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)!

Kennewick Fire Department Open House

The Kennewick Fire Department had an Open House on Tuesday night. It was lots of fun and very interactive for the kids. I thought the Girl Scout cookies were the best part, but the kids enjoyed dressing up like firepeople and squirting the hose. Evan was happy in his stroller, especially when Sparky the firedog came around. The local news channel interviewd me when we first got there and it was on the evening news. Here is a link to the KNDU story, but I can't find the news clip - just this blurb and picture http://www.kndu.com/global/story.asp?s=8905896 It was a great evening out!

First Day of School - August 26, 2007

The kids started school on Tuesday. Kindergarten starts on a different schedule so Bubba went yesterday for an hour, but doesn't start full time until Friday. She's a little disappointed that she can't eat lunch at school until then.

Brett says all his teachers are funny - we'll see how long that lasts. He'll be playing the trumpet again, but doesn't have P.E. this year because they had to make room for all the kids that didn't take it last year from his grade. Apparently there were kids that had an extra reading class instead of P.E. in 6th grade. He now rides his bike to school which is nice because I don't have to leave the house in the middle of the morning routine to drop him off.

Erin has a great 5th grade teacher - there was one teacher that I requested she not get so I am pleased. She can't wait to be a patrol again, but has to wait for her turn. Erin is looking forward to setting off the rockets at the end of the year - a 5th grade tradition at her school.Kehli has two teachers again this year - Mrs. Solano for English and Ms. Chavez for Spanish. She got to go in the day before school started to drop off her supplies and meet her teachers. This year instead of having a Spanish partner they work in groups of 4-5. It will be good for Kehli to work with a group!

Kendall starts full time tomorrow - YEAH!! I'm not sure who is more excited, me or her. I'm looking forward to having one-on-one time with Evan. He's never had that. Bubba has Mr. Solano for Spanish and Ms. Baudrand for English. She is ready for the structure of school and a classroom.

in Moses Lake with Doug & Kristen

Doug & Kristen and their family were up from southern California last week. We went up for the weekend and spent a few days with them. The kids played so well together - we were actually surprised. On Monday we went over to Moses Lake again to the aquatic center. This time Kehli & Bubba wanted to do the surfing. They are too short this summer to do the surfing standing up, but were able to do the body surfing. They are so light that they pretty much stayed in the same place and had to steer the board over to the side when the lifeguard thought they had been out long enough. You can tell by the smiles that they were having a blast.

Evan is finally liking the water this summer - it's August, better late than never. He went around the Lazy River a few times and even into the pool for a while. His favorite was the sprinkler area, which I hadn't even noticed when we were there in June.

Here are Doug & Kristen's kids (Riley, Jacob & Ryan) with a few of ours eating ice cream at the Quincy pool. Bubba was able to go down the slide at the Quincy pool so she likes it better than in Moses Lake. Maybe next year she will be tall enough.
We got an offer on the house this weekend, but it was a little ridiculous. She wanted a 90 day bump - meaning if someone wanted to buy our house we had to give her 90 days to either close on our house or pull out of the contract. So we countered back and we'll see on Sunday if she decides to sign our contract or just pull out all together. There are two other people very interested right now so if it doesn't work out we aren't too worried. Our realtor said that over the last 10 years she has sold 3 times more homes during late summer/fall so we are still hopeful that we'll be able to build our new home this winter.