San Fran!

Pearly and I spent 4 days touring San Francisco area with her choir. I am their accompanist and "choir mom". We had a great time. They sang at Southern Oregon University, Chico High School, Pier 39 in San Francisco, and also at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, CA. I especially enjoyed the Alcatraz tour. What a fun time with my daughter and 59 other students (and 10 chaperones).

Read more...

Whidbey Island

It's been a while. We're surviving life with a husband/father who lives 4 hrs away and commutes home on days off. It's been challenging, but at least the bills are being paid.

In the meantime, I took the boys to our yearly family camp on Whidbey Island. It was gorgeous 4 out of the 5.5 days. We didn't complain one bit knowing how past years have been so rainy. We had a great time.

Pearly stayed back home to attend volleyball try-outs. She made varsity - yea! But she was sure missed at camp. High school is the time where teens have to learn to weigh tough decisions and she is no stranger to that anymore.

Here are a few of my favorite pics. It was great that Tall Dude could go this year. He was a big help and was so sweet with his younger siblings. I don't know many 20-yr olds who take the time play with their younger siblings. What wonderful memories for these boys.

Tall Dude and Caboose (4 yrs)

Brown eyes, 12 yrs

Bunny, almost 8

3 youngest boys

Bunny (almost 8) and Tall Dude, 20 yrs.

On the ferry leaving Whidbey Island

Read more...

Mother's Day 2010

Mother's Day started like this: Orange Boy (12 yrs old) made homemade cinnamon rolls. This is the 2nd time he's made them. He put them together last night and put them in the fridge overnight. In the morning, he put them in the oven on very low to rise and then baked them. This kid is amazing. He was craving cinnamon rolls about a month ago and decided to find a recipe and go for it. Some young lady is going to be very blessed to have him as a husband some day!

Can you say YUM?!!!

After church, we had a picnic lunch at a state park and went for a walk in the woods - right in the middle of Portland. Can you believe all of this in the middle of Portland? I love Oregon!!!

My two oldest sons!

Found a snake along the path.

Oldest three kids

The whole family - yea! We should have taken a family shot BEFORE the hike. Oh well. I love it anyway! What a great Mother's Day. I am so blessed.

Read more...

Family Day at Seaside, Oregon

Click to enlarge picture

We spent a wonderful day at the Oregon coast yesterday. Tall Dude didn't have school or work, so we made a family day of it and it was so beautiful. On the way there, it was really rainy until we made it over the mountain pass and then it was beautiful sunshine. The hike was great, but a bit muddy. We then went to the beach and the kids played in the waves with their bare feet, flew a kite. We ended the day with a bonfire and roasted marshmallows. Such a sweet family day!

Read more...

Back Home Again

Our favorite meal is the grilled salmon dinner: Caesar salad, fruit salad, seasoned oven-baked potatoes, bread, strawberry lemonade, and the most delicious salmon EVER!!!

For the third year in a row, my parents came along. It's great for the kids to have those special memories with grandparents.


I love my Mom's face here!

We've had quite an amazing summer. My dh had his 8-wk sabbatical and so we have been doing lots of traveling and playing. We finished up our travels with our yearly homeschool family camp in Whidbey Island, WA and had a blast. The weather was sunny and in the 70s all week. It doesn't get much better than that for WA!

Read more...

Cool Pic

I was just going through my daughter's pictures from vacation and found this. Isn't it cool? The sun was setting and it made the very dry CA hillside that vibrant golden color.

Read more...

More Vacation

I was hoping to keep up with this blog on our vacation, but unfortunately about two weeks of pictures are stuck in a broken computer. The kids were playing with the laptop on a bed and it overheated. Now we don't know the password (the initial password before the Windows screen). I hope some computer sleuth can help us out. There are fantastic pictures of Napa Valley, San Francisco and all of the tourist attractions, Santa Cruz, and sadly, Yosemite.

After we went to all of the above-mentioned places, we rented a cabin for a week about 1-1/2 hrs away from Yosemite, which also happened to be 5 miles from my aunt and uncle's place, so we had a great visit with them.

Here we are at Pinecrest Lake - a gorgeous lake with great swimming/boating. We spent two full days there and enjoyed great barbeques (to you Southerners - we enjoyed "grilling" our meat - lol).

Notice Caboose's war paint - lol.

I'm sure glad dh took Brown Eyes swimming for the months before vacation. It paid off!

Uncle Fred bought a used boat right before we came and so we were able to use it while we were there.

This picture was taken at dusk and it really is darker than it appears in the picture and yes, it's blurry, but the kids had a blast walking on these logs.

Another new family favorite is Mexican Train. My aunt taught us and we spent quite a few hours playing it.


These 2 were inseperable the whole time. It was actually pretty funny. They are both math brains and have quite a few similarities. They were like two peas in a pod.
And here we are right before leaving - dh took the picture.
There's more vacation to come!

Read more...

Vacation

We've been on a much-deserved vacation for the last several weeks with very limited internet access. It's amazing to discover in our travels how many places are not connected with the internet. It never dawned on me until this trip how high tech our area is. So many times I have wanted to look up something pertaining to our trip, but remember I have to do it the old fashioned way - by going to the library! Crazy!

This was during our first week of vacation where we spent a day visiting the California Redwoods. This was a first time for our kids - they loved it!

Read more...

No Words Necessary

Sometimes things just come together - lighting for the camera, attitudes, smiles, and you are left with pictures that make your heart all warm inside. That is what happened here. These are so precious to me, a rare treat, definitely!




And I couldn't have done it without older brother, Brown Eyes, giving them a reason to be happy:)

Read more...

Steps for Life

Some of our family participated in the 2-mile Steps for Life in downtown Portland on Saturday. It was a gorgeous day and we were glad to join the effort to raise support for women who need help during and after their unplanned pregnancies.

Caboose complained that his legs hurt when walking, so he was held quite a bit. I'm wondering if he is going through growing pains. A few of our boys have gone through this at his age.

Read more...