Change

 Yesterday's Hair....

Today's hair....

I've been itching for a change.

Needed to get out of a rut and I just closed my eyes and went for it.

A Little Bit of Random and a Whole Lot of Fun

So, I've been a bit behind.

And, because of that I leave you with a bit of a long random post filled with some of the good times we have had over the last week.

I did it.  I made Rhubarb Tort for the first time thanks to Grandma Karon.  

Rhubarb just grows in our yard; huge, massive stalks of it.  And, I'm not one to waste a good thing so I asked Grandma Karon to teach me and......

 .....voila

Sadly, I'm not a fan (it's a texture thing) but Loren LOVES it and pretty much ate the entire thing.

My dear friend is having a baby.
Her 3rd little munchkin.
This time they are having a BOY!
My friend and her dear mama threw her a really sweet baby shower.

Blue punch-such a brilliant idea, Mrs. Brooke.  

so festive

Pregnant and Glowing

The outfit my team made her. We *almost* won 

Our small group pitched in and got her the diaper bag she wanted.

Grace decided to draw a giraffe for the first time.
I might be biased, but I think it's incredible, especially for her first time trying.
I can't draw that well after 50 tries.

And, my two favorite people heading out for a hike so I could clean in peace.  Glory!

Again, biased, but I think I have the cutest family ever

We like to play Yahtzee.
I remember playing it when I was little-the real Yahtzee.
We have the Toy Story kid version and it's one of my favorite games to play with these two.

And, when you run out of time you play while you eat

We had a big rain storm the other week.
One that lasted a few days and caused a ton of flooding (we live in a valley).
Because of that storm we realized we had a water leak out front (thankfully on the other side of our meter).  We called the City up on Friday and Monday morning at the break of dawn they had arrived-massive power tools and all.

It was quite fascinating.

Grace spent a good amount of the day sitting like this, just watching in awe.

They even let her come up and watch what they were doing.
They were so sweet to her.

**They told her she could jump in the mud but she told them that she couldn't this time because the dress and jacket she had on were gifts from her grandma, were very special to her and she didn't want to ruin them.  Smart cookie.

My teeny pink cutie pie

The next day was glorious-a most perfect spring day.
A day that would bring a great SURPRISE for my girl.

and by surprise I mean, it was meant to be a surprise but she guessed and said she knew, however....

bare feet make me happy

and this yard makes me extra happy. 

The Turners came for a visit.....on a Tuesday....and spent the night!!!!
And, it was a wonderful and glorious surprise.

As you can imagine the fun never stopped.
So grateful they decided last minute to come our way.

Popsicles in the pool on a warm spring day

baseball

They spent over 3 hours outside.
A pre-dinner snack of veggies, salad and fruit

Pizza Time

And, brownies to end the evening on sweet note

along with some Strawberry Shortcake

They were all sun kissed and smelled of the beach and summer.

bedtime stories read by Mrs. Jennifer are always the best.

The next day

Cutie Pie Simon playing dress up with the girls.

even though the following day was gloomy and rainy
we ventured to the park 

It was a most perfect Tuesday and Wednesday surprise. 

Thank you, Turners. You are welcome to come and stay with us anytime.....ANYTIME.

Now, in two weeks we will be in Tennessee.  Before then we have BBQ's, Small Group, play dates, end of the year Kids Club Parties, Birthdays, Bible Studies, dance class planning, packing, cleaning etc. etc. to look forward to.  It's going to be a busy yet hopefully non-stressful 12 days.  But, because we are jammed packed with events and things to get done I most likely will not be on to post before we leave.  So I leave you with a short farewell.  See you when we get back from Tennessee. I am pretty positive I will have many stories and photos to share.

Oh and thank you for your prayers.

We were accepted into Ellensburg Christian School!

Now, we just have to wait for our financial aid meeting which will determine if we can accept their offer.  

She Did It!

Grace decided to she wanted to read me Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss today.

And, girlfriend read the entire book.  

And, it's a long one.

So proud of her.

 In case you've never ready it before......

“Hop on Pop” by Dr. Seuss

UP PUP Pup is up. CUP PUP Pup in cup. PUP CUP Cup on pup.

MOUSE HOUSE Mouse on house. HOUSE MOUSE House on mouse.

ALL TALL We all are tall. ALL SMALL We all are small. ALL BALL We all play ball. BALL WALL Up on a wall. ALL FALL Fall off the wall.

DAY PLAY We play all day. NIGHT FIGHT We fight all night.HE ME He is after me. HIM JIM Jim is after him. SEE BEE We see a bee. SEE BEE THREE Now we see three. THREE TREE Three fish in a tree. Fish in a tree? How can that be?

RED RED They call me Red. RED BED I am in bed. RED NED TED and ED in BED

PAT PAT they call him Pat. PAT SAT Pat sat on hat. PAT CAT Pat sat on cat. PAT BAT Pat sat on bat. NO PAT NO Don’t sit on that.

SAD DAD BAD HAD Dad is sad. Very, very sad. He had a bad day. What a day Dad had!

THING THING What is that thing?

THING SING That thing can sing! SONG LONG A long, long song. Good-by, Thing. You sing too long.

WALK WALK We like to walk. WALK TALK We like to talk.

HOP POP We like to hop. We like to hop on top of Pop. STOP You must not hop on Pop.

Mr. BROWN Mrs. BROWN Mr. Brown upside down. Pup up. Brown down. Pup is down. Where is Brown? WHERE IS BROWN? THERE IS BROWN! Mr. Brown is out of town.

BACK BLACK Brown came back.

Brown came back with Mr. Black. SNACK SNACK Eat a snack. Eat a snack with Brown and Black.

JUMP BUMP He jumped. He bumped. FAST PAST He went past fast. WENT TENT SENT He went into the tent. I sent him out of the tent.

WET GET Two dogs get wet. HELP YELP They yelp for help. HILL WILL Will went up hill. WILL HILL STILL Will is up hill still.

FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER That one is my other brother. My brothers read a little bit. Little words like If and it. My father can read big words, too. Like CONSTANTINOPLE and TIMBUKTU

SAY SAY What does this say? seehemewepatpuppophethreetreebeetophopstop Ask me tomorrow but not today.

The End!

Way to go, my sweet just turned 5 year old who begs to learn on a daily basis.  You surprise every day.  The way you are going with this whole learning thing, you will by far surpass me by age 6.  Keep up the great work. 

Happy 8 Years of Wedded Bliss

It feels like so much more than eight years, and I mean that in the very best way.  I feel like we have been married our entire lives.  Every year things get better as we grow and change and find out more and more about who we are and what we enjoy.  

This really has nothing to do with the hike other than it's where we parked,
but it's shows how beautiful Ellensburg is.  It forever will take my breathe away.

The start

We have never done gifts for our anniversary.  Don't get me wrong, we love receiving gifts but since we have know each other we have always preferred an "experience" & special time together over a gift. It's the best "gift;" a gift of a wonderful memory.  And, 8 years later we still feel the same way.  No gifts, just incredible quality time together as a family.  And, this year we upped the antsy.

This is where we stopped for lunch.
I thought it was as high as we were going (hence the "victory" arms) but alas we had a good hour more
of climbing and about 1200 more feet of elevation to gain.

Being able to look down at the town was such a neat experience
and the mountains in the background were so stunning

 For our 8th anniversary we went on a hike-a hike up Manastash Ridge ("The hike starts steep and continues steep for 2 miles on exposed desert terrain all the way to the top of the ridge at memorial point, gaining about 2000 ft. ") with Grace.  I had never done this hike before so I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. This was the hardest hike I have ever been on and it kicked my tush.   I felt exhilarated and proud-proud that we didn't give up and kept climbing even when my heart was pounding a million miles a minutes, couldn't breathe, was fearful of the coyote & rattle snakes and felt like I couldn't go on.  Grace was there to remind me that God was taking care of us and would always protect us.  

That is the point where we wanted to end up (there is a book there for people to sign when they make it up there)
...at this point we were about 3/4 the way there

 When we got to the top it was a pure VICTORY. 

The very tippy top.

 -Deep Breathe-

and

-Sigh-

Part of what we hiked up

Ellensburg to the right

Excited that she did it!  

Everyone up there and everyone we passed going there and back could not believe Grace hiked it.  Let's just say she's a little bit determined and by a little, I mean a whole stinking lot.   Loren did  carry her on his back up the two steepest parts as there was no way she would have been able to do it with out falling/sliding down but other than that she rocked it BIG TIME! 

"Mommy, I'm so glad we never gave up!"

-Grace

God, thank you for creating such impeccable places for us to explore.

Places that remind me just how big you are and how much you love us even though we are so small.

And, back to the car we go.....at the every end of the trail

And, the other thing Loren and I like to do to celebrate is go out to eat, just us, on our anniversary.   We don't go out to eat very often, just not economical for us so it's a very special treat when we get to.  We save up for weeks/months in advance and then eat at a place we've been drooling over for a very long time.  Loren chose the Valley Cafe. He use to work there when he was in college at Central.  It's where he learned to use an espresso machine, thus starting his career in coffee.  His boss way back then was our waiter for the evening and he helped make our anniversary a very memorable night.  The following day was going to be his 31st wedding anniversary and he shared with us wisdom on keeping a marriage growing and strong.    

The food was very scrumptious.  The atmosphere was perfect, not too fancy and not too casual-just in between, kind of like us.  It was a special night.  

A BIG thank you to our friends the Stahly's for watching Grace for us so we could go out and have a few hours alone.  

Happy Anniversary Loren.

Here's to a million more years of wedded bliss!

You are my best friend and I will always love you.