9th February – 18th - 2010

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

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

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 :)

06.January.2010 - Wednesdays sure are busy

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.

December 14, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

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

December 13, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

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

November 29, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

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 25, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

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 18, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

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 13, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

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 7, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

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 :)

October 31, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

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

October 9, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

Look who we saw at the North Bend Fire Department Open House...

Kendra!!

and for fun, a few more shots :D

September 25, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

It occurred to me when I got to work today that September 23, was ANNIE'S birthday. Sorry Annie. I did call and tell her happy belated birthday...I'm bad. I am a bad sister.

upside down...i put camera overhead, upside down and shot Kurt just for funnies at Youth Group.

September 13, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

Look closely, you will see Darling Little Andrew there - he's so stinking cute :D

September 4, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun!

FRIDAY! No photo, funny story. Thursday was a concert performed by Sixteen Cities (formerly known as Issakar, aka, Becky's cousins' band), and our youth group attended - then big after party at Gino's...fun times. So Friday Youth night rolls around and I call the Alsworths to make sure there's Youth - since there was an activity yesterday and I am told - YES, there's youth. So Cam and I head to church. Sandy and her group show up, the rest of the youth show up and WHERE is the Youth Leader? He had thought it was decided last night that the Thursday outing was Youth for the week...so he wasn't at Youth because it had been canceled. Um...yeah. WHATEVER! We had Youth anyhow without him (and snacks too).

No pics...I was tired.

September 1, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

we made it through that espresso episode...
Now, onto the comics currently posted to our knife block thinger on the wall at Gino's. Bizarro - he's a little nuts and the one that used to be there was funnier (to guys in a desert get to the oasis, one drinking, the other whining, "what? no bottled water??")

ANYHOW, the important one is the Charlie Brown Biblical "a soft answer turns away wrath," - I love it! I figured it was starting to get a little tattered and I wanted a photo before it was removed and replaced, but what to replace that with - it's so perfect and classic and wonderful! Click the image to enlarge and read :)

August 21, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

Mel's in town, we had a little shin-dig after youth group :)

August 16, 2009 - Living for Jesus is Fun

Happy Birthday Patricia (she's 22 today)
Now, on to the photo...they fell asleep at church - aren't they cute?? Normally, I would wake them, but how often will they be that close and quiet?

August 12, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

Horseplay @ Church ...don't worry, church doesn't actually start for 2 hours :D

August 11, 2009 - Living For Jesus is Fun

We helped a nice lady named Merli move today - apparently the kids found special interest in her computer desk.