Abigail is 3!!

It's only 9:30 in the morning but we've got Birthday stuff goin' on!! We let her open Grandma & Grandpa's present--lots of pretty girl clothes--and the one from us, some dress up clothes, wings & a wand! She's already changed clothes about 4 times this morning!!

One day she had a sort-of wand. I asked her what it was and she said, "it's a stick like Bobby Do" you know...bibbity, bobbity, boo! It was a bit of a long conversation for me to figure it out, she was really patient with me! So now we just say, "Bobby Do!"

Friends are coming over this afternoon to celebrate! We're having a "Hello Kitty" party. When I asked her what kind of party she wanted this year, she said, Hello Kitty and Butterflies. So there it is! The cake is made, I just have to decorate it and the plates & napkins have the whole butterfly theme goin' on. So we've got both!

Both Joel and I at separate times started to sing "Happy Birthday" to her this morning and she covered ours mouths and said, "no, we have to wait until all the kids are here." So...that's what we'll do! It's fun to celebrate her this year!

Here's some pictures so far!

CRR Rec Week

We had the first week of Rec Week this week. There were a little over 40 kids signed up. The kids get swimming lessons for the 1st hour every day. Monday through Thursday the young ones go to the church for crafts and the ones 8 years old and older do a sport. Monday a group of men take them to the driving range and the putting area. Tuesday they have tennis lessons, and Wed. & Thursday I have them for basketball and softball. I talked to the maintainance man, and next week I'm going to do softball on Wednesday and he's going to leave the sprinklers on in the outfield. The kids enjoy chasing the ball into the sprinklers, and we can take sprinkler breaks during the game. On Friday they have a picnic after swimming and they get to do these activities.

Busy Week-end

Saturday we drove over to Portland for a memorial service for Jolee. We saw Roy and Nikki there and sat with them. It was a nice service and Jolee will be missed.

Sunday we had church in the park. Here the worship team is practicing . And this silly goose would stand by the speakers and be quiet while there was music and singing, but as soon as it stopped the goose would start to make noice. Once while I was doing a mic check everytime I would say something into the mic the goose would squawk back. Maybe he was telling me the sound level was OK.

He stayed during the entire service just roaming around and standing in front of the speakers. A little girl kept walking up to him and he would move away. Everybody was just waiting for the goose to attack her but he never did. I think he has figuered out that if he stays around people he will eventually get fed. which did happen.
By the time the service started all these chairs were full and the park was full. Everyone had a good time and we had grilled hamburgers and hot dogs afterwards. We were supposed to have kids games but I was in charge of that, and I was busy with the sound equipment, so we never got to the games.

Before pictures

Here is the furniture before...
I forgot to mention that they also made drawers for the table...those will be nice to have! We'll find hardware for them in the states.

Junking & the kids

I thought I'd post some pictures of some furniture we took to the place that did our kitchen. We took our hutch and a table Joel found in the trash to be matched to our kitchen style. There was some mis-communication about the table and we were a bit disappointed about that, but they said they'd re-do it for us. One of the things was that it had pine planks as the top and we really liked it, it was just red. We wanted them to strip the color and stain it the same color (oak) as our counter tops and then match the coloring on the bottom to the coloring of our kitchen--black underneath, off-white on top with antiquing and sanded edges, etc.
When we took it in, it was blue on the bottom part of the table and was naturally cracking and Joel mentioned "Amy likes it..." which was true! but I didn't want it that way. Well, they just repainted it the same way. Only blue underneath and off-white on top and then crackled it. Amy didn't like it. And neither did Joel, so we called them and said there was a mis-communication and they'll re-do it. Oh and they took off the old top and put on a thick piece of oak, instead of just re-doing the old. Bummer. They will re-do that somehow too and just give us the piece of oak to take back to the states. At least this is what we're understanding now! : )

We love the hutch though and are so glad we had that taken in. They completely replaced the counter wood on it, we didn't ask them to, but oh well. Also, they added a nice piece on top so it looks a little more finished now.
Joel has found several good things lately...several trunks that we're using for packing breakables, those are great! Also, this cute little play table for Abigail that I wish was big enough for me! : ) He also found these two matching tables. The little one didn't have a top and the big one had a strange one that was in bad shape, so we took those in and they fitted some oak tops for those. They didn't attach them though, so we'll have to figure out how to do that. And here's a couple pictures of the kids...we went to the pool the other day and Elijah kept laying down on his towel...like a mini adult or something! It just looked funny to see him doing that as an 18 month old! They had so much fun though! We have to keep an eye on that little guy, he doesn't have much fear in him and just jumps into the water.

4th of July @ CRR

We had a parade and Ranch Chapel had a float. Tony and the kids rode on the float plus 3 guys from the Redmond National Guard. We had candy for them to throw and the kids and Tony really got into yelling Happy 4th of July to the crowd. We had 47 entries in the parade this year and people were all along the parade route. When we came around one corner I couldn't believe how many people were lined up along the road.

I guy in the church designed and built the float. He did a great job, and the torch that the statute of liberty is holding was pretty heavy, so he bolted it the the capitol building, and she was able to hold onto it for support instead of holding it up the whole time. Clever man!

After the parade there was a buffalo burger feed and the crafters had their booths set up. Alexander started right in calling to the crowd to come and see the finest jewelry booth and buy something for your aniversary or birthday or whatever; he was a riot to listen to. Then he listened to Julie talking to customers and I couldn't believe how well he picked it up and helped. At one point Julie took her mom to the restroom, so I just sat and watched Alexander deal with the customers. He really caught on fast to what Julie would say and he didn't make any sales but he impressed me.

It's been around 94-96 degrees both yesterday and today. Julie's mom is a real trooper but she was pretty wore out by the time I got her home today. For Tony's last time to see his kids before being deployed it was a really fun day.

Happy 4th!

It's strange to think it's the 4th of July today. I don't think I would normally think much about it...1) because we're usually at English camp or doing some sort-of picnic or follow-up event and celebrate in some way and 2) because we haven't been in the states for the 4th of July for 7 years now. But this year! We're on Facebook and everyone in the states is saying "Happy 4th of July!" and what their plans are for the big day. So strange from way over here...

So no, we didn't have a BBQ (Grill out) : ) today, or fireworks or parade or anything like that. It's Joel's first full day home since camp ended yesterday. He spent most of his day off mowing the lawn(s). We actually have three large areas of grass that normally take him an hour to mow them all. Today though, it took at least 3 hours!!! We had so much rainy weather before camp and were so busy that he hadn't been able to mow the lawn in about 3 weeks...so it was tall! Here is a picture of Elijah turning Abigail's baby stroller into a lawn mower...ya think we need some more boy toys around???I was inside most of the morning, cleaning the house after such a busy week with camp last week. Some exciting news though...2 families are interested in the house. One from each realty company we have it listed with. It came at a great time with camp being finished and we have a couple days to get the house back in order after being so crazy the past couple weeks. One family comes on Monday (when Joel will actually be in Salzburg with the team! Yikes!!) and the other comes Wednesday afternoon (hopefully Joel will be home after driving the team down to Venice!!) We're both really encouraged about these families!

So more of today...after mowing the lawn, Joel took the kids into the pool--they loved getting some good play time with Daddy again!
Oh, and here's some other recent pictures of Abigail. Sarah & Lili Hunnicutt gave Abigail her first pair of child safety scissors...so here she is making a card for Daddy to welcome him home again.Also, after spending the week at camp--where there was playground-ish equipment--and watching the bigger kids on stuff, I think her bravery level went up a bit. This morning she was on her swingset doing this!!
And, at English camp one evening they had a Western Night for a late night activity and brought two of these little horses. The team leader's wife gave them to Elijah and Abigail a couple days ago and Abigail is loving them!! It's fun to have such new & simple toys!

Anniversary

We went to Wizard falls fish Hatchery up on the Metolius river. It was 96 degrees so we all got pretty warm but it was a fun time. They have machines to dispense fish food for 25 cents. It was a good scouting trip for when Abigail and Elijah are here in September (oh yeah Joel & Amy will be here too).

This is a sturgeon.

These are Rainbow trout that stay there year round. The sign said Otters, Eagles and Osprey often show up to try for dinner.

Julie was feeding these and I tried to get a picture of the them jumping for the food. Afterwards we went to Suttle Lake which has a resort and restaurant and had a real nice lunch. We didn't feel like having fish and chips though.