It's been a while...

So much has happened since the last time I updated this blog. I'll try to fit everything in without too many details or it will be a novel!!
My Grandpa Bennett passed away at the beginning of November so we made a trip down to Utah for a week. It was bitter sweet - sad saying good-bye to him and seeing my Grandma hurting, but happy being able to see so much of my family. Mark got to meet some of my cousins for the first time and all five girls were in the same house for at least 2 days. It was a nice trip.

We got back from Utah and I got going on a new exercise/weight program. I was actually able to buy a smaller pair of jeans from Old Navy after only a few weeks. YIPPEE!!! I've got a long ways to go still, but feeling great.

We spent Thanksgiving in Quincy at Mark's parents house. His brother, Brad, came up from California so it was good to see him again. It was great to relax and sit in the hot tub every night. It felt so good on my muscles! Brett loves to go up there because he can jump on his dirtbike and ride around all he wants. The other kids love "exploring" in the junk pile and riding around in the little 4x4 trucks. It's nice in the fall/winter because we don't have to worry about water being in the ditch behind the house and the kids can play in it all they want.

At the beginning of December Mark and I finally took a honeymoon trip and went on a Western Caribbean cruise. I posted lots more pictures on Facebook if you must see more. Our friends, Keith & Cindy Campbell, went with us and we had a BLAST. We went out of Ft. Lauderdale and had stops in Grand Cayman & Ocho Rios. In Grand Cayman we rented wave runners and went out about 8 miles into the ocean to a place called Stingray City to feed and swim with the stingrays. What an awesome experience!! Then we did some snorkeling in the clear water and got sunburned. Shopping was fun. The next day we went rafting down the Martha Brae river in Jamaica. Jamaica was not our favorite place. Rafting was fun and shopping was okay. We won't ever go there again. There was lots of fun activities on the ship - mini-golf, hot tubs & swimming, great food (24 hours a day!!), climbing wall, fun shows and entertainment, and more. We're hooked and can't wait to go on our next cruise. We would like to go on one to the ancient ruins in Mexico. Maybe if we aren't building a house next winter...

We came back to Washington to snow. The kids had 2 hour delay every day last week. It was nice to not have to rush in the morning getting them off to school. But it did take me almost an hour and a half getting them all to school in the morning. We've been getting a little more snow every day and are supposed to get 6-8 inches more tonight. It will be a white Christmas for us!

Well, that's a quick update from Kennewick. It's almost 11:00 so I better get some sleep before it's Christmas morning already!!

The Price of Gas...

I was so excited last month when it cost me less than $100 to fill up the van - the first time since May! I filled up again today and it only cost me $71. I feel like we have so much extra money... not really...but it makes me happy anyway.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

As you can see we got really creative this year...and used costumes from a few years ago. They fit the next child in line just perfectly. Evan hated the lion's mane, but was a good sport and actually wore it most of the night. I loved that you could only see about 2 inches of his face and from the back he looked like a little Tina Turner. The weather was perfect - 60 degrees. It is the warmest that a Halloween has been since we moved to Kennewick 6 1/2 years ago. In the past it's been 25-30 degrees.

Granny's Buffet allowed all kids who were dressed in costume to eat for free so 8 of us ate for the price of 2. Brett threw on a black cape so he could eat dinner.

We now have too much candy. I always throw a handful away each day when the kids are at school. That way they don't really notice. I can't imagine them eating all that candy - especially after going to the dentist this week and all of us being in the cavity-free club again. YIPPEE!!

Playing in the Canyon, Getting pretty with Granny, sick Evan, and Carving Pumpkins

Here is everyone playing in Zintel Canyon after we took family pictures last weekend. The weather was perfect and of course the girls found a little creek where they found lots of stinky "clams." We stayed until Kehli fell in the water. Mark's parents came down this weekend for a visit. They took us to Granny's Buffet for dinner one night, which the kids think is the greatest treat. The girls love to put on Granny's make up and get all pretty. You can tell that Erin is more interested in looking beautiful and the other two get a little carried away with the eyeliner pencil. I told Erin that witches are supposed to be ugly and she informed me that it wasn't Halloween yet so she could be a pretty witch.

Brett, Jaylee & Evan have had the barfies the last few days. The only thing I like about having sick children is that they snuggle with us more. Evan, who is a little busy pants, will actually sit still and let you hold and rub him. Here he is snuggling with Mark on the couch. Why do they have to grow up so fast!?! Here we all are carving our pumpkins tonight. As you can see I still do it the old fashion way. Mark doesn't have the patience so he enlists the help of his tool box. Every time he turned it on Evan would run and say "monsters coming." I guess it scared him a little.

Family Pictures

When Michelle was here last weekend she took our annual family pictures for us. I'm having trouble adjusting the picture on the blog - it keeps cutting off the right side of the picture. If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix that I'd love to hear them.

Jaylee is now a permanent fixture in our home. She's been with us for almost a month now. She and Erin share a room, she does chores, says the prayers, acts as a peacemaker (my favorite!!) and in general just blends in like she's always been here. We'll see how things progress in the coming weeks and months. She's a great girl and just wants so much to be part of a family, something she's never had before. So now there are eight of us under this roof. It's a good thing we bought a big van last year because now we only have one empty seat in it. I keep teasing Mark that we need to fill it - he's not amused. I'll try again another month...

I love the fall - the changing of the trees. That is what I miss most about living back east. We have a little bit of trees around here, but nothing like Maryland. Our family pictures were taken down in Zintel Canyon. There is a nice trail through it that we like to walk on and pick wild blackberries in the summer.

Time Out For Women - Portland, Oregon

Here we (April Homer, Michelle Birch, & Me) are at Time Out For Women in Portland, OR last weekend. Michelle came up from Bakersfield, CA for a visit and we had a little weekend away. We had tons of fun shopping, relaxing, eating & getting rejuvenated. We could have easily stayed another night...

My sister, Heather, met us there from Eugene, OR and shared the hotel room with us. It was great to see her again.

Here we are relaxing in the hotel playing games in our jammies.

Then April & I being dorks at Denny's in The Dalles, OR. We really did have too much fun - if that is even possible!! I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

A Smorgesborg of Things

Brett got to go on one last scout camp out for the year last Friday so the girls wanted to go camping too. It was going to be in the 30's that night and I was worried about having Evan out in the cold so we just made a fort in the living room and the girls camped there. They thought it was great!!
Evan has been so into guns and shooting lately. This particular day he saw a squirrel on the fence in the back yard. He went and grabbed his gun and ran outside to get it. It was interesting because I watched from inside so I wouldn't scare the squirrel away. The squirrel would actually stop and watch Evan, even as he would stop to cock the rifle again. It was very amusing.
Here is a picture of all the free stuff (after rebate) that I got at Rite Aid last week. My rebate check for all this stuff will total about $112. It included cough medicine, lip balms, flu medicine, allergy medicine, throat lozenges, nasal sprays, saline rinses, headache medicine (adult & children), cold sore medication, mentholatum rub, and more. All the stuff that we need to keep us healthy and feeling good through the winter. That is the most free stuff that I have gotten at one time - I was so proud!!

Azteca - Girls' Lunch Date

I forgot to include this in the last post. The girls got to go out for another fun time together last Friday for lunch. It was Sherilyn Mills (+2 kids), Rebecca Carter, Me (+Evan), April Homer (+2 kids), Cami Rhoten and her sister Chandra (in the pretty red hat). There were 6 mommies and 5 children. Despite the almost even ratio the floor still looked like a war zone. I guess that is why we tip big? I wish that I could speak Spanish - it would have been interesting to understand what the waiters were saying to each other each time they passed our table.

Where does the time go???

WOW - it's been three weeks since I posted the last time. The kids are finally in a good routine with school. Brett told us last week that he is too lazy to do his work all the time. We aren't sure where that came from, but we told him that wasn't an option so now he's back-peddling to get his grades back up. Erin is doing fabulously well - even has a 100% in science. She has a great teacher (maybe I've said that before) and is excited about learning. Kehli is the resident Spanish expert and is always correcting Bubba on her pronunciation of words. It is so fun to listen to Kehli read her decodable books each day and she is now able to tell me the whole story back in English. Evan and I are having a great time with each other all day long. He has quite the imagination so we pretend - usually with a toy motorcycle and a stuffed doggie. He is just so much fun - I can't get enough of him!!

Mark is into the heavy harvest season and I am no longer surprised when his phone rings at 3:30 in the morning with the first problem of the day. I'm finally able to get back to sleep for a few last hours. I started working out at a gym again. Two friends (Cami & April) and I joined up and have been taking classes for two weeks. I started with weights again on Friday so I'm walking like a gimp. It's all good, right!?!

Here are some pictures of Evan. The first: I told him to look at me and say cheese and this is what I got...

Here he is being a big boy in daddy's work boots. He didn't get too far in them, but sure thought he was pretty cool:

And one last one with Evan's new "sister" Jaylee. She is a neighborhood girl that is with our family a lot. She was with us pretty much all summer and is now over every day during the week from after school until bedtime. She stays all weekend and is even with us tonight. We love her like she's our own. Evan just adores her and runs to her when the other kids won't leave him alone.

Canning, drying, eating fruit...

I started canning peaches, pears & beets last Tuesday and finally finished Saturday night. I started with 11 boxes of produce. It was one of the longest weeks of my life, but it is over now and we have lots to show for all the effort. We have 90 quarts of fruit, 9 bottles of pickled beets and two bags of dried pears (those are the best!!). Plus some raspberry-peach jam, plain raspberry jam and several pans of peach crisp. I'm going to make peach-banana jam tomorrow. We still have some fresh fruit that we will eat up over the next few days - I just wish the harvest season lasted longer because I LOVE pears.

Last Friday was another Girls' Night Out. We celebrated Sherilyn Mills' birthday (she's the birthday queen with the crown). The party was themed after Dr. Seuss' book "Oh! the Places You'll Go." We ended up at Applebee's for half price appetizers and had a blast. Of coarse, we all ate too much, but it was well worth it.

I looked out the window this afternoon and saw Evan helping Brett mow the lawn. It was so cute! Brett was patient with him and let him help push for as long as Evan wanted, even though it took 2-3 times longer to get the lawn done. I pray that they will love each other like this forever.

Here's a helpful hint for every day living: If you are driving up the freeway at 70 mph it is possible for a gust of wind to knock a brand new, $900, 200 pound LG front loading washing machine out of the back of a pick-up truck. And, no, the styrofoam packaging and box do not protect it from the impact on the hard, black pavement as it tumbles like a basketball down the fast lane. In fact the styrofoam "explodes" into little white pieces and looks like snow as it is blown around by all the passing cars. It was a rough day.

Fastest Kid in the Tri-Cities Race

Last Saturday one of the local high schools sponsored a "Fastest Kid in the Tri-Cities Race" to help raise money for their boys' cross-country team to go to an invitational down in California. Kehli was so excited to race - she is our runner, always beating everyone in P.E. She has endurance that I wish I could borrow sometimes! Erin chose to race also. Brett is too old (it only went through 6th grade) and Bubba wasn't interested, until it started and it was too late to register. Each race was divided into grade levels. Kehli's coarse was 1/2 mile and she ran it in 4.07 minutes and Erin had to run a whole mile finishing in 9.40 minutes. They both took second in their grade levels. The only two girls that beat each of them were daughters to a cross-country coach from another high school. I could hear their mom at the end of the race say, "that was good, but it took 3.55 minutes." I looked down to realize that I hadn't even worn a watch - I didn't realize how serious some people were about it! There is a boy from our church, Bram Holladay, that is on the cross-country team that ran with both Erin & Kehli. He was a HUGE help and I don't think they would have done as good if he wasn't along side them encouraging them to keep running. It was a fun morning that they kids are already looking forward to next year.

Morrow County OHV - Camping

This Labor Day weekend we tried out a new campground. It is down by Heppner, Oregon and was just over 2 hours away. You could ride anywhere in the park as long as it was on a road. There were different tracks for different ages. Mark joined the poker ride. When he signed up he got his first card. Then there was a 30 mile course with 3 check points along the way where he got 3 additional cards. Then when he completed the course and checked back in he got his final card. He ended up having two pairs and coming in third out of almost 70 people. He won one of those portable tent/canopy things - we'll use it over the dirt pile to keep the kids in the shade. This picture doesn't show it too good, but Mark looked like he had a beard when he got back from the poker run. He was totally filthy where his helmet and goggles weren't covering him.

The kids had a blast. Brett was off on his dirt bike ALL day so he was never around to take pictures of. He loved the over 15 track and spent most of the day there until someone got hurt and they started enforcing the rules. He's complained the last few days about being sore from riding. Erin rode off and on all day. She enjoyed making "crafts" out of whatever she could find on the ground. At one point she found a little water snake and kept it until we convinced her that it would die if she kept carrying it around.

Kehli hasn't enjoyed riding since she ran into Mark a little while ago on her dirt bike. She wasn't hurt, but apparently it scared her enough to want to take a break.

Evan spent most of his time climbing up and down off Kehli's bike since it stayed parked in one spot. He was in his heaven - he went from dirt bike to four-wheeler and then back to dirt bike the whole time we were there. He even had to eat his breakfast on one! It won't be long until he's ready for his own ride (with training wheels of coarse)!