Forts

On Sunday Cason and Carissa made a huge fort downstairs. Cason was so excited he even took pictures from inside the fort. What fun kids.

Blake's Prom pictures

Blake had a great time at prom. Monica was totally cute. We let Blake take the jeep so he was stoked.






Here is my prom picture with the big hair. I went on a blind date with my brother's roommate. We had a GREAT time together. He showed up in a wig that looked like he was the lead singer for VanHalen. It was a riot. What great memories. The green shiny walpaper. The old gold couch.

Spirit Week

If you have kids in school, you will know what spirit week is, there is a theme for everyday The kids love it. Both Samantha and Cason have spirit week this week. They have had pajama day, superhero day, sports day, and mismatched day. Here is Cason as Elvisman...
Cason wore this great outfit to school, come to find out you aren't allowed to wear any of it but the cape. Funny rules. No hats, no masks, no gloves, and absolutely no clothes on the outside of other clothes, (not even real shorts). Poor kid was left only with the cape. You know, soon capes will be banned too. I heard it on the Incredibles "No capes". He is such a funny kid.

Wanna be a cowboy?

The other day Carissa and Samantha dressed up as cowboys and started singing, "I wanna be a cowboy" song. I love that they know the songs of my youth and love them too. I took a couple cute shots of them, but none with the cowboy boots. Imagine that they both are wearing size 12 mens cowboy boots. They were hilarious.

Braces and Prom

Friday, I taught seminary at Aloha then dropped off some 3x5 cards and ziplock baggies at Mountain View for Samantha, then I met Blake down at OHSU for his LAST ortho appointment. (Actually he has a few checkup appointments) , but he no longer has braces. YEAH!
Blake has had them on for four years. He was really one appointment away from getting them off in the fall when he got bonked in the mouth at school and nearly lost his bottom row of teeth. His braces saved the day, but they needed to stay on another 6 months. He looks so good now. He immediately had girls flocking the house and has been asked to the Southridge prom. I will post a picture as soon as blogger has worked out some kink.

Do you remember the day you got your braces off? Do you remember a favorite prom?
I'll have to post about that one. I have pictures that will blow your mind. I'm not sure a blog can contain the amount of hair that was going on. MMMMM....Memories.

Friday night we had 4 11 year olds over for a sleepover. Brother Merrit and Brother Whitnah took these boys to the older scouts snow caving trip the next morning at 6:30. Cason wore his Sunday socks instead of his nice ski socks and suffered the consequences. It was good for him to learn that lesson this time instead of next year when he will actually spend the night in the snowcave. Big thanks to all of the scout leaders that make these experiences happen and take the great pictures to post!!
















































































































Also I have to mention on my blog that Samantha finally bought a flute. She has been saving all of her babysitting money for a flute. Actually she only used her spending money for this, which is only 40% of what she has actually earned. She had a couple of anonymous donations that added up to about $300 for her to actually buy the $1400 flute that she wanted. Believe it or not, most flutes were $5,000 or more. Holy Bonanza. I'm not sure I would trust a 13 year old with something that cost more than the car I drive. Her recital was last night. She did a wonderful job. I hope to be able to download a audio clip to the blog so you can hear her play. I'll be getting a copy of it from her teacher. Thanks to all that have donated to her flute though hiring her for babysitting. Now she doesn't know what she wants to save for. She still doesn't understand why she had to buy it instead of Jeff and I . She will be so proud of herself when she is older. This will be one of those stories she will tell her children.

1st ride of the year!

Yesterday Bridget and I actually went on our first bike ride of the year. We have planned this at least a dozen times, but yesterday was worth waiting for. It was a beautiful day! We did a short run afterward as well. As much as I love biking, Bridget makes it even better with intriguing conversation and active listening skills. Speaking of that, we also had a girls night out a few weeks ago. All of them asked me about my trip and listened to my stories about loosing tickets and crossing the border. I also got a great tip from Hiedi about Restaurant.com. Check it out! Becky brought her little baby and let me snuggle him to sleep. It was great to remember what that was like without experiencing the whole thing. What great friends I have. Every single one of them are a truly unique jewel. For those of you who couldn't make it, we missed you.

Mexico

So of the highlights of the Mexico trip were Blake yelling at the top of his lungs every 5 minutes how much he hates tar. All of the locals looked at us like we were crazy.
















I also remember all of the big muscular manly boys running out of their room in the "hospital" screaming like little girls at a haunted house. Will said there was a "black widow" in his suitcase. It took a good hour to get them to go back in the room and hunt it down. At lunchtime we would eat with the locals in their home. It was great to see my kids eat anything. I even think we were fed cactus with our tortillas one afternoon. Monday we spent most of the day at a roof putting up insulation strips, finishing a bathroom shower (and I mean all in one), and finishing off the siding to and old barn that we were preparing to become a real room. The area we were working, you can see that they are really bad. I have never seen such good use our of old tires. Even amongst these very poor you find that they plant flowers.




























Samantha also go sunburned really bad that first day but was a trooper and really didn't complain. I thought she would be up all night and pretty much done for the rest of the week, but she stayed with it and put in a hard days work each day.























Almost everyday the ice cream man would come by and sell us his treats. The first day way a crap shoot and some of us ended up with some real funky Popsicles. They were described as jalepeÑo, and another as shampoo grass. Almost everyone tried them, but the next day most of us ended up getting a tried and true vanilla, eggnog flavor that we knew to be good. The first day as I cam back to the truck, just up the street from where we were working there was a stray horse just eating along side of the road. We really don't even have stray cats or dogs anymore. Can you imagine a stray horse? Bizarre.

















One of the other of my favorite parts about this trip was working along side Will. I don't know how we got paired up together, but for at least two days straight we ended up on top of a roof together.

















I know that I am not the favorite Aunt in my family, ( I became the first mom and last aunt, so I have way more mothering skills than aunting skills), even that said, I really had a great time with him. All of the kids were such great workers. Working together as a big family really does unify everyone.























I suspect this is one of the reasons this trip really was so wonderful. We were unified doing something that was good and beneficial to someone else. Service. On Friday when we went back to say goodbye tears of gratitude were shed, and it wasn't just from these wonderful ladies we helped but from our family. I am so grateful for the opportunity for my family to help them. I had a "sisters in Zion" moment, when I knew these sweet women knew that they were loved not only by me but by God. It was very taxing emotionally to leave them knowing how there next day would be and what our next day would be. It was hard not to feel spoiled especially when it is the truth.

If you want to hear another version of this trip check out my sister Melinda's blog. She had a great recap of the trip.

Mt. Shasta

Samantha was as excited as I was.
Mt. Shasta is very hard to see here but quite beautiful.








She is also my only photographer on this part of the trip. I don't have many pictures of myself and I actually like this one. She did a great job. Mt. Shasta is actually too bright to actually see in this one.

Mt. Shasta

This was the first shot of the trip. Mt. Shasta is beautiful and reminds me of my own Mt. Hood. Samantha was the only one to get out of the car and this point, must have been a good movie on.

Spring Break

Because we had 2 extra days for spring break this year, (parent teacher conferences), I decided it was the perfect time to take the kids down to Mexico and participate in one of my dad's Charity Anywhere Expeditions. I also thought I would kill two birds with one stone and finally take my kids to Disneyland on the way down. We had a couple extra bonuses, my sister, Melinda, and her family, and my mom were all able to come. My dad had already been down there a week and crossed back over the border to pick up my mom from the airport and meet us for Disneyland. We had a great time. We stayed at the Hilton, thanks Priceline, and lived it up before crossing the border on Sunday morning for church. Everyone worked really hard the rest of the week. We couldn't have done it without Mike. My Dad also had everything arrange so well. Our sleeping arrangements were way too nice and I wondered why I had paid so much money without my kids sleeping among scorpions, going without running water and toilets, and learning to shower with a bucket of cold water while mosquitoes ate them alive. That was all a disappointment, to come back to the "hospital" where we were staying to a bed, a warm shower, and toilets. Actually I thought it couldn't have worked our nicer. I have awesome parents that are great examples to my children and I appreciate how much they did to make this happen, not only for me, but many people for over a decade. We were able to cross back over the border on Friday and go to an evening at California Adventure before pulling in really late to Bakersfield. We were able to have lunch with Jeff's Grandpa on Sat and then head home. Melinda's family split off at Sacramento and we hauled it all the way in on Sunday. Over the next few days I will add some pictures and comments of the trip, probably not in order. Thanks to all that welcomed me back. It was great to feel missed. I would have to say how much I love the USA. What a wonderful beautiful place I am blessed to live.

Spring Break

Carissa- "Disneyland was awesome! My favorite ride was the Matterhorn. In Californiz Acventure it was the California Screamin'. On Monday nailing the red nails was fun and easy. Lola and Sarie were the only friends I made there. Lola was really nice."