Tree 2 Tree

My Dad bought Rob a gift certificate to Tree to Tree this year. It's a fun little place out by Hagg Lake that consists of an obstacle course up in the trees. We decided to go on Sept 2nd before school started. Rob LOVED it!! Zip lines, rock walls you have to climb up and across while 20 ft or so up in the air, crossing over on nothing more than a cable and not much else to hold onto at some points. What isn't there to love? Haha! No thanks, I'll keep my feet firmly planted on the ground :) But Rob loved it and that's all that mattered. He took Jonathan and Nathaniel up with him. Shane was able to join the fun up in the trees while my dad and I sat it out below with the younger kids and took pictures. I was pretty impressed all four were able to complete all four levels, each getting progressively harder and higher off the ground.
I gave Elizabeth a camera and let her follow the guys around since I had to run back and forth between them and Meredith. She did pretty good :) Because the two of us took a ton of photos I just put them all into an album. Sorry lots of pics of behinds but we couldn't seem to ever get in a better position to get the other side of them :)

Nooooo!!!! It's too soon!!

This little turkey rolled over just a few minutes ago!

I flipped her back over on her back and she went right back to trying to get over again!
So much for being able to leave her in the room on her back. Won't be long now and
she'll be rolling all over the place, and then crawling, and then walking!! AAAaahhhhh!!!

Frustrated

I got to start my day bright and early with a phone call to K12, the curriculum we use for Elizabeth to school at home. I love K12. I love the independent study courses we have chosen to do. I love not having a set schedule and we are only responsible to ourselves. BUT, someone screwed up somewhere last year when I ordered her 4th grade materials. We thought it had been taken care of last year, than again in Janurary. It's a long story I have had to repeat several times to several different people at K12 so not going to get into it. But essentially I logged on this week and found that my calendar would not be accessible after the 17th. I called, Rob called, 3 different people assured us that they could see in their system that we are good to go until Nov. 30 (I know seems a bit random but it's the date we started with them back in '09). The last person told me to just wait until the 18th, log on, and I should still see all my materials and everything should be fine. HA! I knew in my gut he was just trying to make us all feel better but I complied. Sure enough, yesterday all her courses were gone and I still couldn't access the calendar. So, another phone call this morning. I was on the phone for 40 mins with two different people neither of which could solve the problem. The first person couldn't even find Elizabeth. Great. She sent me to sales and after 30 mins she told me she had someone working on it but she'd have to call me back. I hate dealing with other peoples mistakes. None of this would have happened if the very first person I talked to back in August of last year had done her job right. The great thing is I can't get anyone to understand the true nature of the problem. I have tried explaining it a couple different ways but I'm sure I'm getting blank stares or maybe even rolled eyes on the other end of the phone. So, now sitting around waiting for the phone call that will tell me they couldn't fix the problem. At which point they are going to have to deal with Rob again and that's probably not going to be pretty. For their sake, when they call back, I hope it's good news.

Three Months Old!

Meredith is 3 months old (yesterday)! Can't believe it. We will be doing her 3 month pictures on Saturday, can't wait. I always get their pictures done at 3, 7, and 12 months.

If you look back at other photos of her in this chair you can see how she has grown by where her head is resting :)

 A few days ago Meredith found her hands, and she is FASCINATED with them! Makes me laugh. She'll get this look of total concentration on her face as she tries to bring them together and then just stares at them once they are clasped. We bought her one one of those little floor gym things and she spends a good amount of time trying to grab the little toys hanging down. Very fun to watch.

We went to the Garlic Festival in North Plains on Saturday. It was fun, a reason to get out of the house for a few hours. I've never seen elephant garlic before. One clove is just HUGE! We got a couple and are going to plant them and see what we get. We walked around the vendors and looked at all the fun things to buy. My dad bought me this cool little dish ( purple of course) that is all spiky in the middle.

You rub the garlic over it and it grates it up. Then you pour olive oil and other spices into it and can make some yummy dip for bread. We tried it last night with one of our giant cloves of garlic. It was delicious!


We discovered a rock climbing wall and all the kids had to try it out. Nathaniel was not with us as he was off on a bike ride with the scouts. Jonathan made it all the way to the top. Elizabeth made it about 1/2 way, I was honestly very surprised. Seth got about 8 feet up, he did pretty good too. On our way out we grabbed some fair food for lunch. Jonathan got some garlic ice cream so we could all try it. Not something I'll ever need to try again :) One lick was enough for me. He did eat the whole thing. It's worth going out at least once to check it out. Like I said a fun reason to get out of the house one weekend in August.

Summer Happenings

We finally managed to get away to the beach a few weeks ago. We met up with the Aunties, Celest and Karen, and just had a really good time! It was a beautiful day and we all went home thoroughly tired and burned :)

They found a LIVE crab this time!

Nathaniel was dead tired. He had done an overnighter with the scouts, stayed up too late, than a 25 mile bike ride that morning, then played on the beach all day. THEN we walked a good 20 mins into Seaside from Celest and Karen's hotel, had dinner, and then walked back. This is him falling asleep at the restaurant waiting for them to call us back :)

Just a cute photo of Meretith and Seth. He sure adores her!

12 YEARS OLD!! Yikes!

We went to a concert in the park this past week. They were doing Hawaiin music. We had a very fun time. The weather was perfect, not too hot and not too cold.

Elizabeth invited her best friend Jill along. We finally managed to get them together for a sleepover, it's been ages! The girls had a very good time together.

Rob and Seth found a vendor selling that long rope licorice. Seth ate all 34 inches before we left the park!

I just laugh every time I see this photo. Rob was messing around and this time when he squeezed her cheeks her eyebrows shot up and I managed to get the photo. Too funny!

Two months old today!!!

And so

darn

CUTE!!!!

Random thoughts

I have the house to MYSELF!! Yes, that's right, NO kids. Not even the baby. Ahhhhh! My sweet, brave husband took the kids to their swim lessons and packed up the baby to go with him. So nice to have the house to myself for a bit. Since they aren't gone for very long I couldn't really start any projects or even work on ongoing ones so I thought I'd write a blog post.

Life is good. Summer is moving along. I wish we were doing more but at the same time like having a reason to stay home. Meredith is getting to the point where we can take her out for longer periods of time so I think I will start trying to do something with the kids at least once a week. A trip to the zoo is long overdue. They have installed several new exhibits over the last couple of years and we haven't seen any of them. So I'd like to do that. We just got our new OMSI cards so we need to make a trip there. I've been itching to go bowling, it's been awhile. We have a beach trip planned here in a couple weekends with Rob's sister and I'm very much looking forward to that. We'll see how it goes.

I've been baking, a lot. Very bad as it's stuff like cookies, brownies, pie. Nothing even remotely healthy. It sure is good though. The problem is I have discovered a couple of websites that are devoted to recipes. And they have some really yummy looking deserts so I've been trying them when I get a chance. Yesterday's baking adventure was Brownie Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies. You can find the recipe here. Oh my gosh, you have got to try these. Two of my favorites in one cookie. Delicious and so bad for you! I've tried several other recipes of hers and so far no complaints. Someday I may even try some of her non-sweet recipes but for now, she's got loads of deserts to try out so will be sticking with those.

I made it back to the dojo last night. I will be going in once a week for a bit and then doing the 10 week UBC course starting in August. Last night was great. I'm stronger than I thought I was and haven't lost as much of my cardio as I thought I had. I was feeling great this morning and thinking I got away without feeling too sore. But I've got the delayed soreness thing going on. Right now my shoulders, back and chest are really getting sore. Lots of punching last night. I'll deal though as it felt so dang good to moving like that again. Can't wait to get back in there full time and hopefully get back into shape. I have seriously missed it. I thought I'd enjoy the break from it, and I did for like a week, and then I started getting anxious to get back. I miss teaching in the mornings. I really enjoy meeting the new people that come in every 10 weeks. I enjoy seeing the students who return. I won't start teaching again until the holidy course which starts in November I think. Want to get myself back into shape before I attempt to help others do the same. Did managed to scuff up 4 knuckles last night. I figured I would. I had finally gotten my hands calloused enough to not need wraps or gloves. I haven't been in for a long time so they've gotten soft again. I hate having the wraps on and the gloves just bug the heck out of me so I didn't bring either, resulting in scuffed knuckles. Just means I'm starting the process over again :) Hehe, I LOVE it!

I have managed to stay off of Facebook now for almost 2 weeks. I'm so proud of myself. I was starting to spend way too much time on there it was getting annoying. I go through this weird computer withdrawal phase every summer. I spend so much of my time online during the school year as Elizabeth's lessons are all online. When summer hits and I don't have to be on as much I'm not quite sure what to do with my time. This time I was constantly checking Facebook to the point of driving myself crazy. I decided I wanted to see if I could stay off of it. The first few days were hard. I would sit with my laptop and just stare at it as there isn't much else I use it for. Ug. However as the days have gone by it's gotten way easier and I don't even think about it anymore. Now it's a competition with myself to see how long I can stay off of it. I did realize a few days ago though that I do have friends who contact me through Facebook email so I had to get on to check that. That's where the iPod app is great. I don't have to look at the newsfeed at all, can have it open up to my email and then I just hit the button and shut it down when I'm done. So, if I have no idea what is going on other people's lives that is why. Sorry.

Nathaniel and I have been slowly editing the book he wrote back in November. I tried so hard to do it earlier while I was pregnant but I was so tired all the time I found myself falling asleep while reading. And there were times where I wasn't sure what idea he was trying to get on paper. I decided it would be easier if he sat next to me and we read through a chapter each day and worked on it together. It's been fun. I know he wants to get started on the next book but he's had this one hanging over his head so I hope it helps.

Jonathan is learning something called parkour. It's all about jumping and vaulting over things like picnic tables, walls, railings, and whatever else is in the way. I hear he's pretty good at it. So far a friend takes him to the lessons so I haven't seen much of it. I will be taking him to a park one of these days so he can show off his stuff. I'm just not sure I want to watch as I know I'm going to be holding my breath the whole time and trying not to yell at him to be careful. I'm waiting for him to break a bone. He does seem to enjoy it though.

It's been a pretty boring summer for Elizabeth, I think. The days at least. Evenings she has swim lessons and bowling. I've dropped back on the school lessons but won't let her stop them completely. Trying to get in at least two lessons a day. I have this goal of where I want her to be in the fall but finally had to give up on the full day of lessons. Just can't do it with everyone home and the baby. So settling for two lessons a day. She did get to start karate back up last night and she was very happy about that. Lance and Heather were finally able to get a larger space and it allows for two classes to run at the same time. Very convenient as I can work out while Elizabeth is doing karate. Love it!

Seth is now to the need-to-get-attention-anyway-I-can stage. Was waiting for it. He was into things before but it's gotten a little worse since Meredith came home. I feel bad as we've had to come down on him harder the last few weeks. I'm just glad he doesn't seem to blame the baby. He still very much adores her. Loves to hold her. Makes funny faces at her when she's out here with us and gets her to smile. I think she's even trying to laugh at him. He's such a goof ball. He gets her "fierpacer" (yes that is how he says pacifier) for her when she starts getting a little cranky. The other day I saw him very gently wipe her face with a burp cloth after she had spit up and then he got her blanket and tucked it in around her. So sweet.

Meredith is growing like crazy! She is so stinkin long. She is very smiley and such a good baby. Not much of a napper which can be frustrating but at least she doesn't spend that time awake crying. I just never feel like I can work on anything while she's awake. Partly because I end up playing with her, hard to resist :) The times it's just the two of us I think I'll get stuff done while the other kids are out of th house but then she'll start "talking" and being all cute so I have to get down on the floor with her and catch the moment :) I figure the dishes will always be there (and I can make the boys do them later hahaha) and I'll have plenty of time later to work on my quilts. For now I'm just enjoying her. I wish she woulnd't grow so fast. My last two were smaller and stayed small for quite some time so I could remain under the illusion they were still babies. Meredith is growing so big so fast I don't think I'll be allowed to think that! With Nathaniel going into high school next year I know time is going to fly by so just taking it easy and enjoying the quiet times while I can.