Julian's early morning blog

Maren's Home!

2012-01-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Wednesday.

Last night Maren got back from her ALA conference. It was a little touch and go for her as the weather was getting bad and her pilot wasn't at the plane, but in the end she got home with only a 30 minute delay. Preston had a "homework" date, so he wasn't with us, but the littles and I had a very good dinner at John and Carol's house then picked Maren up from the airport.

Waiting for Mar's plane to arrive we did go up and down the escalators a couple of times, checked out the hanging airplanes and even wished for doughnuts at the little magazine store. But after just a few long minutes Maren found her way down the corridor along with a couple of library fiends. Lillie was having too much fun, saying stuff like, "here comes mom!...nope, that's just an old guy."...ouch.

Of course Mar brought home a few books and treats for the kiddos. And she won a fabulous prize at one of her events for having the "most recent birthday". Waahoo!

See you tomorrow.

Back To School.

2012-01-24T07:15:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

We are up and getting ready for school/work. That's right, yesterday the KSD canceled school because half the schools still didn't have power! We may be going to school till the end of June this year, but this little break was very nice.

I started the clean up of the back yard. Once I got started it didn't seem quite so bad. I have only used the clippers and not yet used the chainsaw I borrowed from John.

This is one of the piles of branches I have piled up for removal. I do feel very lucky that we only had small trees fall in such a way to cause zero damage to the deck, fence, or house. It is clear that there are many folks around who fared far worse.

What to do on another day off? We headed up to the outlet stores in North Bend. Preston needed new soccer shoes and the rest of us like shoes too. Besides, I was curious to drive over HWY 18 from out house to I-90 as it was closed for several days due to fallen trees. And it really is amazing how many trees had to be cut and cleared over the roadway just to get it open again. This is our stack of shoes. Lillie and I enjoyed a BOGO half off sale at Sketchers, while the boys were shopping sales at Nike. Hansen and Preston spotted a 20% off sign on shoes and saved us even a little more money! Preston and I are size 11, Hansen size 10.5...I could use the kids shoes in a pinch these days no problem! Lillie's are very cute little camo/butterfly shoes. She also completed her camo/butterfly shoes with a trip to Claire's and a necklace that is a little black bottle filled with poison along with a skull and cross bones for warning. Yikes.

But Lillie did enjoy a quick little ride with Pooh Bear.

I found this picture on my phone. Lillie has been following the cats around taking pictures. You know the cats are tired of her when they actually visit me.

See you tomorrow.

Thawing Out.

2012-01-21T09:37:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Saturday.

The bulk of the storm seems to be in the past now. It was supposed to get very windy last night, but I didn't feel that at our house at all. Yesterday driving home from the Ostergard's house it was clear that Kent got hit very hard by this ice-storm. Plenty of Kent/Covington is still without power and there are trees down everywhere. Mostly just big limbs and smaller trees, but there are a few very big trees that snapped off, even in our culdesac. The big danger now will be both flooding and the weight of the snow breaking carports and roofs. We should be good in both of those departments, but the TV news will be showing plenty of those in the next couple of days.

This picture is a panorama picture I took with Hansen's camera from an upstairs window. You can't see the extent of the damage by any stretch, but you can see some broken trees. As of now things are just thawing out. The roads and yard are still covered with slushy snow, but it should be gone in a few more days. By the time school comes around on Monday things should be pretty much back to normal. At some point over the next few weeks I will probably go out and buy a small electric chainsaw to do cleanup in the yard. No big hurry.

Today is kind of a hang out day. Preston has four indoor soccer games this evening as both of his teams have double headers. Then has a game tomorrow morning as well. I may take the littles out to the movies while Preston is soccering.

See you tomorrow.

Birthday Cake.

2012-01-20T10:42:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Friday.

Snow day number four is today. In fact, lets just say this whole week has been a snow week as the kids have not had a single hour of school this week! Yesterday to add to the fun of the freezing rain and snow, we lost power. The power went out in the morning, came on briefly in the evening, then went out again. As I type we still have no power. So how am I blogging without power you may ask? I am at John and Carol's house where they have power. Yup, Maren had a 7:00am flight for an ALA conference this morning so knowing there was power here and not wanting to be driving around in the snow not knowing about school and the kids and such, we all just came and spent the night at the Ostergard's house and had a little birthday party for Maren as well. I did get Maren to the airport where her flight took off on schedule...way better than the folks who tried to fly out yesterday and had flights canceled...about 80% of the travelers.

This is the view out the front widow of John and Carol's house. Their cars are totally covered in ice and snow and will not be going out anytime soon. My car is out front, much closer than down the hill and walking like we did yesterday as we just couldn't make it up the hills on our way over. As exciting as it all sounds, it really is no trouble and we are just happy to be warm, full, and with power.

Maren's mini birthday party! I will never tell how old she is, I hope the candles don't give it away:) I'm not sure that no power and a frozen rain storm along with down trees and the like are really what Maren had in mind for her birthday. But I'm thinking this will be one she remembers. I did call my mom to wish her a happy birthday before the power went out. I got the message machine and tried to sing a happy birthday for each year but puttered out rather quickly.

Our plan is to head back home around noon, but that may change if the power never comes on. Some reports are no power till tomorrow. We shall see. For now we are doing great, thanks to John and Carol.

See you tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Maren and Mom.

2012-01-19T08:33:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

Happy birthday to Maren and to my mom! Both January 19th birthdays...wacky huh?

Here is a picture of Maren from yesterday...or a year earlier if you're only talking age. We ventured out for a little walk around the neighborhood.

Freezing rain all night has left the area in disarray. Everything outside is covered in sheets of ice. The world looks like a glazed doughnut! But the ice is so heavy that every few minutes you can hear trees breaking and it is pretty disconcerting.

Hard to see it in this picture, but the van (not under snow) is coated with a centimeter of solid ice! This car is just not moving anytime real soon.

And a broken tree in the back yard. The way the trees are breaking it is like they were hit by lightning. Crazy huh?

Yesterday Hansen (right) went sledding with a bunch of friends at the local school. He was gone for hours and had a great time.

Preston and his friends avoided sledding with the littles of the world, but that didn't keep warm and dry...they played football for quite a while.

And for the last picture of the day...a shot of our TV while Kiro 7 was driving just a few miles from our house and filming the ride. Yup, where is the road?

Yes, there is no school today for the third school day in a row!

Happy Birthday to Maren and Mom, and see you tomorrow.

Another Snow day.

2012-01-17T09:33:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

All of Preston and Lillie's antics worked. There is no school today, it's a snow day! What antics you ask? Well, they both did a joint "snow dance" where they wore their jammies inside out, slept with their pillows on the wrong end of the bed, and did a "snow chant" while tossing their pillows before going to sleep. Wacky, but it worked! Today we probably still have several inches of snow about. Today is supposed to be pretty calm, but tomorrow may bring over a foot of snow according to forecasts.

Yesterday was hanging out and watching the snow. I did take Lillie and her friend Adi to the local hill for some sledding.

Walking to the school.

No school thanks to M.L.K Day, but that didn't keep the kids away...the school has the best sledding hill around.

The snow was pretty worn off the hill, but sledding was still fun.

Walking back home the neighborhood looked very cool. I think snow totally piled on the trees looks very cool.

See you tomorrow.

M.L.K Day.

2012-01-16T10:21:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

Today is M.L.K. day, while we have the day off from school it is good to reflect on Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and views. Would he be pleased with the world of today? Or would new and different hurdles keep showing up on the path in front of him? I would think that many of the laws in place today he would be good with, but I think the politics of today would have him scratching his head. Politics, wealth, jobs, taxes, education, health care, and fairness...can't we just get along? Nope. And are we really supposed to get along? We had a guest speaker at church who was quite dynamic and I went to one of her classes last Monday evening. She pointed out that for all of the history of the world humans have not gotten along and to think they should is just turning your back on history. Not pretty, and not supposed to be. Well, she was a speaker brought in by our church who of late has taken strides to be more "Bible based", which seems to me is just a way to justify finding the parts of the Bible that suit one's narrow agenda, and in this case, maybe a little more right winged and narrow agenda. Anyhow, I don't think M.L.K. would be overly satisfied with the world of today, and I can't say I am either.

But my family, friends, and the place that I live is pretty awesome. With no school today and being totally snowed in, we all played some fun games last night. Balderdash was fun, so was Hearts and a card game the kids taught me called B.S. Yes, B.S. does stand for B.S., but now I know a pretty fun card game that is not bad and better for an eight years old than Hearts. Yup, when playing Hearts, Lillie would get mad when she didn't win a trick. She didn't really get the whole strategy, she just wanted to be the one who starts every time, points be whatever. Maybe the boys and I will have to trade Lillie for Maren for a game later.

Now to snow. The next couple of pictures are pretty tame pictures as it turns out. But you have to realize that is is mid January and we didn't think we would see any snow this season....and we thought this would be all the snow we would get.

Preston and Connor doing a little snowball fighting.

Lillie building a snowman.

And the completed snowman. Just a little fellow.

Right now there is tons of more snow and frozen roads. Over the next couple of days we are expecting possibley another eight inches of snow. I doubt we will have school on Tuesday or Wednesday if the predictions are correct. Today we will probably hike up to the school for sledding, then maybe into town as well...I'm thinking the kids may want a Slurpee?

See you tomorrow.

Last Hurrah.

2012-01-14T10:02:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Saturday.

Last night Hansen had (and is still having) his last birthday party for his twelfth birthday. After school he had a couple of friends come over for an overnight. These three boys devoured tons of pizza, then I took them to see Tower Heist in the $3.00 theater in Renton. I really enjoyed the movie, very funny. The boys are now up and gaming on different gaming devices. Breakfast was scrambled eggs made by Hansen's friend Issac, toast from the loaf of bread we were given by Larry. Best toast ever! And coffee from the new Keurig maker. Yup, I said new...the old one broke and Keurig's awesome customer service sent us a new one at no charge! I'm thinking the Keurig system is coffee sales driven, kind of like cell phones are contract driven?

Here is Hansen blowing out his single candle on his doughnut. These kids devoured the pack of doughnuts without issue as well.

The little's school had their Martin Luther King Jr. assembly yesterday. The drama club performed a half hour skit which had rave reviews. I didn't get to attend, but even Hansen said Lillie did a good job!

See you tomorrow.

Dear Tooth Fairy,

2012-01-11T07:01:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Wednesday.

Yesterday at school Lillie lost a tooth! Yep, this tooth was ready to come out a day or two ago, but she wouldn't let me help in the process. She really wanted me to pull it out a day or two ago, but every time she let me try she would freak out before I even got a good grip of the tooth. A far cry from the days that Preston would actually let me tie dental floss around his teeth and then to the door...then he would slam the door himself. Those were some fun times! But Lillie did just fine, and in the end it worked out great for her as she lost her tooth at school!

This is the cute little treasure chest she got to hold her tooth in. The boys used to get a little tooth shaped necklace, but the treasure chest was very cool.

And the letter Lillie wrote to the Tooth Fairy. The Tooth Fairy usually leaves a dollar per tooth at our house. I hear reports of crazy things at school like $5.00 per tooth from kids then the teachers always say they would get a quarter.

Today is a late start day for all the kids. Well, except for Lillie. Due to a long practice for the Drama Club, she is actually leaving earlier than usual. The Drama Club will perform a play for Martin Luther Kind Day this Friday.

See you tomorrow.

Soccer, Biking, and Shopping...With Kids.

2012-01-09T07:28:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

Yesterday was a day that I got to hang out with each of my kids all at different times. In the morning Preston had the first game of the State Founder's Cup. He scored 4 goals and lead his team to a 4-3 win. He played a very good game and each of his goals were really amazing considering he was double and triple teamed the whole game. We drove the coach and a couple of other kids as well to Marymoor park in Redmond. The place is very cool with a rock climbing wall for professionals and a velodrome for bikers. I got to check each out as I had a whole hour to burn before the game. On the way home I only had a $10.00 bill in my pocket but a car full of hungry kids, so it was to the McDonald's drive-through and nine McDoubles. One for coach and I, two for each kid and a floater.

Once home I took Hansen out mountain bike riding on some actual trails. His new bike is very cool and the full suspension really smooths out the ride. He only let me try it one time around a circle trail, but compared to my oldish no suspension bike, his was very smooth. No, no, I don't want a new bike now, my bike is a cool single speed bike, very simple and I like it. Hansen likes all his technology, so it works. We were only out for about 45 minutes, one of these days I will take him on a much longer adventure.

Then in the evening it was off to run a few errands. I had to run to the bank, put gas in the van, and stop by Fred Meyer's. Lillie wanted to come along if we could stop by McDonald's to use her free large fry coupon. So I had an errand buddy.

Somehow I only took one picture yesterday, and this was it. It was great hanging with the kids, but one of these days I'm going to have to ditch the kids and spend the day with Maren.

See you tomorrow.

Mudders.

2012-01-07T09:14:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Saturday.

This is exactly the kind of morning that I named my blog after. I am the first one up, I have a mug of coffee, the house is extremely quiet, and I'm blogging away. The only noise is Hansen's phone buzzing every minute because he keeps getting text messages. Ok, now his phone is silent and I just read a couple of his messages...haha. Hansen especially likes it (I mean hates it) when I catch him texting a friend named Veronica and then I start belting out the lyrics from the song Veronica by Elvis Costello.

I have gotten the golf bug again, but it has been so rainy that all I have been doing is putting around the living room and changing all the clubs in my bag. I have a big bag and a push cart, and a small bag for carrying, so I am always switching clubs back and forth depending on if I think I want to carry or push my clubs. And it is more complicated than that. If I carry, I only carry 9 clubs in a small bag and I don't want the extra added weight of an umbrella and rain gear, but if I push I carry all 14 in a big bag, use a push cart, and attach my umbrella. Of course, club selection also changes based on what golf course I will be playing. Yup, Maren thinks I'm wacky too...or fussy is the word she uses.

This golfer is not me, but if I was out golfing today, I would pretty much look just like this guy with his push cart and umbrella...only my jacket would be a little heavier. We call folks who golf in the rain and muck "mudders". I may be a mudder again some day, but I'm not quite there yet.

Alright, off to clean up some cat barf. Or maybe I should just leave it for Maren? Nah, I'll go clean it this time.

See you tomorrow.

TGIF

2012-01-06T07:06:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Friday.

I am so glad it is Friday! This three day week has really dragged on and on. Getting back into the school swing of things has been hard on us all. And to make it worse, we have been busier than ever. Lillie has had dance class, Hansen has had extra homework, and Preston has had Driver's Ed and tons of soccer.

Last night Lillie didn't even want to go to dance class, but I brought her there anyway. And as it turns out, she was very happy to be there. She found out that her ballet class is doing a Masquerade for the recital. Yup, she gets to have a mask...on a stick! So very exciting.

Preston completed his very last Driver's Ed class/drive last night. Now it is just keep on driving and when his 16th birthday comes around, get his license. I must admit that Preston has become a much better driver thanks to the drives that he has had thought the class. Two nights in a row Preston has gotten home at around 9:45pm due to soccer practice. I don't think Preston minds so much, but it is hard to get the littles going to bed when Preston is not even home from soccer.

On a more fun note, Maren purchased some fitness game for the Kinect which we tried out for a few minutes last night. The things we did were kick soccer balls and punch out cubes. Fun and goofy, this game tricks you into a little exercise. Cool.

Well, off to the day, see you tomorrow.

A new bike!

2012-01-04T07:00:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Wednesday.

Yesterday Hansen received his big birthday gift in the early afternoon as Carol and John were on their way to spend the night at Jack and Avery's house.

This big box had been hiding in the Ostergard garage for the last three weeks or so. John brought it out in his truck and Hansen was quite surprised!

After a bunch of building, it was out for a test drive. Hansen is geeking out over his new bike. And for some reason he didn't want to trade me for my old bike...hmm. It took us a little while to get the gears adjusted, but for now the bike is working perfectly. No, Hansen is not wearing a helmet for this little test ride, but he does wear one when we go riding.

In the evening it was off to the Golden Peacock for some yummy food. Hansen and Lillie say the Golden Peacock has the Egg McMuffin of cheeseburgers! While Maren, Preston and myself enjoy the Chinese food.

Back to work and school for the kids and I. Maren has already left as she has a dentist appointment this morning.

See you tomorrow.

21 and 12.

2012-01-03T08:27:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

Happy 21st wedding anniversary Maren! Yup, today makes it 21 years.

I took photos of pictures hanging on the wall to get today's blog pics. This picture was take a couple of months after Maren and I got married by a professional portrait studio, but we are dressed the same as the day we got married. Yup, pink...we were cool like that.

Then nine years later Hansen was born. Indeed, Hansen was born on our ninth anniversary. Happy 12th birthday kiddo! I'm thinking this picture is Hansen's four year picture. So cute.

Hansen has always told us that we are the lucky ones to have him born on our anniversary...he says that he is the best gift ever! And we should give him even better birthday gifts in return. And in that spirit, he will be getting a whopper of a gift today!

See you tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T10:12:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Sunday.

2011 is officially in the books and 2012 is the date to remember for now. I am sure I will still find myself writing 1992 and stuff like that when in a hurry...but it really is 2012 now. We ended up at a party thrown by Maren's cousin. We had a great time as did all the kids. We got home around 10:45 pm, just in time to watch a recorded Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper's New Years, then switch over at 11:45 pm to see the fireworks on the Space Needle. Strangely Kind 5 didn't do an actual countdown which was kind of strange, but we figured it out.

Here the kids are "clinking" in the new year at our house. Yeah, sparkling apple cider!

Back at Annie and Kraig's party we played cool board game. I don't know the name, but it was fun. Maybe you recognize it? Preston hung out with us adults and got along splendidly.

Back in the living room the kids were having their own fun goofing off and playing x-box.

Here is Maren and her cousin Annie. There was great food, great desserts, and fun was had by all...last year:)

Happy New Year! See you tomorrow.

Party Time.

2011-12-31T10:41:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Saturday.

Yesterday Hansen celebrated his birthday along with his cousins. We all met at the Ostergard's house at overnight pickup time and celebrated with pizza, pop, cake, and cupcakes. Sounds like the overnight was a huge success and all the boys had a wonderful time. Preston and I picked up six Little Caesar's pizzas and within moments five of them were gone! Here are a few pics:

Grandpa is lighting candles on cupcakes while Avery is testing out the frosting.

Hansen and Alex making quick work of the pizza and pop.

Here Hansen and Alex are showing off their mad computer skills to Lillie and Miles. Hansen received great birthday gifts! And he is not done yet.

Have a great New Years!!! See you next year.

Shocks?

2011-12-30T10:11:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Friday.

What? Another post without pictures? Yep, seems my models are out goofing off rather than getting their pictures taken. Last night Hansen and Lillie both went out on overnights. Hansen is at John and Carol's house along with his cousins Alex, Miles, and Jack. I will head out there in a couple of hours with lunch and a birthday cake for Hansen (just one of his parties) to see how exhausted the grandparents are.

So what have I been doing? I went golfing the other day at Lake Wildness Golf Course. It is very short compared to the courses I have been playing, but the fellas who play there are very nice, it is close to home, and the rates are reasonable...I just may switch my membership there this season.

I just got in from replacing the shocks on the old pickup truck. I took of the original ones (like 22 years old now) off and put an new and slightly upgraded set on. The old ones wouldn't even move back to position once compressed...needless to say the truck rides much better now. The job wasn't too hard, took a couple of hours all told, and I saved about $200.00 if I had let Les Schwaab do the work for me. I also painted over SpongeBob, but it is clear I parked the truck outside just a bit too early and then the rain just never stopped...so it will need another coat of paint get rid of all the cool blotchy rain marks.

Last night Maren and I hung out and watch the Alamo Bowl. The Huskies played great and had Baylor along with their Heisman Trophy winning footballer kind of scared. Fun game to watch if you don't care for defense one little bit.

I will try to get a picture or two for tomorrow's blog.

See you tomorrow.

Merry Christmas.

2011-12-25T10:27:00.000-08:00

Good morning, is it Christmas! Merry Christmas!

Yesterday we headed over to the Ostergard's house for our family Christmas Eve fun.

Right away Jack and Hansen started having fun. Good times with cousins for sure.

Grandpa John and Preston...who is taller now? I'm thinking Grandpa may be standing on his tip toes for this picture?

Julian (me) and Maren.

Lillie and her cousin Avery. Here they are in the basement at the Ostergard's house where they have converted Maren's old room into a little girl get-away.

Our little family posing in front of the tree. All the families got pictures taken.

Preston having fun opening presents with his cousin Abbi. It sure is great that Preston has cousins his own age now!

After dinner we, along with John and Carol, went to the 7:30 service at church. This is one of our favorite service of the entire year. We got to hear Kevin H. sing (he is amazing but we only hear him on Christmas Eve.) and the whole congregation sings Silent Night while holding candles with the lights dimmed. It is very cool.

Last night while we were all asleep Santa came to our house! And left some very nice gifts for all of us.

In a couple of hours we will head over to Jack and Avery's house to have more Christmas fun and enjoy some left over meatballs from last night. Yum!

Merry Christmas everyone!

See you tomorrow.

Cinderella with Lillie.

2011-12-23T07:19:00.000-08:00

Good morning it is Thursday.

Yesterday I got to take Lillie the the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle to see Cinderella. That's right, just me and Lillie. Maren planed it out that way because there was just no good day for the whole family to go, and at the price of the tickets, if the boys didn't want to go, we weren't going to force the issue. And for Maren it was a work day.

Showing up at the 5th Ave. Lillie didn't feel like dressing in a Cinderella dress (not that she didn't have her own flair), but I can tell you that many little girls did! There were plenty of little Cinderellas all over the place.

And we were on the floor level!

At intermission we wandered up to check out the orchestra pit. This glass slipper was the huge screen saver for the theater. The play was great. It stuck to the story that all the kids know very well without loosing its own identity. That's right, I should be a judge on American Idol.

Afterwards we wandered over to Pacific Place for an early dinner. We got to pass by hundreds of freezing folks lined up outside of the Nike store as they were camping out for the release of the Retro Nike Jordans. Watching the news this morning there were even fights and police called in at Southcenter mall as the Retro Jordan crowd was getting a little fighty. Once into the convention center where I parked the van, Lillie decided to take an extra trip up and down the escalator...with all the lights around it was a pretty fun ride.

See you tomorrow.

Vacation time.

2011-12-22T09:30:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

Yesterday was the first day of winter break for the kids and myself. Hansen and Preston both had overnights at friend's houses so they were not even around in the morning. Maren is still working through this week before taking some time off the following week.

John and Carol picked up the littles for a day of fun at Jack and Avery's house. It sounds like they had a great time even though Lillie started to not feel so well. She is coming down with a cold, but is doing ok. Lillie and I have tickets to see Cinderella at the 5th Ave. today, so we're hoping she hangs in there. Hansen was so tired from his overnight and hanging with the twins that he just fell asleep in his room with all the lights on before Preston even wanted to come up...of course they were up later than the rest of us.

Yesterday after hanging out pretending to do chores, I wandered over to the driving range to hit some golf balls. I ran into an old friend from like 20 years ago in the golf business. It was fun to catch up and I hit the ball very well too. So a nice afternoon. Before the littles got home with John and Carol, Maren and I went out of diner at a local Chinese food restaurant. The one we usually go to is remodeling, so I don't even know the name of the place we went, but it was very tasty!

See you tomorrow.

Hanukkah Candles, Whyties, and You're Good To Go.

2011-12-21T07:33:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Wednesday.

Yesterday was the first night of Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah!

I went out to buy some candles for the occasion and tried the wrong store first. I tried Walgreen's and they didn't even sell Hanukkah candles. Then over to Safeway and no luck there either. Then I got wise, I headed over to Fred Meyers and sure enough they had a couple of options. All blue or a mixture of different colors. I choose the colors just because I like different colors. Then I remembered that I had a lens to pick up for my glasses at Fred Meyer's Optical Department. Yup, my left lens was cracking and they replaced it thanks to my buying the protection plan.

Here are our Hanukkah Candles along with our Menorah and a few Dradles that were given to us by Grandpa and Bernice.

Check out these shoelaces! The little's school has been selling these "whyties?" in all different colors. You replace your regular laces and then you have slip on shoes. Perfect for Lillie! Hansen picked up a pair of purple and gold ones not to be outdone, but I doubt he will ever use his.

And this is Maren's new Good To Go starter kit! Not very exciting, but a necessity as more and more roads around here are charging tolls to cross. I call it trolling rather than tolling. She will get a cute little sticker for her windshield that will just charge her if she goes under the sensor. I have one too, but will not install it soon as I like to use the carpool lanes with a full van of people and don't want to be charged. I will just avoid the tolls or sign my license plate up to be associated with Maren's sticker.

See you tomorrow.

A Value Village Sale.

2011-12-20T07:13:00.001-08:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

Yesterday was a 50% off sale day at Value Village for club card members. What did that mean? Well, we shop and shop, then show them this card:

And boom, 50% off your purchase. At first just Preston and I were going to go, but then the others decided to come along too. And good they did, Lillie and Maren did very well. As did myself and Preston. Hansen was happy with one Christmas shirt. Maren couldn't decide on a very fancy pair of shoes while we were there that was priced at $20.00. A bit pricey for V.V. shoes (even at our half off $10.00), but they were in brand new condition. She didn't buy them, so they went with the other discards.

Once we got home, she went online and the cheapest we could find the exact pair was $89.00. So after dinner Preston, Hansen and I ventured back out to see if we could find Maren's shoes. Preston was all happy to go because he wanted to drive. Hansen sits in the middle of the middle row so that if Preston gets us into a crash, he is in the "safe spot"...kind of funny but not really. Who knew how hard night driving is for colorblind people. All the street lights, red lights, green lights, and car lights look exactly the same! Thanks to patterns and smarts Preston will be a fine driver, but yikes! Back to the Value Village story. Yes, we did find the shoes! Maren is a happy girl. In all we spent like $90.00 at V.V. for this half price sale. A quick look at retail prices and I figured we saved nearly $700.00! Now that's something to blog about.

See you tomorrow.

Zion's Christmas Pageant.

2011-12-19T07:07:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

Two more days of school till winter break starts! Yay!

Yesterday was The Christmas Pageant at our church. Lillie and Hansen had small parts this year which was great. Preston didn't even have a part...excellent! I think he must have been at soccer when it was time to sign up so he lucked out this year. One of the cool things about our church's Christmas Pageant is that the kids do everything. The high school kids are the readers and the littles are the singers. It was very nice.

You can see Lillie front and nearly center in this picture. The kids sang great. I don't have photo with the littlest of the littles as well. But the preschool age were up in front as well.

Hansen was a sign holder. He didn't have to dress up, talk, or sing. The best job ever!

Last night I went to a quick meeting at the church to vote on a new pastor. Well, to send a call to a fellow who the call committee really liked. We will find out soon if he accepts.

See you tomorrow.

Grandpa Sandler's Yahrzeit Candle.

2011-12-17T18:35:00.000-08:00

Good evening, it is Saturday.

Last night Maren and I were invited to a Bunko party! It had been a whole year since I played bunko, but it all came back in a flash.

As you can see by my scorecard, I am not very good at this game. I did tie for last place, only to loose the last place spot in a roll off. That is about a looserish you can get in the game of bunko. It was a very fun evening.

These four books are books that I have written! Yup, these are books of my blog that Maren had made. One for each year I have been blogging. In just a couple of weeks we will be ordering one more. The layout is exactly like my blog, which is what I was hoping for.

The next picture is a picture of the Yahrzeit Candle that is burning right now in our house. This candle was lit in memory of my Grandpa Sandler who passed a year ago tomorrow. Similar candles are being lit for Grandpa accross the the country. My mom's cousin Carol had a nice blog post about the Yahrzeit Candle and its traditon, here is a link: www.sandlerfamilyarchives.blogspot.com My blogger has a very strange format today, so you may have to cut and paste the link into your browser.

See you tomorrow.

Anti-jokes?

2011-12-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Friday!

Yesterday Maren worked a bit late and the kids and I were left to do it all for a bit. Preston had his first drive with his driving instructor. He said it went very well and now he is an excellent driver! Lillie had dance class, her last for the year. She did a good enough job to earn herself some candy! I figured everyone earned candy, but there were a few kids moping around afterward because they didn't do well enough to earn some candy.

Dinner was gourmet...mac and cheese with hot dog bites mixed in. It is what the kids really wanted. What can you do? At dinner the kids were having a crazy fun time with what they call "anti-jokes". It turns out that anti-jokes start like normal jokes, but then are totally outrageous and many times horrible. Let's see if I can remember a couple...Q: Why did the little boy drop his ice-cream cone? A: He got hit by a bus! Or, Q: What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor? A: Where's my tractor?. Q: What is red and smells like blue paint? A: Red paint. These don't sound so good on paper, but if you were there and the jokes were being made up on the spot...it was pretty darn fun.

See you tomorrow.

Kind Of.

2011-12-14T06:58:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Wednesday.

Yesterday was Preston's last day of driver's education. Kind of. He still has four drives with the driving instructor, but his book work is now finished. And to top it all off, Preston passed his last test! Yay! Actually by passing this last test he now will not have to take a written test at the DMV when he goes to get his license on his 16th birthday. Yup, at that point they will look up that he has passed in an accredited class and he will only have to pass the drive portion.

Even though it is crazy cold out these days, I wanted to go for a walk last night. I was able to get Hansen and Preston to come walking too. Kind of. They had a soccer ball and ditched me half way through the walk. But it was just right. Goofed off the first half, then actually walked the second.

Our neighborhood isn't too big on tons of Christmas Lights, but every block or so a house is done up pretty fancy. This house is a couple of blocks away. It looks just as fancy in the daylight as there are snowmen, reindeer, and a cool display from Peanuts with Charlie Brown and the crew.

See you tomorrow.

Girl's Day.

2011-12-12T06:43:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

Maren, Lillie and a bunch of other girl relatives got together for their annual Girl's Day. I was not there, but I heard some stories and received some pictures so I can blog about it. The evening started at Stef's house and then headed straight into downtown Seattle.

The littles got to have a make over at Sephora! I'm not sure who did this make up make over, but it looks good. I also heard stories about a very flamboyant girl/boy who was doing makeup makeovers as well.
The Christmas carousel was a big hit as always.
Here is a pic of the whole gang. Look out Seattle!
Well, kind of look out! My favorite story is how the girls all piled in this glass elevator to head upstairs...Why doesn't this elevator go upstairs?!? Too many viewings of Willie Wonka's glass elevators or something:)

Anyhow, the girls of all ages had a great time. And now for something you won't see everyday:
Yup, Preston and Maren with matcher holiday jammies. Maren always has this dream that everyone wears matcher jammies on Christmas morning, but it never really happens for more than her and Lillie. These were purchased after Christmas last year. Hansen wouldn't wear them and I don't have a pair, but Preston is a good sport.

See you tomorrow.

A New Car!

2011-12-10T08:56:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Saturday.

Yesterday was quite a busy day. Lillie dressed up as a rock star...we tried to do fancy stuff with her hair, but in the end she liked her new haircut so much she just wanted it to be normal. She added shades, fancy dress-tights-shoes-jacket combo, and plenty of bling to complete the rock star ensamble. Hansen just was himself, I am sure he and his friends had plenty of rock star jokes about themselves just the way they are.

The staff at my school played the student's all-star volleyball team yesterday to the delight of most of the student body. We were extremely handicapped this year as we were not allowed to serve overhand or spike the ball. We could only bump and set...bye bye advantage. We lost to both the boys and the girls team. Without handicaps, we would have creamed them and maybe caused injury at the same time, so it is all good.

In the evening I went to check out a car I had noticed online for Maren at one of the more local dealerships. While Maren is not a big fan of automotive change, I really felt it was time. She had been driving a 2002 Hyundai Accent with nearly 120,000 miles and plenty of quirks. She now has a Certified Used 2010 Hyundai Elantra. The new car is pretty darn slick if you ask me. No more roll up windows for Maren! And she even has a little clicker thing to unlock the doors, not to mention all the modern airbags and traction control/anti-lock brakes and such. Beyond all that cool stuff it has build in XMraido, which Maren is a huge fan of and had in the old Hyundai but as an add on kit.

Here is her new car! Just what she wanted. A used car for a good price that doesn't stand out but should be a good car for a long time.

This morning was a solar eclipse. I wandered out to see if there was anything left to see this morning, but we have zero view from our house. We can only see cold and trees:
The view from the back of the house is only trees and cold!

Off to a busy day!

See you tomorrow.

So What?

2011-12-09T06:55:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Friday!

As you know the boys got haircuts a week ago or so. Lillie has been wanting a haircut, but didn't want to go with the boys back then. But to say a haircut has been on her brain would be a true statement. Then yesterday I showed Lillie the fun blog about her cousin Aurora cutting her own hair...click here. Well, we had about an hour after dance class before Deck The Balls Wipeout! Can't miss that show. So we raced over to Great Clips. The place was empty and Lillie got right in.

Her hair is still long, but now more one length and in good shape. For a while. Today is "dress like a rock star" at her school and Lillie has big plans for her hair. I'm hopeful that I can actually help in the manner she is hoping I do...so Lillie can be a happy rock star.

See you tomorrow.

Dancing?

2011-12-08T07:01:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

You are all probably wondering how my new dance class went. Well, firstly I am the only students, and my teacher is too hard on me!

Yes, I had to do a few stretches to get warmed up. I am not very flexible. I couldn't do a bridge or any of the other strength exercises. But it all works out fine because Lillie really just wants someone to stand still and catch her when she twirls and dips and stuff. She made a whole routine where I kind of got to stand still. My kind of dancing:)

See you tomorrow.

Dance Class?

2011-12-07T07:23:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Wednesday.

The weekdays kind of run together these days with all the activities we have going on. But it looks like I need to make time for one more activity. Yesterday I was given this flyer, then pressured to sign up! At least it is free:

With any luck I won't be Lillie's only student:)

See you tomorrow.

GAME ON, SANTA.

2011-12-06T06:42:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

Yesterday Hansen had his last volleyball game of the regular season at my school, Cedar Valley. I didn't get to watch too much of the game because Lillie had to be at dance class, but I saw a little and Maren saw the rest. The girls team for GL played great and won their first match. The boys got steamrolled the first game, but came back to take game three into extra points only to be beat at the bitter end. Hansen played well, I hope he gets chosen for the all-star team.

While Lillie was at dance class, I wandered around Costco looking for gifts for the kids. Between Costco and Amazon.com's lightning deals, you really have to be careful to not just spend and spend. And that is nothing compared to the kids and their wish-lists and constant wanting of expensive things. And Hansen has a birthday just a week after Christmas!

I don't usually care for all the advertising and such around this time of year. But the one TV add that I actually really get a kick from is the Best Buy adds that show the mom buying better than Santa possibly could, and then saying, "GAME ON, SANTA". Just cracks me up. Around our house, we are hoping that Santa wins this contest.

See you tomorrow.

Fun Times.

2011-12-04T20:21:00.000-08:00

Good evening, it is Sunday.

What's this? Two blog posts in one day? Well, since I don't like Amazing Race, New Orleans is 50 seconds away from a win, and I won't have time tomorrow morning...Here you go: Good morning, it is Monday.

After church and lunch with John and Carol, I took Hansen out mountain bike riding on some pretty tough trails in the woods near Black Diamond. This is the first time we ventured off paved and went to the dirt trails.

The sun was out and it was a beautiful day. We were not the only bikers out and about to be sure, but we didn't see any others during our actual ride.
The sun didn't reach to the woods below the ridge. I have ridden these trails plenty over the years, but it had been probably 3 years since the last time I was here. We will definitely be back.

When Carol and John were over today we showed them the video of Preston that I described in yesterday's blog but wasn't going to post. We had a few laughs and I have decided to post it...

This is just a picture if Preston and Lillie getting ready for some fun. If you don't really like tons of laughing, strange food combinations, and possible reversal of fortune...don't click on the following video.

See you tomorrow.

You Smell Of Meat And Cheese!

2011-12-04T08:24:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Sunday.

Yesterday Maren got to go to the outlet stores with her friend Judy. They did some Christmas shopping for whoever they could. Maren sent me some pictures of shoes and such for the boys, but these boys are next to impossible to shop for! So no shoes for them, but Maren did pick up a few nice things! While she was gone it was just me and the kids. I put up some Christmas lights on the house and refilled the bird feeders, the kids acted as if boredom would overtake them. We did make a very funny video of Preston gathering up some disgusting foods, mixing them together, then attempting to eat it. Attempt is the key word, and while the kids really want this video on the blog, I am thinking about it for another day or two...not sure anyone really wants to see it that is over the age of teenager:)

In the evening our local community center had a visit from Santa! As Elf is one of our favorite movies on the planet, the kids enjoyed saying, "You aren't Santa! I know Santa! You smell of meat and cheese!" Luckily they didn't actually tell this to the nice guy playing Santa.

They took some pictures for a very small fee, but I was able to take one with my own camera too.
There were arts and crafts set up. Even Preston got down and did some coloring. Hansen was too busy visiting the coffee and cupcakes area to even notice there were crafts.
Lillie making play-dough candy canes.
Lastly, this is our group leaving the Santa area. The littles are checking out their gift bags and it looks like Santa is taking a well deserved breather in the background. Actually I think he is getting ready to greet the next little person, but this picture cracks me up. I thought it would be our only picture taken on my camera of Santa. You see, the kids insisted that Maren and I be in the Santa picture as well. It was on the way out that I talked the kids into the picture you saw first in today's blog.

See you tomorrow.

The Tree!

2011-12-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Friday!

I have been trying to learn my new computer and all its quirks. Windows 7 won't let me publish any blog stuff in my Windows Explorer which is wacky, but a general quirk with the blogger program from what I read. To combat that I downloaded Google Chrome. I think I like Explorer more, but what can you do? I also have a new e-mail with google, but I am not switching over to it fully because you can't search google mail as well as MSN mail. Computer stuff...can't really complain because my new computer is so much faster and better!

I have been spending a few days writing and creating our Christmas Letter! It is fun, short, and doesn't contain anything of any substance whatsoever. In other words, it is perfect! We will be getting them out in a week, so if you don't get one, let me know and I can make sure we have your correct address:)

The Christmas Tree went up last Sunday. And yes, per tradition, we did sleep under the tree. Kind of. I slept on the couch, the kids on the floor. Maren choose her bed. We told totally goofy stories and had lots of laughs. About half way through the night I wandered back to my room and Preston took over the couch. Lillie would be happy to sleep on the floor under the tree every single night.

This is Lillie getting ready for a crazy night of sleeping under the Christmas Tree.
Last night Hansen and I were off to pick up his new glasses and get him a haircut. As we were leaving Preston ran out, said he wanted to get a haircut too...and he wanted to drive. Safely home with two new haircuts!

See you tomorrow.

Thanksgiving, Downtown, and Motorcycles too!

2011-11-29T06:21:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

We had a great Thanksgiving break! I will just jump into the weekend for you. Thursday we headed to the Ostergard's house along with Mel, Court, Jack, Avery, Stef, Derek, Ben and Abby. It was just the right sized crowd and we had tons of yummy food. It is funny because yesterday in the staff room I was listening to bickering and complaining about Thanksgiving this and Thanksgiving that, but I really enjoy the holiday and I think the rest of the family does too. We do our Thankful leaves and have a yummy feast. Sure, I don't have much to do with anything but carving, eating, and entertaining, but it works for me:)

This year after dinner and when everyone was leaving the Ostergard's house, our family headed into downtown Seattle to spend the night in a hotel. We were in the Roosevelt on the 11th floor on a corner. It was perfect. The room was nice and for the most part we were all happy and having fun. In the morning we woke up and went to the Macy's Holiday Parade. It didn't disappoint!

Here is my crowd (except for the guy on the left who was smiling for the picture too) getting ready for the parade. The police didn't like our feet on the street, so I was risking it just to take the photo!
Lots of marching bands, mini-floats, Christmas stuff, parade everything, and even Santa!

This princess got her very own snow globe!

After the parade we wandered around Seattle and ended up at the huge Gingerbread houses. The lighting in here was weird for my camera...but never fear, even thought I didn't do crazy Black Friday shopping in the middle of the night, I did make it into Costco later in the day for a new camera and a new computer! I'm still figuring it all out, but I was able to transfer all my pictures and documents and everything without too much trouble!

The kids in front of a Christmas tree in the Weston along with the amazing gingerbread houses.

This is one of many huge houses...it was like Five feet wide! It was quite a long line, but well worth it.

Saturday I headed out and couple of hours east with Courtney to try out her new motorcycles! I had not ridden motorcycles for probably 25 years! She has two late model Honda CRX 250s. They are plenty fast for me, and totally fun to ride!

This picture is taken near Vantage. We were like 3000 feet high and there was a dusting of snow around. The windmills all over the valley are very cool. There was tons of great riding trails that we kind of had to share with pheasant hunters:) We steered clear of the hunters! It was great to be back on a motorcycle. Can't wait to go riding again.

I rode the bike on the left. If you bigify this pic, you can see all the windmills in the background. We parked 1500 feet lower than these pictures, so it wasn't snowy everywhere. In this world of desertish hills, it was good we had a GPS that could "breadcrumb" our ride, or we may still be out there somewhere!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving too!

See you tomorrow.

Perspective.

2011-11-22T06:55:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

Last Friday was my first Art Docent day of the new school year in Lillie's class. We did a fun project where we drew a corner of a room. When talking about perspective and parallel lines one of the boys actually said something like, "Aww man...you mean there is math in art?!?" The perfect line to prove he may have actually learned something.
Yesterday I went in a designed and hung all the artwork for the hall wall. A different parent made the name tags which was great.

And the whole wall, it does look pretty cool all put together. I didn't have too defined instruction when it came to detailing the rooms, and that bothered me for a while, but now I agree that they all look great.

Hansen's art docent make little collages of their favorite sports teams. Yes, Hansen is a Husky!

Preston and Hansen have decided that Kohl's is their new favorite short to shop. It has good prices, lots of sales, tons of cool fashions...and massage chairs!

And Hansen's favorite place to eat? Taco Time. He even wears his "eat fresh" shirt when he goes there just to add some flavor.

Today is a half day for Preston as it is conference time. Hansen has an eye appointment as seeing the smart board at school has become tough once again. All his amazing growing seems to also affected his vision. He has needed a new Rx every 6 months for the past year and a half, I am sure things will steady as this growth spurt slows down.

See you tomorrow.

Upgrade time?

2011-11-20T23:52:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

Here I have let a few days pass since my last post. Have we been busy? Yes. Are there things to blog about? Sure thing. So what gives?!? My computer has been a bit of a bugger these past few weeks, worse the last few days. Sure it has been slow, but I have worked on all that stuff too. Of late it forgets that there is a mouse, a printer, and the word and excel programs are all messed up too. Preston has lost a couple of assignments and not been able to print things out as well. I have been avoiding the computer big time, right now I'm just hoping to get this blog out smoothly. In truth, this computer is like five years old and in computer age, that is quite old. So, time to be replaced. Come to think of it, my cars are getting old too...and so am I! Yikes.

Luckily there are amazing deals to be had after Thanksgiving! No I will not shop at midnight, or even 5:00am, in fact it makes me kind of mad that employees even have to work these shifts...but the stores are competing aren't they? Sometime over the weekend I will probably pick up a new computer and then I will be able to solve all the problems of the world! Or at least get back to uploading pictures and blogging. I have not even started my Christmas letter yet this year because I am worried it will just be lost too. I do have some ideas in my head...SpongeBob?

OK, I'm off. Today we have work, school, volleyball practice and drama club before school, then a volleyball match, dance class and drivers ed after school. I'm already looking foward to Monday Night Football for a little winding down.

See you tomorrow.

Videos!

2011-11-15T07:32:00.001-08:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

Today is a video day. I don't usually post videos, but I have two that you may enjoy.

The first video is a one minute video of Hansen serving a few serves in his first volleyball game. You can hear all the cheering...elementary volleyball!

The second video is a funny puppet show that Preston had to do for a homework project. Lillie kind of takes over and steals the show...Preston did get a 4 out of 4 on the project. And yes, he did show it to his whole English class on the smart board.

Enjoy:

See you tomorrow.

Say it isn't so!

2011-11-13T08:23:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Sunday.

Yesterday Preston got his drivers permit. Yup, it is now perfectly legal for Preston to be driving. The DMV was crazy busy, but it all worked out. I did throw Preston the keys once we got into the neighborhood. He really doesn't have much practice yet, so it was all kind of fun/scary! When I instructed him to put on his blinker to merge into traffic, the windshield got washed!

Here he is, first time behind the wheel on an actual road. After this drive, Preston had three soccer games! Yup, one outdoor game in the freezing wind, then two indoor games. His first two game were with his normal team, but as we were leaving from Starfire, he ran into a few Seniors from his high school who invited him to play on their indoor team. Preston looked kind of small and scared at first, but once he realized that his speed and skills really are competitive with anyone, he was able to make a big impact with a couple of nice assists and a few good shots on goal. It was fun to watch.

This weekend was also a good one for Hansen. Friday he spent the whole day with a big group of friends at a birthday party. They went swimming, made t-shirts and goofed the day away. Then yesterday he spent the day with a friend at their house. Hansen is starting to get out in the world and has a ton more confidence that he once did. He will probably always be on the shy side, but we can honestly say he has grown a ton in the last several months, both in size and in maturity.

And not to be left out, Maren and Lillie had a very quite few days at home. Kind of, Lillie did sleep over at a friend's house on Thursday night and Maren went to lunch with a friend on Friday, but yesterday was a very quite day for the girls at home. Maren was feeling kind of sick and they pretty much hung out on the couch watching movies all day.

And for me, I was basicly the guy driving everyone everywhere. Off to wake up kids, kind of a busy day today as well.

See you tomorrow.

Happy Veterans Day.

2011-11-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Friday.

Happy Veterans Day to all Veterans! How am I spending the day? Well, I will show you how I spent the morning:

That's right, a cup of hot cocoa in my stars and stripes mug, and the Seattle Times. Not to mention a day off of work:)

And right at this exact moment...It is 11:11am on 11/11/11! Make a wish! Preston, Connor, Hansen, and myself are all geeking out at this very moment! Ok, now it is 11:12am...back to reality.

Yesterday Lillie did perform in a Veterans Day Assembly at her school that her drama club put on. Maren, John and Carol also attended. I would have liked to be there, but I heard it was great!

See you tomorrow.

Smile!

2011-11-10T07:22:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

Yesterday was Hansen's first volleyball game of the season. For being a very shy guy, Hansen did very well to get out there in front of the crowd and show some mad skills! His team got beat, but it wasn't really all that fair. You see, the other team didn't have enough players, so they had a couple of girls playing. And these few girls totally kicked volleyball butt! You say, ha ha...but around here girls play select volleyball and it leads to jr. high and high school volleyball and the boys never play again after 6th grade.

Hansen is in the upper left of this picture. Lillie was one of the few not so excited to be there. I let her play with my camera because she was SO bored and she wanted to look at all my old pictures. Somehow this picture showed up as the last one taken:
See you tomorrow.

Driving HOME.

2011-11-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Wednesday.

Last night our whole family along with John and Carol went to a local church to serve homeless men through a program called HOME that our church is sponsoring this month. We were there for an hour, packed lunches and served dinner for close to 30 men. We got a ton done in just an hour! This is the second year we have done this and are glad to be able to serve. The team leaders did take a picture of us, but I didn't get any pics with my camera.

Yesterday was also Preston's first day of driver's education! Preston found driver's ed to be a huge waste of two hours. Well, two hours three days a week for a month...just the price you pay to be able to drive, so not really a waste.

The place Preston will learn how to drive...hope they teach him well!

See you tomorrow.

Dusty's

2011-11-08T07:07:00.000-08:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

This past weekend was a divide and conquer weekend. Preston's soccer team had a huge road trip weekend and I was the driver of two other dads and three players. Yup, nearly 12 hours in the van in just two days! First game in Wenatchee, spend the night in Spokane, second game in Spokane, then drive home to get a couple of Steelers fans home in time for Sunday Night Football. That is many many hours with the van's cruise control set on 70 mph.

The kids getting ready to leave home and fighting for seat position.

Dusty's in Wenatchee. Yum! The greasy burger was super yummy. I really liked the town of Wenatchee. The bare mountains look very cool and the whole town seemed very nice.

After a loss and a tie and 10 hours in the car, the boys are still getting along splendidly at the last rest stop of the journey. Of course, the soccer was why we were all there, but the team does get along great regardless of the soccer. At the hotel the dads were in one room watching the Huskies get beat by Oregon and other football games while the kids were making a total mess of our room. By the next morning all the socks were accounted for and the room left in decent shape.

So while we were gone, Maren had the littles for the weekend too. Sounds like they had fun, got to go out to dinner and goof off plenty too.

Hansen's first volleyball tournament is tomorrow. Here he is sporting the new team shirt. This is the first Grass Lake shirt I have ever seen that is not green!

Last night while Lillie was at dance class, I went to the driving range to hit a small bucket. Now that we set the clocks back, it gets dark very early. By 5:30 it was totally dark. I must admit that hitting the golf ball into the darkness with just a light or two shining on it is pretty cool. I will be ready for summer again very soon.

See you tomorrow.

The Seattle Auto Show!

2011-11-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Saturday.

Last night Hansen and I went to the Seattle Auto Show! I haven't gone in a few years, but it was fun to be back. Hansen had a great time. Hansen is really into wheeled things these days. The cars and the electric bicycles/scooters had him dreaming all evening. Not to mention the sweepstakes that required e-mail addresses...I am a bit worried about what my inbox will look like soon. Of course, since we have actually been going back and forth about getting Maren a new car, Hansen felt he was on a mission.

No, not a religious mission, but driving this Fiat around the world to fancy cathedrals was fun. It is amazing what can be done with a green screen. I really like these new Fiat 500s. I would own one in a heartbeat, but I don't think they are really Maren's style. But their slogan was great, "Bigger isn't better, it is just harder to park."

No, Hansen didn't like this car, nor would his mom, but I did! Preston would have really liked it too! Let's see, a car like this or our house? Hmmm. Sell the house!

Actually, Hansen is extremely practical and good at math. He was doing quick comparisons to cost and gas mileage. He really thinks we need to buy Maren this 2012 Kia Rio. Best bang for the buck if you only read the window sticker. Hansen thought I was totally wasting my time checking out the VW cars and the Acuras. Humph. I tried to tell him that half the gas mileage and twice the price may not be so bad if the car is freaking awesome! Nope, not for Hansen...or Maren. Fine, I'm going golf club shopping by myself!

See you tomorrow.

The Real Ronald!

2011-11-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

Last night was McTeacher's Night at the local McDonald's to support our school. It was crazy busy and I am sure we raised plenty of money for the school enrichment programs. Yay! My job was to bus and clean tables. I liked this job the best because that meant I got to be out with the people and the kids just saying "hi" and goofing off. The truth is it was so busy that every table was filled up for the whole time with the occasional turn-over that I quickly cleaned if I even noticed. Other teachers were ordering, delivering, selling coupons and cookies, working the drive-through, and just helping wherever there was a place to help. My shift was the first hour and a half, which was actually enough for me. The whole thing lasted for three hours.

This is me with a couple of teachers as the evening was just beginning and pictures were being taken. Yes, there is a finger over the lens of this picture, so really there are four people in this picture.

Maren brought Hansen and Lillie in for dinner! Maren got to say "hi" to friends as did the kids. Hansen wasn't too thrilled to be hanging in such a crowd...Ronald's appearance behind him didn't even get him excited!

So I tried to drag him over to say "hi". Not really, but I think Hansen was happy to have me go roam somewhere else.
Besides, Ronald did come visit the table they were sharing with friends.

Preston wasn't at McTeacher night because he was at the Seattle Sounders game. They are out of the playoffs for the year. Last night they won the game 2-0, but were down 0-3 going into last night's aggregate game. They had a chance to tie the game in the closing minutes, but it never worked out. Great season by the Sounders. The rest of us watched the game on the TV after coming home from McTeacher's night as Preston was there getting totally wet and freezing in person! Sounds like he had a great time.

See you tomorrow.

Trick Or Treat!

2011-11-01T06:36:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

Today will be a dragging day for everyone in this house! Yup, last night was Halloween! Preston did tons of homework right as he got home from school so he could go off to a Halloween party with his friends! Of course he dressed up as a...soccer player! He and his friend did some trick or treating, but it sounds like the hander outers of candy thought they were just too old...and they are. But I say if you want to go trick or treating, go for it!

Lillie and I getting ready to go out and about. First we went to the really cool houses on our block, then we got in the van and went over to a friend's house to trick or treat with them.

Lillie and her friend getting ready for some candy!

Hansen was going to stay home and pass out candy with Maren, but the moment his friends came by to trick or treat our house, he quickly found a white doctor shirt and a grim reaper mask. It was very cold, but shorts and two t-shirts did him just fine. He bolted out the door and didn't return until a few hours later with the largest haul of candy I have ever seen! Hansen is the guy on the right in this pic. Scary lot of kids huh?

Once again the pirate ship was out at the end of our culd-e-sack. Here Lillie is getting candy lowered down to her...better than walking the plank. Aarg!

After school I picked up this jack-o-lantern pizza at Papa Murphy's. This is it before cooking, Yum! Of course, when Lillie saw it she tossed the olive eyes and I had to scramble to chomp them. Maren had also made apple cider in the crock pot to warm us up after the cold evening. As I am typing this, I just realized I have absolutely no idea what happened on Monday Night Football, I may have to check after posting.
The night ending way too late with the kids sorting and trading their hauls of candy. I suspect Hansen's stash lasts him all the way till Christmas. Maren said this may have been one of the busiest years for trick or treaters at our house as well.

See you tomorrow.

Much Better?

2011-10-31T06:49:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

And a spooky Monday it is! Happy Halloween everyone! I don't have Halloween pictures yet because tonight will be Trick or Treating...I will get the camera out to be sure.

Hansen and Preston got new lightweight jackets over the weekend. Of course, this is as heavy a jacket either will ever wear this year. The temps at the bus stop have been around 39 degrees and just a sweatshirt and shorts seems to work just fine for these kids!

This white with blue and gray stripes fuzzy lined sweatshirt/jacket is Hansen's most favorite jacket he has ever owned!

This thermos belongs to Preston's second grade teacher. Mrs. Radford has been using this thermos for like 30 years! The handle has been broken off for years so the other day I fixed it...kind of. I looked for a matcher handle at the thrift store for a long time, but a drawer handle will do for now. So, yes, it is ugly, but it works better than no handle...maybe.

Have fun trick or treating tonight. I will!

See you tomorrow.

Great.

2011-10-28T07:12:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Friday!

How about game 6 of the World Series??? Too cool! Texas was one pitch away from winning the whole series two different times and couldn't win the game. If you didn't watch the game, you just don't know! Baseball has a way of building drama and key moments way more than other sports...maybe that there is no clock and the end can be swept away many different times. Still not my favorite, but got to give it props. Way to go Cardinals! I don't see how tonight's game can be more exciting, but anything is possible.

In case you have not noticed, it is Halloween season everywhere. Yesterday Lillie and her dance class were invited to wear a costume to dance class. Of course, it had to be something you could dance in, so nothing too crazy. Lillie and her friend were greeted by a cool dancing skeleton at dance class:
Lillie was Super Girl yesterday, who knows what she will be come Monday.

This is a very random picture. Hansen saw this in a bicycle magazine and brought it over to show me. He says it is me...and some bicycle dude. Yea sure, but I think it is funny.

And because sports does not totally run out house, I had to watch the 8th inning of the World Series on the tiny small kitchen TV because Lillie and Maren wanted to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!" I guess it is a classic, you've got to watch it at least once every season. Here is a happy and dancing Snoopy...that is until the music changes, dun dun done.

See you tomorrow.

Reading.

2011-10-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

Last night was "library night" as Lillie likes to call it. There were no story times scheduled and the library was relatively quiet. Plenty of high school age kids using computers and stuff. I found a couple of books and a few magazines that can only be read in the library and Lillie did the same. So we found a table an just read away for a bit before heading home. I can never really gauge how library nights will go, sometimes Lillie wants to stay for a long time, and other times she is ready to go very quickly.

Hansen does not like to go to the library with us, but he reads more than any of the kids to be sure. He has been staying up reading so late that it is actually starting to bug his brother. I have had clip on 40 watt lamps for the boy's beds for a long time so they could read, but I think that system will have to go as it keeps Preston up and keeps Hansen from realizing that it is actually the middle of the night. Today we may go shopping for a little book light for Hansen, either that or just a little flashlight.

See you tomorrow.

Goal setting Baseball.

2011-10-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Wednesday.

Yesterday I had goal setting conferences with both Hansen's teacher and Lillian's teacher. These two kids are very good students and perform very well on the big ticket items. In order to make goals for themselves, they have to get down the the small details. They both have a couple of good goals (no silly, not soccer goals) to work on in reading, mathematics and writing, but really as long as they keep on keeping on they will and are very good students. Setting goals and conferencing with the teachers is generally not fun for kids, but they get out of school 3 hours early every day this week just for 20 minutes of conference horribleness, well worth it. Now on to less important things...baseball.

I must admit, I have been very much enjoying this World Series in baseball. I am not a huge baseball follower during the season and I think that there are just too many games and I just can't pay attention that long. But the end of this season and the whole post season has been very exciting. I can't say I'm really voting for one team over the other, I don't really have an allegiance to either team and I like parts of both teams, so I guess I will be hoping for a Cardinals win to bring the series to a game seven.

I don't think the kids follow baseball at all, but last night Preston had Connor over and they were playing Nintendo baseball on the Wii. It is a very exciting game to watch with fire coming from the baseball and super steals and all kind of crazy things. I took this picture as a pitch was about to be thrown, I guess you have to see the action for yourself. Even Hansen and Lillie were watching the action...the real action, when the kids would throw down the remotes and bring the brawl into the living room.

See you tomorrow.

Sharp.

2011-10-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

This weekend was Preston's homecoming dance. Yeah, you don't really care about who drove where or any particulars like that, you just want to see some pictures. So here you go:

Preston and Alex looking great.

Picture time at a friend's house.

Preston went with a large group of friends who all go together for pictures before the dance. This was the young group, the Freshman...The Seniors where cruising in an equally big group, but were just leaving when we all showed up.

And a turn to the left. I was taking pictures from the side of the room...but I was not alone, quite a paparazzi of parents!
While Preston was out at the dance and stuff, the rest of us picked up some pumpkins and did some carving. I only gutted the pumpkins, the rest was done completely by Lillie and Hansen. Lillie's pumpkin on the left (a cat in a boot) and Hansen's on the right (a ware wolf).

See you tomorrow.

Blue!

2011-10-20T06:36:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

Yesterday was "Wacky Hair Day" at the little's school. Lillie loves these day! She put two little braids in front, then we spray painted her hair blue. It was very cool, and kind of wacky. I think it looked even more blue when she got home if that is possible. Lillie would like us to dye her hair blue for reals! Hansen refuses to participate in these wacky days, but maybe he brushed his hair a little more not wacky if that is possible?

Last night I took Preston down to pick u his Tux. It does look pretty sharp. They had to alter the jacket sleeves just a bit, so it was good he tried it on. While he was out with me and at soccer, he accidentally left his school stuff at Connor's house. Connor's older brother took that time to "turtle" his backpack:

Yup, turtling a backpack is where you turn the backpack inside out then lock everything back inside. The straps and the pockets are inside and mean turtlers actually zip-tie the zipper inside so you can't open it at all. Chase wasn't quite that mean! Preston is trying to do his homework, but is locked out of his backpack.

And lastly, here is my new bike with all its accessories. Now it has new grips, fenders, a rear rack, and one pannier bag on the left side. Way too fancy for my one mile commute, but way better than walking.

See you tomorrow.

New Tires.

2011-10-19T07:26:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Wednesday.

Today is a late start for all three kids! Two hour late start for them means a late start for me too! Lillie will be not late starting as much as others as she has Drama class...but she likes it so it is all good. No, it is not a late start for Maren, which makes normal start feel like an early start.

Last night I took Lillie to the library so she could check out books and I could pay my fines! Yes, Maren is a librarian, but I still have my own library card to worry about. And by the looks of my smallish fines, I don't worry quite enough about it. We got there just in time for family story time. Designed for little kids in their jammies, Lillie and I decided to sit in the back and check it out. It was pretty fun, back where we were was were the one year olds wander around because they don't want to sit still for 30 mins. The older kids (2 and 3 year olds) were sitting up front. I did take all three kids to all these story times when they were little, so it was fun to just enjoy the commotion. Lillie also thought it was fun, but she didn't need to wait in line for a hand stamp at the end.

So why a picture of a tire? Maren's car has had some upgrades in the last few days. All new tires last night and a new battery on Saturday. Yep, Maren was stranded on Saturday, then a blowout in Mercer Island left her waiting for a super speedy AAA guy. In the last year we have certainly gotten our money worth from our AAA membership!

Last time I put new tires on Maren's car was in 2004. They were 80,000 mile tires that went farther than that. I did get good tires for the car yesterday even though I wanted to save as much $$$ as possible. The cheap tires have all the same installation costs and no coupons, so for $100 more you get four very good 70,000 tires as apposed to four inexpensive tires.

If my crystal ball had been working, I would have traded the Hyundai in for a new car last month! Now the conversation is actually on the table. Maren is thinking it may actually be time for a new car for her. So I have been shopping a little for something more modern. So stand by, maybe Maren will get a new car soon, or maybe new tires and a new battery keep the old Hyundai in good accord for a few more years.

See you tomorrow.

Noodley Hotdogs.

2011-10-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

Last night I tried a fancy dinner surprise for the kids that Maren had found somewhere in on the web. Now before you start thinking too fancy...it is the presentation and the preparation that is fancy, the food itself is just blah. So, after borrowing spaghetti noodles from a neighbor, cutting up several hot dogs, and sticking a few noodles through the hot dogs, I decided to call the whole surprise element off and let the littles come help with the preparation. It is a good thing I had their help, or I would still be in the preparation stage and dinner would have been tonight instead of last night.

When Preston and Hansen were little I would make a spaghetti/ hot dog dish where the the spaghetti was normal on a plate, but he hot dog was carved up like an octopus. Maybe it is time to move on from hot dogs and noodles...nah.

See you tomorrow.

PS. Somehow my spell check found 16 misspelled words this post, it is amazing how many times and different ways I can misspell spaghetti!

A Date at the American Girl Bistro.

2011-10-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Saturday.

Yesterday Lillie and I ventured over an hour to the north to go on a Daddy/Daughter date at the American Girl store in Alderwood mall. We had purchased this online and they really did it up for us. Of course we were not alone, one of Lillie's American Girl Dolls came along as a chaperon. They served us a full meal at the Bistro, took our picture, had a flower for Lillie, and even had a box of questions for us to ask each other. Of course we would do some shopping as well!
Here is the box of questions. You could buy these boxes if you wanted...of course Lillie was the funniest person she knows! And we both like gloves more than mittens.

A metal box of curly fries...best appetizer ever! Dinner was good too. And the ice-cream Sundays were amazing.

Leaving the store a couple of hours later. Shopping bags, new jammies for her American Girl doll and flowers...nope, I didn't get to carry anything.

This is our framed picture that they took for us on our date.

This was a very fun adventure...but let me just say, I am glad we live over an hour away from this American Girl destination or Lillie would want to do this every single weekend!

See you tomorrow.

A Little Falcon.

2011-10-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Friday.

The kids and I have the day off of school due to a teacher workshop day. Yes, the house is very quiet right now as Maren is at work and the kids are all sleeping.

Last night was the first Kentlake football game that the whole family has ever attended. Sometimes I take Preston and Connor, but Maren and the littles stay home. Last night Lillie got to be part of the Kentlake Flames dance team! She had a camp last weekend and performed in the halftime show last night. She had a great time dancing, but could have gone home after her dance as she didn't care too much about the game. Nana and Grandpa came to the game toting hot chocolate! The KL football team is doing great this season, I think they are now 7-0 and one of the best teams around!

Lillie getting ready to go to the game...all ready for some cheering!

See you tomorrow.

WA State Book Awards.

2011-10-13T07:05:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

Last night Maren and I attended A Celebration of the Washington State Book Awards at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle. Maren has been one of the judges for this award for a few years and you know how it is, without the judges reading tons of books, there would be no award! These awards were just for authors who live in Washington State.

Here is Maren with a schedule of events, hanging in front of one of the walls of the Richard Hugo House. Post-it note art was all over the walls. I even tried my hand at some post-it note art in the "try it yourself" section.

This is Maren watching the proceedings. There were authors everywhere. Maren got to be introduced to the crowd and afterwards we mingled and got a few autographs on the winning books.

Preston was a good sport and skipped his soccer practice to hang with the littles. I'm thinking the three pizzas we brought home (that were devoured by the time we got back) and a nap on the couch probably sounded pretty ok.

See you tomorrow.

Lottery tickets!

2011-10-12T06:39:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Wednesday.

Today is my younger brother Eric's birthday! Happy Birthday Eric!

One of the things I purchased for myself for my birthday was three scratch lottery tickets. But I couldn't stop buying and buying because the odds of winning are just so good. So by yesterday I had purchased nearly 50 tickets:

No, I am just joking...I only bought three! The picture is from the Internet, someone does like to play scratch tickets out there...but it is not me. I let each kid scratch one, two were winners! I have to go collect my $37 in winning! Woohoo. When in front of the scratch ticket kiosk, two different old ladies came up to me and started asking me if I had a system and how lucky I was with scratch tickets. I told them both that I only buy these one time a year, on my birthday! Neither of them even realized it must be my birthday because they were trying to get an edge on buying their own tickets!

Yesterday everyone was asking how my birthday was. I can honestly say it was a very nice birthday! I have decided that no matter how old you are, birthdays are great. It is the day after that is the ugh. I mean, the day after you are just a year older and your birthday is in the past.

See you tomorrow.

Oh Yeah, it's my birthday!

2011-10-10T07:03:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is my birthday! Happy Birthday to Me, la la la la la laaaa.

Yesterday we started the birthday festivities, today we will end them. We had a very nice dinner at The Golden Peacock. One of my favorite restaurants with tons of folks all there for my birthday! If I remember, my fortune cookie read something like, "you deserve a relaxing week". do I add the suffix...on the toilet?...or in bed? Hmm, just can't choose! I do have a ton of leftover food from last night, so I get to eat super yummy all day!
Mel took this pic at our house after dinner. Maren had a very yummy cake for us. Avery helped blow out the candles, but I think I still got most of them.

I have not opened any of my cards yet. I will be saving those for tonight, but the kids did go in and buy me a fancy new T-shirt. This is the front.

And this is the back. I'm so proud...weeping. Disturbing huh?

See you tomorrow.

The Bomb!

2011-10-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Sunday.

Yesterday was a every which way kind of day with Lillie's dance camp, Preston's tux fitting then soccer game, then the big fund raiser auction for Preston's soccer organization. Lillie did a great job at dance camp. She now has a cool new Falcons shirt and pom poms. She will be performing in the halftime show at Thursday evening's KL foot ball game! Sorry, no pics as I was off renting Preston's tux.

Fancy shoes, pink tie and vest, and a classic black tux. Lots of options and lots of money. Look out!

While Hansen didn't have places to go, he wasn't without projects. Yup, he made biscotti! They turned out great. Think I am off to have some right now.

See you tomorrow.

My New Bike!

2011-10-07T07:02:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Friday.

Wednesday evening Hansen and I ventured out to Des Moines to pick up a bicycle I bought from and add on Craigslist. Yup, it is my birthday present to myself! After giving my commuter bike to Hansen, I kind of wanted a new bike for riding to work. This bike is cool because it has a chain guard! And and internal gear shifting rear hub along with a disk brake on the rear wheel. Perfect technology for a short, easy commute. If you're wondering, the bike is a GT Rapid Transit and was only built in like 1997. It was pretty expensive back then, now used and a bit beat up but in excellent working order,I picked it up for $95.00. Way better than a Target bike for twice its price! I ordered some cheap fenders which will be here tomorrow and then the bike will be complete. Maren still has the pink GT hybrid bike I bought for her back in college, so now we have matcher bikes. Happy Birthday to me!

Here is my bike at work yesterday. Usually it is not alone on the bike rack, but yes, rain may have been a factor.

See you tomorrow.

A Great Sale.

2011-10-06T06:54:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

The rain has set in around here of late, so I bought new windshield wipers for the pick-up and for my van. Costco had a good sale, and Maren's car had new ones put on not long ago. All I can say is wow! New windshield wipers make life much nicer. And a hanging SpongeBob from your rear view mirror doesn't hurt either.

The Costco sale was buy a wiper, get a wiper free. I had actually gone in to buy a new set for my pick-up and Maren's car as a back up pair, but it turns out the limit for the sale was one. The funny thing is that the cashier was trying to explain this to me so I would put away one of the sets...I think. All I remember is her saying somthing about the wiper sale and me just nodding my head saying, "yeah...it's a great sale!" Don't blame me...she had cool glasses and was cute! Anyhow, after a quick ice-cream sunday for Hansen and I, I realized the bill seemed too high and hit the customer service desk on the way out. The fellow who took the extra two wipers in return just laughed and pointed to the huge pile of wiper blades from customers making the same exact mistake.

This is a picture Hansen took a few weeks ago with his cell phone. He doesn't know Steve Jobs from anyone, but he thought my texting posture was the same as the Jobs silhouette. It is amazing what Steve Jobs created. Maren's first computer ever (back in 1990) was an Apple Classic. It was less powerful than Hansen's cell phone and cost more than you would pay today for a basic computer. But it was cool. Maren really likes her Apple products...the headline of this issue was correct wasn't it?

See you tomorrow.

The giant swing!

2011-10-05T16:13:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon, it is Wednesday.

Last weekend I spent 24 hours straight with 20 middle schoolers for a church retreat. It was very fun for everyone there. Lots of friendship games and stuff like that. The giant swing was very intimidating. A few of the kids went all the way to the 50 feet max before being dropped and swinging between the trees! Hansen went about 30 feet...still way to crazy for me!

Hansen getting ready to drop. Can you say nervous?

Kentlake had it's homecoming weekend! I went to the game with Preston and Connor...kind of. The moment the van was turned off, I never saw either of them again. I did see plenty of old KR folks from my days, and KL did beat Tahoma, so good!

Preston did not go to the Homecoming dance as his girlfriend attends a different high school. We will be taking him for his Tuxedo fitting this weekend and KW homecoming will be in a couple of weeks. I'm sure he will have a great time.

See you tomorrow.

A new bike?

2011-09-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

What a strange weekend weather wise. We are totally heading into fall and winter, but a few days of summer still linger. Saturday Preston has a soccer game in Redmond at 10:00am. By the time the second half came around, it was 80 degrees and the kids were totally beat. While Preston had a very good game scoring 2 goals, it wasn't enough for the team as they lost 2-4.

Maren and Lillie got to go to a jewelry party at Carol's house. Lillie lucked out this weekend as she got to shop and buy jewelry, then spend the night at Carol and John's house with her cousins Claire and Avery. Fun times!

Not to be left out, Hansen got a new bicycle (kind of) and Hansen and I went out for a long bike ride. His new bike is my old Gary Fisher hybrid that I use for riding to work. I took off the fenders, put on a different seat, put on road tires, and didn't need to adjust anything else as the kid has gotten quite big. He has been wanting a road bike as he only has a small bmx bike, so this will do for a while. It goes fast and his quite sturdy as he still likes to jump curbs and such.

Here is Hansen cruising down the Cedar River Trail.

Last week was Amber's birthday! Happy Birthday little sister! We may have had some of Preston's left over cake in your honor.

And finally, I went to open house at Kentlake high school. Got to meet Preston's teachers and hang out on campus. It feels like a high school. Preston really is enjoying himself there.

See you tomorrow.

A birthday weekend!

2011-09-19T06:43:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

Happy Birthday to Preston!!!

We have had quite a birthday weekend around here! Saturday evening we invited everyone to The Rock Pizza for Preston's birthday dinner. We had a very long table full of pizza! Afterwards it was Coldstone birthday cake and presents at our house.

The night before it was a trip to the Puyallup Fair. Preston met up with friends, we met up with cousins, everyone had a great time. Of course we never saw Preston or his friends except for this chance meeting near the dime toss:

Yes, the boys had a great time tossing dimes and goofing off. They had tons of great stories of their goofiness. I would guess that these four boys spent less and had more fun than anyone else at the fair!

I won Lillie and Claire these cute little Lemurs! I still got mad dart throwing skills.

Hansen and Alex won these cute ukuleles. They have mad crossbow skills.

We saw baby pigs, cows, but we missed the cats. Here is the Roadside Chainsaw Carver.

See you tomorrow.

Acting!

2011-09-13T06:58:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

Yesterday was the start of Lillie's dance class and drama club. Yup, she is dancing and acting this year. Lillie will be doing drama club before school on Mondays, and dance class in the evening on both Mondays and Thursdays. Along with Preston's soccer, we are going! Hansen is taking the season off, but counting the days till track season starts.

These are Lillie's dance shoes for now. On the left is a Jazz shoe, and on the right is a ballet slipper. The slippers are brand new, the Jazz shoes we were able to pick up used at the dance studio. Next week we will buy her some foot underwear for Jazz as well. Yup, foot underwear, sounds ridiculous huh? I would explain, but I will just take a picture (gasp!) and post them once we get them.

Off to wake up the littles for school, then steamer clean the carpet before work. Hope this plan works out.

See you tomorrow.

In the face?

2011-09-12T07:05:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

This was quite a weekend. Warmest weekend of the year, Marta Golf Tournament, a soccer game, the last day the pool was open this year, kick-off at Sunday School along with Pastor's last day, and 10 year anniversary of 9/11 which was all over the TV.

Here are some of the crew running the Marta Connell Golf Tournament. Steve and I played OK, we just never had any spark to get us on a roll. After our round we hurried over, took the middle two spots at the table above, and did the scoring and awards and such. The tournament went very well and once again raised plenty of money.

Steve and I hanging in a golf carts a few holes into the round.

The last day of the pool was fun. Lillie and I competed in the water balloon toss. We made it the first couple of tosses, but 15 yards got us. Maren had a good day at Church, she said there were lots of tears and applause and such as it was Pastor Strand's last day. It was also Sunday School kick-off, and as Maren is a Sunday School teacher, she got to be part of the fun. I missed it as I was at Preston's soccer game. Preston had a wonderful game, scoring 4 times to lead his team to a relatively easy victory. The other parents had a big problem with Preston's speed and ease of scoring goals. The other parents were rudely yelling at the refs and the players...after the second time Preston got a breakaway and a slick goal, a rude parent (not the normal parent) yelled out, "If he does that again, punch him in the face!" Preston never got punched in the face, but he did score two more times. We don't see too many parents yelling garbage out of their mouths...but yesterday was just such a day and I feel bad for the kids on that team with their garbage mouth parents.

This add for a TV show or something is on the back cover of Time. Just strange...but the date is good.

See you tomorrow.

Smile.

2011-09-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

Yesterday was passport day. We have a trip to Canada in the nearish future, and a Mexican cruise always sounds fun...so, passports for the kids. Mine is still good for another year or so, but Maren had to renew hers as well.

Third time is the charm...Preston had to get his picture take three times. First time he was smiling too much, then the photo was too small, and finally it worked. We (uh, Maren) had filled out the applications ahead of time, so it was a trip to Rite Aid for pictures, then around the corner to the licensing place. Worked out perfectly as there was no waiting and we were prepared, but I must say, passports for the whole family is not cheap! We did enjoy Arby's for dinner.

See you tomorrow.

Concentrate and ask again.

2011-09-06T06:51:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

We made it through the long weekend in style. Last night we had a small BBQ in the back yard followed by a fire pit. Hansen brought home a little sand from the beach last week, so last night I cut a pop can in half and put some sand in it. It went directly in the middle of the fire...Hansen is trying to make glass. After school today we will dig out the can and see what happened.

Here are a few pics from yesterday:

Preston's team finished regular time in the finals with a 2-2 tie. They then went on to loose the game in penalty kicks. They did get a medal, and Preston was the kid introducing each of his teammates as they got their medals.

Preston went first in the PK shoot out. He made his goal and came back to mid field to get congrats by his teammates.

This shot is during the game, Preston taking a free kick. I should have gotten a wider shot so you could see the rest of the team on the right crashing the goal.

I also took down the tent and put it away in the garage. While I had Maren's car out, I brought the Halloween boxes down. Lillie was a very happy camper.

It's never too early to start trying on ideas for Halloween, is it?

Well, according to Hansen's new Magic 8 ball...it is decidedly so. Hansen has had way too much fun with his magic 8 ball. Last night Hansen was asking questions like, "Should Preston reach over the edge of the couch and punch me?"..."Without a doubt."..."NOOO!"...Thump. I would recommend Hansen ask more, uh, life preserving questions.

See you tomorrow.

Life's Good.

2011-09-05T09:04:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

Last year on this exact day I was standing in this exact place watching a soccer game with most of the same parents. Last year I took three photos from this place, one of the Tribal party to the right, soccer in front, and fields being worked on behind. I could have taken the same photo...but instead here is a link to last year,s blog, which could have been today's blog easily enough:

But just leaving it at that, would have been lame, besides, Lillie has been riding that bike for a whole year now. So here is a new picture from an evening game. The parents standing in a line is a cool shadow:

Preston had arguably his best day of soccer in his life yesterday. In the morning he played very well, being very aware and scoring a couple of amazing goals. Including one off the kickoff where he noticed the goalie too far out so he hit it over his head from mid field. Cool. The afternoon game was against the Rapids who are a huge rival. This game was also the Semifinal game. Preston had a hat-trick and an assist on the way to a 4-3 victory. The final game is today at noon. Should be good, they are playing a tough team.

In between games we made a trip to Value Village. Today is the fifty percent Labor Day sale, but yesterday "club members" got to enjoy the sale a day early. I am wearing one of my cool new tee-shirts right now! A "Life's Good" Dog days shirt. Let me just say, we sure get a better deal on this sale than we do buying just a couple of back to school shirts for Lillie at Justice!

See you tomorrow

Bottom left.

2011-09-04T07:37:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Sunday.

The weather has been absolutly great for the first week of school and for this long weekend. Of course we are scheduling our fun around a soccer tournament. Yesterday Preston's team tied, today he has two games.

Yesterday after Preston's game, I took Lillie out for a little garage sale walk. She is an excellent shopper! I looked around, and then looked for her to see if she was ready to go, but nope...still shopping away. Unfolding shirts, setting the ones she was interested aside, and refolding the ones not intersted in. With the end of summer, will be the end of garage sales, so sad:(

Lillie ended up with a couple of shirts and I got to visit with a highschool friend who was holding a garage sale in their yard. I see him about every year when we stumble upon his garage sale.

Yesterday evening I was feeling a bit house bound, so I offered to take Hansen to the driving range. He usually accepts as he really seems to enjoy the golf course these days. He is getting better all the time and starting to realize that the fundamentals that I am trying to teach him may actully work. I took this picture because of the stunning view of Mt. Ranier in the background. The sun was shining on the mountian and it was an amazing view...of course my camera didn't pick it up, so you will have to use your imagination. It is really there, beyond the parking lot, trust me!

This is Hansen and I goofing off at Costco. A little demo of a security system or something. I am in the bottom left and Hansen is in the top right. Mom and Lillie were probably doing the real shopping.

See you tomorrow.

P.S. Spell check is not working...not responsible for misspleed wrods.

First day of school.

2011-09-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Friday.

Yesterday was the first day of school for the kiddos. And the first day back at work for me. Sounds like each of the kids had a fine first day of school, liked their teachers and schedules just fine, and will be ready to go back today.

Preston and Connor are now in high school. Too old to get pictures taken before school, but I did it anyway. Connor's mom is taking pity on the boys and driving them to school yesterday and today...as of next week they will be on the bus. They are lucky to have a whole bus dedicated to one stop just around the corner from us. That means a swift 12 minute ride to school and back.

Lillie and Hansen getting ready to head to the bus stop. We took a vote, and they both wanted to take the bus to school on the first day rather than have mom take them, drop them off, and take pictures. The bus ride to school was pretty empty for them, but the ride home was full of friends. These two are not quite as lucky as Preston in the bus department, their bus takes more like 45 minutes to get to or from school. But they enjoy the time goofing with friends...or sometimes doing their homework.

My day went smooth. For now I even have my own little office. Our school is a bit low on attendance, so hopefully when the official head counts are taken in a month no one looses their jobs or gets shuffled around. Myself included.

See you tomorrow.

A cute green hoodie shirt.

2011-08-31T10:37:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Wednesday.

I just got back from the airport. Dropped off Amber and Aurora for their 11:00 flight back home to Austin. Aurora is really excited to watch her new movie Bambie with her Daddy. We had a great visit and I will now turn it over to the pictures:

Pike Place Market. Always amazing things to see. The ice-cream was good too!

The parking garage between Pike Place Market and the waterfront. We started at the Aquarium, then ate at Steamer's, then up to the market.

In the Seattle Aquarium. Hansen is texting or playing with pictures on his phone while Lillie and Aurora check out the scuba diver in the large front exhibit.

Aurora very early in the morning. She was adjusting to Seattle time just fine, but was still the first one up each day. She liked having me draw things on the dry-erase board, then she would erase them just as fast. Yesterday it was houses...shoe houses, flower houses, etc. They had to have stairs to the bedrooms.

On the deck during the BBQ at our house. We had plenty of folks over including Maren's parents, Stef, a few of Amber's friends, and even a few of the neighbor kids. Fun times and good eats.

Lillie at the Children's Museum in Factora Mall. When Amber and I compared pictures, I seemed to have a bunch of Lillie and she seemed to have a bunch of Aurora. Wacky huh?

Last night after our BBQ, a few of the families in the culdesac got together to have a back to school smores party. Here we all are making smores in the street!

At the little's school, a sneak peek. I think Aurora would be ready to go to school too! The kids were able to meet their teachers and bring their school supplies as not to have to worry about them on the first day. Both Lillie and Hansen seem quite happy with their teachers and classes. Yay!

Well, we had a very nice visit with Amber and Aurora, tomorrow we start school and I head back to work. With that comes a new high school, more dance classes, plenty of soccer, lots of homework, friends, and hopefully ton of good times. I guess it's go time!

See you tomorrow.

Cannonball!

2011-08-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

Here are a few more pics and stories from yesterday. We have been mostly hanging out, but also doing stuff, yeah. I doubt grammar check can help that last sentence. Here you go:

Lillie doing Aurora's hair. Very cute!

Aurora enjoyed wearing Lillie's old recital dresses. Here she is wearing a recital dress and watching a recital on the TV. Aurora is very good at copying the TV...especially funny when putting the TV on fast forward, Aurora would just dance super fast!

At the pool with Mel, Court, Jack, Avery, Nana, and Grandpa. The kids had a great time in the pool and on the playground. I may have joined in the diving contest. Yeah, you may find a picture of that later.

Lillie and Amber watching a movie after Aurora went to sleep.
Yesterday was our second Taco Time. This is the Issaquah Taco Time Coke Machine. It was like the ultimate machine.

And my cannonball. I can really make a splash! The kids had fun using Amber's phone to zoom in on my backside...rude!

See you tomorrow.

They're here!

2011-08-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Sunday.

For the last couple of days we have a had a couple of cute visitors! Amber and Aurora are visiting from Texas...you know, where Sandy the Squirrel is from.

Aurora really likes her cereal. Today the funniest and saddest thing happened. Aurora thought she dropped a cheerio down her dress. She went to clean it out and she couldn't get it out! It was stuck and Aurora went from happy to sad. Amber went to help and we found out it was just Aurora's cheerio shaped belly button! Funny...maybe you just had to be there?

Yesterday Aurora wanted to paint. Rather than painting on paper, I suggested that the girls paint the inside of the Pink Palace. And that is just what happened. Amber was very brave and painted with Lillie and Aurora.

The inside turned out great. And here is a sneak peak from the start of the job. Lillie is painting a TV, Aurora is being a bit more random, and Amber painted some very artistic things.

We also spent some time at the beach. Hansen had fun burying Preston.

Maren, Lillie, Amber and Aurora had fun exploring the beach while Preston was getting burried.

Peaches! Maren purchased a bunch of peaches from a local farmer distribute company. I have been enjoying peaches and peach pie and we have been processing peaches. We had a small debate as I love a peach with the skin on and Amber does too...but Maren was under the impression that one should peel the skin to avoid the yuks. Amber put a poll up on Facebook, and I am glad to say that eating the skin is just fine. But so is finding other ways to eat them...like pies!

See you tomorrow.

Birds and Cars

2011-08-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

The other morning Maren looked out at the bird feeders and gave a little shriek. One of the bird feeders was gone! I looked over the fence, and there it was, down and out:

I got out my bicycle and rode around to the back of the house (it is a long little journey as there is no gate...and good to not have a gate as the bad guys don't use our house as a get away portal like they used to do our neighbors when they had a gate) grabbed the bird feeder, filled it up and:

Ta-da! Two bird feeders! The birds were already chirping by the time I was putting the rake away. Yes, I do use a rake to grab the bird feeders from the branch.

Now on to more exciting things...cars. Here are a few pics of cars I have seen in the last few days that I thought were cool. Now mind you, almost any car is cooler than my car, and there are tons of cool cars out there these days.

This is a line of the new Fiat cars lined up at a soccer tournament. I would drive one of these little Fiats any day. Too cool, even cooler than a Mini Cooper if you ask me.

Parked next to me at Costco, a new Zero emissions Nissan. All electric, zero gas. Cool! But very ugly! I think I will keep my van.

And lastly, this Mustang was at the pool. It is very cool. I didn't get a picture of the 1970 fast back parked on the other side. It was white with blue racing stripes. I like it way more, but then again, convertible roofs are kind of silly around here except for like 3 weeks of the year.

See you tomorrow.

Faster!

2011-08-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

Last night Maren and I went to a parent dinner at Preston's high school. Today through Thursday Preston and all the other 9th graders get to go to orientation. Yup, the kid is at school...high school! Lots of paperwork and computer stuff involved, but it is all good. And the other great school news is...Lillie has a bus pass! Usually they make us wait until the second week of school for her pass, but we got the news this morning.

On the computer/technology front, we switched to Comcast for everything...TV, internet, and phone. We had been using Qwest for internet and phone, but couldn't get a dish to work due to so many trees. The slowish internet never bothered me until lately. The kids xbox was slow to connect and I couldn't get iTV to work wirelessly with the new DVD player. Yesterday the cable guy came out and set us up. Now the iTV is working and the xbox is flying. My computer may be a bit faster, but it is old and slow anyway. So by bundling we get more tv channels, better internet, free long distance on the land line, and actually save a $15.00. So I'm happy...I think bundling with Century Link (who took over from Quest) would have been even cheaper, but we just can't get dish reception at our house. I am keeping my same e-mail address for now.

Here is a picture from the other day. Maren says some bloggers do a "Friday Dump" where they post the pics they never got around to posting. I'm sure the kids and I could have lots of fun with a "Friday Dump", butt...er, but I prefer to dump whenever I want to.

Maren and Lillie getting ready to go camping in our back yard. Lillie was bumming that she didn't get to go actual camping this summer, so I set up the tent in the back yard. They were on their own as Preston was at a friends and Hansen said his bed was much more comfortable and really only a few steps away. The girls made it until 1:00 am! That is past midnight, it counts! Preston and his buddies used the tent the next night. Now it is just getting soaking wet thanks to the rain. Can't put it away until it drys out, so it may be there for another few days.

See you tomorrow.

Bert Ostergard

2011-08-21T22:05:00.000-07:00

Good evening, it is Sunday evening.

This summer is just about over, and it has been a pretty good summer. But along with the good, we have seen some very sad as well. Saturday we attended a celebration of life for Maren's uncle Bert.

Uncle Bert (short for Albert) was one of John's younger brothers. At age 59, he had just retired a few months ago. By all accounts Bert was just a great guy who cherished his kids and had many friends. He was always super to me and the fam. Bert will be greatly missed.

See you tomorrow.

Soccer, Alki pics and birthdays!

2011-08-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

Good evening, it is Sunday.

This was a big birthday weekend around here. We have not celebrated, had cake, opened presents and all that jazz...but we've got to say "Happy Birthday!" to the birthday girlz. Sunday was Carol's birthday and Saturday was Mel's birthday. After church yesterday we did get taken out for ice-cream by Carol on her birthday. Preston said we should be buying for Carol on her birthday, but Carol said, "It's my birthday, I'll make the rules...you get whatever you want, and I'm paying!" Thanks Carol. Happy birthday girls.

This weekend Preston's soccer team played in Snohomish at the Bigfoot tournament. There were over 300 teams playing and tons of campers lining the fields. We were able to drive, so we did...the boys would have rather camped I'm sure.

Here is a pic of Preston getting ready to fight for the ball...which will be entering the area momentarily.
This sign was just down the road from the soccer fields. I got a kick of it...kind of something along the lines of Susanna's blog.

When leaving the field on Thursday, we saw a parashuter spiraling down as his shoot did not open correctly. It was very scary. Later we heard on the news that he had died. Very sad.

The next pictures are from a couple of weeks ago. They are from Stef and Derek's new place in Seattle...actually just across the street at Alki Beach.

Talk about a great view of the water and the city! This pic was taken of our bunch while standing on their front steps.

I like this picture. Lillie and I went down to the sand while the others did their thing. Lillie's sand castle is getting swept up as the tide comes in. The two girls in the background were taking turns taking silly pictures of each other...trying to get a good profile pic for facebook to be sure.

And while Lillie and I were in the sand, the others took their rental thing for a trip to Slurpee land. The kid on the front loves Slurpees! Heck, who doesn't?

Walking back to Stef's place, from left to right was Hansen, Preston, Stef, and Abby. Lillie and I just couldn't keep up!

See you tomorrow.

The Pink Palace.

2011-08-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

Yesterday we finished the tree house. We went over and over on what to paint on the outside. Ideas like Girlz Zone, Fairy Clubhouse, and Lillie's Lair were being tossed around. I was about to paint Lillie's Lair when Hansen said, "It is bad enough that the tree house is now pink...do you have to put her name on it too?" Yup, we don't really want the best for our siblings at times, but I did take that into consideration. Not sure The Pink Palace is really any more inviting to the boys than Lillie's Lair would have been, but I guess I get it.

The inside is still grubby from when the boys painted it back in 2004, but the outside looks splendid.

See you tomorrow.

Pink?

2011-08-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

Good evening, it is Tuesday night.

Today Lillie and I painted the tree house. The boys don't use it any longer so why not!

As of right now the tree house is totally pink on the outside. Tomorrow or the next day it will say in bold letters, "Lillie's Clubhouse!" The boys are not too impressed.

For the last few weeks we have stopped watering the hanging basket in front of our front window because it has become a bird's nest. The other day the babies got big enough (we think there were two?) and flew away. Today I took the basket down to take a quick look. Cool huh? One egg never did hatch.

Instead of pink...I'm going green. I changed the oil in my van today with recycled oil. It says it is 50% recycled, 100% protection. Since it was the same price, why not?

And lastly, Maren's newest comic strip on the wall. Can I get an extra cookie?

See you tomorrow.

Flaming Geyser State Park

2011-08-15T20:44:00.000-07:00

Good evening, it is Monday.

Just got back from a walk with Maren, now I'm doing a little blogging. Today turned out to be a great weather day, not too hot or too cold. Sitting around this morning we (the kids an I) decided to go on an "unknown adventure". Actually we had an idea, but the unknown always sounds mysterious. We started out at Flaming Geyser State Park. I hadn't been there for a couple of years, but I wasn't expecting to have to pay. Thanks to the world of no new taxes and no jobs and so on, you now have to pay to enter a state park. I purchased a year pass for $30.00 as apposed to a $10.00 daily pass, and off we went in search of adventure.

And we're off!

The Flaming Geyser had no flame...but it kind of had a few bubbles. Preston's look of "huh" is perfect. And behind him the orange fence is telling us that the bridge to the Bubbling Geyser is closed! Luckily we kind of know the area, so we took the long way around and still found the bubbling Geyser.

The Bubbling Geyser is only seen from a different bridge. It wasn't much more impressive than the Flaming Geyser, but it was fun to be out there. The area is totally amazing with its old forest and views. Lillie is checking out the creek.

The boys checking out the geyser.

We checked out this cliff. It is quite wooded, but with the sun breaking through, it is amazing. Lillie needed Preston to keep her safe.

And you can't leave the park without heading to the river to skip rocks. This is a very calm spot of the river, but it is very deceptive. Every year someone dies in this river not far from here as the water is moving quickly. In fact, just this year a law was enacted that requires a life jacket if you are in the water...too many rescue missions. We ended the adventure at Jamba Juice. Yum!

The weather is supposed to stay nice this week! See you tomorrow.

Hello again!

2011-08-13T07:09:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Saturday.

We are having a great summer and doing just fine. My lack of blogging of late has nothing to do with anything other than I just have not felt like blogging. I'm sure I will get back to it each day like I intended. I guess social media such as facebook and the like are kind of filling the spot in me that my blog did, and I feel that I have been getting almost too much computer/technology time in my life. I have kind of been thinking that it is time to get rid of my smart phone and just go back to a simple phone and an actual camera. Hmm.

My phone really is amazing, I mean, I can check Twitter and Facebook anytime. I can upload and download pictures and information anytime. I can get directions to anywhere at anytime. I can find a Starbucks or MacDonald's anywhere in the world. I have crazy apps and can make my phone do fart noises or talk through a goofy mustache. It is like that Geico commercial..."do people use smart phones to do stupid things?" YES...I Do! And it is very fun. Each day there is even more that the phone can do. With this phone I can do anything! Or nothing...which is probably closer to the outcome. It's addicting, I try to put my phone down...but then I just pick it up again. Disturbing huh?

Anyhow, sorry for not blogging. I will try harder to keep my blog updated and continue to post goofy pictures and such. I really didn't just fall off the planet.

So for some news. I got a letter from the King County Court yesterday telling me that the court has totally dismissed my parking ticket! Yay! I guess sending in a picture and a note about how I was not guilty actually worked. Which is great, because if I had actually had a court date set, I would have gone in and made a fool of myself and probably the end result would have been a visit to the slammer! Maren and the kids would have actually gotten the chance to see what the inside of one of those bail bond places looks like. Just joking, but I am glad they dismissed it...I believe it should never have been issued in the first place.

Maren just got back from an early learning conference in Spokane. She was there for three days and two nights. She got to fly a little plane there and back. The flight was short enough that when she left Spokane in her airplane, I left home in my van, and we both made it to the airport in the same amount of time! They even served her free wine! Maren figures that when you actually pay to get on an small airplane with propellers, it is the least they can do.

And lastly, yesterday we picked up a flute for Hansen. Maren's co-worker from back in her Bellevue days, and still her buddy, had an old flute from I'm guessing her school days and is letting Hansen use it. We picked it up yesterday and will bring it to the music store today to get it checked out and in good working order. Thank you Julie! Hansen is excited.

See you tomorrow...really.

Dude, my shoe!

2011-08-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

Saturday I spent the day at a friend's house for his annual Pickleball tournament. There were 7 or 8 teams, all a blind draw in the morning. I was lucky to end up with my friend Scott. Scott is an excellent Pickleball player and we teamed up very well. I didn't even make one smart remark about his "everything WSU Cougars" wardrobe. We started playing about 9:30 in the morning and the last match (which we just barely lost in the finals) was around 5:00pm. Yes, I am a sore kid today...we must have played 15 games during the day. The very last game of the day we were up 10-8 and serving for the win, but somehow it didn't work out. The team that beat us really was better, but we just scraped an scraped and it almost worked out.

Scott and I, a pretty darn good Pickleball team.

Yesterday we had a family reunion at Seahurst Beach in Burien near where the Ostergard's live. Kids and adults got to hang with cousins and have a great time. The out of towners leave today, it was great to hang with them all. BJ took a ton of great pictures and they are out there in the world...but these are a few that I took. This on above is one I stepped out of the picture to the side and got everyone's attention for half a sec while BJ got ready for the real group photo from straight on.

The boys had fun tossing each other's shoes onto the rafters of the picnic site. Got to create some fun some how! And they did.

BJ taking more pictures of the group. She took a few super pics of our family too. You may even see one on our Christmas Card this year.

The weather was kind of cool most of the day, but before the day ended the sun came out. Here BJ is taking a few pics of Lillie and Camden as they have a great time playing in the water. My photos are perfect for my blog, but BJ's pictures are at a whole different level of amazing.

See you tomorrow.

Playing Tourist

2011-07-30T08:02:00.001-07:00

Good morning, it is Saturday.

Yesterday sure turned out to be a fun day. The Ostergards have relatives from Minnesota in town for the week and yesterday we were able to hang with them. Carol's cousin Roger, his daughter Bonnie Jean who is probably a few years younger than Maren, and her daughter Britta who is 4. The day started at Mel's house for playing and Pizza. I tried not to hurt too many kids on the trampoline...tried! Nah, I didn't hurt anyone. When the twins were ready for their naps, the rest of us headed into Seattle to do the tourist thing.

Bonnie Jean and Britta really wanted to go up to the top of the Space Needle. Lillie really did too, and what a perfect day...I think they could see all the way to where the world ends from up there as it was such a clear day. This pic is taken by me lying on the ground at the base of the Space Needle.

Bonnie Jean sent me this picture of Lillie...on top of the world! The reflections make Lillie's arm look all brused, but it was just the reflections, Lillie is looking nice and tan these days. It was about an hour and 15 minutes for the group to go up to the top of the Space Needle, so Hansen and I took off on our big adventure. The oldies (sorry John, Carol, and Roger, but the kids are the littles, and I am the base age here..;) hung around the Seattle Center house and had a nice relaxing time in the perfect weather.

Hansen and I raced to the monorail, went to Westlake Center, then hustled to Pike Place Market. Our goal was to get a cold coffee from the Original Starbucks, then go to a Magic Shop, then make it back in time to meet the girls at the base of the Space Needle. It worked out so perfectly...I am still geeking out about the perfect timing! The guys working at Starbucks were having a great time...I love this picture of Hansen. Hansen said he wasn't ready, but the guys in the back were, so I just took the pic.

And going into the Magic shop. I can't tell you that Hansen bought a shock pen. He may offer you a pen to use someday...be aware! The thing sends volts up your freaking arm...I know this to be true first hand!

Before we left Seattle, Lillie and Britta got to play in the big fountain for a few minutes. Good times. I don't even have any pics with our out of towners, but we will see them again before they leave and I am sure the camera will be clicking.

Once we left Seattle, we still had some adventure left. The littles and I drove to Wild Waves in Federal Way to pick up Preston and a few friends and took them all out to dinner and to a movie. Thor was the choice at the local $3.00 theatre. Lillie and I snuck into Rio instead...then joined the rest of the crowd for the last half an hour of Thor. Maren wasn't left out either...she had a nice day having lunch and dinner with her friends from work past and present.

See you tomorrow.

But I never had lunch.

2011-07-28T07:26:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Thursday.

The kids are in full on summer vacation mode...even with the cool weather. Seems like I wake up at 2:00 am every morning to go tell the boys to go to sleep. I don't mind too much as it is summer and Preston and Hansen seem to get along just fine when everyone else are sleeping. Yesterday I went golfing at 6:30 am, and I got home before any of the kids were even awake! What is funny is how they always wonder how in the world they missed out on breakfast or lunch depending on what they get when they woke up. At 5:30 pm they will be like, "what do you mean it is dinner time? I never had lunch!" It's because you had breakfast at noon you goof!

We have actually done other stuff besides just sleeping in:

We went to the 5th Avenue Theatre to see Aladdin. It was great. We are Aladdin fans in this house.

While in Seattle we saw and talked to this guy (bad picture) who is a street musician who was also on America's Got Talent. He was fun to talk to, he actually stopped playing to jokingly tell us how he really should have won it all!

And we have been to the Library. Lillie finished her summer reading sheet and I took her to pick up her prizes. Yes folks, prizes do work for this girl. Preston is in the background placing holds on the books he is assigned to read over the summer for school. Hansen is at the library too, wondering why I made him turn off the X-box and come with us.

Lillie and I visited Maren at work and brought on of her co-workers some bike wheels I had hanging in the garage. We took Maren on a Starbucks walk...Lillie chose a Slurpee from Target and then was too cold to be happy. Silly girl.

And making paint. Random, but fun. The next few weeks brings more soccer, visiting with family and friends, and hopefully more fun in the sun.

See you tomorrow.

Orange fenders.

2011-07-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Monday.

Yesterday we had Summer! Up until yesterday, we had only like 78 minutes of over 80 degrees for this year. We may have added a few more minutes to that total as yesterday was beautiful. We went to Church early, had ice-cream with John and Carol afterwards, headed to the pool for a bit, then spent the evening at home. Here are a few pics:

After dinner, but before a movie (we watched 127 hours...cool but horrific movie) I took Lillie out for a bike ride. We did some exploring at Jenkins Creek. Here Lillie is heading down to the water to look around. Our bikes in the foreground...no the cute little bike with the orange fenders is not mine!

When getting ice-cream Preston was planning his day to hang out with his girlfriend. She came over for dinner and a movie. Preston had to take some playful teasing from his mom and his Nana. Guess it's all worth it?

We had KFC for dinner. A perfect meal for a hot day. For some reason Hansen and Lillie prefer to have their picture taken with food in their mouth. Yes, Alex puts up with a lot when she braves our house...as do all visitors.

See you tomorrow.

A parking ticket...really?

2011-07-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

Good evening, it is Saturday.

The other day I went outside to find a parking ticket on my truck's windshield. I have carefully parked the truck this way as to have room for school buses and garbage trucks for quite some time now. It seems that if you put your tires just a bit on the sidewalk, you get a ticket.

I was not too pleased with this, so I will protest it just out of principle. I think a warning should have been in order anyhow. And today when we were out on a garage sale walk in our neighborhood, look how the police park:

Hmm. Too bad I didn't still have the ticket...I could have placed it on this car's windshield.

Anyhow, the weather has been great here. We have been to the pool the last couple of days and now I need to get off the computer and start the BBQ. Yum!

See you tomorrow.

Really?

2011-07-20T22:44:00.000-07:00

Good evening, it is Wednesday.

Right now we are watching Charlie's Angles. And we means myself as well as Preston, Hansen, Kole, Lillie, and Ali. Yes, Hansen and Lillie have friends over for an overnight. Both on the same night, I'm hoping this makes things easier. Yes, Maren does have to work tomorrow and yes, she is in bed for the night.

Today the littles got to hang with Jack and Avery via Nana and Grandpa. Yes, John and Carol picked them up mid morning, brought them out to visit their cousins, let them play until after dinner, then brought them home. Thanks! I got in some golf, a trip to the dump, and I even washed the outside of the windows...all except one. We have a bird who built a nest in one of our hanging baskets in front of our house and Maren is quite protective of her new bird friend. With all I did today, Maren still thinks I'm leading a total life of luxury this summer. She may be right!

The kids found some cat puke this morning. And instead of cleaning it up, they covered it up with a note just for me!

Aren't they the sweetest?

See you tomorrow.

Oregon soccer.

2011-07-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

Good evening, it is Monday.

Last night Preston and I got home from Oregon and his team's soccer tournament. His team didn't do too well this tournament, but Preston did make a few really great goals. And the boys had a great time. It went something like this: drive forever, soccer, slurpees, burgers, x-box soccer tournament, drive, sing horribly and laugh like crazy kids in the van, soccer, spill coke in the van, burgers, slurpees, run to buddie's hotel rooms making ruckus, drive, soccer, TV, friends, burgers and drive forever. So basically, the team had tons of fun.
Back at the hotel with slurpees.

Preston about to take a shot at goal.

Watching another soccer game after playing their first game.

See you tomorrow.

Do vampires like Costco pizza?

2011-07-11T20:29:00.000-07:00

Good evening, it is Monday.

I spent the whole day changing the timing belt and accessory belts on my pick-up truck. I watched a YouTube video that someone in computer land had posted of him changing the timing belt on a similar truck. I just took my time and it all worked out. YouTube is way better than a manual. I did snap a screw off on a spinney thing that may or may not be a big deal...I figure that there are still a few left so it is all good. I have my fingers crossed. This job required that I drain and remove the radiator, so it has been flushed as well. Last time the truck was in the shop the fellow said the timing belt replacement was like $500.00 these days, so yay! I saved like $450 by spending a day working on the truck. Also, our SpongeBob painting is looking great, and that saved even more $$$. So what do we spend our money on you ask? Besides soccer? Costco:

Having a Costco a mile away is great! Tonight we called in, had them make a pizza, then showed up and had a hot pizza just waiting for us. Lillie had pizza grease running down her chin...so this picture is of her and I being vampires. As you can see, just as Maren snapped the picture Lillie decided she should be the only vampire and was sending an elbow right into my ribs. This vampire can take it.

This is my truck motor with all the parts taken off, getting ready to mark the timing belt for replacement.

See you tomorrow.

A soccer car?

2011-07-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

Good evening, it is Sunday.

The weather has been great the last few days and Preston has had a soccer tournament the whole weekend. Four games and not the best result, but they drew a very tough bracket. The two teams that barely beat them in bracket play ended up playing each other in the final. In the last game, Preston made a goal from over half the field away. It was a free kick from like 60 yards away. The other goalie was kind of foward in the box as kids just don't kick it that far, yet we all knew Preston would go for it. He hit it over the goalie's head and in the upper corner of the goal...afterward he was running on the sidelines giving all the kids and parents high fives. Fun times.I watched all the games, Lillie and Hansen even made it to a couple. Otherwise, it was hanging at the pool and at home for a busy/relaxing weekend.

Here are a few pictures of new glasses for Hansen and I:

My cool new specs...Randy Jackson's line. Cool glasses dawg! Mine don't change to gray like Hansen's. I have tried those lenses and since I wear a hat most the time in the sun, they don't get the UV to change. So instead, I'm having Rx sunglasses made. I tried to golf in glasses the other day, does not work for me...I also have a few boxes of daily wear contact lenses. The daily wear ones you just open up when you want them, and throw them away at the end of the day. I really don't like contact lenses, so just when I golf do they get the nod.

Hansen's first pair of glasses. His next pair will be available next week. Hansen can see again!

And the same exact pair of glasses in the sun...yup, sunglasses! Hansen really likes these specs.

Today we took a trip to DQ. I didn't get a pic of the actual Blizzards, but Hansen and Lillie both enjoyed a Triple Chocoholic Blizzard.

After a trip to a shoe store, a game store, and a make-up store...we ended up with a few pairs of shoes and little stickers for a manicure. I painted Lillie's nails and then put these cool stickers on them for her. I have this job down!

And a cool soccer VW bug. Yes, that is my super cool blue mini-van in the background...don't be too envious!

See you tomorrow...or the day after.

Driving range video.

2011-07-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Friday.

The last few days have been hanging out and doing not much. A nice way to spend the summer. I did take the kids to the driving range yesterday and shot this video with my phone. It is blurry, but you can see the kids in action. I don't usually post video, so enjoy:

See you tomorrow.

4th of July.

2011-07-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Tuesday.

Hope you had a great 4th of July. We did! I have a bunch of pictures to tell the story:

Our motley crew having fun at the Burien Parade. We had (from back left to front right) Derek, Abi, Stef, John, Maren, Carol, Connor, Preston, Hansen, Lillie, and I'm at the camera.

Maren and Lillie love the Burien Parade...there are always Princesses!

Derek getting a little extra attention from this clown guy.

Cool robots too. Carol was talking to them about it, and they used the robot to drop a floaty on her! Cool.

Bmx riders doing tricks.

Connor and Preston fighting with party blowers. The parade was fun, lots of cars, politicians, drill teams and bands. And great weather!

Here is our crew walking back to John and Carol's house after the parade. Lillie was dragging, she even took a quick lap through a sprinkler...after Nana.

Driving back to our house for BBQ burgers and fireworks. On nice days, this is a beautiful place to live.

Back at home, getting things started with smoke bombs. We had a huge arsenal of fireworks this year. We bought a pretty big box of fireworks and then Derek, Stef and Abi brought over some even bigger ones. It was quite a party. Lillie was just shrieking and yelling in awe. The neighboring streets had some very fancy fireworks as usual.

To finish things off Abi, Connor, Hansen, and Preston shot off some Roman Candles. One of my favorite tweets from the last week was from Stephen Colbert: "How could Texas ban fireworks? There is nothing more American than a Roman Candle."

See you tomorrow.

Hair, eyes, and teeth!

2011-07-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Sunday.

Last week was a great first week of summer. The kids and I were working/participating at our church's VBS. The weather has been just fine and we have been doing our fair share of hanging at the pool.

Last week was also a week where Hansen got his hair cut, teeth cleaned, and eye's checked!

A cool new hair cut and zero cavities!

Usually we go to the eye doctor just before school starts, but lately Hansen has grown so much and along with all the growing, his eyes have been changing. Even with his glasses he has had been having a hard time seeing. So he has new glasses on order with a Rx that is going to help him see much better. And in true Hansen style, we looked at a few different eyeglass shops, and ended up going and getting the same exact frame that he has right now! But he will have lenses that change from light to dark as he goes in and out of the sun!

See you tomorrow.

The paint goes on.

2011-06-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon, it's Tuesday.

Tonight is is the night that Maren gets home from New Orleans. I think we are all ready for her to get home. Lillie has discovered that she can even call her on the phone. While doing the dishes yesterday I heard Lillie from around the corner talking to Maren's answering machine. I asked why she was calling her mom, and she said,"Duh, Mom's a Librarian and I need to know what 'sold' means!...you don't know this stuff!" Ouch. I did tell her that I do know this stuff and explained what "sold" means. She was wondering about the house on our street that sold, she was thinking that the folks moving in were named the name of the real estate agent. Then when Maren called back, I put her on the phone and she said to her mom, "I already found out...bye!" Click.

More on the pick-up.

This morning we were discussing repainting the hood when somehow we decided that Preston should us a silver and paint a Sponge Bob on the hood. I loved the idea, and when we got home from VBS, I prepped the truck and got out the paint for Preston. Here he is getting started.

And the final painting. I think it is great. You can't really see Sponge Bob unless you looking right at it. Fun huh?

See you tomorrow.

Hmm.

2011-06-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

Good evening, it is Sunday night.

We will be waking up early for VBS tomorrow and I am sure I won't feel like blogging. Today was a fun day. Church with John and Carol, then lunch and the truck reveal. The pick-up truck turned out OK for now. I may get a different hue of color, sand and paint another coat or two later in the summer...but it is done for now. Pictures below.

But first, tonight was a fire pit night after we got back from the pool. Yes, summer is here for a day or two.

Preston came out with all the work that he could find from this year. I made him keep out the awards and his writing. He decided to keep out some of his science. The rest went up in smoke! This is Preston and Connor, now high schoolers, putting 8th grade behind them.

Not to be outdone, we had our own fire pit in our back yard. The littles invited Kole over just so he could witness how much they fight with each other over everything. Nice.

Here is a before picture of the hood and roof of the pick-up. The sides are doing fine, and I just can't see spending more on a real paint job for this truck than it is worth. So after some tutorials from YouTube, I did it myself:

And after. From certain angles in overcast light, the color seems to be a perfect match! The paint went on smooth and the job itself is well done. The problem is there is no way to match the paint. Even professionals couldn't get it right as there has been fading and such. Besides, a metallic looking paint will always look different than a $5.00 can of Rustoleum. Even the paint on the side of the can seems to match better than the real thing.

And in the sun from the side...totally different color. Groan. My neighbor Shawn thinks the new paint looks better than the old and I should just continue on and do the whole truck. Yeah, right.
Well, it is what it is. At least it wont rust or anything from here on out.

See you tomorrow.

Blue?

2011-06-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Sunday.

Maren is having a fine time in New Orleans. She got to visit my Aunt Susanna and it sounds like they had a very nice visit. Maren sent me a couple of pictures of what it was like to get Rick Riordan's signature in a book for Hansen. Like a 100 person long line and no personalizing of the signature. Still cool.

But Maren is not the only one having fun. She may be having more fun than us chickens who are currently groaning about having to wake up and then having to wake up for the whole next week for VBS...I even signed up Preston to be a helper.

We painted Lillie's hair blue yesterday with temporary highlights. It is already mostly gone, but it looked cool. She wishes we would let her put blue highlights in her hair for real!

Hansen got out my RC truck, charged the batteries and drove it around for a bit. Hansen loves RC things, and riding his ripstick. In the last couple of days we have run into a few friends of mine that all say Hansen looks just like me! Hansen is quite offended by that, especially since I buzzed off my hair, but maybe so.

Last night we had dinner with one of Preston's soccer friend's families. They had a nice trampoline that the littles enjoyed hanging out on. We watched Mexico come back from a 0-2 deficit to beat the USA National Soccer Team 4-2. Mexico just totally out played the US for the last 60 minutes of the game. Today it will be church, pool, nothing. I think Preston has plans for Wild Waves.

See you tomorrow.

Time to paint.

2011-06-24T07:45:00.000-07:00

Good morning, it is Friday.

Yesterday I took Maren to the airport for her trip to New Orleans and the ALA conference. She will get to do tons of ALA stuff, and say hi to my Aunt Susanna! The rest of us chickens are just hanging out at home. We're doing ok though. Yesterday Preston got to go to the Sounder game with his girlfriend and her family. Sounds like he had a great time. The littles got to hang with their littler cousins and their grandparents for a nice two days. They even got to spend the night at Stef's place as they were cat checking for the honeymooners. I picked them up at a different cousin's house after lunch and my eye appointment (my eyes are just the same...just time for new glasses). They were having a great time.

And for what we have been doing since Maren has been gone that she may groan about: I have started painting the hood and top of the pick-up truck. Yesterday was sanding and a first coat. Today will be light sanding and a second coat. I have to adjust the color mix a little as it turned out too light. With luck, by the third coat the colors will kind of match:) Yes, that is why Maren would groan. But things she would be happy about: The littles and I turned over the garden and got out our hanging baskets. Then went shopping for lots of flowers, some tomatoes, strawberries, and even a pumpkin plant. Can't forget the slug bait. We will have this place looking spiffy in no time.

Lillie and Camden climbing a tree in Camden's back yard.

I went golfing with my friend Larry on Wednesday. We got paired up with a couple of Husky loving characters. Check out these shoes! We had a (mostly) fun time golfing with these guys, Larry got hit by a 100 yard bladed shot that the shoe guy pulled way off line. Ouch. I'm sure that left a mark.

Off to do some sanding, see you tomorrow.