Flamin' Libs

Anna's Birthday, pt 2

2012-01-09T21:35:00.000-08:00

Anna officially turned 6 on August 7, 2011. Here she is on her birthday throne before tearing into her presents.

And here she is with her birthday gifts. She has spent hours playing with the shrinky dinks and the magnetic dolls. It was a great year for presents!

Anna's 6th Birthday! pt 1

2012-01-09T21:26:00.000-08:00

The first part of Anna's 6th birthday celebration happened a day early. We took her on August 6th to Out of This World Pizza in Hillsboro with her 2 best friends, Lily and Tristan. We ate pizza and had cake and the kids had a ton of fun running around on the play equipment.

Here's the whole crew after devouring some cake. Tristan's in the front, then Anna, and Lily behind her. Elizabeth is in the back behind William. She's Lily's big sister and William's good friend. Becca's got cakey face, of course.

Lily, Anna, and Kip were having lots of fun!

Pioneer Day, July24, 2011

2012-01-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

Our stake did a Pioneer Day celebration at a local farm. There was lots of good, pioneer-style food. Oh, and shaved ice. I'm not sure pioneers had that. But we enjoyed it.

The kids did a pioneer parade. William joined, even though he'd chosen not to wear pioneer clothes. He was Anna's moral support. The marched around the barn at least 10 times.

Thank goodness for lots of water!

Becca was a super cute pioneer with her daddy!

Oregon Arts Orchestra - Prague July 16

2011-09-08T01:40:00.000-07:00

We started this day with more random driving through the streets of Prague in an effort to find the Dvorak Museum. It seems several of the main roads were closed for construction, so we ended up driving more than we would otherwise have had to do. We found this bilboard explaining how things work, in case anyone was wondering.

The Dvorak Museum was a nice looking 2-story building. Kip and I headed up the stairs skipping the shop on the main floor. Up there we found the most amusing museum activity ever. They had white sheets of paper with Dvorak's head photocopied onto them and a set of colored pencils for us to make our own Dvorak-headed drawings. There were several hung around the room. We all especially liked Dvorak with a 6-pack in a speedo. Jae (clarinet-tootelary) made her own version of that one.

We next visited another Mozart Museum, I think it was the home of one of his girlfriends. It was a beautiful building, but not a very extensive museum.

We were then given some time to wander downtown. We ate lunch at another cafe, then wandered the streets with Kara and her daughter looking for souvenirs. I found some scarves I really liked.

Eventually we went into a chocolate/candy shop. I bought some hard candies I recognized from my youth. They're hard candies, circular, with bright colors outside and pictures inside, sometimes even words. They are incredibly strong flavored (we just finished them tonight). The picture shows the guys making them at the candy shop. They start out wide and fat, like saltwater taffy in consistency. Then the guys roll them thinner and thinner and finally cut them into rounds and I guess they let them dry then. I wish I'd bought more. The candy shop also sold chocolate, so we bought some. Unfortunately, the bassoonist's daughter bought and ate some too. She was hit with a violent allergic reaction. (Who knew there were nuts in hers? They don't lable things as well there as we do here.) She ended up in the hospital.

We went from there to Dvorak Hall for our dress rehearsal.

It is a beautiful place. I was thrilled to get to perform there. But as a real, professional performance hall, the rules for using it are more strict than they would be at a local cathedral or church building. Our rehearsal time was fixed. We could not go over. For our concert that night we were performing with a vocalist. He is an opera singer originally from Portland who lives now in Prague. Our rehearsal was spent entirely on rehearsing his pieces, which made sense because we hadn't played them at all before. But I was a little sad that we didn't get to run any of our other pieces and get my head out of tourist mode and back into performance mode. At the end of our allotted time, we were kicked off the stage and sent down to the dressing rooms.

We dolled ourselves up in our concert blacks and got ready for the performance, even the percussion section. The Bassoonist (Kara) rushed back from leaving her daughter at the hospital just in time to join us as we got onstage. She left our hostess Julia with her daughter. We were all amazed at her ability to come play under such stressful circumstances. The concert hall was packed as we went onstage. And the whole hall erupted in applause. Just because we walked onstage. This wasn't Kansas anymore, was it?! We walked in in little groups, and each group got more applause. It was kind of nice. They were very enthousiastic with applause after our performances, also. It almost seemed like they would have stayed all night if we'd had enough music to keep playing for them. But at last Liz in the violin section got the hint and walked off after our second encore and the rest of us trailed after. We didn't want to leave such an adoring audience, but the time had come.

Back at the hotel we had a late dinner and then wound down with an impromptu dixie-land-band practice. They were practicing for the concert scheduled the next day, but the hotel staff convinced them to come down to the piano in the lobby, by the bar, to play. We all sat and ate pretzels and drank pop and enjoyed the music.

Oregon Arts Orchestra - Prague July 14

2011-09-08T01:04:00.000-07:00

We were supposed to be outside loading the bus at 6am, followed by a 6:30 breakfast and then 7am departure for Prague. Kip and I pushed the limits, of course, and showed up to drop our luggage at 6:20. Martin the bus driver wasn't pleased, having already built a puzzle of luggage under the bus and closed up the compartments. Oh well. Someone else came right after us and got the same dirty look.

Off we went to Prague. More sleeping on the bus, of course.

And trying to take pictures of scenery through the bus windows. More joking and goofing off from the back of the bus, also. We had a lot of fun back there.

As we pulled into the city of Prague, we stopped at a corner and two men waiting there jumped onto the bus. It was pretty unusual. It turned out they were our tour guides for Prague. Otto and Charlie. Charlie was hilarious. Otto wasn't bad, just not quite as funny. Charlie would say things like, "the roads we want to drive on are closed so we are going to drive all around until we can find a way to where we want to go." Or, "there are some men marching. I don't know why they are marching but they are marching." He gave us a great description of Czech food, dumplings in particular, and we were all sad when there were no dumplings available at dinner that first night.

After picking up our guides, we headed out of the city to tour a former prison called Terezin.

There had been over a thousand Jews imprisoned there. Hundreds died there, the rest ended up sent to other prison camps. The town near the fortress was used to house thousands more Jews in a sort of limbo state before being shipped to places like Auschwitz.

We toured the fortress prison first. It was sad seeing the way the prisoners were treated. As we got back on the bus I said that I felt like I should hug a Jew. Guy said he felt like being hugged. I was glad we could be there for each other.

Next we went to a building that had been a home for Jewish boys ages 10-15. We watched a movie in super-comfortable seats and most of us fell fast asleep. I woke up coughing about half way through and stayed awake for the rest. It was very sad to see the children, so young and full of life, and to know that they had had everything taken from them, their homes, their belongings, even their families. And that for the majority of them in the film, their lives would be taken from them, too. After the film we walked around the building a little. The wall of the rooms on the main floor were covered with lists of names of the people who had come through there and where they had died. One of our clarinet players found several relatives' names. There were also pictures the kids had drawn there. They looked so much like what my kids would draw, it really got to me. And then I read a poem a boy there had written about how the roses had buds on them and when they bloomed he would already be gone and I just lost it. This isn't what a 10-year-old kid should have as his reality, the knowledge that his life was going to be taken from him. It was a tough tour for me.

When our time was up there I got myself under control and climbed back onto the bus. We weren't as crazy in the back as usual. We probably fell asleep again, though. We found our hotel and got our instructions for the night. Most of the orchestra was going to a PROMS concert at Smetana hall. Most of the back of the bus was skipping it.

Those of us in the deviant group got to relax in our rooms for a bit. Kip checked out the height of the shower. Then, we got to eat dinner at the hotel at 7pm then head over to the metro station to ride the train into the center of the city.

To get to the train, we rode down a super long escalator. It made me dizzy.

When we got downtown, Guy, Mihail, Kip and I split from the main group of Deviants, and headed to the Astronomical Clock which Guy remembered from his previous visit to Prague (I think he's been pretty much everywhere).

We found a cafe on the square near the clock and ordered drinks. The host of the restaurant didn't seem to like us. He stood at the entrance to the outdoor seating and gave us dirty looks periodically. But it wasn't like the restaurant was full. He just didn't seem to like us. Then one of the drinks got spilled all over the table and splashed onto my pants. We asked him for napkins since our server was nowhere to be seen. We motioned to the spilled drink dripping off the table. He grunted and went into the main part of the restaurant. We waited. And waited. He didn't seem to be coming back, so I pulled the cloth off the empty table next to ours and used it to dry my legs and chair, then clean the table. We had a good laugh about that. He never did come back. Eventually our waitress reappeared and we got our check and left.

We wandered from there all around downtown Prague. It was much colder here than it had been in Vienna. A storm had come in that morning and rained on us as we drove north. At this point it was sprinkling and chilly. We tried to find the main bridge that Guy remembered (the Charles Bridge) but overshot it and ended up outside Dvorak hall, where we would perform the following evening. It was a beautiful building. Down the street from there we found a pizza place and slipped in for something warm to drink. We got hot chocolate, and Guy got something fun to spike his with. The chocolate was so thick it was chunky. It was absolutely delicious. And they had wi-fi which was nice. We thought we'd go back after the concert he next night, but ended up not doing it.

Oregon Arts Orchestra - Vienna, July 13

2011-09-08T00:35:00.000-07:00

We rode the bus to Schonbrunn Palace. The place is huge, modeled after Versailles but, of course, much smaller. Yet still overwhelmingly large. It was a no-picture kind of place, so instead I bought some postcards with pictures of the most famous princess of the Habsburg family, Elizabeth or Sisi. She was lovely and I knew Anna would enjoy pictures of a real-life princess.

The grounds behind the palace are amazing.

After Schonbrunn, we got back on the bus and headed back into the center of Vienna to the musical instrument museum. Also nice, but there was a lack of piccolo representation. And not enough percussion instruments in Kip's opinion.

We opted to skip the afternoon tour of a Beethoven museum and instead went on a hunt for souvenirs, dragging Mihail along again although you'd think he'd have learned by then. We walked all over the city and found nothing like what I had seen in Salzburg and ended up back at the opera house to meet the others. We were a little early and had been unsuccessful in our efforts, so I darted into the opera house gift shop and found a shirt I knew Anna would absolutely love, pink with a sparkly silver ballerina silhouetted on it. Could have saved a lot of walking if I'd just bought it there first...

From there we headed to the Minoritenkirsche, an old cathedral tucked in among a bunch of government buildings in Vienna. Part of the church was walled off with an exhibit of Da Vinci artwork and as we had a rehearsal, I enjoyed an only slightly-obstructed view of a life-size copy of "The Last Supper" commissioned by Napoleon in 1809. It was really amazing. To think it just happened to be there and we just got to sit and stare at it through our rehearsal! The concert that night went very well. But at the end, we had to be shooed off the stage because the bus driver had a time commitment we couldn't break, so off we went with only one encore and the crowd still clapping happily, although later we realized that that's just kind of how they are in Europe. They clap as you come on, they clap until you leave. They don't just get up and go like Americans.

Oregon Arts Orchestra - Vienna July 12

2011-08-28T00:48:00.000-07:00

We bussed out to Eisenstadt that morning (obligatory bus nap). We got to see the Esterhazy Palace. We took a tour. It was a beautiful place. No flash on the cameras but they did let us take pictures. There was a group rehearsing in the Hydnsaal inside the palace. They had a soprano with them who was amazing. I wished we could have stayed to hear them play.

Here's a detail of the ceiling of the Haydnsaal. We performed there when the other group were done - some of our small groups did anyway. They did great. Kip and I got to watch - and help set up and take down. Unfortunately we couldn't use flash in the room and most of my pictures didn't turn out.

After that tour Kip and I wandered down the pedestrian street outside the palace in search of some quick food - a lot of the orchestra members had gotten expensive sack lunches for the day from the hotel, but that didn't work for me. But we couldn't find anything portable on the street - just cafes to sit and eat in. Poor Mihail was dragged along with us. When we rejoined the rest of the group we were supposed to tour 2 important Haydn places, his church and his home. Guy, Lou and Jae opted to sit in a cafe right near where the bus parked and skip one of the 2 tours and we opted to join them, earning the distinguishing appellation "deviants". Our waiter was an Italian named Alessandro. Guy befriended him quickly. We had a great time sitting and talking and enjoyed a break from walking quietly through historical buildings learning about things from the past.

After our lunch, we joined the orchestra group visiting Haydnshaus.

On the way back to Vienna proper we stopped at a cemetery to visit the grave sites of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, and Strauss. It was impressive to have so many celebrated musicians buried in one place. Kip and I were impressed with some of the less-famous grave sites and their sometimes-freaky embellishments.

The night the city was hosting a concert in the park with Mahler's 8th shown on a big screen near city hall. A bunch of the crew opted to attend that and ride the train home. Guy, Lou, Jae, Kip and I opted to hang out downtown and ride the train home but not attend the Mahler. We walked through the touristy part of downtown to a cafe on the fringes. There, we talked and enjoyed drinks for an hour or so, then headed to a cafe Guy remembered from his visit to Vienna 5 years ago. It was a block from the Opera House. It had red awnings and a hammered dulcimer player inside. We loved it right away. Guy had apparently had a conversation with the manager during his last visit which had really impressed him. So, Guy tried to find the old manager, but he works mornings now, so we made friends with our waiter. He ended up bringing us strawberry sparkling wine for free, which was nice - especially for Lou and Guy who got to drink Kip's and mine and learned the value of hanging out with Mormons--you get their coffee and alcohol, of course! Eventually, we headed for the train that would return us to the hotel. It was about 10:15 when we got there and tried to figure out the machine. A transit employee walked by and we begged his help. He pointed to the appropriate buttons, we bought our tickets and headed home. Guy was convinced we were headed the wrong way, but Kip was pretty sure about it. We ended up just fine. As we walked to the hotel from the bus, all the entrances to the Pyramid portion to the side of the main hotel were heavily guarded by police with large weapons. I wasn't brave enough to ask what was going on, though I did say hi to one of them.

Oregon Arts Orchestra - Salzburg/Vienna July 11

2011-08-28T00:09:00.000-07:00

After an early breakfast in the hotel, we rode the bus with our amazing bus-driver Martin to the town of Mondsee which has a beautiful church. That was where the wedding scene from "Sound of Music" was filmed although the actual wedding took place in Salzburg at the convent where Maria had wanted to become a nun. It's the only wedding ever to have been performed there. But Mondsee was more film-worthy and the convent wouldn't let Hollywood in.

Yes, there are 5 dead people in boxes at the front of the church. Our conductor suggested that that was where they put percussionists who messed up during concerts.

Kip and I stopped into a Spar (supermarket) to buy chocolate. We were a little late getting on the bus and got reprimanded. But not as much as a few other orchestra members who had decided to buy the traditional Austrian dress - dirndl (as shown in the picture of our guide at St Florian's above--all the guides wore them). They were about 3 minutes behind me and Kip and our illustrious leaders were a little upset. I kind of wished I'd gotten dresses for the girls, but they were expensive and the kids grow so very fast!

We drove some more and most of us fell asleep - we normally did during bus rides in spite of the tour guides talking or the beautiful countryside trying to keep us awake.

Our next stop was St Florian Monastery. It was a very large place with a lot of beautiful things. It has a central square with ornately decorated balconies surrounding it. They have frescoes painting on their ceilings. In the harsh northern winters they have to be completely sealed off from the weather. They were designed by an Italian who didn't think about snow and freezing temperatures.

Anton Bruckner is buried there under the cathedral so he can listen to the organ for eternity. Unfortunately, all we heard of the world-famous organ that day was the tuning and it wasn't entirely pleasant.

Some of the angels on the walls were a little creepy-looking--perhaps because I've watched too much Dr Who.

St Florian's has an excellent library with lots of impressive old books. To preserve them you can't use flash on your cameras. We learned that that's pretty much the norm in museums, at least on this tour.

From there we headed farther north to Vienna. Our hotel there was called the Hotel Pyramid Austria Trend. It had a multi-story glass pyramid beside the main hotel, offering a meeting area and dining area where we would have our breakfasts. We checked in and rushed up to our rooms with just enough time to change into something a little nicer before heading to dinner with Jutta. She is an excellent vocalist and philanthropist in Vienna and had invited us to her apartment in the heart of the political district for a dinner she prepared herself.

We were warned that she had 4 cats. I took a Benedryl before we left and ended up pretty wiped out, but I didn't have an allergy attack. Our percussion-friend Guy was quite happy with the cats. Jutta (YOU-ta) made a lovely meal for us, including some great GF options. ;)

The view from her apartment was amazing!

Oregon Arts Orchestra - Salzburg, July 10, 2011

2011-08-09T10:40:00.000-07:00

We started the day with breakfast at the hotel then headed out on a walking tour of Salzburg. It's a beautiful city. We headed through the tunnel through the mountain. On the other side was the old stables for the royal family. They have been turned into a concert hall. The fountain with the horse statue and horse pictures and ramps into either side was the horse bath. I loved it. We saw the concert hall where the VonTrapp family sang before escaping into the mountains in "Sound of Music" and in real life. Although in the movie they climb the mountains on foot. In reality, they rode the train.

We went through a monastery with one of the oldest restaurants ever and looked at their cemetery.

We went up the cable car to the Fortress on the mountain in the middle of the city. The view was great from up there.

Next, we went back down the cable car and through the city to the Mozarthaus. It was where Mozart was born. He only had 4 rooms in the building and most of his brothers and sisters died as children.

We had a few minutes for lunch. Kip and I joined Jo (clarinet), Mihail (flute), Cara (bassoon) and Emily (her daughter) and went to the Mozart Cafe. I had a salad with turkey and a great dressing. With another few minutes to spare, we ran off to find an ATM and bought a bunny backpack for Becca.

We made it back just in time to join the group on the trek back to the bus to ride to Bad Ischl. The countryside around Salzburg was absolutely gorgeous! There were pristine deep blue lakes surrounded by lush green fields and trees. I think Intel should build a site there and transfer Kip. As we drove, Julia told us things about the countryside. One of the little towns we went through was the birthplace of Mozart's mother, so he vacationed there a lot as a child.

Bad Ischl was a cute small town. We found the St Nikolaus church and set up for rehearsal. It was a tough venue because of the echo from the high ceilings and stone walls. But it was a lot of fun. The church was beautiful.

We had another group dinner at a local restaurant. Most people had some sort of meatball and fries. Barbara and I had the GF version - a pork loin and fries. It was OK. We skipped out before dessert - I gave Kip mine.

Before performing our concert we helped in the presentation of mass. We sat in our seats through the ceremony, the pastor standing behind me and Phyllis. Guy and Kip said the pastor stood with his hands outstretched just above Phyllis and my heads like he was blessing us in particular. We have no idea what he was saying - it was in German. They said a few things in English for our benefit, but other than that the only thing we could understand was the "Lord's Prayer". And we all kept falling asleep. My head jerked down once and I was embarrassed enough to keep me awake for a while after that. Then, I resorted to pinching myself to try to keep awake. I wasn't the only one.

I think I look very attentive in this picture. This was from the rehearsal, before we ate dinner and started falling asleep in the service.

The concert went really well. It was a ton of fun to play there and the audience seemed thrilled with us. At the end of the concert the people clapped and clapped. We ended up doing 2 encores. But the second one was a little rocky. We hadn't planned on playing it that night (I think it was American Salute) and a lot of people didn't have it on their stands. The cellos were making it up the whole time. And someone's stand fell apart during the performance. It was pretty funny.

After finishing, we packed up and headed out in a thunderstorm. The lightning was amazing and I got soaked running back and forth between the bus and church in the rain.

Oregon Arts Orchestra - Salzburg July 9

2011-08-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

I woke up on the bus ride as we neared Salzburg and fell immediately in love with the area. The countryside was the deepest, richest green I have ever seen. I thought it was green here in Portland, but we have nothing on Salzburg in July. When we got into the city we drove carefully through the sometimes very narrow streets to our hotel. It was two small hotels, really. We were in the main one. It was called the Hotel Neutor, which we thought was pretty funny. The elevator was tiny and creaky – 2 people with bags nearly too much for it. Kip and I got a room at the top (4th floor) with a walk-around balcony, table, chairs, plants, and a nice view. (below)

After dropping our bags and freshening up a little, we met on the street and walked to a restaurant for dinner together. We went through the tunnel connecting the two parts of town on either side of the mountain in the center (above, as seen from our balcony). When we came through an alley at one point, Kip and I were approached by a group of girls. One had a box on a ribbon in front of her. The rest were all in black t-shirts with flowers pinned on. The box girl was getting married and to earn money for the wedding, she was selling stuff to tourists. Schnops. We laughed and said we were the wrong tourists for her and continued on our way. We learned later that she stopped Guy, Lou and Jae after we had passed and distracted them long enough that they entirely lost us all. The wedding-girls helped them search all the restaurants around until the found us.

At the restaurant we chose a seat with Phyllis (flute), Sam (trombone), and Jim (french horn). We had fun talking and I got my first experience ordering Gluten Free in Austria. Julia found all of us with food allergies/restrictions and wrote our German requirements on a bright square of paper to show our servers. Mine said “glutenfrie” and was pronounced “gluten-fry”. Everyone got plates with some sort of pounded steak served with a sauce probably involving soy sauce and fried baby potatoes. I got the meat and potatoes but no sauce. It was a little dry but not terrible. For dessert, they brought out half crepes with chocolate and creme fraiche. I got an apple, which I thought was great.

After dinner we headed back with Phyllis and Sam and Kim Spomer so we wouldn’t get stuck in an ATM line with every other orchestra member. We found our own ATM and only had to wait for three of us to get money.

On the way there and back we passed a fountain with a horse statue and panels on the wall behind with horse pics. I liked it a lot, of course.

Oregon Arts Orchestra - Munich

2011-08-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

This summer Kip and I got the opportunity to go to Austria and Prague with the Oregon Arts Orchestra. The tour was from July 8th to the 17th. We were lucky to get both my parents to come out for the first half of the time and Kip's mom and sister Tasha to come out for the secong half of the time. My parents arrived on the 6th of July and settled in. I spent the 7th packing and getting everything ready, and then it was time to go.

We flew out of Portland on July 8th. We met at 11am, checked in and then went our separate ways for lunch. Our first flight took us to Chicago. I got a headache on the way into Chicago that lasted through most of the next flight--from Chicago to Munich. About 3 hours before landing in Munich, it dissipated and I returned to feeling normal. The plane from Chicago to Munich was pretty cool. It was a Lufthansa flight and the plane had a downstairs. It had 5 bathroom stalls and a lounge area for the flight crew. I loved it. It was super fun to climb stairs on an airplane, something I've always wanted to do. Well, I've wanted to ride a double-decker airplane with seating on both levels. This was pretty close.

We arrived Munich at 12:30pm. It was hot and we were worn out and there were no drinking fountains at the airport. We found our bags, well, most of them. Hunter's never came out. And it had most of the programs. We got our passports stamped (mine was stamped so poorly you can't even read it. What's the point of traveling out of the country if you can't even show off your passport stamps!) and headed out of the airport with our kind and lovely guide, Julia (pronounce "you-lia"). She led us to our bus and driver, the amazing Martin. Kip and I claimed seats on the back row and settled in for a drive to downtown.

In Munich, we went to Hofbrauhaus, reportedly the best-known beer hall in Germany. Mihail, the third member of the flute section, a sweet, tiny, Jewish recent-grandfather, joined me and Kip for lunch. We walked through the majority of the restaurant and then settled for seats right in front of the entrance. The picture above is of the ceiling in the restaurant.

We ended up sitting next to the table with Guy, Kip's percussion section-leader, and Lou, 1st clarinet and Wind Section lead, and Jae, Lou's wife. Guy kindly posed with us for a picture after we shared our English menu with him. I ordered a half chicken with potato salad (German style--sugar and vinegar). Kip and Mihail had sausages. Everyone who had beers really enjoyed them, and beer with lemonade got special praise. After our meal, we walked around a little with Cara (bassoon) and Emily (her daughter) to look for water and think about souvenirs. Our water quest was unsuccessful but there were many possible souvenirs.

Julia then led us around the city to see some of the famous sites. It was Gay Pride parade day, we saw the end of the parade march by. There were some crazy costumes and LOTS of people. We went to a church surrounded by scaffolding and could have gone in to look around. I'm not sure what church it was because I was tired and distracted by thirst. Kip and I asked Julia to help us find water. We went back to the square where the parade had been and asked some of the people there. They finally directed us to a little hot dog and soft-serve vendor who had water bottles – small ones. We found an ATM and bought a small box of water with "no gas."

With our prize of gas-free water, we rejoined the rest of the crew and got back on the bus to ride to Salzburg. Kip and I had chosen the back row of seats hoping for leg room. Kip sat in the middle seat with his legs in the aisle. Yvonne (concertmaster) sat on the left (drivers) side and I sat on the right. There were 3 of us and 5 seats, so I got to stretch out and sleep. I think most of us fell asleep on the drive. It had been a long day already.

4th of July, 2011

2011-08-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

We started the day with a trip on the MAX out to Hillsboro. We ended up riding the same train as the Bancrofts, who we intended to meet there. We staked out a shady spot on the sidewalk and settled in. The kids colored with chalk until the parade took off. Then they got busy collecting candy. They did pretty well. Except Becca was too shy to go after the candy and the other kids in the area got all hers. She got better at it by the end and had enough candy to satisfy her.

For the evening entertainment, we purchased a box of fireworks from Costco. Josh and Rachel bought a random assortment from a fireworks tent. We brought them all to the end of the court and joined the Youngs, the Irish family (I can only remember their first names), Garrett from next door to Youngs, and Josie Seid. We enjoyed rootbeer floats and watermelon, then set off the fireworks. It was a lot of fun. I'm thinking we should do some sort of court party sometime...It was a happy 4th of July!

William Turns 8! May 29, 2011

2011-08-08T12:23:00.000-07:00

William turned 8 this year. It's a big year for him. We had a little family party on his birthday and he got to open presents.

The next day was Labor Day, so we had Istooks over for a combo BBQ/Bday part. Unfortunatetly, Kip wasn't feeling well, so it didn't end up lasting as long and involving as many games as we had hoped, but it was good to see the Istooks again!

William got baptized on June 4th into the Five Oaks Ward, Cedar Mill Stake, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He's official! He felt really good at his baptism and was excited to make the decision to do it. We're thrilled at how good a person he is. He really wants to do what's right and always thinks of other people's feelings. OK, not his sisters' feelings, but sisters don't really count, do they...Anyway, he really tries to follow the rules wherever he is. That's a nice thing!

Rainforest Cafe, May 3, 2011

2011-07-28T21:04:00.000-07:00

We ate dinner on the 3rd at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney. We spent our wait time until we could be seated buying souvenirs. I took Anna and Becca and they each chose a polly pocket set. Anna's was Mulan and Becca got Minnie Mouse. I didn't even know there was a Polly-style Minnie Mouse! Very cute!

The kids were really cute at dinner. They had a great time being together through the vacation. I'm glad they were able to get to know each other better!

Anna and Preston like to be together.

Anna and Abby are both excellent face-makers.

Disney's Animal Kingdom, May 3, 2011

2011-07-28T12:07:00.000-07:00

Our last day at the Disney parks was spent at Disney's Animal Kingdom. There were a lot of neat things to see - lots of animals especially.

Our first ride was the Triceratop spin. The kids like it because it wasn't scary at all. And the first time around the love bugs weren't too dense. We rode again later and they were swarming the ride. I guess they really like green dinosaurs.

After the first spin on the Triceratops, the kids checked into the Boneyard play area. They climbed things, did slides, and dug dinosaur bones in a shaded digging pit rigged with plenty of fans. They were quite comfortable. The adults who felt inclined when for a spin, or 5, on Expedition Everest. I learned there that I do actually enjoy roller coasters as long as I'm on them with other people who enjoy them instead of terrified children.

After watching the Nemo show, we ate our lunch together as a family in one of the eating areas. There was a mom and her babies ducks wandering under the tables and other larger birds walking around. They have no fear of Disney patrons.

After taking a stroll through the Jungle Walk, we headed en masse to the Kali River Rapids. We had fastpasses and broke into a few groups to go through. I sat with Anna in our raft and the two of us got completely soaked. William went twice because it didn't soak him.

We saw the afternoon parade. There were tons of cool floats. And when Becca saw Mickey or Minnie she said, "Look, it's my friend!" She was very excited.

The highlight of the day was the Lion King show. The kids LOVED it. It was very neat with the acrobats and dancers.

Epcot, May 2, 2011

2011-06-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

We arrived at Epcot just in time to head to Italy for lunch with the family. We ate at a nice restaurant and lunch was pretty good. Becca especially loved having her Grandma close by.

After lunch, we hit the Test Track. Kip joined Jenny, Tyler and their older boys to do the car-ride. I took Preston, our kids, and Max and Abby so Angie, Chad, Grandma and Tasha could do Soarin'. We went to the fairy park and enjoyed the play structure.

Next, we handed off the kids young kids to Chad and Angie and Kip and I took William, Preston, Anna, and Abby on Soarin'. We followed by meeting back with Chad and co to do their 3rd round of Nemo in a row. Wahoo!

We cooled off in the afternoon with a nice boat ride in Mexico and then ate dinner there.

Before the fireworks, Kip took William on a secret Kim Possible mission while I took the kids around to color their bears in the different countries. William thought the Kim Possible mission was the best thing all day. The girls were thrilled to get to color with markers. It was all good. And the fireworks were pretty amazing. I decided Epcot was my favorite park. It doesn't have the thrill rides and kid rides of Magic Kingdom, but the things to see are really neat and the little acitivities like Kip Possible and country treasure hunts are really fun. We hardly touched the options available to us. I'd like to have done another day there.

Magic Kingdom, 2011

2011-06-01T20:12:00.000-07:00

I spent the night before our Magic Kingdom visit planning what things I wanted to do with the kids. When we arrived, we headed straight for Fantasyland and started the fun. Kip took William and cousin Preston to do their first rides and I took the girls on Small World. They both enjoyed it, in spite of Becca's nervousness in the line.

After Tea Cups and the Carousel (a major hit), we watched Mickey's Philharmagic. Yet again, it was too scary for Becca. Why do they have to make everything scary? If they kept these shows simple and didn't throw in all the drama and bad-guys my kids would like them a lot more.

We finished Fantasyland with a final round of Tea Cups. I did the super-spinny cup with William, Anna, and Preston (whom we adopted for the day), while Kip did the slower, gentler cup with Becca. We met the cousins and did a kid trade-off for Space Mountain and I realized that I actually do kind of like rollercoasters.

After lunch in Tomorrowland and a ride on the magic carpets, we headed to the Buzz Lightyear ride with the rest of the family. While Kip and I rode Splash Mountain on our fastpasses later that day, Uncle Tyler talked William into riding Thunder Mountain Railroad for a dollar. He almost enjoyed it--he said it got scary in the middle when it was dark.

The girls loved all the princessy things to see and were especially cute at this little sitting spot outside the castle.

We ended up leaving at 8:30, just before the night's parade. The kids were tired and I was satisfied that I had done all the things I really wanted to do.

April 30th, part 2

2011-05-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

Back at the hotel that afternoon, we all put on swimsuits and headed down to the pool.

Becca loved the water and had a blast going up and down the "stair-steps" as she called them and splashing around with whoever would drag her through the "cool" - her word for "pool."

Anna enjoyed an opportunity to relax in the sun - something we haven't seen much of this year in Oregon.

After our swim we all fell alseep for a couple of hours and then headed back to Disney's Hollywood Studios to meet the family for dinner and then watch the fireworks show Fantasmic, which again proved too scarey for little Becca who just wasn't having a great time yet with these Disney creations.

Hollywood Studios, April 30th, 2011

2011-05-16T21:11:00.000-07:00

On the 1st day of our 4-day pass, we all went to Hollywood Studios. We headed to the reputed best ride there first, Toy Story Mania. The wait was about 40 minutes and Becca for some reason was not at all happy about being in line. She must have had some bad memories from our visits to theme parks in previous years because she just didn't want to do the ride.

Abby and Anna weren't at all worried about it.

And even Max held up OK. But Becca hated the line and hated the ride. The rest of us thought it was pretty fun. We enjoyed shooting up the targets and spinning to the next area. Becca wanted nothing to do with any other rides after that. So we dragged her into the Little Mermaid show. She hated that too. Too dark and too much time spent on the Sea Witch. She wasn't very impressed with the whole theme park idea. All our kids voted to just head back to the hotel at that point and we finally gave in and did it.

Florida, April 29th, 2011

2011-05-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

The Killpack family reunion for 2011 was a trip to Disney World in Orlando. We decided to try out the option of taking a red-eye and getting there with time to settle in before our first day of hitting the park. We put the kids to bed at 8pm then went in and woke them up at 11 to head to the airport for our 1am flight. The goal was for them to stay drowsy on the way and to fall back asleep in flight. It didn't happen. All three kids were too wired on the first flight to sleep much. And Kip and I couldn't get comfortable. The second flight, the kids may have slept a little. I was too tired to stay awake, so I'm not sure. In any case, by the time we reached Orlando, got in a line for a bus to the hotel, waited for our room to be ready and finally got inside, we were all exhausted.

We all took about 2 hours of a nap piled on top of the covers because it was just too much work to even pull them down.

When we woke up Chad, Angie, Abby, and Max had arrived from Ft Lauderdale and Grandma and Tasha had gotten there from Utah. We all got on another Disney bus and headed to Downtown Disney, ready for the fun to begin.

The kids begged me to let them ride the carousel. At $2 a piece, I didn't want to do it, but I folded. So they got one ride. But no more!

Pneumonia

2011-04-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

When I hear the word pneumonia I always think of someone who is absolutely miserably sick. They would lie in bed too miserable to get up with no desire to move. They would cough and sound like they were near death. That's how I imagined pneumonia and I was fearful of any of my children ever coming down with such a terrible condition.

On Sunday, the 27th of March, Anna came down with a cough and a fever. She was pretty sick and I was frustrated because she had already spent a ton of time in January being miserable. I thought it was time for her to be healthy again. Plus, I had my foot surgery scheduled for Tuesday and I couldn't ask one of my friends to babysit her and expose her kids to it. We managed to work it out with a ward-member with older kids who very kindly took her in spite of the cough and snot and fever. Anna missed school from Monday through Thursday. Friday her fever was gone although the cough was still bad, so we sent her to school. The weekend was fine. I had my foot up and we all watched conference and took things easy. On Monday after school she was pretty down again. But she begged to go to dance class and seemed just fine while there. I sent her to school again today but she came home pasty white and lethargic again. Her fever was back. I've heard that if the fever goes and comes back that can be a sign of secondary infection, so I called her doctor's office and spoke with the advice nurse. They said to bring her on it.

I hadn't planned on going anywhere today. I just got permission to walk on my foot yesterday and it was a little sore after walking the house doing chores that have been covered by Kip for a week. I was still in jammies. I ran upstairs (I mean, hobbled slowly) got decent clothes on, found shoes for the girls, and loaded us into the car. I hadn't had lunch yet, but grabbed a granola bar for the drive.

We got to the appointment with plenty of time for a potty run with both girls. We hardly had to wait after checking in to go back to the exam room with the nurse. As usual she asked all sorts of questions about Anna's symptoms. I could list when she had started coughing (the 27th) and that she hadn't ever really stopped and when she had the fever and it went away and when it came back. But I really couldn't describe her cough. I hear it every night and off and on every day, but I couldn't really think how to describe it. Was it productive? Dry? I don't know--it's just a cough!!!

So the doctor came in. I gave him a similar update and prepared myself to hear him say that she was fine, just got hit with a new bug after the old one. But he didn't say that. He listened and listened to her breathing in and out. Then he said it sounded like pneumonia. What? I thought. Pneumonia is awful. Was my baby on her death-bed? Apparently one of her lungs is infected according to what the doctor could hear. He faxed a prescription to the pharmacy, described how to use it and said she should be feeling much better within 48-72 hours.

We headed from the doctor's office to Costco to get the prescription. While we were there, of course I thought I'd pick up just a few things. But at Costco, the few things you need are spread over like half a mile of walking. And I had surgery a week ago on what my podiatrist described as the largest neuroma he's ever seen (after 30+ years of surgeries). My foot felt awful by the time we got the prescription in our hand. We had just gotten in line to check out with just enough time to get to the car and rush to William's school to get him when Becca announced she had to pee right then. Why do we want our kids potty trained? It just means they have to go at all the worst possible times! We parked our cart and hobbled to the potty and back.

We made it to the school just as William came out the side gate (thank goodness he's finally learned to walk out there if I'm not waiting at the entrance!). We dropped off the foods that needed chilling at home and got to piano lessons on time.

By the time we got home, my foot felt like it was going to explode. Of course, it didn't help that I had hefted Anna out of the Costco cart at the end of the trip and landed her on the top of the surgeried foot. Yeah, the pain level was pretty high, but the meds are starting to help and I'm going to stay home all day tomorrow.

Anna meanwhile has seemingly made a full recovery. As soon as her ibuprophen kicked in during the doctor appointment she became cheerful and silly. During the piano lesson I forced her to down her first dose of antibiotic. All evening she's been acting just fine. So what was I so scared about pneumonia for? Maybe she's just got a really mild case. I guess I'm lucky. Or maybe it's never as scary as I though it would be.

William's Recital - March 19th

2011-03-21T23:43:00.000-07:00

William had a piano recital on the 19th of March. He practiced a ton and really liked his songs. He played pieces called Springtime 1 and Springtime 2. They used both hands! He got up and performed them without getting nervous at all. It was really a great performance.

We all enjoyed the performance, and the girls especially liked the cookies afterwards.

St Patrick's Day 2011

2011-03-21T23:29:00.000-07:00

I decided to celebrate St Patrick's Day this year with some green food items. After William got home from school, the kids got to eat green frosted cupcakes (store bought - I mean, I'm only willing to do so much!) for snack. Then, for dinner we had Green French Toast. I thought it was pretty cute. I was afraid the kids wouldn't go for it, but they actually had fun with it.

Anna in Princess Dance Class

2011-03-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

Anna's last Princess Dance class was on the 15th. She really enjoyed the class and did great following the teacher's instructions. I was very proud of her. Becca enjoyed coloring out in the hall during her class and trying to get me to stop filming during the last day...

Kip's Birthday 2011

2011-03-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

Somehow this is the only picture from Kip's birthday. I made the cake. Kip frosted it. It was devil's food with chocolate chips added and chocolate frosting. He said it was good, but I couldn't eat it because of the fact that it was made almost entirely of ingredients I'm allergic to. I made myself something else to eat - I can't remember what at the moment...

Kip had a good birthday. He got Dominion Prosperity, which we haven't been able to play yet because he's working like a maniac every night and weekend and on Sundays church is later so we don't have our lazy afternoons anymore. He also got a rocket and the kids can't wait for nice weather (and Dad not to be working weekends) so they can go launch it in the field by the school. Grandma got the bishop to give him the Grilled Cheese Sandwich at his Sunday morning meeting. It was really nice. (wink, wink)

So, I think he had a good birthday. I feel bad about the state of that cake, but as long as it tasted good, that's what matters, right?

Snow Day

2011-02-25T21:49:00.000-08:00

We had a lovely time on Thursday. It had snowed just enough to cover most of the yard and school was closed. It was cold, but not freezing, and beautifully sunny. Not like regular Portland weather at all.

I took the girls out to play in the snow. They thought it was excellent to come right up to me and throw snowballs in my face while I tried to take their pictures. We trampled all the snow in the back yard, then headed to the front.

Anna used a Winnie-the-Pooh shovel to clear the slush off the driveway. Becca got out the sand toys and we filled them with snow and made snow-shapes and a snow-castle.

When Becca's hands got too cold we headed inside.

Becca's Dance Class

2011-02-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

Becca and Anna are taking dance classes at the rec center right now. They both love them. Becca has been a little hesitant to participate in hers unless I participate with her. The teacher said that was just fine if some of the kids had their moms dance with them. There were about 3 of us the first week. The second week there were only 2, me and one other mom. The third week there were at least 30 parents sitting on the bench at the back of the classroom and just me dancing with the 15 kids in front of them all. I was a little self-conscious. I'm not as flexible as the teacher and sometimes not as coordinated as the 3-year-olds. This last week I convinced her to let me take pictures while she danced. We'll see if that works again next time we go.

Becca Birthday Party

2011-02-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

Becca had a little birthday party on the 29th of January. We had 3 friends over and played Hullabaloo and Bingo. Then, we broke out the cupcakes. We must be out of practice because we forgot to put the candles on until after she had eaten off all the frosting. Then we had to stick 3 candles into the naked brown cake.

Daddy helped her blow them out and she ate a little more of the cupcake for fun.

The friends who made it to the party were Jack, Rachel, and Claire. She loved the gifts they gave her.

Becca's 3rd Birthday!

2011-01-26T21:41:00.000-08:00

Today was Becca's third birthday. My baby is 3! Amazing! We had a nice day. I had to go grocery shopping, so I let Becca pick out a toy to buy. She chose those crazy 'velvet posters.' She LOVES to color with markers. She ended up getting 4 posters to color and a big handful of new markers to color with. It was heaven. Of course, after a few minutes of coloring she asked Anna to take over and color for her. Anna was pleased with that.

For dinner Becca begged to go to Sweet Tomatoes, William's favorite place in the world. We had a good time. After eating a little salad together we let her open some of her gifts. Then we ate a little desert and headed home to open the rest of the presents.

She was really happy, especially with the magnetic dolls from Grammy. We had a little trouble getting her to bed in the end. I made her a batch of GF, DF, EF pumpkin muffins with frosting. But they were still hot at bedtime. So she got all ready for bed and then headed back down to try one. She loved it. At least until the frosting was gone. But that's how she feels about any cupcake.

William in the Airport

2011-01-26T21:29:00.000-08:00

William really wanted me to film this and post it online. Here it is! I say in there that it's at the SL airport, but it was really here in Portland.

Christmastime 2010

2011-01-26T21:25:00.000-08:00

We didn't take a lot of photos during our trip to Utah at Christmas. It wasn't that we didn't enjoy seeing our family. We just all ended up sick. Really sick. I'm still sick as I write this a month later. Several of the family members were sick when we arrived and we took it over. Anna and I got sick a couple days after Christmas. Fevers, coughs, runny noses, body aches. It was pretty miserable. We took a lot of tylenol and cough syrup and did a lot of resting.

While Anna and I were miserable, Kip took William and Becca to do things with the family, like this trip to the Mrs Fields Cookie Factory. They had a good time.

The flight home was tough. We all were congested. Our ears were miserable in spite of the gum.

I got my first experience flying next to someone who was terrified of airplanes. It was interesting trying to help him relax. I've never been afraid of flying. I've always figured that I am such a bad driver that statistically the chances of me getting hurt on a flight are way lower than the chances of me getting hurt in the car. And so far I've almost exclusively hit stationary things. And flying is so much faster than driving. Yeah, I'll take an airplane ride over a cross-country road trip with young kids any time.

We made it through the flight just fine, although we were a lot later than we should have been after having to wait through plane de-icing. It was good to get home and continue to recover.

Christmas 2010

2011-01-26T21:12:00.000-08:00

We had a nice Christmas Morning. We forced William to let us sleep in until 8. He counted the minutes from 7 on, then burst into the girls' room to wake them up. Down we all went and opened gifts.

Becca was thrilled to get chocolate in her stocking and thought it made a great breakfast.

That afternoon, we packed our stuff and headed to Utah. We got in a little late, just in time for another gift-opening ceremony. It was great to see all the family.

Thanksgiving in Utah

2011-01-04T16:36:00.000-08:00

We started our drive to Utah on the 19th of November. We drove all evening and stopped in eastern Oregon at midnight. We found a hotel and settled in for the night. The next morning we slept in then headed off on the second leg of our drive. We got to Kaysville that evening, just in time to soak in the parent's spa before heading to bed. We spent a quiet Sunday there and on Monday headed to the Children's Musuem at the Gateway to spend some time with Kip's mom. We all had a great time.

On Tuesday the rest of the family arrived in Utah - Aunt Robin and her kids, and Aunt Wendy and Uncle Willem and their reformed stray dog. Plus, we had a 'blizzard.' At least, that's what the news predicted it to be. In the end only 3 inches of snow fell and it wasn't that terrible.

We did another trip to the Children's Museum on Wednesday. Uncle Craig met us there with his two older kids.

Thanksgiving day went well, with a lot of good food in spite of my random dietary restrictions. The GF pie crust was wonderful, if you wanted something as a cement substitute. The insides of the pies were still good without it.

Been Booed?

2011-01-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

At Halloween, we were Booed. I debated for several days who to pass it on to. The rules state that you must act quickly, but I'm not good at that. Finally I decided on two neighbors, one a church member and one not. I made the cookies and plated them. After getting the kids to bed, I slipped out of the house and over to the next-door neighbor (non-member). Their house was mostly dark, but a light was on in the upstairs master bedroom, so I knocked loud and ran for it to hide behind one of the trees in my yard. I waited for a while but they never came. So I headed across the street to hit the next neighbor. They didn't seem to answer either, although they have teen-agers, so they were probably just out. I went home feeling like a cookie-dropping failure and started cleaning the kitchen. A few minutes later the phone rang. It was the next-door neighbor.

"Was it you?" she asked.

"Maybe," I said, not wanting to outright admit to it, but figuring it was pretty obvious. She told me what had happened.

When I "pounded on the door like a mad-man," their 2 golden retreivers had totally gone ballistic. J. came downstairs to see what was up and, looking out the window on the door saw no one there. The dogs didn't stop and the knocking had been pretty demanding, so he started to think the worst - someone was prowling around their house. He checked all the doors and then called the neighbor one house down, a guy with military training and equipment. J. told R. his fears and asked the neighbor to come check things out. R. gathered up his gear and headed over. He did a full circuit of the house before coming up the front porch and observing the plate of Halloween sugar cookies. He had quite a laugh. Then, he knocked on the door and showed them to J.

So, is doorbell-ditching to leave treats a "Mormon" thing?

Halloween

2010-12-15T21:37:00.000-08:00

I worked hard this Halloween on creating Avatar the Last Airbender costumes for the kids. They got their first showing on Friday, the 29th of October, at the local shopping center's trick-or-treating. We met the Istooks and went from shop to shop collecting candy. We were lucky to have clear dry weather.

That night was the Fall Festival at the school. The kids enjoyed it but didn't last long.

Saturday night the ward did a Trunk-or-Treat. We decked the kids out again and headed out to collect candy in the drizzling rain.

William was Avatar Ang.

Anna was the tough earthbender Toph.

Becca was an adorable lemur Momo.

Anna's 5th Birthday

2010-12-15T21:31:00.000-08:00

Anna turned 5 on August 7th, 2010. She had a nice little cake and ice-cream party with her favorite people, Weilers and Istooks. We ate and opened presents and played with her new things.

She really liked the pink princessy things she got.

Work Party, Aug 3, 2010

2010-12-15T21:23:00.000-08:00

Kip's work reserved Rood Bridge Park in Hillsboro--complete with bounce-houses, balloon artists and food. We arrived later than we wanted to but had a great time and got to see some old friends. the kids enjoyed playing and eating.

Becca loves her Dad.

Anna loves her Mom.

Ward Campout

2010-08-04T22:59:00.000-07:00

The ward campout was July 23-24 at Stubb Stewart State Park by Vernonia (meaning on the east side of the Coastal Range). We borrowed Rachel and Josh's tent, as usual, and, after a too-long detour to buy the girls sleeping bags from a Craigslister, we reached the park and pitched our tent.

Kip made a fabulous dutch-oven dinner of sausage, potatoes and eggs.

The kids enjoyed playing in the field and on the play structure with all the other ward kids.

That night the wind blew like it was trying to carry us away in our tents. I stayed awake listening to it tear at our tent until Kip finally got up around 3:30 and took off the rain fly. Sometime after that I slept and the next thing I knew Becca was laughing and poking me in the face and the hot sun was shining down through the uncovered top of the tent. Aaah, morning. No hot-chocolate for us - our friends who had planned on making it couldn't keep their camp stove lit in the wind. And it wasn't cold enough to want it anyway.

After a wonderful breakfast provided by the activities committee, we decided to go for a hike.

We found some interesting trail markers - little printed foot images taped to Popsicle sticks and placed along the trails. We followed them and found a bucket full of white poker chips. We let the kids each take one, hoping there were so many there they wouldn't be missed. The kids were thrilled.

Later we discovered that the poker chips were the end of a scavenger hunt put together by the people at the Cowboy Days festival. We drove up to check it out before heading home and the kids got to learn about fancy western horse riding. Becca especially loved it and was cute riding her horse. It wasn't always right-side-up, but she still enjoyed it and got a lot of laughs from other festival attendees.

Legoland

2010-08-04T22:27:00.000-07:00

On June 26th we headed to Legoland. William is an absolute Lego fanatic and couldn't spend enough time at Legoland. It's actually my favorite theme park, too. It's more about the creativity-factor than the thrill-factor, and that's more my style. I'm not fond of being scared and I'm afraid of heights, so little cute lego-themed rides and attractions are just right for me. Our group included Grandma Dianne, Cory and Ang Killpack and their kids - Jovin, Mayer, Pearce, and Tjay - and, of course, our family.

Kip followed the smart-amusement-park-goer rule to head straight to the back of the park and work to the front, so we started with the driving courses.

William still had a long wait for the older-kid course, but the young drivers got to go right away.

Becca rode the helicopter ride while waiting for William to finish his drive.

We rented strollers so that 6 of the 7 kids could ride through the park. Of course, that meant that 4 of the 5 adults in our party had to push. But it was tons better than carrying or dragging tired kids around for mile after mile.

At the end of the day, the kids hung out in Duplo Land and Becca and Pearce managed to get pretty wet.

San Diego - June 25

2010-08-04T22:12:00.000-07:00

Our second day in San Diego we took things easy. We slept in, took our time at the breakfast buffet, and packed a lunch. We followed Cory and Ang to a park they liked and spent some time playing in the sand. Then we set up and ate a picnic all together. The kids loved it. It was nice to take things easy after one day spent traveling and one spent at SeaWorld trying to see everything.

San Diego - Seaworld

2010-07-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

After school got out for the summer, we hopped on a plane and headed to San Diego to visit Kip's brother and his family who were temporarily living there. We spent our first day there at Seaworld. For some reason we didn't think about sunblock until we arrived at the park. I had a sample pack with me and covered parts of myself and the kids. We all ended up with areas of sunburn, except Kip who had passed up on the sunblock and was fried. We went to a Shamu show and walked around to see some of the animals. The kids really enjoyed it, once I bought William some sunglasses.

Not the Florida Beach

2010-06-16T21:50:00.001-07:00

On Sunday afternoon, the 30th of May, after attending church in Tillamook, we took the kids out to the beach. Anna thought she wanted to swim, but it was a very cold weekend and we tried to discourage her. We finally agreed to let her pull up her leggings and go wading. After playing in the sand for a while, she, William and Kip headed for the water. One step into the waves and she came running back to me on my log. It was COLD. I think she was expecting something more like what we found in Florida. Kip made a deal with the kids to see who could stay in the water the longest. William won and got really wet. Anna wasn't far behind. When they were sufficiently frozen, we trekked back to the beach house and gave them both a warm bath.

William's 7th Birthday

2010-06-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

For William's 7th Birthday we rented a house in Pacific City and spent the weekend at the Oregon Coast. Grammy and Grandad came from Utah to enjoy the birthday with us. We drove to the coast Friday afternoon, the 28th of May, and after dropping off our stuff at the house, headed up the road to Roseanna's Cafe in Oceanside. The food was good, but the drive back on windy roads made me sick. I ended up falling victim to the flu for the weekend.

Saturday morning William begged to open his presents. We brought them all out and let him go to it. He got some fun stuff and really was thrilled.

Then, Kip and Grandad took the kids on a walk through the trees behind the beach houses. They loved playing in the trees and climbing them. I stayed home and felt miserable.

Later, the healthy members of the group all went to the pizza place in town. They had a fun lunch.

That evening I felt a little better, so I baked William's birthday cake and made his favorite dinner (stroganoff with the Real Simple recipe that is really very good). We ate almost all the food and cake and William had a really good birthday.

Springtime Family Pics

2010-05-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

We took advantage of the sunshine after stake conference today to take some pictures of the kids outside. The girls were wearing their blue dresses from Aunt Wendy in Pakistan and they looked very cute. They tried to be cooperative for the pics, and a few of them turned out really nice.

We had to bribe Anna to wear this dress. She had a hard time with it because there is not any pink on it at all. With the promise of candy, she was won over. Come to think of it, I haven't carried through with that promise yet. We kept putting it off because she needed to eat healthy food first.

I was really glad she broke down and wore the blue dress. The girls looked super cute and they always get a lot of compliments when they wear matching outfits at church. Even if Becca's shoes are on the wrong feet and her hair is uncontrollable.

William took this picture. He does a good job with his pictures but he never thinks to warn people that he's about to take a picture of them. He just shoots when he wants, so we're not all ready.

Trip to the coast

2010-04-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

Kip and I, for the first time since the kids came into our lives, left them and went away together to the coast for the weekend. My friend Rachel and her family came to our house Friday afternoon so we could get away. I figure we owe her BIG TIME! I had a hard time getting out the door. Becca was so sad as soon as she realized I was going somewhere without her. She got her biggest sad eyes on and told me she wanted to go too. Rachel snuggled her in front of "Robots" and told us to get our behinds out of there. So we did.

The drive to Pacific City was fine. The weather was clear and sunny and beautiful but we had left early enough to miss any traffic. As we drove through the countryside toward our B&B, we saw a man standing on the side of the road next to his truck and a gas can. We met his eyes and smiled at each other. Kip figured he must be in need of some type, so he pulled over to see what the matter was. The man had run out of gas and asked if we could drive to his friend's trailer and ask him to come bring him some gas. We got directions and headed into Pacific City to find him. It was a little out of the way, but we weren't in too much of a hurry to reach the B&B and we figured helping the guy out was a worthy reason to be later than we planned. We managed to find the trailer park and Kip parked and got out. He went to the trailer the man had indicated and an angry dog alerted the owners that someone was coming. They came out and he explained what had happened. The friend (luckily it was the right guy) was at a loss for how to help because he had no gas to spare and his breaks were shot so he couldn't drive out to get our stranded guy. Kip asked if he had a gas can that we could go put some gas in and offered to take it to the stranded guy since we had to go back that way anyway. The friend was pleased with the arrangement and sent us on our way with an old empty gas can. We put a couple gallons in and headed back toward where we had left the first guy. As we drove we thought how funny it would be if he were no longer there when we arrived with gas for him and what would we then do with the gas. I suggested we could just leave it for some other unlucky traveler to find or we could dump it in our own tank and call it good. As we neared the 3-way stop where we'd left him, we realized that indeed he was gone. The man, his truck and his empty gas-can were gone. We pulled over where they had been and dumped the gas from the can into our car so it wouldn't end up spilling on the luggage in our trunk (the stoppers were broken or missing). It takes a long time to empty 2 gallons into your tank from a can. At least, it seems that way when you're doing it on the side of the road with car after car driving buy watching you do it.

We put the empty gas can in the trunk and headed to the B&B to check in. It was called the Sandlake Country Inn and was located outside Pacific City in a very quiet area. It was surrounded by trees and fields filled with birds, horses and crops. When we walked in, Dianne, the hostess, laughed and said "You must be in the Rose Garden room." I said we were and did she know because everyone else had already arrived. "No," she said, "our tallest guests always end up in the room with the lowest ceiling." The ceiling was pretty low, but it wasn't too bad. We'd chosen that room because it had a King size bed and the other king room was already booked.

We took our stuff to the room and settled in a little. I'll admit I was a little cranky about the whole gas episode. I thought we should just give the gas can to Dianne and be done with it, but Kip wanted to return it. So, for dinner we drove back into town and, before choosing a restaurant, Kip went back to the trailer with the barking dog. They came out to see what was up and were thrilled to see Kip with the can. Apparently and truck driver had stopped at the stranded man and offered him some gas. They had traded a tool for some gas and possibly lined up some future work for our stranded man fixing the brakes of the truck driver's truck. Everyone was happy in the end. Especially when they got their beat-up gas can back. I felt better about the whole event after that and Kip and I went to the town's Pizza place and had a good dinner and a walk on the beach.

I didn't sleep at all that night. I never sleep well the first night in a new place, so even with Melatonin and Tylenol PM I ended up reading my book until 4am. Of course, the book was actually very engaging, so that probably wasn't the best thing to do to try to sleep. I was reading the current book-club book for my ward, "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society." I loved it. I finished it on Sunday before we drove home and felt like I'd lost a good friend since I no longer had more to read about the life of the main character. I wished there were books and books filled with more of her thoughts and adventures so I could keep our friendship going instead of losing it with the end of the last chapter.

Morning came on Saturday with the delivery of breakfast to our door at 9am (although I really wished I had requested 9:30 so I could have gotten half an hour more sleep). The food was really good: eggs and scones and fruit and oatmeal. I ate too much, but it was hard to leave it there because it just tasted so good!

I decided after our leisurely breakfast that instead of a shower I would try out the jetted tub with jet-safe bubble bath. Dianne had stocked the rooms with three all-natural bubble baths that wouldn't cause problems to the bath-tub jet system. She sold the bubble baths, too, so I had a moral obligation to try them out so I could decide if I wanted to buy some for our jetted tub at home. I tried out the Rain option. It smelled very fresh and clean. Unfortunately, the tub was meant for someone of less leg-length than myself and I couldn't actually fit all of myself that I wanted to fit into the bubbly water. But it was still fun.

Eventually, Kip and I dragged ourselves out of the room and hit the local market to get some souvenirs for our kids. We armed ourselves with a bag of shiny rocks for William (that Anna is jealous of), a butterfly bracelet for Anna (that Anna says she likes too, she just wants some rocks of her own since William has so very many), and some twisty crayons for Becca (that I hope she'll like when she wakes up because Kip was putting her to bed when I remembered we hadn't given them their gifts and I'm not allowed to interrupt that or Becca will beg me to take her downstairs and play with her all night and I sometimes crumple under the pressure and do it). Gifts under control, we headed for the main adventure of the trip and the one thing I was looking forward to more than anything else, a horseback ride on the beach.

I had told the woman who ran the riding group that I had taken some riding lessons before--I'd had one term at BYU and a summer of lessons when I was 10 years old. I told her Kip had never ridden. So they unloaded the horses for us from the trailer. Kip got a sturdy looking tan colored horse of the Norwegian Fjord variety. I got a paint mare named Pinky who they felt would be more of a challenge for me. I hadn't mentioned that in both my previous riding experiences I had ridden horses who didn't really want to do any more than they had to. I got the oldest, calmest horse when I was young. I got the biggest horse in college because I was the tallest, but he was starting to go lame and really resisted any attempts I made to get him to do more than walk. I got him to canter whenever I had to, but it took some work. Pinky was kind of like his opposite. She wanted to run and part of me wanted to let her, at least at first.

We headed through a grove of trees and out onto the beach. In spite of the fact that Friday's weather had been sunny, clear and warm, Saturday was a typical early spring day on the coast. It was overcast and drizzling and windy. The wind whipped the mist and sand into our faces and I severely regretted having taken the gloves out of my jacket pockets in the B&B before going riding. I don't know why I'd done that. But the waves were beautiful and riding felt good. Or, at least a little good. I quickly realized that I hadn't been on a horse in 10+ years and that the position used to sit a horse is not entirely comfortable if one has not done it for a long period of time. I realized that letting Pinky take off would probably leave me in worse shape than holding her in, so I got better at keeping her from breaking into a trot at the advance of every wave toward us.

We walked down the beach for about 45 minutes, enjoying the waves and the view in spite of the chill. Then we turned down the inside of an inlet where the wind was blocked and the ride became much warmer and more pleasant. My nose stopped dripping down my face. We walked through the water a little at this point and Kip's long legs dragged. We then headed into the trees. The trail was narrow here, forcing us to go single file so Pinky was forced to stay behind our leader Judy. She kept getting her nose on Judy's horse's tail and got the tail swished in her face a few times. Judy's horse was new. She's only been ridden a few times. As we rode through the trees some deer ran off to the side of us. Judy's horse jumped and Pinky almost ran into her. Later we came to a small, slow moving stream. Judy's horse freaked out about that. She didn't want to cross it. I held Pinky back. Judy's horse had to be coaxed until finally she buckled up and jumped the stream. I let Pinky go then, thinking she would casually walk across the stagnant water. She walked up to it and sprang across. I wasn't ready for that. My head snapped back, but I didn't lose my seat. I kind of wished we could try it again. Kip's horse walked up to the stream, unmoved, and walked through it. He felt a little let down.

Well, I had thought that a 2-hour ride would be wonderful, but the last half hour I was kind of praying for it to end. My knees were sore, my seat hurt, I wanted some solid ground under me. We finally saw the parking lot ahead and I was relieved. We walked up onto the pavement and I dismounted. Kip thinks they must laugh really hard after their clients leave when they remember how pitiful they are with their dismounts. I managed to get off the saddle then had to cling to it as my legs tried to buckle under me when they hit the ground. Unsteady was a major understatement of my condition. Kip got off--I didn't see his dismount because I was too busy trying to act nonchalant about my inability to walk. We teetered to the car and got in. And our horse-riding adventure on the coast came to an end.

I've decided I need to make a friend that has horse. That way I could help her maintain the horse and get some riding in but not have the responsibility involved in actual ownership.

After a quick break at the B&B, Kip and I headed to Oceanside to eat dinner at Roseanna's Cafe. I had the best dinner I think I've ever eaten. After some yummy clam chowder and salad, I had smoked salmon (done in-house) in a creamy sauce with scallops (could have passed on them), asparagus, spinach, and veggie ravioli. The smoked salmon was absolutely delectable! I think a serving of the salmon alone would have been almost as good.

After dinner, we walked on our shaky legs around the beach at Oceanside and through the tunnel. It was a nice night. I even managed to sleep well that night.

Sunday, we ate our breakfast slowly, packed our bags, walked on another beach and headed back home. It was good to get back, but sad to leave.

O is for OMSI

2010-04-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

On the last day of spring break (March 26th) we decided to brave a trip to OMSI. We knew it would be crowded, and it was, but it wasn't that bad. We went with the Istooks and we all started in the Space exhibit downstairs. It was neat and the older kids definitely enjoyed it.

After lunch in the cafeteria we split into two groups. Jo took the older kids around the upstairs exhibit halls. I took the youngsters to the kid-zone. Even with 4 kids 4 and under, I managed to not lose anyone for 2 hours in the kid zone! I am so proud! We played in the sandbox, we played in the water, we did some balls, and played in the chipmunk tree. It was a lot of fun.

Clean-up Day

2010-04-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

Kip helped the kids clean the toy room one Saturday when I wasn't home. They had a good time. Since then, setting up all the stuffed animals on the toy room sofa has become one of the favorite kid activities.

Healthcare Reform

2010-03-24T23:21:00.000-07:00

I got this link from a friend and thought it was fascinating. It gives some concrete lists of what the new law involves. I figured, as a "Flamin' Lib" I'd better post it. ;)

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/24/health-care-explainers/

Spring Break Zoo Trip

2010-03-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

Along with most of the rest of Northern Oregon, we decided to go to the Zoo today. The weather was absolutely perfect. It was in the mid 60s without a cloud in the sky. Unfortunately, I made some poor driving choices. I followed the signs to the overflow parking lot only to find it almost full and the line for the shuttle probably 200-people long. The shuttle was a set of school buses. I couldn't imagine trying to lift my double stroller up onto a school bus while dragging my three kids on with me. I decided to drive to a MAX station and ride the MAX to the zoo, since it stops right at the zoo and would be easier than stuffing my crew and gear onto a school bus. I drove to the closest MAX station. It has a 2-level parking structure and a label on the traffic light leading in to the parking lot that lights up when the lot is full. It was not lit. But it should have been. We drove around the entire parking structure with several other cars only to have to leave in defeat. We finally headed back home. I figured we could either park at the MAX station near our house or call it quits and just go home and play on the swingset and eat the picnic lunch I had packed. That was actually my vote, but the kids had heard the word zoo escape my lips and they were not about to go home without seeing a zoo. We got to the MAX station by our house about an hour after having set out. Next time there's a sunny day on a school vacation, we're STARTING with the MAX, that's all I have to say about it. We saw a train pull out while we unloaded the car. Another passed us by while we tried to buy our ticket. While waiting for the next train, I got into a conversation with another mom on the way to the zoo. She looked down and asked where Becca had lost a shoe. AAAARGH! I ran to the car leaving the kids trailing behind, retreived the shoe and ran back to the tracks. The next train was decent enough to make me wait another 5 minutes before showing up, but at least we didn't miss it.

So we finally made it to the zoo. The line to buy tickets was horrible, but after about 30 minutes more I was able to take my hungry, tired, and cranky kids into the actual zoo. We rushed to the back of the zoo to meet the Istooks and then toured the zoo with them. We actually saw some neat things. The baboons were right at the bottom of the cage by the glass. Becca laid claim to the biggest as HER monkey and was thrilled when he sat and ate some leaves while looking at us. (My monkey is looking at me!) We saw the hippos and lions. Anna disappeared outside the lions' enclosure. We split up to look for her and Butch found her being escourted away by a zoo employee. We gave each other hugs and stuck her in the stroller for most of the rest of the tour. We saw a giraffe up close in it's inside enclosure. We saw the sea lions up on the rocks stretching their necks. The kids had a blast being together. Then we rode the MAX home.

Babysitting Charlotte

2010-03-24T21:13:00.000-07:00

I got to babysit for my friend the other day. Becca is crazy about her baby Charlotte. She calls her "My Baby" and gets very jealous about anyone else touching Charlotte. I let Becca hold her for a while (with me right next to them, of course) and I convinced her to give Anna a turn too. They were very cute.

Kip's Birthday

2010-03-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

Kip turned...some age older than he had been before...on March 6th. He had a great birthday. Since that time he's had several dance parties to his new music from Grammy and we've played a LOT of games of Dominion Seaside and Intrigue. It's been lots of fun!

Becca's Birthday - the big number 2!

2010-03-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

Becca had a great time on her 2nd birthday in spite of the fact that mommy was still recovering and couldn't do much for her. We ate a great dinner of noodles with red sauce. Then we opened presents. She loved that part.

For desert I had picked up cupcakes. She liked the frosting but didn't eat much of the cake. And now she's 2! Such a big girl!

Foot Surgery

2010-03-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

I had foot surgery done on January 20th. I had a bone spur removed from the ball of my left foot that had been causing a lot of trouble for years. It wasn't a bad surgery and I recovered quickly. The kids were a little frustrated by my recovery time, though, and insisted on joining me on the sofa if I wouldn't get off to play with them.

Go Lego Fun Speed Builders

2010-03-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

The 9th of January was the official Jr First Lego League competition day at OMSI. William and his team (Olivier Van Hooff, Robert Young, Spencer Istook, and Elizabeth Weiler) met there, set up their display and then waited for their turn to explain it to the judges. The place was packed and they divided all the competitors into two groups. The first group went and played and the second met with the judges. Then, after lunch-break, the second group went and played and the first met with the judges. Our group did a good job. They had researched the travel involved in getting a Nintendo DS game from the factory to the store and then to someone's house. They made a nice little Lego display with a container ship, crane, delivery truck and minivan. They enjoyed telling the judges all about it. They each got a medal to take home and were all very excited to have done it.

Grammy & Grandad's at Christmas

2010-01-23T16:37:00.000-08:00

We had a really good time at Grammy and Grandad's. The hot-tub was a blast - especially helpful with Anna's nasty cough.

Anna learned to not fear the dog.

William learned to not fear the dog, too. Becca learned to enjoy the dog unless she moved in any way, then Becca ran from her in terror.

We really enjoyed seeing Craig and Lesley's kids, Enoch and Sarah. They are getting very cute and Becca thought they were a lot of fun.

Christmas Day 2009

2010-01-23T16:33:00.000-08:00

Kip and I didn't get up early enough Christmas morning. William and Anna were forced to wait impatiently for AGES while we finished sleeping in.

They were very happy when we did get up and the unwrapping began.

Becca enjoyed it, too.

We are very grateful to Grammy and Grandad for letting us spend Christmas with them.

Kaysville Christmas Eve

2010-01-23T16:26:00.000-08:00

We went to Kaysville for Christmas eve at the home of my mom, Grammy, who looked like a cheerful Christmas elf that night.

We enjoyed the presence of Uncle Trevor as well as Aunt Janean and Jeremy for the evening.

We all opened some of our gifts that night. The kids weren't very excited by the clothes they opened, but when Janean opened a box full of packing peanuts, oh, and a lamp shade, the evening was saved. The kids spent the rest of the night throwing packing peanuts in the air and having an amazingly good time.

Salt Lake Christmas

2010-01-23T16:19:00.000-08:00

The first part of our trip to Utah was spent at a hotel in downtown Salt Lake. We road Trax around to the Chrildren's Discovery Center and the Planetarium and walked over to see the lights at Temple Square. It was fun to be right in the heart of the city.

Becca found the dollies at the Discovery Center and thought they were all just for her. She loved pushing them around in the stroller and putting them to sleep in their beds.

William and Anna played very well together in the water area and in the building area. William would make new friends and then introduce them proudly to his sister.

Anna discovered the heater in the hotel room and had a blast (haha) letting it blow on her.
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Christmas on the 19th

2009-12-30T20:54:00.000-08:00

Because we were leaving for Utah on the 20th, we decided to open some of our presents on the 19th. I didn't want to have to pack them all there and back. I had decided to give Becca a dollhouse. She was THRILLED with it and could hardly be bothered to open anything else once she found it. She just sat and played with all its little pieces.

The other kids enjoyed all the gifts they got. They wished they could bring them all with us to Utah.

Gingerbread House

2009-12-30T20:41:00.000-08:00

Anna, William and I built a Gingerbread house on November 27th. It had a few run-ins with gravity. One of the side walls broke into 3 pieces and one of the roof slopes shattered into 10+. It was lucky that the frosting managed to hold it together. I put the frosting on and the kids pushed candy into it. It turned out pretty good. Becca quickly discovered that she could reach it, especially if she pushed the stool into the right spot. She managed to eat a fair amount of the candy off it over the course of the month. Anna enjoyed helping her. William was more interested in wrapped candy from the candy bowl.

Christmas Lights

2009-12-30T20:26:00.000-08:00

The day after Thanksgiving Butch came over to help us put the Christmas Lights on the house. We had bought all new LED lights to keep from overtaxing our power supply. Becca was very helpful with the set-up. Then, she worked on the swingset while Dad and Butch put the lights on the house.

Becca's Happy Song

2009-12-30T19:14:00.000-08:00

This is a video of Becca being happy from the 24th of November.

Halloween

2009-11-04T21:17:00.000-08:00

We had a great Halloween. We took our time getting going that morning. At 3:00 we suited up in our Halloween best and headed to the local trick-or-treating strip of shops. It's the one in Tanasbourne with Safeway, Trader Joes, Kinkos, etc. It's a pretty popular event. You go in costume with your bags and stop in at each store for a candy. Becca had the cute factor going and got extra here and there. And my definite favorite was the cinnamon bread given by Great Harvest. SOOO good. The kids were forced to share that with me and Kip. We stopped inside Safeway and asked if they had a large sheet of cardboard we could have. I had finally gotten around to reading my Halloween issue of Family Fun that morning. They had a picture of a "house-o-lantern" with a big window in the front filled with a cardboard jack-o-lantern face cut out of cardboard and lit from inside. I just HAD to do it in our window. Luckily, Safeway hooked us up. We took our candy and cardboard home (after a stop at cold stone for some ice cream treats because we hadn't yet had enough sugar) and spent the rest of the evening cutting the cardboard to fit the window and carving a face out of it. It turned out great. And next year we'll even get it up before Halloween day.

Grandma

2009-11-04T21:15:00.000-08:00

In case any of you were wondering about the fact that Grandma was mentioned in the last post but not included in the pictures, I thought I would post a photo as proof that she was there.

Pumpkin Patch Trip

2009-10-23T21:53:00.000-07:00

Grandma K came out to visit us for my birthday. She arrived October 9th and stayed the weekend. On Saturday morning we all went to a pumpkin farm in North Plains. We had a great time playing in the straw and doing the hay maze. We chose some really nice pumpkins to take home.

The kids loved having their Grandma here. Becca wanted to be with her all the time and William and Anna hardly gave her a chance to breathe. We were sad to see her go on Monday morning.

Pears

2009-10-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a really long time since I posted an update. I just thought I'd show you all why. This is box one of about 5 more. I've been canning pears every time I have a free moment. Unfortunately, I've fallen behind on a lot of other things and decided that pears are almost more work than they're worth. Hopefully, William and Becca will enjoy eating them enough to make me feel better about the slave labor I've done...

School Started

2009-09-26T23:16:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I never posted about school starting. Oops. William's first day of school was September 8th. William was very excited about going to 'all day' school as a first grader. We packed him a lunch the night before and headed out the door at 8:15 with his sisters in the stroller. At the school, all the kids were being herded into their classrooms by organized moms with cameras. I didn't have mine. Oh well. I checked him in with his teacher and pushed the girls home. At the end of the day (3:00) I was back outside the school to pick him up. All the organized moms were there again with their cameras. Alas, I hadn't thought to bring it then either. So, my picture of William is on his exit from school the second day. But he seemed happy enough then and he didn't look that much different from the day before.

Anna started preschool on the 9th. She was excited to go because she got to have one of the teachers from last year in her new class this year. Of course, I didn't remember the camera at drop-off, but I did manage to get it for pickup.

OMSI September 15th

2009-09-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

I took Anna and Becca to OMSI with Jo Istook, Jared and Rachel on Tuesday the 15th. The girls really enjoyed it. William was sad about missing it, but he has enough fun at school that he got over it fairly quickly.

Becca enjoyed getting wet in the water area.

Anna enjoyed playing with "Flubber."

They posed for a nice picture in the little kid soft play zone.

Then Anna decided having pictures of her taken while flying through the air was the best thing ever.

We all had a lot of fun and we intend to go back as often as possible during the rainy winter.

Princess Becca

2009-09-26T22:58:00.000-07:00

Becca found one of Anna's old Halloween costumes and decided to try it on. I thought she looked adorable. It's also a nice picture because you can see both her chipped front top teeth. She's into living dangerously.

Bribed with a piece of candy, she let me put the Barbie wig on her head. I couldn't get the camera up fast enough for a great picture but it's nice to get an idea of what she would look like with hair.

Oaks Park Day

2009-08-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was the official Oaks Park Amusement Park day for Washington County Library summer reading program finishers. I called Butch and Jo that morning from swimming lessons and asked if they were going. We decided to do it. So, after a quick grocery store trip and grabbing food from McD's, we drove to the other side of Portland for some fun.

Anna really liked the spinny balloon ride.

Becca liked this car ride, until it started moving. Then she cried the whole time.

This is William with Alyssa and Spencer on William's favorite ride. (It made Spencer almost puke.)

Becca loved riding on this carousel horse - the kind that didn't go up and down. She kept leaning over to pet its face and laugh while we went around and around.

And this is the downpour that caught us as we tried to head back to our car.

Princess Party

2009-08-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

To celebrate her birthday, we threw Anna a Princess party. We had all the girls come in costume. After making necklaces with yarn and foamy beads, we read the princess and the pea and played a princess and the pea game. We took turns hiding a small bouncy ball under a pillow and having girls sit on it and guess which one had it. Then, we read the frog prince and played pin the kiss on the froggy.

Finally we ate the castle cake, which unfortunately didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. I shouldn't have put it off to the last minute, I guess...

We were very excited that one of the gifts for Anna included a barbie style wig. Now Becca can finally have some hair! If only she wouldn't pull it off so quickly!

Anna's Birthday

2009-08-13T23:38:00.000-07:00

Anna turned 4 on August 7th. We wanted to go to Olive Garden but found it too crowded, so we decided to hit our favorite little downtown Italian place instead. It was not at all crowded and the food was great, as always.

Anna had a good time opening her gifts and couldn't wait to play with them.

Becca really liked the Chocolate Torte but Anna thought it was too dense.

Bahamas Cruise

2009-07-27T22:02:00.001-07:00

We decided right at the end of our stay that we wanted to take a cruise to the Bahamas. There is a cruise ship that leaves from Ft Lauderdale every day and does a five hour trip out to Grand Bahama Island. There, you can do a quick tour and return on the ship for another 5 hours, or you can stay at a hotel for any number of nights and go back another day. We opted to spend one night and left on Thursday July 9th returning the 10th.

The boat ride out to the Bahamas was pleasant. We left the house at 5:30 am to make it to the boat around 6. We enjoyed a buffet breakfast (included in the ticket price) after the ship left dock and then William, Anna and I napped in the cabin we had reserved. It was a tight fit, but we snuggled up just fine. Kip and Becca ended up napping on a deck under the lifeboats. We got to the Bahamas in the early afternoon and headed to the hotel. It was a beautiful hotel and we had two rooms connected, unfortunately not facing the ocean. The hotel pool was gorgeous with an aquaduct-like construction going over that spouted waterfalls in several place. The ocean water at the beach outside the hotel was amazingly blue and clear. I wished we could have had more time so we could have gone out to the coral reefs in a glass-bottom boat.

We took the boat back the next day - Friday. After going through the security and getting in line to have our tickets and passports checked, we realized that Becca's "loving blanket" was not in any of our luggage. This was a disaster. She adores that blanket and can't sleep without it. I asked one of the security workers if we had time to go back to the hotel for it. He said no and suggested we use the phone in the main office to call the hotel for it. Kip went up to the main office and started the calling. In the end, it was decided that we would have the hotel staff give it to a taxi driver and have him drive it to the dock where we would be waiting to pay him for his delivery. It cost us $25 to have this done and he arrived just as the lady in charge of loading was about to tell us we were out of time and had to get on the ship. (All five of us in a taxi from the dock to the hotel had cost $25, so that blanket was an expensive passenger.) It was worth it. Becca took a nap as soon as we got onboard and found our cabin.

On this trip, Becca napped first with Kip while the kids and I lounged and toured the ship. Then we all had our buffet dinner (really good pasta and bread) and I took William and Anna to the cabin for bed. Eventually Kip and Becca joined us back in there and we learned that 4 out of 5 of us could fit in the little beds.

Beaches

2009-07-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

We spent a lot of time at the beach in Ft Lauderdale. The water was around 80 degrees and the air usually a little warmer. It was wonderful! We loved to float on our backs on the rolling waves. It was never very choppy where we were, so it was very pleasant just to lie back and let the water lift you up and drop you down. The kids learned to like their floaty rings - although Becca took until the last day to like Mr Turtle - and would float out with us. We loved to see the fishes and collect pretty little seashells and bits of broken coral. And lots of lots of sand ended up in our swimsuits.

This is where we washed off back at the house. It was a great thing to have!

Cousin Time

2009-06-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

We're really enjoying the opportunity to spend time with Uncle Chad, Aunt Angie and Cousin Abby. The kids enjoy playing with Abby and want her to come along on all the activities we do. Here, we're enjoying dinner at the Floridian after a boat tour of the New River through downtown Ft Lauderdale.

They're really working on getting Abby to make funny faces. Anna really has hers down.

Uncle Chad, Becca and Kip like to hang out in Chad's kitchen.

Princesses and Legos

2009-06-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

We went to Downtown Disney on the 16th to get our souvenir fix. William loved the big Lego store there with play areas out front. Anna was thrilled to meet some princesses she didn't need to be shy of.

Disney

2009-06-29T12:06:00.001-07:00

Grandma came to Florida to join us and we all went to DisneyWorld Saturday the 13th and again on Tuesday the 16th. Lines were a little worse than at Universal and SeaWorld, but not as bad as I expected. Of course, we only rode kid-friendly rides, so things may have been worse on rides popular with older people. The weather was hot, but we generally stayed in the shade. I was surprised that Disney didn't have many fans. Universal and SeaWorld had fans with water-misters that were incredibly refreshing. There weren't anything like that at Disney. If you were lucky, you waited in line for 30-60 minutes in the shade. If not, you were in the sun. No fans. I thought that was a little lame. If the other parks provided fans and sometimes even TV's, why did Disney just make you stand in the hot sun?

But enough complaining. It really was fun. We forced the kids to do the Peter Pan ride. They ended up kind of liking it. Then we rewarded them with the Small World ride. They loved that. Anna liked the Dumbo ride, but the line was the worst of our whole trip. At least an hour long with no fans and no shade for the last 15 minutes. I almost got Anna through the line to meet the princesses, but when I refused to hold her for the 15 minute wait, she decided she didn't want to see the princesses after all.

We went to Epcot on Tuesday. It was fun. We went to the funny show and Kip got to be part of it - putting hook&loop diapers on dollies. He did great. The kids liked the Nemo ride. They had to be forced to leave the aquarium at the end.

Universal with Abby

2009-06-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

Uncle Chad, Aunt Angie, and cousin Abby joined us at Universal on Friday June 12th. Becca puked on the way to the park, so I took her home to chill for the day, but the others had a ton of fun riding the rides at Universal Islands of Adventure.

Universal

2009-06-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

June 11th we spent at Universal Studios. We were all excited to find Avatar Aang there - you know he can save the world, right?

We spent the first part of the day at Feivel's play area. Becca was thrilled to play in the water and never wanted to leave.

Once we found the ball pit, there was nothing else the kids wanted to do. It had things to suck balls up, things to drop balls and even huge air guns to shoot balls across the room. And there were enough fans that Mom and Dad didn't mind sitting and watching the kids play for hours.

SeaWorld

2009-06-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

June 8th, 9th and 10th were our Sea World days in Orlando. The kids fell in love with Shamu. Our first day there Anna leaned over to me after one of the Shamu shows and said with total rapture in her voice, "Mommy, I love Shamu." Late the second night as we were leaving Anna told me she was sad. I asked why. "Because I just said goodbye to Sea World."

I really appreciated attractions that were indoor and airconditioned.

There's nothing better than riding an ocean-themed carousel!

Becca loved that we were at the park for the daily rain shower on the 9th.

William had a Birthday!

2009-06-04T13:24:00.000-07:00

William turned 6 on May 29th. We had some friends go bowling with us. No theme party with cool theme games and cake like last year. We just picked up a couple friends and drove to the bowling alley. We had 6 kids end up bowling and, thanks to Jo's coupons, it only cost us $6. Wahoo! When they had had enough bowling, we headed home for pizza and cake. (Actually, it was when the bowling alley threw us out because the leagues were starting and we were on a league lane. They hadn't thought 6 kids would take so incredibly long to bowl - it had been more than an hour and they were just on the 8th frame. We got more free bowling coupons out of it so no one complained.) William got a ton of Lego gifts for which he was very excited. And he enjoyed his non-Lego stuff, too.

William and Spencer and the cake.

Butch was a little cranky after working all day.

Opening gifts.

OMSI

2009-05-22T21:32:00.001-07:00

I took the kids to OMSI today with Jo and the 4 Istook kids. Kip and I just bought a membership, so we thought it would be fun to break it today since it was a school holiday. The museum wasn't crowded at all. The Beaverton School District was the only one with the day off and according to the signs we passed near the zoo about the zoo parking lots being completely full at 11am, everyone from Beaverton choose to spend the day there. The weather was perfect, so I can't blame them (mid 70's and SUPER sunny). But it sure worked well for us! The kids had a blast. We spent the entire 3 hours of our visit in the children's area. It was perfect because we knew we could come back any time. We didn't feel like we had to try to see the whole museum in one go.

Anna spent a lot of time playing in the store/kitchen area. She loved the cash register.

William and Spencer got abosolutely soaked.

Becca looked stylin' in her OMSI boots. She didn't like wearing them, though.

But she REALLY liked splashing and getting wet.

Shearing the sheep

2009-05-22T21:27:00.001-07:00

We finally broke down and shaved off William's overgrown hair on Tuesday night. While we were out in the yard doing it, we decided to give Becca a fresh start on hers. It's been growing in all crazy. There was getting to be some good length on top, but not on the sides. There was one clump of about 15-20 hairs behind her left ear that grew long, but the rest of that area was short as could be. It looked pretty crazy. So, we shaved it all back. I think she looks pretty cute, but now even more people think she's a boy because what parent would shave their little girl's head?

Reunion in Utah - Playground and Temple

2009-05-03T21:22:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we went to church and relaxed at the condo. The kids had a blast at the play area outside our unit.

On Monday we went to the St. George Temple and had a picnic. The kids really liked the visitor's center. It was very peaceful there.

On Tuesday, we headed back up to Kaysville for dinner with the Parkers. On Wednesday, we packed back into the car and drove 13 hours back to Oregon. We were sad to leave all our family behind, but very happy to be back in our own house and get the kids back to school.

Reunion in Utah - Snow Canyon

2009-05-03T21:07:00.001-07:00

On Saturday April 25th, our first full day of reunion, we headed to beautiful Snow Canyon. The red rocks and sand were stunning. The kids had a blast playing at the red sand dunes.

Kip took William with Grandma, Chad, Angie and Abby on a hike of the Butterfly trail. They had a great time walking and shooting immaginary aliens per William's request.

Reunion in Utah - the trip down

2009-05-03T20:57:00.000-07:00

We drove to Utah last week. We headed from Beaverton, Oregon all the way to St George, a total of 1,080 miles according to Google Maps. It was a lot of time in the car.

On the way down we stopped at the Parker parent's house. The kids got some time with the dog and didn't do too bad with her.

Between Kaysville and St George, we stopped the the Dinosaur museum. It had a lot of neat things. The kids wished we could have spent longer.

Spring is in the Air

2009-04-19T21:28:00.001-07:00

It was such a pretty day today we decided to take a walk. We went to Powerlines Park and then to the duck pond. The red-winged blackbirds were in the trees. The ducks were on the water. The kids found lots of dandelions to blow and pinecones to toss. They really enjoyed it. I realized what a perfect photo-op it was while we were out and ran home for the camera. We don't get weather this nice often in Oregon in the spring.

Mothering

2009-04-17T21:26:00.000-07:00

I heard a talk at a church event once. I think it was a previous years' Conference, but I'm not sure. I just know that the story shared by the speaker really impressed me. He told of an event from his childhood. He did something wrong, broke something or something like that, and was nervous about how his mother would respond. He said she could have totally yelled at him. She could have been very angry about what he had done. But she wasn't. She told him that she knew it was a mistake and that he hadn't meant to do it. She didn't make him feel worse about it. He said that this was exactly what he had needed at the time and he was incredibly glad his mother had responded that way. Listening to the story that first time, I felt just awful. I've been that mother, but I didn't keep my cool. I blew up at my son. Lots of times. And in my case it wasn't always even something precious that was broken. It was just that I was a Mommy who didn't always respond in a forgiving and loving way to something that really wasn't a premeditated act of aggression on my child's part. And maybe one of those times when I didn't respond lovingly was a time when he really needed me to do so. I felt bad about this for a long time. It came to mind often--probably most often after another case of getting angry over an accident that I shouldn't have gotten mad about. Then, one night I had a breakthrough. It was during a "bad mother" phase soon after Becca was born when I was tired all the time and prone to short-temperedness. I would go to bed each night and think back on all the less-than-patient ways I had responded to William or Anna and all the good things I had neglected to do with them and feel bad about it. I was really depressed about my mothering skills and very frustrated with myself. Suddenly, I realized something about the story. The boy feared that his mother would yell at him and scold him for what he had done. He feared that she would respond that way because, and this is what really struck me, she had responded that way in the past! This thought struck me like a ray of hope. If his mother had responded that way in the past but had managed not to do so this one time when it really mattered, maybe, just maybe, I could do it to! Maybe I hadn't already missed the time when it mattered most with William or Anna. Maybe I could keep trying and trying to be more loving and forgiving when they did things I didn't like. And, just maybe, the time when they need my understanding the most, I'll actually hear the whispering of the Spirit telling me to be nice and do it! Maybe being a good mother is a process--something I can develop in little baby steps of improvement--not simply something I either have or I don't.

New Bows

2009-03-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Kip's cousin Missy made us some super-cool bows for the girls. Here are some pictures of them looking adorable with their new frills. Becca actually keeps the headband on for several hours. Then, something makes her realize it's there and she tugs it off and won't let me put it back. I think if I keep trying she'll get more used to it and actually wear it all day. Anna's similar. She lets me do up her hair and looks adorable for several hours, then she just yanks out the bows and rubberbands and refuses to let me fix them. She ends up with funny poofy hair after that. Oh well.

3 Wishes

2009-03-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

Tonight I read the kids a book about the Genie from Aladdin. It talked about getting three wishes from a genie and ended with the question, what wishes would you make?

Here are William's:
A ton of chocolate no-go-bars (granola bars) just for me.
A great big bed.
Getting to sleep by myself. (Although he hates being alone, so I'm not convinced he wants that one.)

Here are Anna's:
A muffin.
A cookie.
A fruit snack.

Oh, to be young and have such simple desires.

Sick Kids

2009-03-08T22:18:00.000-07:00

My sweet little Becca got her first real fever this weekend. On Friday, Kip's birthday, I checked her temperature and found it to be over 102. She's never had a fever over 100 before. Since then, she's been super cranky. Saturday night she spent most of the night crying and writhing in my arms. Sunday morning I planned to take her to the Immediate Care as soon as it opened at 9. She fell asleep at 7 after an hour of screaming and I hoped she would sleep until close to nine but at 8 she and everyone else in the house woke and wanted to be up for good. I pulled on sweats and headed downstairs. When I got there, Kip informed me that it was actually 9:00 already. Daylight Savings Time. I hopped in the car and headed to the Doctor. It wasn't very crowded. Apparently, there were a lot of people who forgot about the time change. Some of the staff hadn't shown up yet. Becca and I filled out our forms and were called back fairly quickly. By 10 am (which I thought was 9) Becca had been diagnosed with a double ear infection. We took our prescription across the street to Rite Aid and were home by 10:30. Then, we spent the day relaxing as much as possible. William hung out on the sofa moaning for medicine. Anna begged for someone to play with her. Becca's drugs kicked in and she took a 4 hour nap. I got a small nap, too. So, Kip's birthday weekend was on the mellow side. But we got a new DVD player. Unfortunately, its remote doesn't work well and I'm out of batteries. That was the whole reason we needed it...

This Little Pig...

2009-02-27T15:32:00.000-08:00

We had a really yummy lunch today. I made Mac N Cheese first, then reheated some leftover hamburger/potato hash called "just stuff" in the saladmaster cookbook. Becca REALLY liked the hash. But she didn't like me feeding it to her. She had to do it on her own and she didn't want a spoon involved. Or even her hands.

Becca's First Birthday - The CAKE

2009-02-15T23:30:00.001-08:00

Back at home that evening we opened Becca's presents and had some yummy cake.

She wasn't quite sure what to think about the open flame on top.

But she had no trouble getting into the destruction of her own slice.

Becca's First Birthday - Museum

2009-02-15T23:17:00.000-08:00

Monday the 26th of January was Becca's first birthday. Since Beaverton kindly canceled school that day (it was a teacher workday or something), we decided to celebrate. The Istooks joined us and we all went to the Children's Museum. It was great. Most of the school districts were still in session, so the Museum was not at all crowded. The kids loved the Bob the Builder exhibit and the water room. They enjoyed the supermarket, hospital and baby dolls. But they had the best time on the stage. They stayed there so long dressing up in costumes, controlling the lights and playing the instruments that Butch was even able to get a little nap.

The water area, Anna, Becca and Rachel.

Anna, Alyssa and William. Anna liked to gather all the flowers she found and carry them with her.

I think we surprised Anna when we caught her and Alyssa playing with the dolls.

Christmas Legos!

2009-01-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

As soon as we were back in Oregon, William begged to have Daddy help him build his Lego cargo plane. It took some work, but they got it done.

Funny things the kids have said this month (January 2009):

Sunday afternoon Kip and the kids were in the family room while I finished feeding Becca in the kitchen. William asked Kip, "What do you want to do, Dad?" He replied tiredly, "I want to run away." William's face lit up and he said, "OK, Dad, I'll chase you!" and proceeded to run toward him and tag him. We all burst out laughing and he looked at us wondering why.

After a visit to the dentist last Monday, Anna went through her take-home baggie in the family room. She pulled out a tube of Kid's Crest and, in her sweetest soft, high-pitched princess voice, said, "I got toothpaste, too! Isn't that just AWESOME!"

Kaysville Cousins

2009-01-24T18:28:00.000-08:00

All the Parker-parents' grandkids got together on the first of January. Here's a pic of all the kids - Quinn Barnett holding Enoch Parker, William and Anna Killpack, Zach Barnett holding Sarah Parker, Elizabeth Barnett holding Rebecca Killpack.

Christmas in Utah - Children's Museums

2009-01-13T22:44:00.000-08:00

We visited the Gateway Children's Museum with Kip's family on the 29th and the Treehouse in Ogden on the 2nd. The kids really liked both places.

Becca in the ball area.

We built an arch-just like at OMSI but smaller and easier to do.

We found this little Leopard crawling around.

Princess Anna found a knight loyal and true.

Christmas in Utah - Temple Square

2009-01-09T22:58:00.000-08:00

We all went to see the lights at Temple Square on the 28th. It was insanely cold. I've been softened by these mild Portland winters, I guess. The kids dealt with it better than I did. As long as they had Aunts, Uncles, and cousins to play with, they could have stayed out forever. I got cold and wanted to head home. But the temple grounds really were beautiful. I am glad we went.

Christmas in Utah - Sledding

2009-01-09T22:48:00.000-08:00

Our kids got their first taste of sledding on the 27th of December. We packed them into warm clothes and hiked up the hill behind Jenny and Tyler's house. I had forgotten how much work it is to get up the hill you want to sled down. I tried to pull Anna up on the sled, but that was too scary for her, so we both had to walk it and reached the top a little winded. From there, Anna consented once to go down the hill with me and then refused to have anything to do with sleds. William, on the other hand, had a blast with his cousins. He loved racing down the slope with them. Becca was a good sport and dealt with our attempts to have her slide down the slopes with us. She was a little upset, though, that I deserted her a few times to go down myself. I had forgotten how much fun it is!

Christmas in Utah - Getting There

2009-01-09T22:35:00.000-08:00

Christmas day we flew to Utah. After all the snow here, we feared we wouldn't get out of Portland, but flights were heading out by Christmas morning and our hopes were high. We got to the airport, checked our bags, and went to the play area near our gate to wait for our flight. Everything went fine. We boarded the plane and headed to Utah. We even made better-than-expected time and neared Utah early. Then, things turned sour. The storms that had caused so much trouble in Portland had reached Salt Lake and the airport was having trouble. We had to circle for 45 minutes before a runway could be cleared for us to land. At least they didn't head us somewhere else! I was scared for a while. Instead, all of us except William ended up napping during the 45 minute circle-time. In the end, Grandma and Uncle Cory were there to pick us up and drive us home through the snow.