End of July Recap

July 10th - The Kid's Surprise Dada

We surprised Dada in his little work cubicle for his birthday. We had a coworker call about a fake meeting so we could get Dada to come to the police station and we hid and yelled "Surprise!" as he came to his desk. They were so excited to give him balloons, cards and a cake, which said, "sexy 31". (Happy Birthday didn't fit.) When Eben asked what sexy meant I told him that it meant we thought Dada was the best looking dada ever. He nodded his head and agreed.

July 11th - Alaska Airlines Party

The Grondahls invited us come to Wendy's company picnic which was held at Remlinger Farms. It was so much fun! It was one of those times I wished our kids weren't on a schedule so we could've kept them up forever. There was so much to do we didn't even get to it all. We were able to cram in lassoing, bull riding, a clown show, panning for treasure in the creek, face painting, going on the jumpy toy and obstacle course, and a great feast! So thanks so much Rich and Wendy! We had such a great time!!

July 12th - Peter's Real Surprise

We gathered at Stanley and Seafort's for Peter's real surprise birthday celebration with friends and family under the guise of an HFG event (Thanks Shari!). So Peter actually ended up making his own plans and making it harder for everyone. But it was the first time I've succeeded in keeping it a real secret. He's really good at finding things out. And he had no idea of his very detailed birthday cake, a journey of his life, by Adeliz.

July 14th - NASA & the government

It was Kivi's birthday, but we didn't celebrate it... yet. We sang, "Happy Birthday" and Dada went with her to Home Depot to buy a bar and rings for the play toy. (So now she can do flips, our adventurous girl!)

Then we went to Olympia to see the NASA Space trailer, which really was not all that impressive. The only cool thing in the whole big rig was the moon rock that we got to touch, which looked more like a tumbled stone.

We figured the kids would all want to go to the Children's Museum afterward, since it's right across the street, but they all wanted to go see the capital building. It really was great and gynormous. (I don't think that's really a word, so I can't spell it wrong.) And we were the only ones in there. The kid's favorite part was eating ice cream in "the cave", a really dark room they found with tables in it.

July 17-19th - LC3 MOPS Steering Retreat

I'm going to be the Table Leader Leader for my Mops group at Lake City next year, and our retreat was at a quaint cottage in Sea Brooke. All the houses in the development were Cape Cod, wrap around porch, cedar shake style and the one we stayed at was decorated so cute. I had so much fun getting to know the girls better and planning out our year. Not to mention the hot tub, great food (thanks Becca!), and beautiful views of the ocean!

July 19th - Backyard Camp-out

We finally purchased a tent! And we had to try it out, so we set up camp on the lawn. The kids had so much fun bringing all their household "necessities" into the tent, but there was no room to sleep. So they had to take it all back inside and make room for the sleeping bags. As we were all making our way to the backyard for the final time (after putting Opal to sleep in her crib, in the house - cheating, I know), Kivi loudly whispers, "I see a deer!" Peter and I are thinking she's really getting into this! How fun! And then we both see a real live deer in the direction she's pointing. It was standing right next to the play toy, about 15 feet away!

We did some neat s'mores, with fingers as roasting sticks and no fire. And then got jammies on and read our night-time book The Princess and The Goblin while snuggling in our sleeping bags. Then Peter and I watched a movie on his brand new iphone to test out the quiet 3 room tent feature and fell asleep. Only to be woken up at stinkin' 3 in the morning to our neighbor who calls her cats in every night. The obnoxiously loud cat calling lasted a good 1/2 hour. I wanted to yell, "Woman, it's a cat, and we're trying to sleep outside in a tent. Shut-up!" But I didn't. And none of the kids woke up. I'm just glad that regularly we sleep in a cement house, and don't hear a thing.

Oh, and on July 28th, it reached 104* - yes, in WA!

Family Devotions

We've been doing family devotions after dinner (from a book called Step Into The Bible that I got at last years Mops convention) off and on for about a year. The book has verses that we work on with the kids and so far they know about 11 random verses from the Bible. We make up little motions to help the kids and they are so cute when they do them all together. Then we have to let them recite the verse on their own. And if anyone talks during someone else's recitation - oh my! Sorry Jesus, we're still learning.

Here they are reciting some of their favorites:

Deuteronomy 31:6 - by Jasper:

I Timothy 4:12 - by Kivi:

John 3:16 - by Eben:

Proverbs 3:5 - by all of them:

Our prayer is that these family devotions, scripture memory and Bible reading times will guide our kids in their lives. Help them when they have troubles, and learn to trust in and love the Lord as they grow. Because this is really the most important thing we can teach them in this life.

The Fourth!

The 4th of July = Big Party at our house! We look forward to the fun of having lots friends over, swimming, eating and of course fireworks!

Here's Jasper sporting the look of summer:

Clara and Opal in their patriotic colors with matching confused looks:

Eben and Hayden hard at work digging a trench:

Peter and I and our little people on the dock:

The famous "Sparkler Picture":

Last year Peter got free sparklers with the fireworks he bought and we got smoked out. So this year he bought top of the line fireworks, and they were so powerful and emitted such a flame, that we all got burned. One of these years we'll get it right!

A super-excited Kivi, ready to light her roman candle:

All the boys waiting in the roman candle line on the dock:

The firework show at the end of the night was fantastic this year - a great ending to a wonderful day!

Mexico!!!

On June 18th we left Eben and Kivi at Grandma and Grandpa's and flew down to Orange County, CA with Jasper and Opal - the two freebies. After a day at the Magic Castle (a super cool magician's mansion) we left the babies with Poppie and Nonnie and joined up with our church's Mexico mission team at the Long Beach airport.

After many failed attempts to cross the border into Mexico, we finally remembered to pray and God got us right in. Our Mexico experience was awesome! We stayed in a hotel in San Vicente, which we brought in our own military cots to sleep on - yes, in the hotel. There were roosters to wake us up every morning at 4 am. And it was so hot that we all made a special stop at a Home Depot before the border so everyone could buy fans - which basically just blew the hot air around the room. Oh well, it sounded like it was doing something.

Every day we would eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in this cutest hut:

And I fell in love with refried beans. We had them at every meal. I keep trying to make them and I'm failing miserably.

Our main goal while we were there was to build pig pens, a fenced garden, a chicken coop, plant an orchard, and erect a windmill to pump water to the afore mentioned things on a men's recovery ranch. I was on team garden, and Peter was the leader of the pig team.

Day one however, everyone ended up on Peter's pig team because he needed 50 some odd holes dug out of the clay/cement dirt for post holes and the rest of us had to wait for the back hoe to dig holes for our projects. After digging about 16 holes by hand at the end of day, no one thought we were going to finish our projects by the end of the week. But plans were changed (pounding rebar instead of digging post holes), the back hoe finished and God was good...and all of the projects were completed!!

We even did a little extra project, our Women Shed:

No boys were allowed in the building of the two Women Sheds and this whole thing was put together with one screwdriver! What? No one thought to bring more than one screwdriver? No. Oh yes, we had a drill, but it had no bits.

Here's Peter and his pig team in one of their three newly constructed hog shade things:

They also built a mommy/baby pig birthing suite and I helped run electrical wire around all the pens. Al Hall helped to test the shock factor of the electric fence.

And here's our whole team at the finished windmill:

We were able to meet some of the great people of San Vicente, go to church, play with the kids at the Casa (a home for women and their children) and at a migrant camp, and even spend an afternoon at a water park.

I know God is doing many great things in this part of Mexico and it was wonderful to be able to be a small part of it and share this experience with my amazing hubby. I loved seeing him play with the kids, work hard, be a great leader, and encourage others. He bought me a "going steady" friendship bracelet from a vendor outside our hotel the first day and he took me to ice cream every night. It's wonderful to serve God with such a great man.

Our June Garden

My garden goal for this summer is to find out what exactly I've planted and where. Because when winter comes and it's all gone I forget what's going to pop up and when. So I got my Gardening Journal, put on my long flowing dress, removed my shoes and sat on a blanket in the middle of my yard. In my head I was living in the 17th century, but I didn't have that beautiful of a dress on. And I mapped out our gardens or part of them. Each kid has their own garden, so far I've gotten done Eben's and Opal's. I also took pictures of what the plants look like so I can get excited in Fall of what's to come in Spring.

This is also the first year we've had a vegetable garden. It's the second year trying. Last year they all got eaten a day after I planted my precious seedlings outdoors. I don't know why, but I feel like if I don't do it from seeds, it's cheating. Which is weird, because I'm a self-proclaimed cheater. So far, we have had tons of lettuce, some beans, and it's looks like the broccoli, zucchini and eggplant will do well too. I think I got too late a start on the tomatoes. I should just cheat.

Girl Party and Man Day!

Girl Party was June 5-6th and Man Day was all day June 13th and although we had awesome times...these were the only pictures that even proved we got together! How pathetic is that. And since I'm relying on this blog as my virtual "Notebook" of life, (Because I have the memory of a fly.) I probably won't even remember that these days existed. I'm a visual learner. Pictures. Not words.

So although it looks like all we did was play Guitar Hero and all the guys did was golf, that is not true. We had a great time, all us women, at our girly slumber party. We ate pizza. By the way, here's something I learned - 15 women do not eat 8 pizzas - they eat 2. We played games, made s'mores down at the fire, did pedicures, snacked, had Italian sodas, watched girly movies, and oh yes - talked, some of us until 4 in the am.

Here's my pic of Shannon belting out... a rock song (see I already don't remember) assisted by Christine on the guitar.

As for Man Day. I don't really know. I wasn't allowed to be there. I am not a man. But I know they had a kick in the pants. This is what I learned about Man Day:

-Denny's rocks for breakfast.

-Golf was great. Joe won the great golf hat contest.

-Everyone got "the slow cart" at the go cart races. Al and Chris schooled everyone. But technically, Rich won.

-Matthew fished all day in a cute boat.

-The jet ski sank. Al ran over Matthew's line.

-.08 is a crazy lot of alcohol to be the legal limit for driving home.

-Man Day turned into Boy Party sleep over.

Al and Jeremy - golf posers.

Thanks all you great Girls and Men for joining us. We had a blast!

Summertime!

A nice warm summer. A cool refreshing lake. And a Dada who's ready to jump in whenever you ask. How much more could a kid ask for?