Off to Portland!!!

We are on our way to the Yangchun Family Reunion at a resort near Portland!! I am so excited I can hardly stand it. We have various fund raisers through the years and every four years we fly Rachel's SWI (orphanage) director to the US from Yangchun, Guangdong, China. We have a big reunion someplace. Four years ago it was in Williamsburg, Virginia and I was too poor to go. This year it is is Portland!!! Just a 4-5 hour drive away!! I'll report when I get back.

Reverisble Bird Seed Skirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

Reverisble Bird Seed Skirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

My sister is trying to win this skirt. It is a great skirt. My girls would love it too, although I think it is too small for my girls. If by some miracle, we win....we would love to give it to our cousin, Mallory.

Wisdom From Pooh

I love Winnie-the-Pooh just about as much as I love pandas. One of my favorite lines from a Pooh story is a conversation between Piglet and Winnie-the-Pooh involving two of my favorite things: food and having fun. Here it is:

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully.

"It's the same thing," he said.

We always try to do something exciting every day. Here is a video of our fun day on Friday. We went to the Children's Museum, a park, and then enjoyed a free movie in park...."Bee Movie." If you watch the whole thing, you will see Miss Hips hula-hoop like a pro and explain how she does it.

At the River

We finally played at the river that is across the street from our house. It took inviting some friends over to get us down there. The water was very cold and the river is still higher than usual. Normally, by this time of the year, it is shallow enough that we can walk across. Last year, we found some great fossils on the other side.

Anyway, the girls were thrilled to have friends join them at the river. We had a pizza picnic that we transported with a wheelbarrow. The kids enjoyed playing together at the river, but had the most fun doing gymnastics in the grass. I thought Rachel was flexible, but not nearly as flexible as her friend. Check out her back arch! I should have taken pictures of her jumping splits too. Sheesh....I was impressed!

I now have new lights in the kitchen thanks to my wonderful friends. It's great to know an electrician. He solved the problem of why I blew a fuse every time I turned on the kitchen lights. I am very lucky and very grateful I didn't have an electrical fire. He was satisfied with pizza as his payment for fixing my electrical problems.

I have certainly been blessed lately with good people who help me fix things and don't charge me anything.

Since I haven't had to pay for recent repairs, I bought a new toy. (Actually, that's not why I bought it. I'll tell you why I bought it later...) I'll make a poll and make you guess what I splurged on.

Life is good.

Lucky Day

A trip to the dentist usually means lots of tears, refusal to sit in the dentist chair, and bribery. I always dread taking my kids to the dentist or to the doctor.  I decided that their behavior would at least give me something humorous to blog about.  Well, yesterday was different.

They actually WILLINGLY sat in chairs, WILLINGLY opened their mouths, and WILLINGLY followed directions.  I almost fainted in disbelief.  

None of us have cavities.  YIPPEE!!!  We are all finally fully covered by my insurance now.  (Coverage starts at 70%, then moves up in increments of 10% until it finally reaches 100%.  This is Erin Joy's first time at being covered 100%.)

It was a successful, free trip to the dentist.

While we were at the dentist, our car was at the mechanic.  Rachel's seat belt has been stuck in place for awhile and she has been sitting in the middle with only a lap belt.  Not only is this not really safe, she is too close to Erin Joy and they touch each other, hit each other, cry too much, and bother me while I'm driving.  (Not that they don't do this normally, but close proximity only heightens the problem.)

I really want a new car.  I almost bought a new car because the seat belt was broken.  I'm not kidding.  I even looked at cars awhile ago.  I'm tired of no air-conditioning, a fan that only blows hot air, a broken seat belt, and a car that is pushing 300,000 miles.  It's a Toyota.  It will never die.  It has been a great car, but I sure would like a new one.

I really can't afford a car payment so I took my car with its broken seat belt to the mechanic.

I love my mechanic.  He told me a new seat belt would be about $150, but he could get a used one for cheaper than that.  He told me to bring the car in and he would look at it before ordering a seat belt.  When he opened it up, he found a big rolled up mess up of seat belt.  He was able to just straighten it out, stick it back in, and it worked just fine.

What a great guy!  He didn't charge me anything.  Not even labor!  A free trip to the dentist and a free trip to the mechanic.  What a great, lucky day!

We just made peanut butter cookies for the mechanic.  It's the least we can do....

By the way, notice the great headband that Aunt Carma made.  I think it looks so cute and matches so well with her polka dotted skirt.  We love all of our bows and headbands that Aunt Carma made and gave to us.  Thanks, Aunt Carma!

Jetty Island

I can't believe summer is more than half over and we haven't been to Jetty Island until today. It is one of my favorite local places to play during the summer. We love the free, little ferry ride to the island. We love to play on the wonderful sandy beach. It is one of the few beaches around that has sand instead of rocks.

The weather was perfect today! We had a great time playing in the water, flying kites from the dollar store that quickly fell apart, building sand castles, and watching a puppet show "Litter Wars" starring Darth SeaGull, Luke Waterwalker, R-2-Sea-Through the Sea Jelly, and other such characters.

I wish summer would never end....

I just saw this video about kite boarding at Jetty Island in the "related videos" connected to the one I just made. We saw a lot of kite-boarders today. Doesn't this look fun? I certainly will never do it, but it's fun to watch.

Discovery Park

Our cousins are moving to our area!!! We are so excited to FINALLY have family close to us. After they finished signing papers to buy their new home, we went to the Ballard Locks to watch the boats and look at the salmon going up the fish ladder. We then went to Discovery Park and walked to the beach.

The girls had a great time playing at the beach. Rachel's love of dress-up clothes is rubbing off on Erin Joy. She insisted on wearing a hula skirt and beads to the beach.

Rachel is getting tired of me taking so many pictures. There aren't many of her and you will notice her head turned and her hands covering her face. I have to catch her off-guard to get a picture.

By the way, I have been really enjoying my new toy....a Mac. It is so easy to make a movie. It is easier than uploading the pictures into a slideshow. With one click, I can insert all 35 of my recent pictures. With another click, I can add some music. That's it. I'm not kidding. It is SOOOO much easier and faster than Windows. You will be watching more movies and less slideshows. I'm running out of summer/vacation music so how about a little reggae for this one....

VBS

My girls have really enjoyed Vacation Bible School this week. Last year, one of Rachel's friends invited them to go with her. They had a great time last year and looked forward to going this year. I was glad to get a new CD with new music because we have listened to last year's CD so many times that I was getting tired of it.

Rachel took the "daily challenges" very seriously. One night's challenge was to do something brave. Two of the choices involved praying and she never wants to choose the praying options because she always prays anyway. That left the choice of "being brave and trying a new vegetable" or "being brave and inviting a friend to attend VBS." Vegetables? Yuck! She definitely went with the invite a friend to attend option. I interpreted that to mean we called one friend and if they couldn't come that was okay and she had fulfilled her daily challenge. She interpreted that to mean we keep calling people until we find somebody willing to go. After several calls, she found a friend who wanted to go. Way to go Rachel!

You will notice that I took many more pictures of Erin Joy. That is because she was a much more willing subject to photograph. Rachel also missed her outdoor game time because her group was in charge of preparing the snacks and I took of a lot of outdoor game pictures.

I put a video clip at the end of the little movie....notice the girls' great participation...or lack thereof...oh well, it was just a dress rehearsal...

Future Gymnastic Olympians

The girls have been having a blast at gymnastics camp.  After gymnastics, they go to VBS (Vacation Bible School).  This means I have 5 1/2 hours without my girls every day for a week.  At first I was excited.  Time to shop, time to read, time to take a nap.  Nope.  I spent more money the first day than I usually spend in a month.  I'm done shopping. I don't feel like reading and I can't sleep in the car.  I can't drive all the way home because it is a 30-45 minute drive and doesn't seem worth the gas money.  So I'm bored.  I want to spend time with my girls during the summer.  Oh, well.  They are having a great time so it is worth it.  I'll take pictures of VBS on Friday.  Friday is "Family Day" so I'll have fun following them around with a camera.

My Latest Read

I have been entertaining myself while the girls are at gymnastics camp and VBS by reading this book.  It was okay, but not good enough to put on my bookshelf.  It was a good time filler.  I did learn a lot about Chinese cooking that I never knew before...not that I really wanted to learn about it. I'm anxiously waiting for some books that I have on hold at the public library that my cousin recommended.  

Cheap Entertainment

This is why I never need to go to the movies or watch TV.  I have all the entertainment I need.

R.I.P.

Standing on a little cliff by this beautiful waterfall, Rachel dropped her camera.  We watched it tumble over the side and land on the rocks below.  She was devastated.  She wanted me to rescue it.  Rescue it?  There were signs everywhere taking about danger and stay off the rocks and cliffs.  She was so mad when I told her that I couldn't rescue her camera that she started throwing rocks at me.  Sheesh.  Who would have thought that a camera could be so important?  I told her that I was glad it was her camera that fell over the cliff and not her.  Cameras can be replaced, little girls can't.  

I must admit that I'm glad my camera didn't fall over the cliff...I'm addicted to taking pictures of my girls.  They are growing and changing so fast.  I wish I could capture every moment.

I Love Summer!

I am having so much fun playing with my girls.  (I'm also having a lot of fun taking pictures!)  We have enjoyed playing in a couple of different parks the past few days.  One park has a lake that is great for swimming and the other park has a little spray/water play area and farm animals to pet including free pony rides if the weather is 80 degrees or less and if they have enough staff which means the pony rides rarely happen.  Today was no exception.  We will be lucky if we get our free pony ride in this summer.  

I made a quick, little movie with some pictures from the past few days.  My mother loves this song.  My grandmother loved this song, too.  I love this song because I love my girls!

Vacation Movies

I'm finally finished with all of our vacation movies.  If you want to see them, click HERE or click the chips and salsa link in the blog list.

You Know It's Time to Come Home When...

Your car looks like this and....

Your feet look like this and smell even worse.  Be thankful you can't smell them through the internet.  We are very dirty and very tired.  Filth and exhaustion are proof that we had a great trip!

Rachel's favorite part of our trip was seeing waterfalls.  She also liked having picnics.  She loved jumping on the trampoline at her cousins' house and going down the slide at Darby.  She liked seeing Grandma and Grandpa.  She liked riding Grandpa's tractor and making bread with Grandma.

Erin Joy's favorite part of our trip was eating candy.  She liked the Fourth of July parade because they threw candy.  She liked seeing the animals in Yellowstone.  She also liked playing with her cousins.

My favorite part of our trip was seeing Grandma and Grandpa, their 18 grandkids (and one more on the way I learned on this trip), and my 3 brothers and 3 sisters.  I loved the days we were all together.  I also enjoyed being with my two wonderful daughters!  We had a great time!

Camping in Northern Idaho

On our way home from visiting with family, we met a friend and her two children at the Idaho Panhandle forest to camp on property owned by her family.  It is a very beautiful area.  I ended up seeing more of the mountains than I wanted to by getting lost.  We drove on roads that made the road to Sawtelle Peak look like Disneyland (that comment is for my family who know about Sawtelle Peak).  It seemed we were at the top of the world on very scary dirt roads with nothing but air and trees between us and the cliffs. Twice I had to get out of the car to drag trees out of the road.  We hit plenty of big rocks that scraped the bottom of my car.  The potholes were big enough to swallow my car.   The road was meant for snowmobiles and four-wheeled drive vehicles...not a single mom with two children in a very old, very low to the ground Toyota.  Oh well.  We love adventures.  The detour was worth it because we did see a moose, enjoyed the gorgeous views, and smelled the beautiful Syringas that covered the sides of the mountains.  I now know why Syringas are Idaho's state flower.

It was very scary and I was so grateful for the help of prayer, a hunter, two fisherman, and a ranger in his underwear who helped us find the right place.  

The girls loved playing in the creek.  It was cold, but very refreshing.  Rachel said her favorite part of camping was taking our friend's dog for walks.  She wants a dog.

The girls had a lot of fun exploring.  Erin Joy says her favorite part was looking at the frog in the creek and roasting marshmallows over the fire.

Before we went camping, we enjoyed staying at Grandma and Grandpa's cabin in Island Park, Idaho near Yellowstone.  We enjoyed going to a few places in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons before staying with my brother and his family on the Idaho side of the Tetons.  We enjoyed the Fourth of July at my brother's house.  For a full report of Yellowstone and a little movie, check out my family's blog HERE.  (I am working on it now so check back later....)