such a great joy to get to see Austin again after meeting him a few months before. We had a wonderful weekend enjoying the pool, attending a conference and visiting with friends. It was a great time with family and a nice long drive together as well.

Summer is now over, it rained today, a lot. We are full into homeschool again and really enjoying it. Atira is officially 1st grade and Jordan is 6th. They are both doing very well and enjoying their studies. Jordan is taking outside classes in martial arts and metal working. Atira is taking a class on literature through art and a science/math class. We are looking forward to fun adventures with our homeschool group as well as with our friends through this fall.

I will work to update more frequently, sorry about the delay! Summer sure was fun, but it leaves little time for updating blog.
To our family reading this, we love you all!!

It's a construction zone!

 
Well, this summer has certainly NOT been a boring one! We have had all kinds of adventures one of which is the total construction zone that we used to call our street and driveway! Our neighbors have decided to do a little construction it's funny how easy you can jump onto that bandwagon when someone else is already starting the trouble. We decided since he was ripping out part of the street, we would repair a part of our driveway and finish off our second driveway with concrete, after all, the neighbor started it! Our two homes at the end of the street here will look positively stunning, when it is all done. For now, it is a mess. We drive on dirt and watch the dust fly. The kids are having a blast and need more baths than ever before. But lots of dirt is a great sign of a super fun day! I will try to upload more pictures as this job finishes out. As for now, here is one of Jordan on the tractor that was used to change the views out our front windows!