Firestation and the Grandparents!

Last week, our Joyschool group went to a fire station in NE Portland for a field trip! Apparently they forgot we were coming and we had to wait about a half hour for someone to show up, but once they did the kids loved learning about fire safety, and riding down the fire pole a million times. We watched a video about the ABC's of fire safety and how to keep safe during a fire. I think the kids learned a few things. It made for a fun field trip.

Last week my parents came into town for a short 3 day visit! They miss all their grandchildren that have moved away, and try at least once a year to visit all of them. It was so nice to have them here, even though it was a short time, and even though it was cold and rainy for a lot of the time. But such is the weather in Oregon in March. On Friday we drove to Cannon Beach and got blown all over the beach with the wind. But we survived by gathering seashells. Unfortunately my Dad dropped his nice work phone into the ocean just as the tide was coming in while he was hurling rocks into the sea!...I guess it paid him back. how sad. We continued driving down the coast to Tillamook and had to make a stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. The smell when you step out of the car was so bad of manure and cows, my dad said, "Well those cows must be playing a roaring game of 'pull my hoof'!" It was pretty stinky. But luckily, inside smelled nice. Although with a factory dedicated to making cheese, and people eating tons of free samples, you just never knew at what moment the aroma could change.
That night we went and saw the movie "The Lorax" which Sammy liked a lot, and enjoyed watching with Grandma and Grandpa. On Saturday we rode the train from Dave's office down close to Saturday's Market and made my parents walk through the rain for at least an hour or so seeing the sights of downtown Portland. Had to give them the true Oregon experience! Didn't think about the fact that my mother was "recovering" from pneumonia and relapsed not soon after that. Sorry mom. Besides making my mother even more sick, it was still a fun trip and the girls thoroughly enjoyed their time spent with Grandma and Grandpa Brewster.

Sunriver!....central Oregon

We had such a great Superbowl Weekend in Sunriver!
We drove down to Central Oregon this last weekend with our great friends the Montgomery's and Cinquinni's to spend the weekend at a rented house hanging out and watching the Superbowl! Emily and I left Friday mid-morning and drove about an hour and a half to get to a little restaurant off the road called The Gingerbread House, one of those novelty places that many a Salemite stops at on a trip to central Oregon. We filled ourselves with bacon cheeseburgers, fries, and delicious milkshakes. The drive there was beautiful, with sun the whole weekend so we didn't have to deal with any severe weather. Our van was stuffed to the gills, with one of the sleds practically on top of the girls. We had to fill 2 cars with 3 families' worth of stuff, that included 4 girls, and 1 baby boy! But we did it, and we made it all in one piece. The house we stayed at was great with the main room as a big open floor plan suited for a lot of people. The sectional couch was great but you had to sit right in the middle of the cushion, otherwise you would hit your bum on a board that divided each seat. The first night we took the girls out to the hot tub where they got to play and get all their energy out, and then put them to bed. Afterward Emily and I got to relax and watch a girl movie before the boys showed up, which they did with Janell and baby Corbin around 10:30 or so.


Saturday was fun because we drove close to Mt. Bachelor to go sledding with all of the kids! This was the first time we have ever gone sledding with our kiddos, we just never get much snow in Oregon, so I was really excited about it. It was a really sunny day and we found a perfect hill for sledding. There were quite a few people there who had the same idea as us, but we found a good spot. We had to sleds and a tube. Unfortunately the tube didn't last too long but was good while it lasted because it didn't speed down the hill like the sled did. I forgot how treacherous sledding can really be. That thing got going pretty fast and we saw a man, a pregnant lady, and a man with a baby all wipe out on it. I thought Janell might have had a hard attack watching Tom come down the hill with baby Corbin. Luckily he was strong enough to take the hit himself. Janell was quick to get the baby out of his arms once he got down the hill! It really was fun going and the girls definitely had a good time.













The rest of the night we spent in the hot tub, eating more food, relaxing, and playing the now infamous game of Monopoly the card game! We spent many hours playing, yelling, and calling each other names from being attacked and properties being stolen. I THINK there are no hard feelings between any of us from playing that game together. I believe one of the nights we stayed up until 1:30 playing it.

On Sunday we walked around the Village area and did some Geocaching which the girls loved and we found 2 treasures! I had never done it before, but it provides some great, free entertainment! It was also good to go out on a walk to get some exercise after all the food we had been eating.











The rest of the day was spent watching the Superbowl and eating more food, and playing more games, it was wonderful!
On Monday we got packed and drove back, but first stopped in Sisters to eat lunch at another great little restaurant called Snow Cap for more burgers and fries, and a mammoth Oreo shake. We walked up and down the streets a bit to explore the town, and then drove the rest of the way home.
It was fun to spend time down there in a very beautiful part of Oregon, and hang out with great friends! Thanks for the fun!

Happy New Year!...a month late

I have spent the last few days and several hours of my life copying my blog posts and editing them in a word document to print off. I read snippets of my posts as I was editing, realizing how much I have forgotten and how happy I was that I had written some of those memories down. So one of my new goals it to do a better job keeping my pictures organized and blog more, so I can print those memories off, and maybe even replace that as my scrapbooking! I'm starting to like this idea.
So I'm backtracking a bit to Christmas. Better late than never I guess.
It was a good Christmas spent here in Oregon. Christmas Eve was spent at Kristin and Alan's house eating good food, playing Dr. Mario, and some fun with "Minute to Win it" games.





We slept at George and Nancy's house and had to get up and go to church at 8:30 in the morning! When we got home, we got back in our pajamas, and spent the rest of the day opening presents. It was fun spending time with George, Nancy, Mark, and Tracee.







January is my LEAST favorite month! Coming off the holidays, and the dreary Oregon weather with the length of the month make it hard to live through. Luckily it hasn't been too bad. We were blessed at the beginning of the month to find a new car! This is the 2nd car we have bought in the 7 years we have been married, and it feels so nice to have a car that doesn't kill my back to put the kids in. I feel very spoiled indeed. We got an amazing deal on a 2006 Honda Odyssey with all leather interior, and I love it. It was more an answer to prayer that we found this car than anything else, and Dave and I feel very blessed to have found it. It has made life a whole lot easier.

Sammy is back into Joyschool and swimming lessons which she loves. The holidays were hard because she didn't have any scheduled activities and everyday she would ask "when is Joyschool going to start?"
It's funny to think Taylor is almost 2! Just in the past few weeks she has learned so many new words and communicates so much better! Both girls are very funny, but sometimes Taylor can be a bit of a bully to poor sensitive Samantha. But they do love each other and sing songs together during the day when they play!

We are looking forward to a fun Superbowl weekend spent in Sunriver, Oregon with friends eating yummy food, and enjoying the great company!
Happy New Year!

A Merry Joyschool Christmas

Sammy has had a wonderful last few months with her Joyschool group! We have done a lot of fun things, including last week when we had the opportunity for the kids to serve the elderly their lunch at the Art's center up the street! It was so cute, and they did such a great job! They all got to wear their cute caps, gloves, and aprons and after they served the old people their salads, they went up on stage and sang a bunch of their Joyschool Christmas songs, which of course the old folks thoroughly enjoyed. One lady even came up and gave me $20 to give to the kids!! I really tried not to take it but she was insistent. But we put the $20 to good use where we bought gifts for the kids to exchange at our Christmas party, as well as use it for a gift we bought for a less fortunate kid that we were getting a Christmas present for, so we felt good about that!

Our Christmas party was really fun too! The kids got to dress up and put on the Nativity, which they loved doing, and then of course they had to sing all the songs we've learned from Joyschool. It was a really fun party spending time with friends, and seeing how much fun all those kids have together! Looking forward to good times next year.

Is anybody there??

Hello fellow bloggers! So I took a little break over the summer and it extended a bit into the Fall. What a fun summer it was! So much to post but I think I'll just start with Halloween.
I was a little too ambitious for my sewing skill level in my attempt to make homemade Halloween costumes. Sammy wanted to be Ariel and we already had a costume, so that became the theme for our family. So I had her costume taken care of, I bought a lobster costume online for Taylor so she could be Sebastian, and then I thought I could make mine and Dave's costumes. I was going to be Ursula the seawitch and Dave was King Triton!

It ended up turning out okay! I was happy and I think if there was an award for best dressed family, I think we would have won! It was fun dressing up together. I don't know if I'll do it again next year, or ever again. It was hard because again, my craftiness only extends so far until it's very hard and stressful to try and make something from reading instructions from another blog. At least it turned out okay, because if it hadn't, and I'd spent all that time in making them, I would have been mad!! I have had plenty of unsuccessful attempts of making other projects, and I didn't want this one to go the same way.
The same week of Halloween I was in charge of Joyschool and had to put on a Halloween party with all the kids. It was really fun and we had a costume parade with all the kids. Sammy loves being in Joyschool with all her friends!
Hope you all had a great Halloween this year!

4th of July!

It's always nice to have a beautiful sunny day for the 4th of July in Oregon! It doesn't always happen but yesterday it did! The whole weekend was quite nice weather wise. We spent a lot of time downtown hanging out at different water fountains and Saturday's Market. Yesterday for the 4th we went hiking in the morning at Silver Creek Falls. What a beautiful place to be. It was only the second time I had ever been there. Because we had two kids hiking we didn't go too far but enjoyed the waterfalls and playing in the water for a couple of hours.
Afterwards we went to the Bell's house and celebrated the rest of the day with birthday cake, delicious food, water fights, motorcycle rides, fireworks, and good friends and family. Happy 4th to Everyone! God Bless America!