The 4th of July - An Annual Johnson Tradition

Our annual 4th of July party is something we look forward to every year. The parties on the lake started in 2005, the first year we moved here.  It started with just a couple families and now it's a little bigger. Every year we take a "Sparkler" picture. So I thought I'd post all the years we've had so far.

2008 - This year's picture!

2007 - Peter bought really cheap sparklers, they were sooo smokey.  

The dock is built! Picture from the deck.

2006 - No dock yet, but the deck was there. This is my favorite 4th of July picture.

2005 - We had so much beach this year, the water was way out, we are standing on the water level in this pic! We had no dock or deck this year.

The Godfather Party

On June 25th, we had a party for all of the "Godfathers", high schoolers who adopted our kids and love them. We had different challenges to see who would be the "Godfather of the Year". 

Here's Elise, Camille and Jordan after the cake decorating challenge, Eben's idea, of course. 

The kids have always wanted to have silly string fight, so I let them have one. Turns out, it's too hard for them to press the nozzle. Oh well. We had fun anyway.

Here are the little trophies Eben and Kivi made for the winners of each challenge.

Elise won the cake decorating contest and the catch the Skittle in your mouth challenge. Salish won the boat race, Camille won the Kid quiz.  Jordan and Seth, sorry boys, better luck next year. So, Elise is the "Godfather of the Year"!

For more Godfather's Day pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/Peterandabby/GodparentParty

Dada's Day!

Peter is the greatest Dada! He is such a loving, patient and fun father. He always makes time to spend with the kids, playing climb all over the Dada game, reading, helping them get jammies on, brushing teeth, making pancakes, jumping on the trampoline, fishing, jet skiing, praying, the list could go on forever. I always prayed that God would give me a husband that loves Him and his kids, and he certainly delivered! 

On Father's Day this year, we celebrated Peter by having family over, Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie Tonya, Uncle Chris, cousins, and Auntie Tonya's family too!

Kivi, Opal, Eben and Jasper with their Dada.

Each of the kids picked out 2 presents for Dada at the Dollar Store, the greatest store on earth. Actually, Eben helped all the kids pick out presents. (I think gifts are Eben's love language.) So Dada had tons of gifts to open. 

Eben and Ian on the 4 wheeler.

Jumping on the trampoline.

We had an impromptu baseball game, with no bases, and not enough fielders, but it was fun.

Kivi and Opal and their matching Dada's Day outfits. (Also from the Dollar Store.)

It was a beautiful day, playing in the lake, having a BBQ, and spending time with family.

RVing at Chehalis

June 6-9, we went on a mini family vacation to the Chehalis Thousand Trails with Mr. Andy's RV. The kids LOVED it! It rained the whole time but that didn't stop us from having fun. We went on little hikes, Eben rode his bike, and Jasper and Kivi loved splashing in mud puddles. We watched movies, swam in the pool (yes, in the rain) did crafts, and had a dance party. Peter and I even got to go on a mini date, we played ping pong (I worked Peter), played pool (Peter worked me), and went in the hot tub while Grandma and Grandpa watched the kids.

Puddle time!

Riding in the rain.

Dada made us omelets and bacon every morning.

Looking for pennies in the pool.

Dada, Mama and Eben got to go on a hay ride pulled by a tractor. 

Minus the hay. They had to use it all for the floods.

Craft time. Eben made a race car and Kivi made a bird house. Or should I say Dada mainly made these things. Well, they did their share of painting. Bubba painted newspaper with water.

So we have this crazy, great, insane, wonderful idea to go around the US for a year with our kids. We would be able to not only teach them about our country but show them. A year of field trips. Isn't that every kid's favorite part about school? We would, if we don't have anymore kids, do this in about 4 years, because all of the kids would be elementary age and probably remember it. Anyway, our little trip to Chehalis, be it only 4 days, made us so excited about this idea. To think of touring the US with our family, everyday, to be together, learn together, make memories, be in a crowded RV together with one little bathroom - it makes us giddy! Maybe God will actually allow us to do it.  We'll see!

Thanks Mr. Andy for letting us borrow your RV!

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for Thousand Trails!

A Day In The Life Of A Johnson

On June 4, 2008, I decided to take pictures all day and record what we do all day. We have a family schedule and we usually follow it pretty well, some days, we have to be flexible, like this day. Because other things come up. So here's our little schedule that's always on our fridge:

8:30 - eat breakfast, Eben had granola, Kivi and Jasper had raisin toast. I feed Opal while they eat.

8:45 - Got dressed. Eben goes with Kivi to her room to get her clothes and Kivi goes to Eben's room with him to get his clothes, everyone brings their clothes back to the living room and we all get dressed together.

9:30 - "Word World" A TV show that they watch, they get to choose between Super Why or Word World, two great shows that teach about letters and reading.

10:00 - Jasper and Opal take a nap. Eben and Kivi have school time. Today Eben worked on capital letters and Kivi worked on drawing diagonal lines.

10:30 - Eben did reading and Kivi played

10:45 - snacks and then more playing

11:30 - Jasper wakes up and we all eat lunch - turkey rolls, string cheese, broccoli and carrots.

12:00 -Opal wakes up and I feed her

We forgot to brush teeth.

12:15 - Jobs - Kivi cleaned the table, and Eben took the clothes out of the dryer.

12:30 - Eben wanted a Special Helper Rocket so he sorted the clothes. Kivi and Jasper played.

Played until nap.

2:00 - Nap time for everyone! Until 4:00.

6:00 - Here's where our day was much different than normal. We picked up Mr. Andy's RV so we could go camping. We parked at church to have an egg roll dinner, cause Dada had to mow the church lawn. Opal took a nap in the back of the RV.

6:30 - They had to eat all their egg roll before they could go on the tractor. No one really liked the egg rolls. It took them a long time to eat just 1/2 of an egg roll. Eben and Kivi got rides with Dada. Bubba was terrified. After their rides, they got ice cream sandwiches from Rusty.

(My camera died, so I didn't get to take pics of the rest of the day.)

7:00 - We watched "Madagascar" in the RV. And Dada finished mowing just as the movie ended.

9:00 - We took the RV home, put on jammies, brushed teeth and went to bed.

And that's a day in the life of a Johnson.

Dada's Lodge Boy Reunion

Every Memorial Day weekend, Peter and all of his college friends, who lived in a lodge on campus, get together and catch up on life. This year Peter hosted the event at our house and kicked out Mama and kids. Peter really did an awesome job coming up with fun stuff for them all to do. They went fishing and jet skiing of course, they also went to a shooting range, hiked at very snowy Mt. Rainier, went racing, did police scenarios in our neighbors basement with air rifles, had their GPS race through Seattle and played Wii and Air Guitar. There are tons of pic, here's just a few of them. More are at http://picasaweb.google.com/Peterandabby/YALP2008

Our Day In Seattle

On May 18th, we all had a day in Seattle to help Dada get ready for his lodge boy GPS Seattle race. So we visited all the fun places in Seattle in under 2 hours. First we got lunch at Dick's and then headed off to Kerry Park:

Here are the kiddos looking at the view from Kerry park. A cute little bun shot.

A family shot. I love that Eben picked out a bow-tie to wear, 

he looks like he works at See's candies.

The kids were so scared to get close to the fountain.  They didn't want to get wet. 

So Mama and Dada ran through it and Eben took our picture.

Next we got some fudge from the candy shop in that big place with all the food. 

Kivi's showing us her yummy fudge.

The Space Needle was our next stop. The kids could really care less about it.

The rides that are right next to the Needle look way more interesting.

We didn't spring for any rides, but hung out at the big orange tubes. Kivi was the only brave soul to go sit in one. They're like 5 feet off the ground.

Our last stop was cookies with the troll. This was Eben and Kivi's favorite part. So many people were looking at the troll too. I didn't even realize what an attraction it was. 

Each of our stops only lasted a couple minutes, but really that was just long enough.  We all got to have a fun quick tour of Seattle and Dada got to get all his GPS coordinates for his race!