Opening Day of Soccer 2009

Alexis challenging the offense.

Need a good throw in!

Katie booting in another goal!

Katie is determined not to let this kid score on her!

Alexis and Katie are playing soccer again this fall. Both girls moved up in field sizes, so it will be an adjustment for them. Katie's team won both their games that day and she had two goals! Alexis' team didn't do as well, but she played great. The girls are both playing lots of goalie, so they take that pretty seriously. Regular season starts on Monday. We'll keep you posted on their standings!

Labor Day Camping

Team sand castle building!

Buck the Dog enjoying a good roll in the sand. He is NOT getting in the car!

JD, Derek, Evan and Buck the Dog after their second 10 mile hike this weekend.

After building sand castles, the girls ran into the water chasing seagulls.

Alexis had time to build a card house while we waited for sunshine.

Alexis and Katie working on their dance in the trailer.

JD showing us he still has the "stuff" for a pro quarterback!

We stole away for our last vacation of the summer over Labor Day weekend. The kids really wanted to go camping, so we headed up to Rainbow Falls State Park near Chehalis. The campground was small, but well kept. We met lots of new people and even started up a campground touch football game. JD, Alexis and the boys jumped right in and had a ball. Katie and I were on cheerleading and photography patrol. The first day the weather was cool, but dry. Derek and Evan went fishing every day and caught lots of little sucker fish. The second day was MISERABLE and we spent the entire day in the camper watching movies. Convinced we weren't going to do this on our last day, we packed up and headed to the beach to meet some friends. Unfortunately, we couldn't find them, but we did find lots of sunshine since it was in the mid 70s! Had a great time but had to come home sometime!

The Mighty Huntress

Serpent in question.

"What did I do?"

Alexis=the brave one.

Pepper watching her gift trying to escape.

"Here you go!"

Today our sweet little cat, Pepper, presented us with yet ANOTHER (previous "gifts" include dead moles, mice and mostly dead birds) token of her affection for us. Imagine my shock, horror, terror, etc. to see Pepper run in the house when the girls got home with a little SNAKE in her mouth. I thought it was dead, but it was very much alive as it slithered across my kitchen floor with Pepper right behind it. The girls and I were not happy with this visitor and screamed every time it moved. Pepper was very proud of herself and gave us this look of, "Here. Do you LOVE it?!" I think our screams were confirmation that her gift was well-received. Alexis mustered up the courage (Katie and I weren't getting near it) to pick it up with a sandwich bag and release it outside. She's our little Crocodile Hunter. Where are those BOYS when you need them? On second thought, if they were around they'd probably chase us all over the house with it...

School Days

If you look closely, you'll see Katie is quite toothless at this moment since losing her front teeth this summer and if you look even closer, you'll see Alexis is sporting a fresh coat of lightly colored lipgloss!

Today is the first day of school at our house! Derek is a high school freshman (yes, you and I are BOTH that old!), Evan is in 7th, Alexis is in 4th and Katie is in 2nd grade. The boys were much too cool for me to take their pictures, but the girls were giddy with excitement this morning at starting a new school year and taking all their new supplies with them. Remember that new classroom smell? Love it! Now, time for me to get some work done around here!!!

Buzzzzzzzzz

They got about 12 quarts of honey in all. Beautiful!

Derek and JD's hard work pays off!

Flowing from the extractor...

The honey extractor pulls the honey off the comb by spinning it.

Some of the honey packed in the hive's screens. Just needs a good spin!

In the early spring, JD announced that he wanted a motorcycle. Hmm. Then he announced that he wanted to raise honeybees and have Derek sell the honey for his mission fund. Hmm. We didn't have the time and/or money for both and needed to make a decision. Bees won (duh, have my husband riding a bike in the snow?) and we bought two hives that we keep on the blueberry farm across the river.

Each week since then, JD and Derek drive over there and clean and monitor the hives. Today was harvest! Look what beautiful honey they gave me! Next year they will have enough for Derek to sell at the farmer's market, but this year is for my food storage needs.

All good things must come to an end...

The Troy family reveal their true identity with our RI guests at the closing ceremonies.

Much better...

John and the rest of the all-star World Series team.

Well, our time is up with our new friends from Rhode Island. They went home this morning after 11 days with our family. It was a wonderful experience and we are so glad we had an opportunity to get to know these great kids and share this once-in-a-lifetime World Series with them. Hopefully we showed them some good times here in the northwest with our goofy family. They are talented athletes, but they are very nice people too. Hard to say goodbye, but hopefully we'll see them again! STAY IN TOUCH, guys!

Beach Bums

Another "sunny" day at the beach!

Hamming it up in the arcade.

Alexis can't stifle her excitement after winning from the taffy factory's wheel of fortune!

Evan, Derek and Alex get ready to test the Tilt-A-Whirl's ability to induce nausea.

John in hot pursuit of JD and Katie's bumper car. Katie looks nervous with Daddy's driving.

By the end of the week, we gained two more Cranston teammates (Steve and Ryan) when their host parents had to go away for the weekend. More polite Cranstonites! Since it was their final day here, we decided they HAD to go to the Pacific Ocean. That way they can say they went coast to coast. We piled everyone into a few vehicles and headed west to Seaside, Oregon. The weather was lousy, but we made the most of it. The RI boys wanted to know why people weren't sunbathing and swimming. I had to explain it was because the Pacific up here is FREEZING cold and no one is that desperate to swim in it. Immediately Evan offered to go for a "polar bear swim" and waited for a companion to join him. Dead air and no swim.

Seaside has a promenade downtown with shops, restaurants, an arcade and some carnival rides. Here's a few pictures of all the kids enjoying the sights of the beach!