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.

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.