Life on the Bright Side

So Things Got a Little Rocky...

2011-04-04T19:21:00.000-07:00

But God is beyond GOOD, He is AWESOME and we're readjusting and smoothing out and before you know it we'll all be back to even keel and smooth sailing :D

Ollie has his boater's license, his ATV operator's license (or is it a permit or card? whatever it is, I think it cost money so he can now say he supports Oregon with financial contributions), as well as his LIFEGUARD CERTIFICATION!! That one is totally cool because it is for lifeguard and CPR and I think it's FANTASTIC that he's been so productive, learned so much so quickly and is turning out to be a FINE YOUNG MAN. That's right Grandma Dorothy, he's not our little baby boy anymore :o(

Abigail and Ruby are pretty much half grown and wise little buggers - when they see people do stupid things they notice and the even inquire as to why those people (or that person) is making a bad choice. Am glad they can see the differences and consequences between GOOD choices and bad ones. :)

Casey and Charity brought River and Shaye to Oregon to celebrate Shaye's 5th birthday - and that was super fun! I got to be the sneaky auntie and buy the pinata so Shaye could have ALL of her birthday wishes come true (request 1. go to Oregon to be with the cousins for her birthday; request 2. a pinata.) We had a BLAST and she and Riv got all "Ducked" out :)

16th May – 23rd May 2010 – which means CAUGHT UP FOLKS!!

2010-05-23T18:33:00.001-07:00

16th May, 2010. Yes, Scott, I did. I really did take your photos – all of you – while you weren’t paying attention :D

17th May, 2010 – can’t find a thing. Phew.

18th May, 2010 Rubz. Or is it Rubez? Roobz? Well, you know, my funny girl. She was having a bad day and no one would play *dress up* with her, so she dressed up and I took 50 photos of her and she was all better. She is pretty cute :D

19th May, 2010 – amazing, awesome, cloud and sky behind the church after the youth rally service – on our way to the pizza party at Gino’s!

20th May, 2010 – Krystal’s Apple Pizza with ice cream.

21st May, 2010 – Took Camden to Florence where he was meeting up with Grandpa so they could drive to Eugene to catch a plane to Seattle and then from Seattle to Anchorage! Wahoo! Yes. That is a poster/banner of my Dad hanging up there on that pole. He made us drive through the entire parking lot so we could turn and go up that row, JUST SO WE COULD SEE HIS BANNER lol. 20 years at Peace Harbor – WTG!

*uh oh. just realized there are photos sitting on the xt now that it’s back from the shop – and i haven’t set the time/date on it (or checked it) yet either. The 22nd is there, but not with me right now. Maybe I will tuck it in here later :D

23rd May, 2010 – Jay. Explaining his bathroom remodel.

May 2 – 15, 2010

2010-05-23T18:05:00.001-07:00

05.02.2010

Sandy was *holding* my camera – all the way back to the car. And she took my picture.

05.03.2010

We get good *sky* out the back door at Gino’s – but we always have to frame the photo around the cardboard recycle bin, dumpster, propane tank and the grease bin. Grrr. We need a balcony at Gino’s

05.04.2010

05.05.2010

All you can eat Mexican Dinner for $5 at the Sea Basket in Charleston. That is…all the TACOS you can eat. Ron came with us because he thought it was fish & chips. We thought we had ordered from their menu (which had 6 options) a variety of things, but what we all got was plates of TACOS. They were running out of food. They told us all they had left were tacos and rice…but we saw several plates of other foods going out that weren’t tacos – after our food was served – but for $5/plate…we just ate it. Ron was scratching his chin over this puzzlement of serving others food they were out of – and several other customers were getting wrong food too and were quite angry and I just laughed. To me the whole thing was funny – and Ron wanted to make sure that I was aware of the fact that this just wasn’t normal. I will probably laugh about this Cinco De Mayo dinner for years to come.

05.06.2010

Ruby made a hole in her ice cream to peep through.

05.07.2010

More good sky out the back door of Gino’s.

05.08.2010

Ruby can now officially ride her bike without training wheels!!

05.09.2010

Not only does rosemary smell good and grow behind the church – it blossoms pretty blue/periwinkle flowers!! I had no idea it blossomed!

Happy Mother’s Day.

05.10.2010

Empire Pier. On the way home from work in the dark, long exposure, tripod used, shot by Camden (self timer) and adjusted a bit in photoshop :D

05.11.2010

Tree frog caught whilst I was at work, when they took me down to take photos of it, they realized that if it wasn’t covered, it might be able to get out. Rocket science here folks. :D

They turned him loose after his photo session, since he needed to eat and no one really wants to trap bugs and try to get them to hold still so he can easily get them.

05.12.2010

Ruby, swinging on the pole in the *diamond* out in front of the church (the sign at the top says something to the effect of “keep right” since the “circle” is a one way loop).

05.13.2010

Evil people took unflattering photos of me, but I liked my hair in this one.

05.14.2010

BBQ. Halibut. Mahi Mahi. Sunshine. Rice. Fireplace not shown, but it’s quickly becoming a bbq habit/tradition to roast marshmallows over the fire!!

05.15.2010

Kurt fixing things. Specifically his truck. Timing belt needed changed, something was skipping teeth, something else had twisted itself all out of whack. He mostly fixed it all up, but really, he would rather just buy Ron’s old truck…

MAY 1!! Yes! I am IN THE CURRENT MONTH!!

2010-05-23T17:29:00.001-07:00

But I can’t find a photo for May 1. HAHAHAHAHA.

April 20 – 30, 2010

2010-05-23T17:26:00.001-07:00

4/20 missing. may well be on film. i don’t keep track of dates on my film photos…and if i thought it were terribly important i might buy a journal and jot all that info down in, but whatever. not that big of a deal 20 years from now – spring 2010 will due fine at that point lol.

4/21 Than answer was “no.” We did not adopt a pet, although Ruby was picking them out.

4/22 Cold. Windy. Still pretty to look at :D Abby, Ruby and Kayla running down the pier in Empire.

4/23 BEAUTIFUL DAY!! Warm. Not too windy. Absolutely beautiful!! Hit the beach – Sunset this time :D

4/24 This is not a sport I participate in. I have never fired a weapon. I don’t know how to load/unload a gun. I have NO DESIRE TO LEARN. Abby and Ruby on the other hand seem to enjoy shooting the .22 so I went along for the ride and humored myself by taking photos. We went from here to a bbq to see Casey and Shaye Shaye who’d just flown in from Anchorage.

4/24

4/25 Cousins. You don’t see any food on their faces, you are blinded by the over processing crazy edit. :D

4/26 Days and days of beautiful weather and Casey had waited until the day before they were leaving to go to the beach…and it started raining. Windy. Then rain. Then wind and blowing rain. We ended it by having lunch at the Grotto in Charleston and listening to Shaye tell us all how she was an Oregonian now, she wasn’t going back to Alaska, River was just a *baby* and she was going to stay down here…(turns out she really was glad to go home, she had a long week full of adventures).

4/27 We finally remembered to stop in and try Pad Thai at EZ Thai on their $5 Tuesday deal. Was pretty tasty. Had to do this trip while Camden was swimming, it has peanuts. Just wouldn’t be right to eat it in front of him.

4/28 Ruby made this masterpiece in Mr. Hinkel’s room and was very sad when I asked her to leave it there for a few days so other kids could see her awesome work. She was eventually convinced and was glad she had left it so others could see, because Becca and Kayla both commented on it and told her she did a nice job!

4/29 Painting.

4/30 Ruby’s first real field trip. First ride on a school bus. She sat in a big puddle. She got soaking wet. She got tired and cold. She tripped over a log and face planted. She tried to convince me that she’d had a miserable time, but the truth of the matter is that the photos from the trip show her SMILING and getting piggy backed around a bit :D (Thank You Kord for looking out for Ruby).

April 16, 2010 – April 19th :D

2010-05-23T17:01:00.001-07:00

4/16 We went to see the shipwreck at Horsefall –it’s an old one that was partially uncovered in the storms and we really should have paid attention to the tide table that day because we didn’t see much of the shell – and it’s already mostly covered back up again. I’m sure there are other shipwrecks we will see here and there – and quite frankly, we didn’t care a whole lot about this one, it was just a nice day and good time for sand play :D

4/17 taste the rainbow

4/18 *Grandma* Barb praying with one of her grandsons :D

4/19 Diva Zipporah – Daddy bought her a curling iron. I don’t endorse curling (nor straightening) irons. Abigail does.

April 5, 2010 – April 15, 2010

2010-05-23T16:54:00.001-07:00

Meet Chase. He’s a neat kid, comes to Gino’s frequently to grab a bag of ice for his mom :D 4/5

4/6 is missing or on film or something. hitch in the film though, walmart won’t process E6 (not even xpro, sigh, i will come up with a plan on that).

zipporah. self portraiting with my cell phone. she seriously looks freaky in this photo, almost enough distortion that i actually thought it could be ruby instead of abigail. 4/7

kayla’s birthday party at the pottery co. 4/8

has been on my mother’s frige for years. hallie rode the short bus because mom drove it… took the photo while up there visiting annie but i can’t remember why we were up there. 4/9

4/10 Yeah. Ava the Incredible. Seriously landed that flip. Amazing. Gotta’ love that little cruiser!

4/11 Kameron’s 10th birthday! AWESOME PARTY DUDE!

4/12 The girls dressed one of my worshippers as a bride.

4/13 Kayla in the wretched green wig from the March festivities.

4/14 Was a Wednesday…I could tell because Mr. Hinkel was in that day’s folder of photos. He works really hard…I know this because my kids are part of his students.

4/15 – aka TAX DAY – the kids made cupcakes. for breakfast. sweet!

OKAY – Today I will try to catch it all up – in several bite sized posts :) Really.

2010-05-23T16:29:00.001-07:00

I promise.

key word: try.

CATCH UP…March 17 – April 4th, 2010 (oops)

2010-04-11T12:45:00.001-07:00

Monika didn’t forget it was St. Patrick’s day – she even brought all of her stuff to paint up everyone else that closed :) March 17, 2010

Our bridge has AWESOME architectural features (North Bend, OR) – during a walk with Sandy –

March 18, 2010

I wasn’t feeling well, but being tired of sinus yuck and sneezing – we decided to go lie on the beach instead of in bed since the sun was out and we need to take advantage of these things – Ruby’s nose itched. They weren’t sick, they were playing in the sand. March 19, 2010

I decided today, March 20, 2010 – that I really need a new and dust free scanner…the kind that also does NEGATIVES :D The photo places scan them at an incredibly SMALL resolution – almost unbelievable. Wonder why they even bother.

March 21, 2010 – Kortni & Rob’s wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner – it RAINED most of the day…

BUT on Monday, March 22, 2010 – the sun came out for Kortni & Rob’s beautiful wedding at the beach!!

And the Gino’s reader board dedicated to Kortni & Rob :D – March 23, 2010

March 24, 2010 – Cute sisters. Sometimes Abby doesn’t look as thrilled as Abigail :D

Let’s skip the 25th and 26th until the film gets back…and go directly to Ron in his Vortex impression on the 27th.

Photo of Ruby’s awesome artwork for the 28th :D

March 29th either didn’t happen OR it’s on film. We’ll see how that turned out. March 30th is also missing. In fact I just discovered that I am nearly missing all of my photos from March 21 – no clue where I put those, hope I uploaded them to flickr…could have sworn I went through them all. The film will be done Monday, it’ll be just like Christmas seeing what we ended up with.

March 31, 2010

Now, April Fool’s Day – I always forget things like this – and for me, all day was BECKY’S 20th BIRTHDAY – but the girls all went trick-or-treating. They scored dark chocolate turtles and jelly belly jelly beans…it pays to go right before Easter :D

April 2nd didn’t happen…okay, so it did, but it’s on film. I’m going to have to start carrying a journal in the camera bag so I can mark down what I shot where and with which camera…I had 6 film cameras in the bag with film in them. Now I only have 3? loaded, but it’s still confusing – and would be nice to log what my settings were each time too, especially with the chajka II since it’s focus is based on distance (in meters) and that can be a little tricky for someone like me who’s terrible at judging distance in inches and feet, let alone doing the metric conversion :D April 3rd, Kurt got to use the 7D at the Sause egg hunt – he got me taking photos with the chajka :D

April 4th, 2010

Camden got totally stomped at Monopoly. I love my new brother Rob. :)

March 9 – 16, 2010

2010-03-16T14:16:00.001-07:00

I like this photo of nothingness. It’s pretty…and will make a good photo overlay for taking an ordinary photo and over processing it (which seems to be a current trend that I’m not exactly all that hip with…as in, I don’t really prefer the over processed look). Maybe it will come in handy on Kortni’s wedding photos.

March 10th.

Camden. At his very best. Groaning…Moooooom! Stop, don’t take my picture. Stop taking video…and since 1 minute 29 seconds of video is almost 500mb, sure. I’ll stop.

March 11th. Camden turned 14. We had a surprise party for him at Gino’s – he thought he was going to El Sombrero for shrimp soup with his grandpa…Awesome party, great turnout. We found a new fun party game for teen boys - “Tattoo the birthday guest of honor,” – not as bad as it sounds folks, we simply put a plain white t-shirt on him and gave the guests a pile of colored permanent markers – there were prizes for the best tattoo :) Abby and Ruby decked him out in Irish/Green garb since St. Patrick’s Day is approaching and the leprechaun beard was pretty funny!!

Friday, March 12th – I didn’t take this photo, I was driving. Camden took the photo while I was driving us all to Lincoln City where we were staying with the Wrights for the weekend so he could swim the Newport meet on Saturday & Sunday.

Saturday, after the really LOOOONNNNG day in Newport at the meet (Camden had to be there at 9 but didn’t swim until after 1 and they were WAY behind schedule and didn’t seem to care…) we went back to Lincoln City and hit the beach hoping a float fairy would leave us a beautiful glass ball on the beach…but no. We just froze. It was super cold! Pretty though, different waves on their beach than we get on ours, they get lots of big rolling waves, we have a lot of rocks just off shore that tame ours down a bit most of the time as they are coming in.

March 14th – waiting around for the next heat. Camden and Noah, everyone else is cropped out :D Cam was easy to spot, being the only bright yellow shirt hanging out – most of the collegiate fans at this meet were BEAVERS not Ducks.

Fashionista. AKA Abby. March 15th.

Scans of directions that came with plastic toy (real) camera we bought today – it’s pretty close to a *pinhole* camera in that it’s lens is plastic & super tiny. It claims to be f/11 with a shutter speed of 1/125. This should be interesting since I just loaded it with a roll of 100 ISO slide film to cross process. Enlarge those directions and read them for a good laugh. Today is March 16th. Camera was purchased inside of a $4.99 cheesy easter basket at Grocery Outlet…it also had stickers, a really lame dry erase board that is useless because the tape that holds it down in the basket removes the dry erase surface with it upon removal, a box of mini stickers, a little tied together photo album that’s really just a few sheets of white paper between to cardboard covers in an obscure size…but all we wanted was the *toy camera* so we didn’t have to buy one on ebay for $6 and then pay another $6 to have it shipped to us…make sense?

March 7 & 8, 2010

2010-03-08T17:40:00.001-08:00

You know, I know some people who have to even wait until APRIL 3RD for this…so they can have 3G coverage.
I will wait until 2012 and buy a used one lol :)
Photo taken of column in Register Guard paper.

And here it is folks, 03.08.2010 – my view from the waiting room at Bay Clinic. Since I have been coughing and hacking and coughing and wheezing since last Tuesday, I promised family members I would have it checked out…and the nice nurse decided not to look too much into why my lungs are burning, hurting, rattling and wheezy, BECAUSE, apparently I also have a sinus infection – and it is her belief that treating the sinusitis will take care of the lung issue. In 3 weeks if it hasn’t (or if I get worse in the next few days) then they’ll try a chest x-ray or something to take a closer look. That way, we can bill the insurance TWO office visits for the same sickness instead of just one, right? I believe the pharmaceutical companies are in league with wall street. Now, this could all be REALLY AWFUL – but it is absolutely beautiful to LOOK outside – pretty sun, pretty flowers – and I get to be inside where it’s warm to enjoy it. It’s not warm out there.
In other news, I accidentally shot what I thought was an entire roll of film, however, there wasn’t any film in the camera. Oops. So I loaded a roll and started over. :D Now I am sitting in a sea of 35mm SLR cameras from the 80s.

March 6th. For real…

2010-03-07T01:12:00.001-08:00

That’s it. The ONLY digital photo I took today. I have searched all over for those lollipops and finally found them in Charleston – and paid a ridiculous $4.29 or something like that for it…BUT picture it in photos (in Camden’s mental photo, he saw sticky colored faces and SAND all over the lollipop and the sticky face and wasn’t thinking this was such a good plan).
We shot 3 rolls of 35mm film today. Well, three rolls worth of shots across 4 cameras. We only got to change out one roll that was at the end and one is almost at the end. The changed out roll was 200 ISO recently purchased the almost done one happens to be 400 ISO that expired in 2003 – I am really excited about THAT film…but that story and sickness is for Drink More Tea :D

February 23 – March 5th…time flies when you’re having cough…

2010-03-06T00:29:00.001-08:00

I only took the photo of these cookies to tease Mr. Hinkel with. For real. I actually had intended to take one to our meeting, but you know me, a little blond, a little sketchy, and yeah…sorry. forgot. 02.23

Meeting day, February 24, Abby just made herself right at home on the sofa in the classroom. Isn’t it cute how she…slipped in some webkinz…or something.

02.25
This dude. He kills me. I have been searching for RAINBOW colored large swirl lollipops (at least 3” but I would prefer 5” or so). I didn’t find rainbow, but on the commercial easter aisle at Wal-Mart, I did find duo colored swirl lollipops in white, with blue, yellow, green or pink – and they were cute and came in two packs with other decorated lollies so I bought one set of each color and two sets of pink (because I have two girls and they will wear white flower girl dresses in a couple of weeks and white dresses with pink lollies is just too cute…) Anyhow, no, I didn’t make an error on the capitalization of easter – to me, that’s the holiday with the bunny and the froo froo and the candy and it’s more like a commercial party of mahem and madness (don’t get me wrong, I like candy) – we celebrate Resurrection Sunday and commercial easter the Saturday before (Sause puts on a whing ding egg hunt).

On the 26th, Friday to be precise, we went to the Sixteen Cities concert at The Green Spot. Entry fee was non perishable foods for local food banks. A local worship band opened for them and it was super cool to see an old co-worker’s son on the drums – he seems to be about 9 or 10 ish. Anyhow, I took lots of photos with grainy ISO and it’s OKAY, I’m down with that. I would rather have a little grain than use a flash and this was good practice and a good test to see what the 7D would do in the dark. Manual focus worked out better most of the time. Meet Joel, the bass player. He and the drummer in the back were difficult to get photos of – and Josiah did keep stepping in front of whomever else I was focusing on :D Awesome concert, super nice bunch of guys – and we had a pretty good youth group turn out from church as well.

Saturday was official DAY OFF day for me (right up until I got called in to work) so we were heading to the park…and while we were there we saw this guy who had total iPhone-itis. Now, we were waiting for the big tsunami from the Chilean earthquake to hit us, and hit the Hawaiian Islands – but we never did see it. All we saw were state troopers clearing the beaches, kids playing in the puddle under the swings (after promising not to get wet) and throngs of people who had gathered round to watch for the tsunami. To be honest, I didn’t even notice them until we headed back to the car to go home since we couldn’t play frisbee on the closed beach.

we won’t talk about work.

Sunday. I missed church do to poor communication with Kurt about timing and dough rolling, I needed to leave the house at 9:30 without kids to get the dough at Gino’s rolled so they could open and I could get to church. While this was a solid plan, it failed. He started to leave BEFORE me, WITHOUT children. SO I rolled dough through church, and hooked up with kids after church and we went to the park to play for a bit. Kayla made me sick on the merry-go-round. Folks, this is not a good spot to sit and try to take photos, even if it seems unused and lonely, the minute you sit…they spin you. Rotten little things…02.28
SIGH in relief. There is no photo from March 1st because it’s FILM and still in the camera. There is 200 ISO color film in my 35mm Canon t50 and in my Minolta MG-X. I am dead set on shooting 3 to 10 shots a day with film to increase my abilities – and I plan to shoot at least a couple of rolls of film at Kortni’s wedding (one of those will be black and white, and one will be going into a cheesy 3 lens *toy* camera – and it will be FUN).

Just a funny. I was shooting through a cut off play dough container. I think with my cell phone camera. Shhhh. Don’t tell Kurt. March 2, 2010 (almost his 44th birthday folks).

Happy Birthday to Dad – our Fix it up Chappy repaired the cabinet in the bathroom – he removed the plywood he’d screwed on to cover the hole where the entire front face had been destroyed when a supply line blew off and flooded the entire bathroom, built a new frame around it and put doors on. Awesome. His assistant had a few suggestions apparently and was freely giving her advice and opinions. She was very dramatic about the whole thing, including the part where she was shouting,

“MOM! He’s got Dad’s TOOOOOOOOLS!! WIthout PERMISSION!!”

Zipporah was just bent on getting as many workbook pages as she could do – without doing any math because borrowing makes her brain hurt and then she has to cry.
03.03.2010

March 4, 2010. A bed bug has been spotted. See her?
It’s the curly haired version. They take up the entire bed and prefer to sleep perpendicular to the other occupants of the bed.

Narcissism. That’s my boy. Took a series of portraits of himself today because the ones I took and sent him via email for his FB profile were not up to snuff. And this? Maybe he’s smelling…his pits and needs to shower? I dunno. March 5, 2010

19th – 22th of February 2010

2010-02-22T14:04:00.001-08:00

And here sleeps the hand that feeds us, exhausted, and still a little twitchy, but sleeping. Kurt actually hates it when I take his picture…while he’s sleeping, but to me, capturing his hand was significant. It’s a part of who he is and what he does. Calluses, carbon stains, burns, scabs & scars, strong hands made beautiful by the sacrifice of their own comfort so that others will not have to work so hard to eat, sleep, play and learn. This was actually late on the 18th.

It does count as brunch, even when served between 1 & 2 PM. Sunny Friday triggers allergy symptoms…countered by self pampering with sleeping in and having pancakes and coffee for a late lunch/brunch.

By computer screen light. Not exactly romantic, but it is cool :D

My Zipporah on the 21st at Sunset Beach! Isn’t she cool??

Camden. Whining at Mr. Hinkel’s today. February 22nd.

9th February – 18th - 2010

2010-02-18T23:52:00.001-08:00

Look, I don’t even feel all guilt ridden about being BEHIND (again, some more, as usual). I will do my best to try to remember what’s been going on :)
Cam got a little lecture from the pediatric nurse practitioner on how not taking his allergy medication could have an adverse effect on his behavior, it could cause him to lose sleep and be unable to pay attention…and he could even have trouble in school. Go figure. His ear infection is gone though…and he said he’d try to be more responsible about taking his allergy meds and staying away from things he shouldn’t be around (anything fragrant basically…and tons of foods he likes).

Wednesday we hit Mr. Hinkel’s room (again). We had stopped in Tuesday to check on Cam’s newly formatted old computer – and he was reading to celebrate…okay, so really he was reading because he figured out that if he DOES SOME WORK he gets to use the computer that now connects to the internet…which means he can watch Stargate…
I cannot for the life of me remember Thursday, February 11th. I wish I could…it’s that brain damage again.

12.Feb.2010
Now, I still haven’t figured out WHY they set Camden’s computer up UNDER the desk, but there you have it, it’s under the desk instead of on it, usually they also have a pile of pillows and a blanket there…more comfy to feed the Webkinz that way.

Very late when I finally got home from Gino’s, but I still wanted to frost our Valentine cake for tomorrow anyhow…but the kids had eaten the frosting AND the bag of butterscotch chips. REALLY?? SO…I dumped some brown sugar into a pan with a chunk of butter, added sweetened condensed milk and stirred for half and hour to make caramel sauce to dump on Devil’s Food Cake – and it was YUMMY.

Folks, this is my Valentine, brought him to church with me ;o) I kind of like that streak of light :)

Sushi. Now before you go all queasy like – hear me out. THERE’S NO FISH IN THERE (well, maybe in the seaweed, like essence of fish or something) – it’s just RICE, seasoned rice vinegar and green onion wrapped up in nori (seaweed). I was too lazy to even mix up some wasabi! AND IT IS YUMMY!! Now we’re out of rice vinegar and Abby is really irritated with me. 02.15.2010

I had to take the car to Ford and have my oil changed (okay, 2,500 miles ago, but today I finally made it – on Feb. 16th). I was looking through a WIRED magazine and decided I should subscribe – there were lots of cool ads in it. I think I need one of these flashlights. It comes in chartreuse.

FEBRUARY 17th, 2010… the day that changed history. Okay, not really, because it really got here on the 16th and I took the photo of it after midnight…but it is the night (early morning?)(cuz that’s when the battery was fully charged) my EOS 7D arrived…and UPS tried to deliver it to my NEIGHBOR’s house at 9AM and she wasn’t home so they didn’t leave it because it needed a signature and when I tried to track the truck down I discovered UPS customer center has an unlisted number so I had to drive there and get the number and was told my driver would be in around 6PM!! So, I wait. ALL DAY. And at 6:30, my truck still wasn’t in. I finally got my 7D at 8PM. That’s right, night time. Oh well, it’s a sweet new body :D Someday I will have a lens worthy of it, for now, it’s wearing my super beat up cheap 70-300mm telephoto – and I’m okay with that :D

Lobster Bisque. Since I had the evening off and this is what Sandy & I were going to do tomorrow…we did it tonight instead. Thursday night lobster bisque instead of Friday night and it was YUMMY!! (how could anything with a cup of melted butter, 6 cups of half and half and lobster be bad?) I only took about 10 photos of it – playing with the cool white balance adjustment on the 7D – you can set white balance using the color temp. adjustment!!! So much cooler than trying to choose between icons depicting lighting situations that usually aren’t all that accurate.
That soup might have been…unhealthy…just a teensy bit :) But it was after we went to the beach and the fog rolled in and we were freezing to death :D

February 7th & 8th, 2010

2010-02-08T15:16:00.001-08:00

Look at the sunshine through the curtains. Such a bummer this is the day we have to come home from Lincoln City – and the little sleepers are toooooo cute (and delightfully QUIET).
Now folks, I am usually a calm, safe, easy going driver…but I gotta’ tell you – THOSE FREAKS THAT DRIVE 30 MPH FROM LINCOLN CITY ALL THE WAY TO FLORENCE…need to take an alternate route. For crying out loud, 30 in the 45 and 40 in the 55 was making me INSANE! Frothing at the mouth insane, I am not kidding you. Pull outs all over and do you think grandma and grandpa BC would pull into one of them?? NO! I mean, goodness me, stopping would keep them from getting to the casino in Florence at least 10 minutes behind schedule!
Fortunately, at Florence, most of the freaks are out of the way (and there are occasional passing lanes) and I felt *home free.*

Then this morning, we’re getting dressed and ready to go and Ruby comes out in this – tiered flippy skirt, cute bucket hat, shoes with shiny sparkly straps and a flower with giant (hideous) gem on top – and I said, “How cute Ruby, you fell out of the 80s.”
This puzzled her. Some day we will explain :D

February 1st through 6th, 2010

2010-02-06T23:36:00.000-08:00

Alrighty folks, this weekly updating is MOSTLY awesome, except that I have been using Abigail’s camera and it resets the time/date that tags the image data…so keeping days straight is wretched :D I will do the best I can to keep it straight.
February 1st was my mother’s birthday, folks, she is officially 36 this year…(just kidding, it’s a joke, she skipped her 36th birthday and decided to be 37 twice).
OY! It is also maddening that due to operator error, my phone was saving my images to the phone and not the mini sd card, and those stinking images have to be moved one by one to the card! GRRRR!
So, February 1, I find myself at Wal Mart after work, in thick fog…because we were out of milk at home AGAIN. Camden always gets the blame for drinking the entire gallon in one day, but he was innocent this time, he wasn’t home :)

February 2, after picking Cam up from the pool, I made him show me all of his ribbons. He got three 1sts, three 2nds and two 3rd place ribbons! Amazing boy! His fly is AMAZING now and we were all very impressed with his 200 IM and hope to see him swim that again! No ‘A’ times, but we weren’t exactly prepared to go to state yet anyhow. He did an awesome job at this meet and we are proud of him!

Wednesday, this photo is basically how I felt. Fighting off some kind of icky tummy bug for a couple of days left me wiped out. We met with Mr. Hinkel, left Camden’s computer there in the process of being formatted to Linux and updating drivers so he could get himself *back online*, however it stays in Mr. Hinkel’s room until Camden begins to show some effort in producing some kind of work. Camden still claims he doesn’t remember that part of the deal. Remembered or not, that’s the deal (and all of the unreasonable, mean, brutal parents of teens say AMEN).

Alright folks, the dude in the sailboat is CRAZY! It’s cold, it’s raining…and that’s Kurt. We caught him taking half a day off on Wednesday (we were on our way home from Resource Link) to sail the boat to the California Street public boat ramp to pull the Zipporah out of the water for a while. Seriously, blowing rain, we had to run down to the casino parking lot so we could find a place to stop the car and take some photos – his location when we first spotted him was in the area where all of the commercial boats, barges and tugs were, and on the 101 side, there was no place to pull over and flag him down.
Thursday, that would have been the 4th, and I remember having gone in to Gino’s at 3:00AM to roll dough, suspecting that it wouldn’t be there, and guess what…it wasn’t. So instead of rolling dough, I made dough – scared the daylights out of one of the Register Guard newspaper guys on my way out – went home and went back to sleep. Dropped Cam at swimming around 3 PM and waited around for him at Gino’s until Dad called and said he’d pick him up and keep him for the weekend, he had some chores to do. SO, back home and back to bed (to the best of my knowledge).

Friday, PAYDAY. Okay, well, I nearly forgot to pick up my check. I rolled three tubs of dough and piled the car to leave for Lincoln City for the weekend. Hard to tell if we took photos on Friday because Abby’s camera time/date RESETS every time you shut the stupid thing off (yes, need to replace an internal battery because that totally BUGS me). This suspiciously looks like me, on a last minute check of the *do I have everything we need* visual scan, before we head off toward town/gino’s/grandpa’s and then LINCOLN CITY…3 hours later than I had wanted to be leaving. Whatever. We got out of there and Angie knows about me and my straggling.
AND, I read several chapters in a really cool book, Rowing to Latitude, by Jill Freston that Mr. Hinkel suggested (and loaned me). It’s awesome so far…resulting in my not going to sleep last night until early Saturday morning.
Then for Saturday, February 6th…we have this STELLAR photo of Angie’s arm/hand, some blurry rocks covered with mussels and a wave that you can’t see that caused the chaos. Okay, so I knew lying on rocks only exposed at low tide to get a photo of incoming waves was a little risky, but Angie was already soaked anyhow after trying out a teeter totter rock unknowingly, so what did we have to lose except for a handful and pocket full of electronic equipment. UM…wish I had a nice wide angle, that would have been MUCH more fun than cell phone camera. At any rate, nothing broken. Just a little spray on us. SO, we tried some more :D

(those are sandwiches they be eatin’)

January 26 - 31, 2010 - I think I like clumping my days together ;)

2010-01-31T18:17:00.000-08:00

So I played around a bit with some of the frames on my cell phone camera...it would be a lot more fun if it would let you use them at a printable resolution, but no, they are micro. like...176x144. not even postage stamp printable. Sigh. It still works great to send photos of silly things to Mindy for color inspiration :) And the Bossa Nova mangosteen blend was YUMMY!! That was Tuesday, January 26th of 2010.

Wednesday evening at church we had a mock Bible Quiz so the quizzers could show the rest of the church what they are doing in "Bible Quizzing." These kids are AMAZING!! Niki & Alaina both "quizzed out," during their teams' turns, quizzing out means they answered their limit of questions correctly and didn't get to answer anymore to make it fair so the other kids would get a chance to answer.

Thursday, I worked a little at Gino's & Sandy took the girls with her to the beach. They were taking Uncle Alan who came down from the big city to visit. It was COLD when I got there, and the girls were all soaked...and Kayla still didn't want to leave :( Abby and Ruby couldn't wait to leave and I had a laugh about how we always get tsunami warnings and when we get the *tsunami* it's like 1 to 3 feet high, however when we get a *high surf* advisory, we get giant (10, 20, even higher) foot waves - one right after another, not one big wave, hundreds of BIG waves - and they usually destroy parts of Sunset Beach as shown here. Apparently, some people chose not to heed the warning and went to beaches and lookouts anyhow, and some of those were actually knocked down by the giant waves, from the observatory at Shore Acres where you would normally think you were relatively safe from the high surf, and had injuries substantial enough to seek medical treatment. CRAZY!! Ten years ago, I might have ignored the warnings too, but one day, driving out to Shore Acres, I realized just how easily the entire road could be washed out in the low spots...leaving one who happened to be beyond that point STUCK until someone figured out how to get them back.

I finally got around to scanning all of my goodies from my trip to Oahu. This was one of my favorite postcards and I wanted to put it into my scrapbook...so it had to be scanned :D I like the old style and the soft colors and the rounded colors :)

Saturday, I saw this cool sign at Ross...not cool necessarily because it's a nice sign...but the idea is cool. Photo of something average like grass with a keyword. I like it :)

I also found this photo of our poor cat on Abby's memory card from Saturday. Poor Cat. I'm telling you, the faster she runs, the better off she ends up being. She really enjoys being outside most of the time...no one can get to her and mess with her program out there. She can run about, wander, hunt, come and go at will and not be bothered with constant mauling.

We had 2 baptisms this morning at church, Zion being one of them - new and exciting things are going to happen in Zion's life - and I am SOOOO happy and excited for him!! What an awesome family God has blessed him with :D What an awesome way to end January :)

January 17-25th - we are sick. AGAIN!!

2010-01-25T15:18:00.000-08:00

Woke up at Annie's all congested again. Getting cough. WHAT?? Didn't we just do this like the entire month of December? You have got to be kidding me. First stop on the way home was TARGET for dayquil. GRRR.

This was a sweet treat for the ride home folks...even snoring is quieter than his norm.

To my knowledge, there aren't any photos from the 18th. I was sick and tired, Abby can't find her camera at all and no one else really takes photos. I am pretty sure I closed Gino's with Katie :)

Ruby was starting to get sick again by the 19th, stuffy nose means sleeps with me and takes over my bed. Poor thing.

Mr. Hinkel meeting on the 20th (also known as PAYDAY). Abby still hasn't found her Reading Comprehension book - and Ruby has misplaced her phonics book. Other than that, not such a bad week for production :D

Thursday the 21st I had the day off. Literally. I only got up to drive Cam to swimming...which he didn't have Thursday. Had I known, I wouldn't have even gotten out of bed. Grrr.

Friday...Camden swam his first MILE. The 1650 yd freestyle. He finished in FIRST for his division, which is pretty awesome for a first time miler!!

Saturday Cam swam 4 events, and I have decided I think his FLY is now his best stroke - the kid was AMAZING at it. He did awesome in the 200IM (that's one lap of each stroke).

By Sunday, Cam was getting sick. He still had 4 races to swim - the 100 breast, 100 free, 500 free and his lame mother missed his first race, the 100 back. Somehow, he DQ'd in the 100 breast, but having improved enough to cut over 30 seconds off of his time, didn't really care about his DQ, he will just pay attention more closely next time. His last race was the 500yd free and he was WIPED OUT by then. Sore throat, aching joints, cough...and said, "nah, I'm good, it's my last race, I'll swim it." He took second in his heat, 1st place going to an amazing kid named Trevor who was 11 and very nervous about swimming the 500 free for the first time. I had to go to work and Cam tagged along, but ended up going to Grandpa's to rest until I was off work...and he's still in bed today. I seem to be getting OVER this new cold/cough garbage, Abby has weathered it fairly well. Ruby is grouchy and scratchy throated and Cam is now down for the count. :o( Kurt is sick too, but welders just weld whether they are coughing or not apparently, because Kurt doesn't call in sick. He may have ONCE in the last 5 years...

OH! And today, I tried to make coconut soup. It's more like...citrus/chicken soup with coconut. I couldn't find thai chili paste anywhere...didn't exactly look. I wanted tofu and forgot to buy it and ended up using lemon pepper chicken...yeah. So, it's not bad, but it's not what I was craving (EZ Thai...takeout).

So glad I am on my way to work, that pile of clean laundry is intimidating. Even blurry.

16JAN2010 - going home

2010-01-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

Sad but true, we had to fly back home. At least this trip we were on the same plane, and there were lots of empty seats, so I had 2 by myself and Kortni moved to the row behind her and got 3 to herself!

Just a little science here, if the cap is closed at take off, when you open the bottle during flight, it squirts you in the face because the pressure increased due to the atmospheric pressure change (the part that makes ears pop), likewise, when you are landing, if the bottle is capped and empty, the pressure change causes the bottle to collapse. YES, I saved the bottle for the children without messing with it so they could see. The only part they really cared about is that they still haven't gotten to fly anywhere. :D

We got to Portland around 9:00 PM, Rob picked us up around 10-10:30ish. We hooked up with kurt around...late at Denny's just off of I-5 in Albany and made it to Duke & Annie's to stay the night around 12:30 AM. Sigh.

Friday, January 15, 2010

2010-01-25T14:15:00.000-08:00

Alrighty folks, there is a COSCO on Oahu. We couldn't stop to eat at the many, many little authentic *mom & pop* type trailers of authentic, local food, it scared Kadi, they probably aren't safe...(right. like they could get much worse than my own kitchen at home). So we had lunch at COSCO folks. Same food they sell at every Cosco I have ever been to. Comforting...yet somehow just not...well...exotic enough for vacay lunch.

We bought some mini cheesecakes and other foods Phil liked to snack on once inside and we planned his "reenlistment party" for the evening, with Apples to Apples of course.

We SAW these mochi and sent the photo to Dad and did not buy any. Dad would have bought at least one box, probaby 2. He loves mochi.

Then Kadi dropped Kortni & I off at Hanauma Bay so we could snorkel. We bought new bathing suits at Cosco (they are under our clothes, you didn't want us to frighten children off of the beach did you?) Most of our photos here are with reusable, 35mm, underwater cameras and I haven't scanned any of my prints yet. We'll get around to that eventually. We saw mahi mahi, and schools of convict something fish (black and white striped) and urchins and coral and we had a FANTASTIC time - got back to the beach to find that Kadi had been calling and texting repeatedly...as if we were going to hang out on the beach next to our phones at Hanauma? ARE YOU CRAZY?? Phil was scheduled to pick us up at 4:30ish... We didn't have time to go back in, but we had been in the water over 2 hours :D This is a MUST DO event if you are on Oahu, even if you have to rent gear. It's SO worth it (even if the locals think it's cold this time of year).

Then we have Mike. Apparently the ONLY photo I took at the *party,* during the evening time. We had yummy mini cheesecakes and eventually got around to the Apples to Apples. Phil won...I think. I know I didn't win :( Eh, whatever :D

January 14, 2010 - Phil's Reenlistment, Bowling...stuff

2010-01-25T14:00:00.000-08:00

Sgt. Spatz reenlisted in the Marines. Beautiful day, rather short ceremony. Kadi got a certificate for being a wonderful and supportive wife.

After Phil's reenlistment ceremony, we went to lunch at Pinky's because he got the rest of the day off. Then some shopping on base, grocery type shopping. Then a quick stop at a beach I remember from my last trip, because of the "Chinaman's hat" sticking up from the water (even found a book about this beach, which is why I know they call it Chinaman's Hat). There happened to be para-sailors there too. Two that were having trouble lifting off and one flying around. AND I found a coconut...that someone's dog apparently tried to cart off while I was down at the rest area, Kadi & Kortni didn't let the dog have it lol.

We went bowling on base Thursday night, and finished the evening at home playing Apples to Apples (oh wait, there was a brief stop at Kailua Palace to karaoke).

Lookie What I can do...January 12 & 13 in ONE post

2010-01-14T13:12:00.000-08:00

We hit Windward Mall. I found a junk store...aka, the kind with inexpensive Asian foods that I love, and I found Korean Style Nori on sale for $0.95/3pk - tasty. YES, I bought one that I am not opening for RUBY! I also found gen mai cha for $8/lb, but didn't buy any because I just bought 2# back home. We did the crazy photo booth thing, and it's REALLY small in there. Then it was off to Spencer's to buy stuff for Kortni's bachelorette party. The front of Spencer's is full of cool socks, tights, hats, bags...the back of Spencer's was moderatlely frightening.
Bad photo, but it's a Kermit stocking cap folks, yes, they sell stocking caps on island. Crazy isn't it? I am not sure why they do this, but I saw them all over.

I found a photo of myself marking the ladies room at Windward, and a Hello Kitty store (yes, I thought of Patricia, NO, I did not buy the very expensive, I LOVE NERDS bag, even though it was so totally cute!! The party store had the most disturbing poster I have seen in quite a while hanging in the window. Yes, they put purplish hair on that child and made her look...like a freakish leprechaun - eerie. Sorry folks, that's just a bit too much, she looks FIVE...just not cool.

After the mall, off to Chinatown. I like Chinatown, it doesn't scare me. Marines are not supposed to visit Chinatown because of the crime related to it, but we were on a mission. We needed mangosteen and to eat something at Pho 97 where Randy & Loan said we should have noodles. We didn't have time for noodles as we were on a schedule, but we did grab some spring roll type things that I like, one veggie, one pork, and they were YUMMY!!!

After that, it was off to Duke's Waikiki, then to the open air market and Kortni and I didn't just find this cool waterfall with Koi pond, we also found 7 for $20 t-shirts!!

I will finish later :D OKAY - the 25th is officially LATER!!
Kadi kept us busy...very busy. Pics from the 13th...

We went to North Shore...we did not buy any overpriced drinks in frighteningly carved monkey coconuts. I think it was supposed to be a monkey.

There were tomatoes in my coconut milk based clam chowder - folks, I'm all for exotic foods, but this chowder was just flat WEIRD!! and gave me stomach cramps.

Then walking through shops (apparently we didn't come to go to any beach or see the water, surfers, etc...we came to North Shore to eat at that surfer tourist restaurant and walk through shops). I liked this piece of artwork...cuz it's 3D - it has cool stuff on it, and fish and it's my favorite colors :D

You weren't supposed to take photos at this crazy...art gallery? I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it looked like an art club/gallery/hippie fest. After several photos I came across a sign in the ground that requested "NO PHOTOS." Yeah. whatever.

We went to beaches with high surf, strong current warnings. Didn't make them any less beautiful :D it did make us less beautiful as high winds blew our hair all about :D

FISHING!! Oh yeah, It's Monday, January 11, 2010

2010-01-11T21:23:00.000-08:00

So our day begins. We got up at - 3:30/4 AM? I dunno, I straggled. Doesn't take me long to dress like a fisherwoman. It was still dark, and me in my long sleeves and leggings under my skirt...I was roasting before we even got out of the house. Our charter boat left from the Hickman Air Force Base. Civilians can also take this charter, as Sonny, the Captain, can sponsor them onto the base, but we had Phil. Kadi, Kortni and Phil NAPPED on our way out. Can you believe that - the most exciting fishing adventure ever, and they were napping. I can't nap. I am too full of curiousity, wonder, questions, and awe. The sky was beautiful, the sliver of the moon was beautiful, the water was beautiful. It was all amazing and wonderful. I have selected a handful of photos from today, because we took lots, and we don't need them all to tell you about the events :) Phil caught the first fish, an *ono,* and apparently mainlanders call them "wahoo." My turn was next and I caught a mahi mahi (I like mahi mahi, and they're pretty). The long skinny fish is Phil's ono. My mahi mahi was big...until Kortni got hers on board...and hers was bigger than mine. Then, Kadi put us all to shame, on her turn at the real, her mahi mahi was like 20 pounds and close to 3 feet long. Then we kind of just cruised around for a while, trolling, but catching nothing.

We saw TONS of whales (yeah, no clue about what kind). Jumping whales, diving whales, whale spouts, awesome whales. We also saw beautiful water, birds diving for fish, sailboats and shoreline. I love it, I really think I could live aboard (especially since sailboats are quieter and that's what we'd live on).

Kyle & Neil were our deckhands, and today was Neil's first day. Kyle has been on the boat for almost 4 years, and Sonny helped him to earn his Captain's License! Next month, Kyle will be leaving for Astoria, Oregon, where he's been sponsored to attend the Maritime Academy for their 2 year program to learn more about the sea and piloting larger craft! He is a very nice young man, and it's really exciting for me to have met him and hear him share his love of the ocean - and know that someone has invested in his education so that he will have a rock solid career doing something he loves, with enough education to make a decent living at it.
The flags on the rigging were put up as we were running in, they are to indicate what sort of fish we caught, the larger or more numerous fish being the highest flag. Kyle added that those flags were going to be flown at half mast because they were also coming back dead...

At the end of it all, we came home to package fish and cook up some dinner (which, by the way , was AMAZING and DELICIOUS). Kadi and Phil cleaned up and packaged all of the fish that we weren't going to eat today so it could be frozen...and packed into the freezer so we can take it home to Dad.

While Phil was packaging the fish, I noticed that a perfectly upside down version of him was reflecting in the ball/knob handle of the cake platter display, so I took a photo of that too :D

My Dad only called...I dunno, about 20 times probably, altogether...during this fishing trip, to see how we were doing - He was probably the MOST excited person involved in the trip, and he didn't even get to be on the boat :( THANK YOU DAD for an awesome day of fishing, the opportunity to meet Sonny, Neil and Kyle - that last one, btw, we're bringing to Kortni's wedding :D

August 10, 2010 - A pretty chill day...except for my chonies in the driveway

2010-01-10T22:18:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, for starters, we slept in after Kadi's birthday celebrating last night that got us home SUPER late. We hit Senor Frogs, then a couple other places in Waikiki - and I'm not too old, but it was WAY TOO NOISY!! Crazy. We slept until...well, I slept until 8 here, but didn't get up until 9. Then we just lounged most of the day, made Ginger wear Kadi's balloon hat, and got ready to go to to David's Bridal shop so Kadi could try on her maid of honor dress so they could order the correct color and size and make sure there would be time for alterations if necessary.

On the way to the car to go to David's...I found my chonies lying in the parking lot - apparently my rolled up bundle of wet clothing lost something on the way from the car to the house and there they were, scandalous as ever, my unders right there in the parking lot behind the car. How utterly embarrassing. They had been in the rain all night and were even wetter than they had started out. Tossed into back of SUV and moved on to David's Bridal shop and I promised to not lose any more of my delicates in public.

Right in the door, I saw this dress - and thought it was the most adorable thing I had ever seen. No, it's not modest, but it is darling and we made Kadi try it on and thought it looked darling on her.

Then THEY made me try on dresses...and dear me...the only modest apparel that shop sells is for OLD PEOPLE - so we won't post most of the photos of me because they are scandalously immodest but were good for a laugh with the girls :D Here is the skirt of the dress that was most scandalous (imho) that my sisters loved :)

Then off to the Marine base, where we barely made it to the commissary to shop before they closed, so we could get snacks for out boating trip tomorrow...and tomorrow, we fish. Early too. Hope I sleep well :o)

09 January 2010 - we took a little dip

2010-01-09T19:56:00.000-08:00

TODAY was official CATCH UP ON SLEEP day. We slept until almost 10 Hawaiian time (that's noon back home). It was delightful. Then we milled around, discussed going to the market to get some plain black tea and some milk for Korts, but we never left until we piled into the car to head for a beach in Kailua. We had these cute snacks of cheese, dill pickle and summer sausage before we left. Kadi made them :D

So we headed out to the beach, where we sat in the sand...for a couple of hours, then Korts and I went wading...and I couldn't resist the urge to just go for a swim, even though I wasn't exactly dressed for swimming. Skirt and t-shirt works, right? Sure, we're in Hawaii. The pics of ME and Korts swimming are still on Kort's camera because Kadi took them from shore.Sorry, post is all jumbled. I don't like the auto editor in blogger and I am too lazy to sort it all out and fix the html to what I want.

it's me, napping. and my feet reaching toward the sea. And me smiling because I am in trouble for not smiling in enough pics according to Kadi. Then it's all 3 of us (okay, 2.5 of us).

Alrighty folks, that's the ocean my feet are in, and the last photo is my wet clothing pile since I couldn't get back into the car like that. I did bring spare clothes *just in case* so they were available for me to use :D

8Jan10 - Alooooohaaaaaa

2010-01-08T22:55:00.000-08:00

Lots of pics today, because I promised my kids I would send them lots of pics. Rain in Portland. What's new, it rains all the time in Coos County too...stayed up WAY TO LATE last night and had to be up and out the door by 5:30 because my flight started boarding at 8 and you're supposed to get there early to check bags and go through security and all that stuff. So we got there about 7:40 because Rob is a good, safe, law abiding driver. That means we also got there SAFELY (which is important if you have tickets to Hawaii).

Kortni tried to switch flights, and even though her flight was FULL and mine had empty seats (mine was leaving an hour and 30 minutes earlier), they still wanted to charge her an additional giant fee to make the change (and she'd already paid more than I did anyhow), so she kept her flight and hung out and read while she waited to board.

I always pick a window seat - usually over the wing, it's just where I like to sit, the engines AMAZE ME. I mean, look at that thing...if you cut it off and capped the ends, you could remodel and repurpose it into a livable house. HUGE.

I had a nice kid from Virginia (I think) sitting next to me, he's a freshman at University of Hawaii at Honolulu, this is his second term and last term he pulled over a 3.5 gpa - he hasn't been sucked out into the party vortex - HOORAY. I ended up swapping seats with him so he could sleep and not keep waking himself when he tipped over, if he had his head up against the window with the pillows...his head would no longer tip, right?

A first class passenger had a medical emergency before take off, so we were a bit delayed while paramedics removed the patient from the plane. Better to wait to take off than to have to land and take off again, eh? Mostly uneventful flight, although I must mention that HAWAIIAN AIR has a complimentary meal, and last year our Northwest flight DID NOT - and the meal today was better than that nastiness Alaska Air served on our flight from Anchorage to Portland...although not gourmet it wasn't bad. Cloud cover most of the way. Started breaking up as we approached the islands actually...

Land Ho! The giant engine and giant wing made me think we were closer to landing than we actually were. It's neat to see the fishing boats and little towns, and military bases from the air (I think).
Remind me, cell phone camera not good at making the battleship out there in the water easily visible.

Airport authorities make it a pain to pick up people at the airport, if your ride happens to pull up and park 100 feet away from you, they get yelled at by the parking nazis in the short time it takes for you to run up to their car and get into it - for real, they threaten to ticket the drivers for parking in a no parking/pick up zone, and not picking anyone up!! Silly isn't it? It's sort of a mess in this area - okay, I will be honest, the Honolulu Airport SUCKS!! PDX is AWESOME and HNL is wretched, horrid. Rude attendants everywhere, tons of out of order tape all over (like 2 of ever 3 escalators at the inter island terminal), it's a nightmare. I mean, really...they could at least TRY to be kind, friendly, etc...it's a tropical paradise...and they are ACCLIMATED TO THE HUMIDITY and 82 degrees F - the rest of us are stepping off the plane and breaking into instasweats. It's okay, the beauty of it all keeps me calm and kind, even on no sleep :)

We killed some time at Pearl Ridge (or is it Pearlridge) or whatever it is, shopping mall. Kadi was looking for outfits, I was just looking. Grabbed some miso and a can of green tea (I love the fact that over here, you can get REAL tea just about anywhere you go, Ito-en is a Japanese product - bottled and canned - that STILL TASTES LIKE TEA, and happens to be my favorite). During this snack, Korts texted and said her flight was in, Kadi's phone was dead, and off we went back to HNL. We called Korts on the approach because I wasn't driving and could use my phone so her pick up was much smoother than mine.

After we grabbed Korts, we headed HOME to Kadi's - with a stop at Ninja Sushi. I got the Lion Roll - super yum. And another Ito-en green tea. Almost went for the creamy melon soda though. Kadi grabbed some group shots of the three of us, and I look like...well...yuck in most of them :D Mug shots. She scolded me for not smiling. I will try harder in the future.
And THEN...we came home. I am ready for bed. Oh, wait, I am sitting on the bed :D It's definitely naptime :D

7JAN10 - another longish day

2010-01-08T00:54:00.000-08:00

Today...I was totally NOT ORGANIZED! I mean, I had my list of things to do, starting with going to the clinic to get Camden and Ruby caught up on their necessary shots. Oy.

Then we went to...US Cellular to pick up Kurt's repaired phone, swap the phone he was using to Camden's line and I bought a used phone because mine was limping and I didn't want to limp through Hawaii and have a dead and broken phone where I couldn't get a loaner or repair...so I bought a used phone for $49 - a Samsung and it's cool enough, plays mp3 files, has a slot for a micro sd card...and apparently has a software glitch that causes it to crash and reboot if you get a call waiting interruption while you are on the phone...so if I am ever on the phone with you and suddenly you find t line is dead/call dropped - yeah, I didn't hang up on you, someone else called and the phone rebooted itself. I will be searching Samsung's site on this topic - it has to be a glitch in the phone software...nevermind that this particular model was the add a line now and get this phone free, as well as the buy one get one free model (why do they always assume you need another line, or two phones? yes, my 9-year-old wants one, NO she's not getting one, she's not old enough to be left alone - and she's always with someone who has a phone either on them or in their home).

USCC shop to Dollar Tree to buy promised ice creams for the shot victims. And prizes. And toys. and several other dollar's worth of things we didn't exactly need. I did need a few toiletries for the trip.

From there to Gino's where I fixed starving children lunch and they looked at it and said, "um, we're not eating pizza."

From there to Coos Bay to Oregon Inspiration - I used the rest of my Christmas gift certificate and bought a Coos Bay t-shirt (red) and some snacks for the trip.

From there to Wells Fargo to make the car payment.

From there to Wal-Mart to use my gift card to buy a micro sd card for the new phone and a prepaid Visa card for my trip.

War Mart (that's what Ruby called it until she could say it right) back to the pool to drop Cam off, then back HOME because I STILL HADN'T PACKED...and Kortni was already in town looking around for wedding location and reception hall stuff...so when she called, I was sitting in the middle of my bed, showered and half dressed, sorting through piles of clothes and junk, trying to pack my suitcase. I said Kurt would run me over when he got home.

FINALLY, Kurt got home, I got packed, and I made it to Dad & Kelli's by about 6, thinking I'd held up our departure, only to find Kortni still going over wedding details with Kelli, looking at invites, and not yet printing her boarding pass for our flights in the morning.

Fast forward (that's how she drives) to Philomath, where I am now, packed, tired, thirsty (I should get up and get some water) and having to be up by 5 so we can pull out by 5:30, because I am supposed to start boarding at 8AM - and I realize that you are supposed to be at the airport like an hour or 2 early, but golly, the fast food joints aren't even open at 6 - and I don't want to mill around the airport for 2 hours...and Rob really doesn't want to get up 2 hours earlier than he already has to because Kortni doesn't have to board until 9:45 - so I'm already throwing a hitch in this kind man's giddy-up :o)

Wonder if you can take sliced carrots on the plane in your backpack...dried, salty foods make me feel YUCK after 5 hours of SITTING :D

OH YES, and the photo - the new phone does this multi shot thing, in especially low resolution of course, and that's the auto mode, while at Gino's this afternoon. I do like that it names the image files by date and TIME. cool.

06.January.2010 - Wednesdays sure are busy

2010-01-07T00:55:00.000-08:00

Wow. Wednesdays, we leave in the morning and get back around 10PM - always a long day full of...events. Today we got up, straggled out the door, ran to Gino's to check in, grab pizza and head off to our meeting with Mr. Hinkel.

Gino's could have been a 15 minute stop, but I seem to have brain damage and kept forgetting what I was doing, set keys in one place, phone in another, forgot pizzas in the oven, got to car without keys, had to go back in...add to this the Cash & Carry shopping list for Kelli (specifically, bucket of cookie dough, white chocolate chip macadamia nut, to be exact), direction to Krystal on how to make the perfect cookie (and flakey me left out at least half of my secret instruction), key misplacing 3 times, and missing phone...oh and kids in the car tormenting each other. On a side note, the pizzas were delish...a large 1/2 olive and 1/2 pineapple - with some pepperoncini on part of the olive side, and a small cheese with a side of pepperoncini and sliced tomatoes.

Nearly late to our meeting at noon with Mr. Hinkel, children didn't TOUCH their assigned work over the Christmas break, however, we did several educational activities...book reading, puzzle solving, finance managing (aka, Christmas shopping with the money you have earned and been allotted). We might have observed some high waves, sea lions, gingerbread house building...I don't remember. Oh, and they did tell a bit about Phineas and Ferb, blogging and Stargate. Camden had many excuses for not doing anything he was assigned and then this light bulb goes on in his head and he turns to me and says, "Mom, my swim bag is at home under the table..."

Yes, he had to pay taxi fare to return for it, but not until AFTER the Cash & Carry stop, and Wendy's drive through for Frosty's (chocolate ones, the vanilla tastes sort of like...chalk). So all the way home, grab the bag, check the mail, back to town, drop Cam at the pool...sigh in relief and back to Gino's with the cookie dough.

My Fukubukuro from Lupicia Tea came. Fukubukuro = Happy Bag. Traditionally sold on the first day of the new year at Japanese shops, and Lupicia Tea is a Japanese company - and frankly - ANY GRAB BAG OF TEA would make *me* happy :D AND IT REALLY CAME WITH A LITTLE BAG!! I was so excited!! Abby has decided the Pumpkin Pie black tea tastes like a vanilla chai she likes :D So we had a tea party at Gino's, I got to relax a bit and catch up with Boss Krystal which was delightful!

From Gino's we headed to Dad & Kelli's house, did some modem trouble shooting and swapping out, had some tasty tacos Dad made, picked up a few things I need to take to Hawaii with me for Kadi...and then headed to church.

Pastor taught about not letting the buzzards take from you your convictions/promises/sacrifices to God - citing Rizpah & Abram as examples. Abram didn't let the fowls of the air take from him his sacrifice to God, and Rizpah's sons.

After church, a few of us went to Kozy Kitchen for some snacking...eggs and lovebrowns for me :D My fave. Andrew, the Alsworths minus Jay and we Smiths minus Kurt seemed to have a nice outing. Kurt will have leftovers.

Now, I only have a million things to sort out, get taken care of, put together, tie up, etc...before I leave tomorrow afternoon with Kortni and Rob to head to Corvallis so Rob can take Korts & I to the airport Friday morning and we can fly to Hawaii!!! I'm sure we'll have an awesome time...even when it rains (I can't say if, because last time it rained on Kadi's side of the island every day, at least once a day).

I'll add the pics from today...later. The camera's too far away from me to bother with it right now.

05.January.2010 - Yep, I work today!!

2010-01-05T14:17:00.000-08:00

So, all in all I have been VERY PRODUCTIVE even whilst being under the weather! I got Monika's wedding pics ALL cleaned up (post processed, whatever you want to call it). That's exciting. I got blog pics posted (the hitch on this one now is that the memory card slot in my Rebel is apparently worn out, so if I remove the card from the camera...well, last time it nearly didn't go back in...so now I have to offload from the camera which takes 4 times longer and runs off of the camera battery). I get to go to work today and tomorrow, although tomorrow appears to just be a roll the dough shift. I even have scrapped another couple months of the photos from last year's 365 project (I fell off the scrapping end of the wagon about May, but now I'm scrapped through the end of July). I have decided to scrap the stuff differently this year - hopefully to make it easier, quicker and more - well magazine plain like.

Here's a free little funny for you, Sunday when I stopped to check my schedule, I saw that all next week I was a ROW OF Xes. And I thought to myself, oh no, what did I do wrong? How come Krystal gave me the WHOLE WEEK OFF?? Am I in trouble? Did I upset someone? AND THEN, it occurred to me...Amy, you retard, you're in HAWAII THAT WEEK. Duh. Sometimes I really have...well, for lack of better word, DUH moments :D

I really should figure out how I am getting to the airport on Friday.

4.Jan.2010 - Malfunction Results in Special Effects

2010-01-05T13:46:00.000-08:00

So, my phone is basically TOAST. I sent it in for *repairs* once and they said it was a factory defect, sent it off to the manufacturer (which I could have done without having to use my paid warranty service) and returned it...UNCHANGED!! That's right, it still malfunctioned, still crashed. And I say, whatever, I will get a new one when I get back from Hawaii, for now, we will have ALIEN PHOTOS...and when it crashes, I will simply reboot. It's just a phone, you CALL people with it. It doesn't have to be all smart and fancy - and Ruby does look rather lovely in grainy green...okay, fine. She looks dazed and confused :D But it's still funny that it does this all by itself, only when it feels like it :D

03.Jan.2010

2010-01-05T13:37:00.000-08:00

This is my view from...my BED!! I am so disgusted with still being SICK I tell you. I claim VICTORY over this dread cough in Jesus Name!!

We did all make it to church even though no one was feeling really up to par, I figured we weren't dead and we were able to get up and wander the house, so we went...then got home and I crashed and burned. Slept all afternoon, occasionally waking to take a peek out my door and make sure Ruby wasn't on the counter concocting anything crazy in *her restaurant* fondly called from now on, "Oscar Chef." Yes folks, that's really the name of her restaurant. It's not Chef Oscar's, not Chez Oscar, it's OSCAR CHEF - if you have any questions, she will set you straight. And no, she doesn't let Oscar cook.

02.January.2010 - Do I really go to Hawaii in 6 days??

2010-01-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

Still not feeling well, I don't remember ever being sick so long - but I do like the colored lights that have been hanging from our mirror, sort of as a night light, ever since the kids dumped out all the boxes of...well basically EVERYTHING that was stored in the back bedroom, and discovered them.

Friend, strings of colored lights ARE NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS!! There is no logical reason not to brighten up any day of the year with them, really, I can't come up with one. Strings of colored lights are FUN :o)

Yeah. Hawaii on Friday the 8th. Just heard we will also be celebrating Kortni's bachelorette festivities as well - I had no idea my sister had picked at date...and that March 23 was it! We have to celebrate while in Hawaii with Kadi because Kadi won't be able to make it home in time to goof off AND be in the wedding :o)

Should be a fun sisters trip - even though I don't let them get me into trouble ;o)

01.JANUARY.2010

2010-01-02T04:06:00.000-08:00

For starters this year...I am going to write the date how I like to instead of how I forced myself to do it all last year...

Secondly, I decided NOT to create a whole new blog for 2010, it took me all year to get the followers I have, why would I want to move it and come up with another blog address name, it was enough for my brain to change the title...

And finally there may not be a post for every day...won't that be delightful? Let's hope I don't get 2 and 3 weeks behind this year :D

I may even do crazy stuff and put the photos wherever I want them instead of always on the left...

Today. I got to work and the tide was in and it always makes it look like it's going to flood our back parking lot when it's stormy and high tide in the winter. It hasn't flooded since I have worked at Gino's, but it still dramatic, don't you think?

That big thing that looks like a trash bin isn't - it's a grease container...fryer grease is dumped in there and then recycled into something else. I'm not sure what they make it into though - but we do get a letter occasionally warning us about grease theft - people really do steal fryer grease apparently. Now, I know of a few locals that USE fryer grease as a bio fuel - but they don't STEAL it, they have permission to gather it (or they own it) and run it in their cars...crazy.

Cell phone photo is the only one I took today, I really should find the smaller lens for my Rebel - the telephoto one I have on it is a bit too much for lugging around and whipping out to shoot stuff lately.

Now that I am finally almost well - I will want to take more photos :D

December 31, 2009 - Living For Jesus is FUN

2010-01-02T03:42:00.000-08:00

Sick. Coughing. Sneezing. Snot. Feel rotten but NOT DEAD YET (just mostly dead, like Wesley).

The Whitley's brought soup over for us, bless their hearts!

Abby is NOT sick and gets to go to the New Year's Party at the Bigelows, Camden is super chapped that he doesn't get to go - but his cough is worse than mine.

Happy New Year! We didn't even light the fireworks we saved for the occasion...perhaps for Lunar New Year!

December 30, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T03:38:00.000-08:00

Kurt brought yummy frozen chicken soup concentrate from Cash & Carry home with him - YAY! Because I didn't get out of bed all day except to shower and do the dishes. For real people. We are all sick and we all lounged all day except Kurt who had to work anyway.

The only pics again today are screen shots from *windows* shopping...

I almost bought these, then remembered, I have Mindy kits almost these colors and the colors are what I liked...so I didn't - I bought some things at digitalscrapcafe.com though...just not these lol - I had never heard of that particular shop until sometime last month I stumbled across it and found some neat things :D

December 29, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T03:30:00.000-08:00

I was sick. SICK SICK and didn't really want to work but had no choice...made it through that...

I got tired of trying to sleep while coughing and did some *windows* shopping...and resisted the urge to buy this Glam New Year kit by Leora of Little Dreamer Designs - because I know I wouldn't use them even if I am in love with the bokeh texture on the big paper and the colors make me think fondly of Burns High while victory chants from football season go through my head...silly. I know.

December 28, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T03:24:00.000-08:00

Photo of lens cap...new white balance lens cap from Ebay for like $6 including shipping - to help set a custom white balance for any situation...I may even learn how to use it effectively :D

December 27, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T03:21:00.000-08:00

Everyone, please take note... Ruby's teeth are coming in, She really IS going to get those front teeth she wanted for Christmas after all...and she thought it was just a song....

December 26, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T03:07:00.000-08:00

Abby replaced her gizmo that played music and was supposed to take pictures with something wonderful that she's in love with even though it's red, not pink. She got a Canon Powershot A480. And the first thing she did was take my picture.

She can do video with sound. She can take pictures. She has a real Canon. She's one happy chiquita!

December 25, 2009 - MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

2010-01-02T03:03:00.000-08:00

Oh dear...is that a pizza box in the gift pile? Folks, it's true...Kurt got tired of wrapping and decided the pizza box was WHITE and looked LOVELY with nothing but a label on it...

I made him wrap the other 4 or 5 chicken and pizza boxes...

Now - even though this day did not go perfectly - Kurt was so sick he was out of bed long enough for the kids to unwrap gifts; Abby's gift didn't work right and when we emailed the customer service for the product their AUTO RESPONDER instantly sent us an email stating everything that could/would go wrong with their product and what we could do to temporarily reboot the thing...and ultimately, at the end, the suggestion to return the product to place of purchase within 2 weeks of purchase. NICE. that was a bummer lol - in the end we were all VERY blessed. We (well, the kids and I, minus sleeping Kurt) had a lovely dinner at Dad & Kelli's house with Kortni & Rob, Kent, Becky and their children and I don't think we even had to take a photo of Dad with his Lutefisk this time...

Abby and her gizmo that took 6 photos then crashed (like software, internal malfunction crash...cute but useless device)

Ruby and her new pajamas and bag of PAINTS to go with her easel and brushes.

Kurt and his special new mugger mask for work.

Camden being nice to his sister and wearing his new soft (and manly) pajama bottoms (he begged for pink happy bunny pajama bottoms once because they were soft fleece and the men's section usually only has flannel that isn't soft...)

I assume my Dad will have a photo of ME from Christmas to prove I was there :D

December 24, 2009 - Living For Jesus is...what it's all about!

2010-01-02T02:45:00.000-08:00

Monika's sister and Dad - Chrsitmas Eve. We all had to work (not her sister, but all of the Gino's supervisers and most of the crew). Becky, Katie and I closed, we had several really sweet customers! Kurt showed up around 7 pm to start wrapping our Christmas gifts for home (we figured large tables, no kids, sort of like a date out of the house - good plan).

Monika's Dad, Jaun, also promised to bring me shrimp salad - he makes this KILLER shrimp salad, it's more like shrimp with salsa but it wasn't spicy hot...killer. Amazing. WONDERFUL STUFF :o)

December 23, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T02:40:00.000-08:00

I BOUGHT THESE. Funkyplayground Designs is having a best of 2009 sale and things were $1.35 which is in my budget - so I think I actually bought these in the pack that had 60 different paper pattern templates in it, I even unzipped it. Sometime in 2010 I will even open the folder and at least look at them ;o)

December 22, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T02:36:00.000-08:00

Anyone seeing a trend here? I think the past few weeks I have been drawn to these storyboard type templates for a reason...maybe I need to SIMPLIFY things in my life...

Too much crazy scatterbrain stuff might not be good for me...perhaps I need to fly to Hawaii...

These templates are from Scrapartist.com by...biograffiti I believe, 89 is Fine (there's spots for 89 photos I believe, so you can make a 5x7 book) I actually might buy these just to give my brain a rest and put something together for Papa and Didi from Kadi's wedding :D

December 21, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T02:29:00.000-08:00

Soooo...just after midnight, technically making this photo the 22nd, I say since I was still up and just winding down it counts for the 21st :)

Blooming hand tied jasmine tea :o) They have tied silver tea leaves (that would be new, young, still having the little fuzz on them leaves), clover and jasmine blossoms together - it starts out as a little ball and blooms in your pot of hot water.

I love them :)

December 20, 2009 - Living For Jesus is FUN

2010-01-02T02:24:00.000-08:00

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Christopher England!

December 19, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T02:22:00.000-08:00

Tattling...with proof. Shhhh. Don't tell the little people that I log into their webkinz when they aren't around...I like Zingoz Pop! :)

December 18, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T02:19:00.000-08:00

See, I could have an addiction to story boards, I love these too, they're at OScraps and Emily Powers did them...and no, I didn't buy these either because even on a lazy day, I really could do this myself too (well, maybe not the sweet black and white photos she's displaying them with...but the blocks with my pics I could).

December 17, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T02:07:00.000-08:00

We went to Cape Arago to check out the high waves...the speck on the rock down near the water is CAMDEN who didn't listen when he was told not to go down there...

Hmmm...I think I love these templates :o)
By Cre@bisontine at After Five Designs, but they weren't in my Christmas shopping budget and if I would just learn to leave simple and plain alone...I really could do this myself :)

December 16, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2010-01-02T02:01:00.000-08:00

posed? perhaps. cute curls rubz!

December 15, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-15T12:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, here we have the budged flash diffuser combo...

I saw a little Photojojo tip on how to use a film canister, which I had actually put off since August because I am not safe with sharp objects and thick plastic (I'm clumsy, what can I say), so in a pinch, I decided a portion cup would work (happened to be during the employee Christmas party at Gino's where we have stacks of these little gems).

So the portion cup worked great! Easily attaches with scotch tape (dollar tree variety used here). Then I got brave and tried the film canister at home...then tried them side by side and then together (by side by side, I mean one shot with just the canister, then one with just the portion cup) and decided that together they work well for close up shots in which you need a flash that would normally wash out the subject.

So a fancy flash, speedlight, off camera remote strobes, or even $60 diffuser attachment would be *cool* but this is way cool...and while I still dream of that delightful Canon 7D...I really think I need the Superheadz Golden Twin that shoots regular 35mm film...and I admit, I could totally get sucked into the toy camera thing. There are some amazing film cameras out there that we in the digital age pay money to filter, grunge and grain up - why not shoot it that way in the first place? Actually, I have to confess, I don't edit my photos to look like they were shot with shoddy film and equipment, but I LOVE THE LOOK!! I'm actually gonna' load the film I have into Abby's *hannah montana* plastic real *toy* camera. Should be FUN!

This fancy contraption should work with ANY on camera flash, pop up or not, providing you can find the portion cup the size you need...scotch tape can be cut to needed size. :) Mine is the 3.25 ounce size, that's what we have at Gino's :o)

December 14, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T19:07:00.000-08:00

My Artscow books came today. NINE of them, all at once. Very cool :)

December 13, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T19:05:00.000-08:00

The Tipsy Man with his *SPIRITS* of Christmas, counting how long he's been sick on his fingers...

The youth group and kids that did the program were AWESOME!! Ruby did a fantastic job on her solo and even got the words mostly right. Jesus was a wonderful child and Joseph got to be his EARTHLY father when she finally got up to perform - as opposed to His *early* father which he'd been all week :D

December 12, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:58:00.000-08:00

Monika's page from her wedding planning book that has the list of photos she wants taken at her wedding. I should look over that list before Sunday.

December 11, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:55:00.000-08:00

Chocolate fountain.
Sause Christmas party :)
this year there was a little caramel fountain as well - tasty.

December 10, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:53:00.000-08:00

Windows shopping...found a new store on accident. I love simple kits and this one was cute and simple.

Digital Scrap Cafe

There was lots of cute stuff there :D

December 9, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:48:00.000-08:00

All she wants for Christmas is her two front teeth. She really lost the flappy one that was so loose, wouldn't pull it and it fell out in her sleep, probably swallowed.

December 8, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:46:00.000-08:00

Leave it to Ruby, when instructed to cut letters out of the newspaper to make words and such, to find the backward R from the Toys 'R' Us ad and make her name...backward.

December 7, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:43:00.000-08:00

No snow. Just ice. In the boats. Note Ruby's bathrobe. They broke up the ice...and put it in my freezer.

December 5, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:41:00.000-08:00

I'm lit up and flashing. Kelli bought these horns for the supervisor on duty to wear...

I didn't know they lit up until someone pushed my button :D

December 4, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:39:00.000-08:00

An egrit out the back door of Gino's in the marsh.

December 3, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:37:00.000-08:00

Our attempt at some posed photos to make Christmas Cards with - no wonder I always send New Year's Cards.

December 2, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:33:00.000-08:00

Crab eyes. Bill brought 3 giant cooked crab over in a bag...and I was not feeling well so I didn't even get out of bed, so the kids brought the bag in and put it in my bed. Nice.

Then Ruby plucked all of their eyes out (or would it be off?)

She then left them in the bed with me and took the crab to the kitchen.

December 1, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

*Windows* shopping again. Loved this little brag book template set. I think it must be the rounded corners - I love rounded corners :D

November 30, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:28:00.000-08:00

You know you want one. I took swiss cheese to Gino's just for this sandwich. Toasted garlic bread, swiss cheese, onion-mushroom-bell pepper sauteed in the garlic toast spread, and roast beef (heated on foil) - super duper YUMMY :)

November 29, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

We ALL miss Brother Michael, and the whole church loves him - but I think Andrew and his Mommy missed him and love him the most!

Brother Mike was home for a few days on leave and able to spend some time with his family at home, and our church family :o)

God has kept our Marine safe thus far and I am confident that He will continue to do so!

November 28, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

Monika made Rudolph with a bun, blue food dye (eyes), broken toothpicks and a piece of linguica. I thought he was cute :D

November 27, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:20:00.000-08:00

They sneak into my bed. Almost every morning as soon as Daddy leaves for work.

November 26, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:18:00.000-08:00

Lutefisk. Yuck. But Dad is SO THRILLED to pose with it. Camden is secretly laughing inside...he eats it because...he's expected to because Grandpa thinks he likes it...

November 25, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T18:16:00.000-08:00

Kayla made pumpkin pie tartlets for our Wednesday Thanksgiving Dinner with the Alsworths! YUM! Great dinner, and our "I am thankful for..." book is nearly complete :D

November 24, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T17:38:00.000-08:00

Now, I didn't make a whole lot in tips today, but a nice gentleman gave Abby and Ruby $5 worth of quarters to play games because they had to come to work with me...usually Gino's Daycare isn't so exciting, it's usually homework, homework, cut and paste the newspaper...

November 23, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T16:03:00.000-08:00

Meow.

November 22, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T15:59:00.000-08:00

I cannot find a single anything from today - unless it's on that roll of film in the T50...which could very well be, I have been packing that camera around with me in the car and USING it. Even so - there's no date stamp on that thing so it would be hard to tell when I took the photo (I could start holding a date tag up...)

November 21, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T15:57:00.000-08:00

Happy 34th Birthday to CASEY :o) His secretary wouldn't let me talk to you, she was *sitting on the couch answering the phone* - as in Casey's phone. My niece is so smart :)

For Casey's birthday, we had tea. No, Casey wasn't here. He was at his house, far, far away, where it's much colder. Shaye and Grandma made him a cake I heard - and we're too far away to swing by for a piece of it!

November 20, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T15:54:00.000-08:00

They still have a $0.25 carousel at Big K (kmart) here in Coos Bay - and my kids still like to ride it. Camden barely fits on it anymore lol :)

November 19, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-12-14T15:52:00.000-08:00

YES! I got behind again. So sorry. It's cold and flu season...adn it's crazy!!

So, back in July when Kurt bought the $50 worth of fireworks and I cringed...I was thinking that was a nutty, crazy thing to do, but we still have some of them...

Apparently there are only so many of these silly fountains that basically do all the same thing that you can watch in one evening. We still have a couple to light at Christmas...or New Year's Eve :)

November 18, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-18T22:36:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it's not really a photo - but it IS the church letterhead that I converted from PDF to JPG for Pastor Goodwin finally - but really I need to make it a header and footer for him so he can have a template for something like WORD or Open Office Writer...

Perhaps I can cut and paste into new docs tomorrow... :)

November 17, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-17T15:20:00.000-08:00

TODAY you get a screenshot...and perhaps an embedded video (um, yeah, no good at embedding yet).

So, just a little FYI, I love TMBG, ever since, Istanbul (Not Constantinople), Particle Man, Birdhouse in Your Soul...and countless others. There are some bizarre things they do that I'm not particularly fond of but most of it - I love. My KIDS love them now too because they have done some REALLY AWESOME kid stuff...like this. Ruby could sing this when she was "little." (no, she hasn't grown up, she just says things like, "when I was little...").

ANYHOW, my favorite part about their videos is the CORNY, SUPER COOL ANIMATION!!

November 16, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-17T00:53:00.000-08:00

Two things are important today. The first is mentioned briefly at drink more tea, and that would be my CHAI - yes, yes, I know to you without tea knowledge this looks like a freaky pot of soup...but it's not. Okay, perhaps it's freaky, but it's not soup. It's...better than hot cocoa, so we made a gallon. Black tea, and I tossed in some white tea (pai mu tan) and green tea (gen mai cha) as well, then milk, water, about a cup of honey, spices (yeah, wish i could remember what i threw in that can - you see, i have a big can of odds and ends of stuff that is the chai blend can, so end of misc. black tea, star anise, hand grated nutmeg, bits of cinnamon, end of dried peppermint, ginger pieces...you get the picture). Simmer 20 minutes or so (after it heats up, no use timing how long it takes to get to the point where it's hot enough to simmer). YUMMY!! I tried to get a good shot of the star anise and the pink peppercorn...those are my favorite aesthetic ingredients :D I think it might be a little blurry. That's how you would see it if you tainted it with grown up beverage, which I didn't.

And photo #2 is just for Abigail, I promised her I'd post it to my blog...and she will post it to hers as well - she put together Ruby's *Polly Pocket* poster. Ruby got angry and had to disengage, no use being angry at a puzzle, it doesn't growl back :)

November 15, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-17T00:43:00.000-08:00

Mr. Hinkel, does it count as *HOMEWORK* if the Polly Pocket is standing on top of the world?

Ruby got Fashion Designer Polly Pockets from Grandpa & Kelli for her birthday...and she and Abigail sneaked back up after we went to sleep and they Polly Pocketed whilst watching Kim Possible (via internet) until...DADDY GOT UP FOR WORK! No joke. Insomnia set in and they were as quiet as a couple of church mice without Cam here to rat them out (he's still hunting).

Isn't it kinda' cute how they also captured Ruby's backward (and split up) signature on the white board :o)

November 14, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-16T01:28:00.000-08:00

Hooray! It was Kortni's Happy 23rd Birthday Today - with yummy carrot cake!!

Camera was left in the car, cell phone to the rescue.

Heard a hilarious story about the OSU Campus Barber trimming Rob's eyebrows...and THAT my friends is why Rob won't get a haircut - apparently barbers from the South are trained to give the brows a trim...and Rob didn't want his trimmed...and everyone laughed at him :D

November 13, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-14T00:50:00.000-08:00

Hmmm...this looks suspiciously like BIRTHDAY CAKE...

With lit up candles...and a smiley girl...

HAPPY 7th BIRTHDAY RUBY!!
These photos weren't taken by me! YAY, I got to be the birthday MOM and let others take photos!! Yeah, I took some too, but these were good catches - first 2 by Angie Wright, end one by Alana's Mommy, Sabina Bridges! Thank you Mrs. Angie & Bina!! :)

Ruby's party was at the church because she told her Daddy she wanted to have it someplace SPECIAL and he suggested Gino's and McDonald's and she put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes and said, "No Dad. The Church. I want my party at THE CHURCH because The Church is special, cuz that's where JESUS is" Too cute!

Thank you Pastor Goodwin for permission to have the party there and Thank you Sister Goodwin for the HOT DOGS!

Thank You Sister Sandy for helping me calm down and doing most of the clean up!
Thank you Sisters Becky & Alaina for assisting with crowd control and cleanup, and Brothers Scott & Bill for helping put everything away and sweep up...and Kord for your service!

YOU ARE ALL AN AWESOME FAMILY :o) and we love you!

November 12, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-14T00:41:00.000-08:00

Folks, the only photo I can find from November 12th is of my HOT DATE. I thought there were others on the memory card, but no, can't find a single one. So here you have it...Jethro. I married Jethro. Jethro did not get to go to Wal-Mart...but he did think he was REALLY funny at Dairy Queen making fun of their NASTY *alien like* fry sauce...somebody help me out here, what is that prepackaged stuff that comes in the white buckets and claims to be fry sauce? EEW! Thank you Kent for having REAL (yummy) fry sauce!

:)

November 11, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-14T00:38:00.000-08:00

Isn't this the most pathetic thing I have shown you yet? I am telling you, this dog, he is an EMOTIONAL MANIPULATOR. Puppy dog eyes? Yeah, he invented them. No. This look won't cause me to let him sleep in my bed. Ever. At least not when I am home and have a say in the matter...

November 10, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-14T00:36:00.000-08:00

Gentlemen from Connect I Cut ...I AM SOOOO SORRY, I misplaced your email address. But here you have them folks, hungry guys from Connecticut, on their way up the west coast. They flew into Ontario, CA and were going to fly back out of...Seattle, WA when they got there. Got to Gino's just after we closed, but before the door was locked...and the oven was still hot so we fixed 'em a *BULLDOG* (thanks Dad for picking a custom pizza that requires us to take EVERYTHING out again) to go with some Diet Pepsi and they were happy campers :)

And for those that are not figuring out Connect I Cut - Blogger thought Connecticut was too long to fit into my template, so I used a funny (at least I think it's funny) from 4th grade. Because if you Connect, I cut...we spell it correctly :D

November 9, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-14T00:32:00.000-08:00

Camden with sore throat and pain in ears - had to go to the Doc. Well, there are signs all over saying if you have a cough, headache, runny nose, fever, sore throat...blah blah blah, please wear a mask. Now why the entire clinic wasn't full of masked people, I know not, but I made my kids put them on just to comply. Gimme' a break, who doesn't have at least ONE of those symptoms during the winter months? I mean, you need only SEE THE SIGN and it causes you to sniff...or cough...never fails. Fine when I walk in, see the sign, nose turns to auto drip just like a coffee pot. Camden was mortified, the blue mask isn't stylish...but it matches the M&Ms shirt...

November 8, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-14T00:29:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I have trouble. Sunday, I needed a little nap before work. Well, a little nap turned into all afternoon, and in a groggy, mostly moping type state, I got up and got ready for work...rather hurriedly after oversleeping and I got to work and looked down at my feet and thought...why is one of my shoes shiny? Wait a second...I don't even own any penny loafers. Wait another second...I am wearing one of my loafers and one of Kurt's loafers...ugh.

Fortunately, I had a spare pair of MATCHING *red* mary janes in the car. Phew. Timberland even. I texted this photo to many people because I thought it was so stinking funny. LAUGH WITH ME ALL YOU TIRED MOMS - *I know you've been there*

November 7, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-14T00:25:00.000-08:00

Pastels...for my little artist girl...

Devon's 11th Birthday at the bowling alley, which enabled the Smith family to...

Crash this other bowling party - who know part of the church would be there - on a day when Kurt WANTED to bowl but had no one to bowl with! Bless their lil' pea pickin' hearts! :)

Fun times :)

November 6, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-14T00:20:00.001-08:00

Glamorous isn't she?

November 5, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

They found the SAME radio stations on their little auto seek radios! :)

Aren't they cute?

AND whilst trouble shooting the acer one on their website - getting ready to file a warranty claim and ship it off...I found a link to "my netbook powers on but the screen stays black," scenario and guess what? MY NETBOOK ISN'T CRASHED it just needed a BIOS update. Download these files, unzip them, change the names of certain files in this folder, put those 2 files on a flash drive, put flash drive into netbook, hold fn and esc down while pushing the power button, continue holding them for a few seconds then let go...power button flashed like it was supposed to, usb drive flashed like it was working and within 2 minutes - there was my login screen. PHEW. everything still there. Thank You Jesus!

November 4, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-05T22:39:00.000-08:00

My canvas of Phil & Kadi came today!! They are so cute - and this is the 8x10 - perfect size for their little apartment!

Canvas People had a special where if you paid the shipping ($15) the 8x10 was free (hahahaha, free) - you could also get a discount on larger size. Their *effects* of course were an additional charge so you really should use your OWN ARTWORK (photoshop, the photo software on your mac, that sort of thing) :)

November 3, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-03T23:01:00.000-08:00

I thought a photo of the screen as I am catching up would be fitting :D I am such a nerd.

November 2, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-03T22:59:00.000-08:00

Beautiful day on the boardwalk, secretly wished I were sailing away on that vessel instead of picking up lunch and going back to the school to eat...but the sushi was mmmm.....mmmm....delicious!! Maybe next time stow away WITH the sushi :D

November 1, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-03T22:56:00.000-08:00

Ruby brought me flowers...Abby picked them and Camden freaked about Ruby trimming them into the sink...Nice flowers for November :D

October 31, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-03T22:54:00.000-08:00

Sabina's button - she wore it to Nerd Night at Church :) Love it!

October 30, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-03T22:52:00.000-08:00

Witches aren't my thing - but she had some pretty cool shoes on...came through the back door at Gino's - nope, not an employee... :D

You know, I would wear tights like that...in public...on a good day. If they had them in burgundy and black I'd wear them to Gino's with my uniform (you know I would Krystal).

October 29, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-03T22:50:00.000-08:00

He's kind of like the yahoo smiley.

October 28, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-03T22:49:00.000-08:00

Abby ate the WHOLE enchilada (and eventually cleaned her entire plate). We went to Los Dos Amigos for dinner, just she and I and Ruby - Cam was attending a *cut and wrap* party (it's hunting season) and Kurt was sick.

October 27, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-03T22:47:00.001-08:00

I live with artists. Not necessarily photographers yet, but definitely artists.

October 26, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

2009-11-03T22:46:00.000-08:00

Ruby lost her first TOP tooth, was delighted to see that it got yanked out when she was ripping tape with her teeth (oh joy) and then cried for over half an hour because she could no longer whistle like Al Jolson (with that warbley bird sound - but never quit practicing and got that back, phew, it's her cool thing).