Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

As my friends who belong to my church know, things are always changing. I was released from my calling in the Young Women last week and am officially calling-less now. Time to enjoy a break! :)

New Pet in Town

Kristen decided that she's done with Barbies, so she sold them all and used some of the money to buy herself a new pet. Meet Maizy--the cute little hamster. She loves to run on her wheel all night (it drives Kendall crazy!), eat her treat bar, and stuff newspaper in her little hut. Kristen's had a lot of fun with her.

First Day of School

Well...better late than never, right?? We are in the process of fixing some mistakes that a previous homeowner made on the house and the basement is in a mess. Two of the bedrooms were finished when we moved in, but neither is insulated and they just cut a hole in the heat duct and stuck a vent cover on there. So...we had to have the ceilings ripped out and have to get all that fixed. In moving everything out of Kendall's room and the office, the camera went missing for awhile and everything's just in chaos.

Kendall started Jr. High on August 25. They had the 7th graders go a day earlier than the 8th and 9th graders, which was probably a good thing. He LOVES school, which I think basically translates into the fact that he loves the social life.Kristen and Jarren started on August 26--their first year on a traditional schedule.

Kristen is in 5th grade and has a pretty good teacher. She was worried, because this teacher has the reputation of being mean, but she's firm and fair, so that's fine. They have a lot of class pets--a bunny, hermit crabs, and frogs--which is fine by Kristen.Jarren's in 2nd grade and has the same teacher that Kendall and Kristen had. She is very willing to work with him and is very good for him. But...he still says he hates school.

Pictures

Finally!!! Our memory card can only hold about 66 pictures, so we bought another one during the trip. That was good, yet bad. We could have so many more pictures, but....it made for a ton more work in getting them saved and labeled. :)

Then, after making about 3 different photo albums for our trip, I finally got one to work. I had one in chronological order and almost had it done and the computer crashed and I lost it all. Anyway...we had a really fun trip and I'm so glad we have pictures to preserve our memories.

IF anyone is interested in our pictures, click on the first one that is shown on the post and it will take you to a picasa web album, where you can view all the pictures and captions.

Washington 2010 Pictures

Washington 2010

Washington Vacation

*WARNING* Travel Log ahead....

We decided this year to take a family vacation (road trip) to Washington (state). Jenna woke up the day before we left sick. She was really croupy, had no voice, and had no desire to eat. I thought we were all in for it, but no one else ever got sick. Weird.

We stayed in Oregon the first night and then went to Mt. Rainier. That was really neat!! It happened to be a clear day and we could see the mountain from quite far away. We hiked around (Grove of the Patriarchs) and drove right by the base. Jarren decided that he's going to hike Mt. Rainier someday. Along with Mt. Everest. :) We stayed at a pretty run-down motel and took our dinner to a very fun park just down the road (Ashford, WA). The motel had a "porch" that was like a boardwalk that ran along the front of it. Underneath it were tons of snakes!! The kids (and Jon) kept catching them. Ugh!

We drove over to Ocean Shores, WA. We thought there was a forest fire, because you could see dark grayish smoke drifting around through the trees. We couldn't smell anything and finally figured out it was a mist and happens to be all around the ocean (within about 5 miles or so). We went to Ocean City State Park and the kids played and played. The boys were totally out in the water, playing in the waves. There was a whale out there playing in the surf too.

We drove up to a cabin that we rented for 3 nights near the Olympic National Park and Hoh Rain Forest. We got there and Jarren and Jenna both used the bathroom immediately. When they tried to flush, nothing happened. That's how we found out there was no water. After a lot of searching around and many phone calls, we found out that the owner thought that the group (12 people) before us drained the well. Great. I only packed half of the clothes we needed, planning on doing laundry there. And we all needed showers. Luckily, there was an outhouse there at the edge of the forest. This place was sooooooo amazing!!! Fully stocked kitchen; two bedrooms (2 twins and a queen); gazebo, fire pit, and gas grill in the yard; fully stocked living room--tv, movies/dvds, games, futon, etc; completely isolated and surrounded by thick forest. We didn't want to leave. So....we drove into Forks, WA (yes, the Twilight Forks) to do laundry and found a campground along the way to shower at (25 cents a minute). The last night, they lowered something in the well and we had water! YAY!! We ended up only being charged for one day.

On the second day at the cabin, we went to a couple of beaches (and did the laundry and showers). We went to 4th Beach, which had a ton of very cool tide pools. We also went to Ruby Beach. Supposedly, the sand is pink because of ground up garnets, but I couldn't tell a difference. It looked brown to me. :) They had some fun sea stacks--big rocks and tide pools, but 4th Beach had better ones.

On the third day at the cabin, we went into Forks and looked at the Twilight stuff--Swan house, Cullen house, hospital (sign that says: "Reserved for Dr. Cullen), high school (we found out later we went to the new one, not the old one, so it was the wrong one--oops!), etc. We also went to La Push and went to a couple of beaches there. 1st Beach was really pretty--tons of driftwood and rocks. Rialto Beach was the best though--again, tons of driftwood, but we saw seals and dolphins and it was just beautiful! Jon and I would have loved to do more hikes, but the kids were much more interested in all the beaches, so we did a lot of that.

The next day, we drove to Seattle. We stopped in for a bathroom break at a Naval Base and toured the free museum. Very interesting, especially for the boys. We went to stay with Jon's oldest sister, who lives on Vashon (Island) and had to ferry over there and back. We picked a ton of blackberries and made a yummy cobbler. She had raccoons in her yard, which thrilled the kids.

The next morning, we headed downtown. We went to the Chittendon Locks and watched how they raise and lower boats and ships to get them through the canal. A baby seal was playing in there and we also saw the salmon moving upstream on a fish ladder. We also went to the Columbia Center (the tallest building in Seattle). Kristen was terrified!! But we did it and had a lot of fun. Kendall wasn't feeling well that day, so we got a late start and were the 2nd to last car to get on the ferry. We then spent a lot of time driving (back to OR). And then home. Such a fun vacation to end the summer! Pictures will be coming....

Kendall's Got Some Fans!

One of my very good friends called a few weeks ago and Kendall answered the phone. She told him that she'd taken her daughter (Kendall's age) to the Justin Bieber concert and he was appalled!! I don't know if he's a little jealous or what, but he HATES Justin Bieber--he says he sings like a whale. Anyway...Kendall called them nerds for going to the concert. They decided, as payback, to "decorate" our yard. They wrote (in sidewalk chalk) all over the sidewalk and driveway--things like: Kendall loves Justin Bieber; Kendall has Bieber-fever; We love Kendall more than peanuts love M&Ms; etc. They also toilet papered the trees. They said to make sure Kendall cleaned it up and he sure did. He saw that and cleaned it up in a flash! Funny...