Sunday, December 13, 2009

Cold, Rainy Days

It has been unusually cold (highs in the 50's... rough, I know) and raining off and on for a week, which is also unusual. The fun part when the clouds clear is seeing the snow on the mountains. It feels like winter!


The view from our front balcony with low hanging clouds.
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Sunday, December 6, 2009

5 Years at CBC

They had a special service this morning to recognize Matt's 5th year at CBC and I was able to take a few pictures so I thought I'd share them here for the long-distance family to see. It was great to be able to be there and see old friends and faces, too.


Jeff presenting Matt with a scrapbook put together for the day.


One of the three yummy cakes.


Rick came to speak in honor of Matt.


The Waymeyers
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Where did we get this kid?

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Heaven On Earth For Anna

Not literally, of course, but Anna was in her own little perfect life when she finally got to take the horsemanship class through the city last month. She had to wait until she was 8 to take it since those are the limitations set by the city. It has been over a year and her anticipation only grew greater.

The first few weeks were spent learning how to groom, lead and otherwise care for a horse and the last week she finally got to RIDE! She absolutely loved every minute, including the not so glam parts of grooming and she could have done it for hours and hours on end. She's read nearly everything she could get her hands on about horses and horse care and was ready to put it to use. Her teacher noticed and mentioned that she really seems to 'get it', thinking that she must have had classes or ridden somewhere before.

Anna, of course, wants to take more riding lessons. We were flabbergasted at the cost so for now she's going to revel in her month-long experience. This class was offered through the city so it was a great deal... maybe we'll just do this again sometime!

The pictures are pretty pathetic and I'm not sure what was wrong with the camera, but they are good enough to get the idea.


Anna riding her pony. She chose this one and was later glad she did pick such a short guy since she was responsible for lifting the saddle on and off all by herself!


Steering left.


Anna in horse bliss.


Anna and her teacher after dismounting at the end of her last class.
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Darth Fan

Disneyland has a Jedi training show that is held several times a day in the outdoor stage at Tomorrowland and over the last year while we had our Disneyland passes, we saw parts of it several times. Somehow along the way Luke has become a Darth Vader fan! Maybe due in part to Derek saying, 'Luke, I am your father' to him in his best Darth Vader voice.

The other kids had a build-a-bear already and it was Luke's turn since we had a coupon for a free bear. We went and got him the black teddy bear with the Darth Vader outfit. It even comes with a little light saber, so cute! Teddy Darth has become a fast favorite and his sleeping buddy, as you can see below.

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Saturday, November 28, 2009

A Few Years Ago

We had out some old pictures and videos tonight and it reminded me that I hadn't ordered prints for awhile from all of our digital pictures. I don't order many, but I've consistently ordered enough for the kids to look back and remember times whenever they want to pull out their box of pictures. After things were cleaned up and the kids were in bed, I trolled back through my menu and found out that I last ordered pictures in the summer of '07! Yikes, more than a little behind. I decided to just finish out 2007 tonight and will go on to the other years some other cozy 'winter' night.

In reviewing the old treasures of two and a half years ago it dawned on me that the kids always make the blog and the grown ups rarely do. I found a couple worthy of being resurrected in this little post.


This picture was taken at a children's museum in Rockford when we were back in the fall of '07 for our family vacation. It is appropriately Papa John's that these big kids are serving up.


My parents surprised us with tickets to the Green Bay/Vikings game while we were home on vacation. There were 9 of us, plus baby Sam, and Mom and Sally stayed home with the other 11 kids (all 10 and under) while the rest of us spent an almost 24 hour journey leaving early in the morning on game day and coming back late that night-- more like early the next morning if I remember correctly. It was great because it was the game where Favre broke the touchdown passes record and we got to see it in person. Little did we know that two years later he'd be suiting up in the other colors! There were many memorable moments-- some of the best include Dad's trip into the women's restroom (oops) and the crazy storm on the looooong drive home-- that coming from me, one very tired driver.


That Christmas we drove out to the Waymeyers for our 'Christmas Eve' get together. I'm not sure what they're doing here, but I'm sure it has something to do with a sporting event.


Alex and Deanna visited right after Christmas and they brought their Wii and the addiction began. Jack loved it, of course, but he had a hard time wrestling some play time away from the adults... mostly Derek. :)

Derek and I have often joked that it is easy for us to remember different events and their timing by pictures because we've moved every two years in the nearly 10 that we've been married. I'll never have trouble identifying a child in a baby picture because they were all babies in a new house-- well, not Anna and Jack, but Jack wasn't too old before we moved to our Saugus house. If the above picture wasn't taken in our AZ house, I'd be guessing as to what year this was. I guess there are some benefits to all the moving!

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Sunday, November 15, 2009

Dad Came AND...


The mantle and trim got put in (I'm priming to paint),


the mysteriously missing electrical box was located, the drywall repaired and the light was finally mounted,


baseboard in two bathrooms was put in,


and the cabinet door was saved from the children's attempt and permanent demise.

That is the short list. I frankly can't remember the long list since Dad was running circles around me and I was struggling to keep ahead of him, and on some days just stay awake! Thanks again, Dad.

Anybody ever have success painting tile?
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