Extrem4

soccer

2009-04-25T17:11:00.002-07:00

Here are the pros....

spring!

2009-04-25T16:36:00.007-07:00

So we did a bunch of fun things in March: went to the CA cousins (and I forgot my camera);
saw K&A in in SF with the whole fam (still no camera);
rushed back here for a week, and then round 2 of fun, with mom and dad coming for a few days (um, forgot *again* to take pics) and enjoying a week of the K and A gang (finally remembered I needed to actually *take* pictures). So, here are some for the family:

Easter Sunday am:

The various families:

Audrey helping the kids do eggs:

Notice that they're wearing, um, ski helmets.... :)

Day 2 at Bogus for Siena

2009-01-27T19:01:00.004-07:00

The snow was better but also quite a bit colder today (about 16). So even though by the end there was a fair amount of crying and one expression of "I don't want to go skiing again" it was all good and on the way home we planned our next trip.

Special visitors

2009-01-25T07:36:00.002-07:00

We had some extra company earlier in the month and only wished they could have stayed longer! The kids, of course, climbed all over them and hung onto every word. My formal, posed portraits of them are here (why do I always forget to take real pictures?), as they're indulging the kids by playing a game following our waffle breakfast.

Remy day 4

2009-01-20T16:41:00.004-07:00

Bringing in the new year

2009-01-06T19:49:00.006-07:00

We headed over to mom and dad's place a few days after Xmas. Our trip over was a bit more adventurous than we wanted--no accidents or anything exciting, but we (meaning Conrad) drove 9/10ths of the way on snow/ice. It was slow going...and it's a wiiiiide, lonely state when you're doing 40 mph. Luckily we brought Daniel along and he kept us entertained.

Anyway we hung out at the home ranch, hit our fave Sunday brunch spot (Studio One--yummmm), played an afternoon's worth of Rook with Michael S. Lovely, lovely. Monday we hit Trader Joe's and Cafe Yum and Tuesday we headed for the coast (which is when I remembered that people do things with cameras other than carry them around in their purses). It was wet and windy over there--not too surprising.

We ate at another fave, Kyllo's, our first night there. (And if you're thinking that all we do is eat out, that'd be about right. I have several must-stops in OR, including at least one drive-through latte a day. I do not do this at home; it's a vacation thing.)

Then we *attempted* a beer-cheese fondue on New Year's Eve. We'd watched one made once but hadn't tried it ourselves. Needless to say I didn't quite hit it right but Daniel and Conrad got some cornstarch and saved the day. We'll have to try again next year...I only need cheese fondue once a year anyway!
Some folks lit fireworks on the beach right out that window behind Daniel, so on New Year's Eve we actually made it to midnight and watched the show with the waves behind. We had peach champagne and thought of the first time we enjoyed it years and years ago in Switzerland.
On Thursday we packed up and then had lunch at Kyllo's again before heading down the coast for the Newport Aquarium. I'd never been, and it was really a nice spot. My pictures don't do it justice as I was trying not to use the flash. So most of them are dark or blurry:

Most of the aquarium is indoors, but the seals and otters and other creatures are outdoors. It was pouring sheets of rain, but the kids must've inherited web-footedness from their mom as they insisted on traipsing to every single exhibit. We talked them out of the park, though.

And then we came home, cozy and dry, and visited other creatures. On Friday Con and I ditched the kids with grandma and Daniel (who had to go back into town) and headed for Portland. Con needed some trim at Ikea--we escaped with only one bag's worth of stuff, a new record of constraint for us. We then hit Penzey's -- so fun to see it in person, but now I'm happy to just buy through their catalog. If you haven't had Penzey's spices, give them a whirl. The prices are great and the stuff is great too! And then we were off to the Hanna Andersson outlet (50% off clearance--sweet!) and Columbia (new snow gear for both of us. Once every fifteen years is about right, right?) and then a few more stops on the way home. We made it to Dim and Jana's for dinner and it was great to see their new house all spiffied up!

Saturday was an extra-early start; we made it to Bend for a 9:00 breakfast with Callie. Then we were on our way home, on dry roads--what a relief. We came home, unloaded, and started the ol' washing machine up. And now it's back to school and work -- and we're rested and ready (and several pounds heavier!)

Student of the month

2009-01-02T00:26:00.001-07:00

Here is our little kindergartener as the student of the month. I want to get one of those bumperstickers that says, "My honor roll student beat up your dumb kid" but that would not be nice and it is not in her nature unless it involves her brother and something she wants. I hope this works as I am posting for the first time from my phone.

end of December fun

2008-12-26T09:43:00.001-07:00

Snow Fun

2008-12-26T08:24:00.008-07:00

:

We went up north for a few days--left our several-inches-of-snow for several-feet-of-snow. It was a great few days away and felt like a bonus since we hadn't planned on it until just a bit ago.

This shot's funny because it looks like I photoshopped some suspicious fellow in, but I didn't. Instead it's just our good friend following a very snowy ride down the hill:
The sweet girl with very cold toesie-woesies (I didn't get any good ones of her sister, who was off shredding the steeper hills):

And for fun, here's the dynamic duo in a configuration we dubbed Double Trouble:

Brrrrrrr

2008-12-16T19:35:00.005-07:00

Eric, Shelley, Brice and Erica were over for a raclette lunch on Sunday--the perfect day for it. Their kids came prepared with snow shovels and all of their snow gear (unfortunately I didn't get a picture of Erica!) Brice was nice enough to play outside with the kids:

The kids have been begging to "go skiing," which for all they know consists of .5 second runs down 2 vertical feet. We're all excited for Bogus to open and for all of us to get better at this!

Thanksgiving

2008-12-16T19:00:00.007-07:00

Keeping up with our once-a-month posting, here's the November update.
Last month the cousins came. Auntie Darci is a fabulous story teller (although you wouldn't know it from the kids' expressions in this particular shot!):

There was lots of baby-playing:

And we even got to celebrate Darci's birthday:
The beautiful Thanksgiving table with my mother-in-law's vintage dishes (and thanks to her decorating skill):

Four little pilgrims (or turkeys!):

Post-turkey snoozing:

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year

2008-12-12T00:05:00.001-07:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Halloween--a bit late

2008-11-08T16:34:00.004-07:00

The kids did some costume-swapping and last-minute changes to end up as a witch and a Swiss soccer player:

Siena's class paraded through the entire school. She's in the back right corner:
Then that night we went up to a little Halloween party with some ghosts and goblins and geishas:
After a wild round of trick-or-treating on an amazingly warm night, this is what it looked like for the ride home:

freezer cooking/once-a-month cooking

2008-10-24T17:28:00.003-07:00

Because I am strange, I decided to give this once-a-month cooking thing a whirl -- about a month ago. I tried it for the following reasons; 1) we were eating quesadillas for dinner more than once a week; 2) I was really tired of coming home in the evening and then rummaging through our refrigerator, trying to figure out what to cook. I've only done it one time, but we've *really* enjoyed it this month. I spent about 3 hours and made 12 meals. What I loved: we didn't have to spend time figuring out dinner when we got home and clean-up was also less. Works for me!

My tips for doing this:
1. Do the grocery shopping a day or two earlier--not on the same day you're going to do the cooking;
2. Have the kids entertained elsewhere so you can concentrate;
3. Make sure you have your supplies on hand, namely: Ziploc freezer bags (1 qt and 1 gallon), a sharpie pen, tinfoil, saran wrap.
4. Meat frozen in sauces doesn't dry out--it's amazing.

Recipes I used:
Bacon-wrapped chicken (very yummy!)
White sauce chicken with noodles (just okay--won't make this one again.)
Turkey enchiladas (very yummy--you could make any enchilada recipe)
Southwest chicken casserole (also just okay--I should know that we don't love casseroles!)
Thai pork (actually a slow cooker recipe--we ate it fresh but I'd make it again and freeze it. Also I used chicken because I forgot to buy enough pork)
Pork chops -- made these with the coarser Japanese bread crumbs. Very good!
Chicken and artichokes -- from my own recipes
Sausage pasta -- an old Cooking Light recipe

Useful books from our library:
The Freezer Cooking Manual--This book has great planning ideas, but mostly the recipes are too casserole-heavy. So, I'm hopeful for this one, which I'm waiting to check out:
Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer

Goals for next month:
1. Healthier and fewer meat-based main courses
2. More soups for winter time
3. No casserole-like meals.

If you do this, let me know your tips! If you don't, give it a whirl. It'd be really fun to do it *with* someone!

October

2008-10-21T20:06:00.009-07:00

So late last month, the outlaws showed up and introduced a new game to the under-six set:

Yep. And they win, a lot, even playing face up. The grandparents left, and so now we're doomed to endless games of Uno...

They recently spent an evening trying on our shoes:

Siena's early literacy is taking off, and we are enjoying watching it. This is her sidewalk sign for Chocolate and Honey Ice Cream, of course:

This one's for the Swiss Miss, who passed on this darling suit:

From tonight: the fourth lost front tooth. I'm happy to pass on from Siena that the Tooth Fairy must have gps and a flying machine to get around at night:
And finally: we had a super fun package waiting for us this afternoon and I couldn't find the camera when the kids tore it open! We love the boxes from Sacramento. This one had Count Chocula cereal and some special Uno cards for the kids--a Peanuts edition. The fun continues!

Daniel's Birthday!

2008-09-30T19:37:00.003-07:00

Guess who turned 21! It sure is fun to be able to share in a few of these occasions with the Swiss boys. Adrian, Audrey, and Daniel came over for hamburgers, and then we had a yummy chocolate pie that Audrey had made. The kids picked out very special presents for Daniel at the Dollar Store. It was nearly 90 again today and so we ate outside--a pretty lucky late-September treat. Oh, and the outlaws are here and we are all loving it!

Blowing out candles:

opening presents:

Chico memories

2008-09-30T19:22:00.003-07:00

Two weekends ago, we went to Chico for Christina's funeral. It was a special, sobering, bittersweet day.

We rode over with Becky and Lana and stayed at Irv and Aleta's. Of course I didn't do anything as organized as actually take pictures of the nice people we stayed with, so here's one of the kids reading books at their place in the morning:

Saturday evening we had a mini-early 90's reunion at--where else--Burger Hut:

$$$$What does it all mean????

2008-09-25T15:03:00.004-07:00

I will be the first to admit that I have a hard time understanding much about Wall Street and money management in general and this is why I was so interested to understand a little bit of the mortgage mess through an episode of This American Life a while back. You can listen online to The Giant Pool of Money It is worth a listen and is entertaining as well. I also found some further podcasts through itunes by some of the same characters that did the Giant Pool of Money show explaining some of the things we have been hearing or reading about explained a little simpler for the rest of us. The blog site for Planet Money is here and the podcasts are here hopefully you will learn something new not that it will change anything but it is nice to have a little bit of a clue or at least pretend you do. I am still too scared to look at my 401K and 403b I prefer to bury my head in the sand.

So we've been a little busy...

2008-09-18T10:07:00.005-07:00

...because in addition to the normal hecticness of life, two Swiss guys, two kids, and I went to a friend's orchard last Saturday. We got out into that orchard and gorgeous, sweet, yummy peaches and nectarines were just hanging there, begging to be picked. So pick we did.

235 lbs worth. Yep. If you ever wondered what that looks like, here it is:

The pictures don't really do it justice; we've made 5 batches of jam and have gone through 4 containers of Fruit Fresh. So if you visit our house this winter, expect to enjoy peaches on waffles, peach ice cream, peach cobbler, and...probably peach smoothies on 20 degree days.

We picked peaches Saturday am and went to the homecoming game Saturday evening. We get to ride our bikes along the river to the game and back:

Hard to tell, but in the front row above are some suspects some of you might know. The row behind them includes some of our friends too--squinting in the sun.

Sniff, sob

2008-08-25T19:53:00.005-07:00

So today marked another milestone on the road between diapers and acne: the first day of kindergarten. I was caught off guard by how emotional it made me feel in anticipation, but I was able to hold it together today--whew. Siena was *very* excited to start kindergarten and she had her new backpack packed last night...and her clothes are set out for the week. She goes every day, and it's all-day kindergarten. She seemed to do just fine today--they start kindergarten here by having only 1/2 of the students come, and now she has tomorrow off so the other half can come. That way they ease in a bit and get used to things. Here she is meeting her teacher again and figuring out how to attach her nametag: The highlights of today were: recess (they have monkey bars! Imagine!); practicing going to the cafeteria; actually *going* to the cafeteria; and the Hello and Goodbye songs. All of this bodes well for a good year, I think.

Remy started at a new preschool, and we're pretty excited about it. It's a small school with only 4 classes of 10, and they can do part of the day in immersion Spanish. After he gets acclimated, we may try to do that. While we liked his last school fine, we think that this will be a good move. But our babies! They're growing up.

End of summer

2008-08-25T19:46:00.005-07:00

Too quickly, it was over. August is always a crazy-busy month; I start school early to work with the incoming TAs, and the kids get shuffled around for a bit. This year they did a one-week Shakespeare camp, which was quite hilarious. At the performance that Friday, Siena informed me that she was Spiderweb (Cobweb, actually). See if you can guess who Remy is.Puck, of course. His role consisted of running across the classroom to Nick Bottom, and back. Our kids: budding thespians.

The big wedding 2008

2008-08-11T16:32:00.014-07:00

We arrived in Wenatchee on Friday afternoon and it *poured* rain not long after. Just what a bride needs, right? Audrey handled it all well. . . they had a rehearsal at the park and then a nice rehearsal dinner buffet at a sports club, so the kids went swimming after dinner. A few pictures from that day:Remy and Liam trying to warm up after swimming:

Then, the big day. The wedding was at 1:00 with pictures beforehand, so here are a few of various groups. Audrey's dad and step-mom:
Heidi and Markus:The kids with them--the girls *loved* being princesses/fairies/flower girls:
The colors are so bright and cheery:
It was fun watching everyone arrive...and then the procession. I was way off to the side so the picture angle isn't that good. Here are the kids coming in:Remy was a bit of a three-year old (shocking, huh?) -- he made it up front but then needed candy bribery to stay there...and then he decided to sit down, lay on the pillow, prop it up...very fun for the grandparents and parents in the front row!

The girls performed well:

And it's official!
A few suspects at the reception:

The Swiss contingent:
They had a game of "father-daughter croquet" after cake and ice cream--very cute. The kids all whacked balls around.

After the wedding we swam at the hotel during a beautiful late afternoon. Then all of us (us, mom and dad, Heidi and co., Heidi and Markus) went out to dinner at a local steak place. We sat outside on a balcony and soaked up an absolutely perfect ending to a great day. I took pics but they're so bad that everyone'd shoot me if I published them!

It was special to also enjoy meeting on Sunday with everyone. We grabbed a burger with Heidi, Shirley and kids before leaving town for the 8 hour drive home. Dylan and Siena:

The big bike trip 2008

2008-08-11T15:57:00.007-07:00

On Wednesday we drove up to Post Falls and spent the night at Karl's folks' place. The next day, we headed out for the Hiawatha Trail. The drive up through Idaho was gorgeous, and then the drive the next day across the small part of the state was beautiful as well. It was interesting to get a glimpse of Wallace and Kellogg after having read The Deep Dark (add it to your list if you're interested in Western history/mining/general sadness and death). The bike ride itself was amazing; the scenery is as stunning as all the hype suggests. Luckily Karl and Sonja had researched it well, and so the kids had glow sticks (thanks, Sonja) and we all had lots of lights to get through the lonnnng tunnels. The first one (1.7 miles) about did me in; it's pretty freaky to be riding a bike in pitch black darkness. But it was very worth it and such a fun day.

The fam, before we started:
Coming out of the first and longest tunnel--we're all smiling with relief, I think! Sonja:

Jim and Judy:
Remy, who decided that one dark tunnel was plenty to lull him to sleep:

Karl, who figured out that the tunnel is much better *without* sunglasses on:

Wayyy up high:

Conrad had to go and add a little drama to our trip: he blew a (replacement) tire about 1/3 of the way into the long tunnel on the way back. Judy walked with him while the rest of us scooted through, and then Karl shuttled Sonja's tire back in for Con. I'm afraid that Sonja, the three girls, and I were a pretty funny sight as we drug out her wheel-less bike and a trailer and tagalong bike with no lead bike!

The whole group at the end of the day--not bad for a 17-mile bike ride!
We stuffed ourselves at a noodle restaurant for dinner and then took the kids and grandparents back home to play while the in-betweeners got to go walk the boardwalk on Coeur d'Alene lake. It's gorgeous all around--reminded us of Traverse City.

Dinner on the porch

2008-08-11T15:52:00.004-07:00

So, starting last Sunday night: we had barbequed salmon out on the back porch with Heidi, Markus, Adrian, Daniel, and Audrey. Dinner was so yummy and even better shared with such good friends. The pictures don't capture how perfect the evening was!

An unexpected vacation!

2008-08-02T15:53:00.006-07:00

So Dim and Jana stopped by again on the way *back* from their actual, scheduled vacation--and then ended up staying here for three days!
It was a blast, and it's funny how we fall back into old patterns from the days we lived together--we all work together well, but plus the kids are in the mix now. All four did great while running on the dangerous combination of extra sugar and not nearly enough sleep.

We had a day at the park (with a paddle boat ride and a trip through the Discovery Center--very fun); an afternoon field trip to the fire station; swimming; a field trip to Powell's Sweet Shoppe; and a fun barbeque with Adrian's parents, who are now here!! These are pictures from Friday night--some are dark, sorry. In the others the kids are harassing Daniel, who is now back in the running for Remy's best friend (usually exclusively Adrian, although he's sometimes fickle):

In all, we've had a summer like no other--tons of playing and many, many special times. It's so amazing to have Heidi, Markus, and Daniel over here--so, so fun.

July fun

2008-07-28T07:45:00.004-07:00

So earlier in the month, the kids and I headed over to my sister and brother-in-law's place to welcome our new nephew Ronan into the world. I forgot my camera and so have *no* pics of the very fun week we enjoyed in CA. Lots of cousin playing time--the kids did great and had a ball. Ronan is very sweet and everyone seems to be doing great. My sister is amazing--she had a great birth and then came home to be a mom to three boys (gulp)! They're so cute that you can't help but smile at them, though. We left on a Monday, but the Sunday before our kids had their bags packed (filled with very important things like stuffed animals and pieces of paper and keychains):
A week later, we arrived back to a very green and overgrown garden. Siena harvested her first zucchini! We (that is, Conrad) got it in a bit late this year due to some irrigation problems, but we'll still get to enjoy some produce--just a bit later than everyone else. Siena enjoys watering it every evening and reporting on what's growing.

The kids and Conrad went down to take a picture of Audrey, Adrian, Kendall, and (I think) Brooke as they floated down the river. We did this trip with the kids ourselves last week, but we didn't have a way to bring a camera. It's a very fun, easy trip; you start at a park about 3 miles away and then float down into down. We just got out near our house and walked home! Pretty lucky.
This Saturday the kids and I went to the Farmers' Market for the first time all summer. They have really nice, free art sessions for the kids, and so Siena made a fairy wand and Remy a mosaic:

Bedroom update

2008-07-09T11:37:00.006-07:00

If it seems like I'm obsessed with our bedroom, well, that's because I am. This post is mostly for my sister-in-law, my sister, and Heidi--others, be warned: long, boring post with lots of pictures of a room, of all things, follows.

One of my summer goals has been to finally (after 1.5 years in this house, ahem) have a bedroom that looks like grownups live in it. Yes, that's right, grownups: people who actually hang art on the wall; people who have plants in their room; people who put their clothes in the laundry baskets (new, on wheels, from IKEA) rather than on every other surface. Shocking concept, isn't it?

Our bedroom is right off the living room, and so it's often open to the living room--and to company. Gulp. We've got to do a better job of keeping it clean, and I'm hoping that having it nicely decorated will help us. (Come on, let me dream...) I haven't finished painting the bathroom yet, but this project started with new paint (see earlier post). We still need to put up new white trim, but we're going to wait until Daniel R is here to help us :)

What's new now:

*rearranged and finally found a layout I really like (chairs/a little sitting area by the windows; bed back against a wall)

*bought a print off of etsy--and love it.

*got 3 paper lanterns at Cost Plus--nice to have some roundness in the room

*got bedside tables (actually bar stools, but who cares), new planters and vases, and curtains at IKEA

*got a really cute dandelion wall decal off etsy, but the disappointing thing about it is that you can't see it. Whoops. I thought our wall was dark enough but apparently not. We're going to try shading around it with charcoal. Any other ideas?

When you first come into the room from the living room:

Stepping into the room. The paper lanterns are actually two different sizes and hang at different lengths, but you can't tell from the pics. Strange.

The left side of the room: Conrad's dresser, the new IKEA white planters with plants in them. You can also see the dandelion decal to the right--see what I mean? You can't see it unless you look for it, which isn't the point, really.

Looking straight at the sliding glass window (should have closed the new IKEA curtains, whoops)--note the little sitting area--isn't it cute? :)

Then back from the sitting area, towards the bed and back out the door:
There you have it! More than you ever wanted to know about my summer obsession. What I still need to get: a little table to go between the chairs, and some baskets for the still-unorganized shelving area beside the bed (not in these pics!) The bathroom's a mess and not attractive at all. And then there's the rest of the house...but, one room at a time...

July 4th!

2008-07-07T18:18:00.003-07:00

A few sparklers on the 4th with our friends....

Happy campers

2008-06-29T19:56:00.009-07:00

We're just back from a super fun weekend camping. We hadn't been in years--couldn't even remember the last time. We went up to Warm Lake, about 2.5 hours away. This is our campsite--overlooking Warm Lake. Just the campsite was beautiful! Our kids loved it even more; Siena reported that camping was more fun than Disneyland :)

Here's the view from breakfast:

Callie came too, which was fun:
Saturday after breakfast we went up to an amazing hot springs. I wish the pictures did it justice. We drove about 30 minutes down a windy, narrow road, and then all of a sudden Westin pulled over to the side. Somehow he'd spotted the steep stairs built into the hillside--you take a short walk down the side of the hill and then there's a hot tub-sized hot springs pool. Right beside it is the rushing, icy cold Salmon River. I'd never seen anything like it. It was just gorgeous and we enjoyed soaking there for a while.

The view of the hot springs, looking down:

On Saturday we continued eating, relaxing, and finding more water...after lunch, we headed around Warm Lake to a sandy beach and swimming area. The kids swam and swam, only stopping to warm up after their teeth started chattering.

First here are the dozing adults on the shore:
Corbin, Siena, and Remy building sandcastles:

Koby warming up in the sun:
Sadie enjoying the water with Natalie and Westin:

Today we enjoyed a quiet morning at camp and a study after breakfast. We left to have lunch and cool down at the swimming spot again. And then, of course, the results today after another morning of playing and camping:

We returned home to 100+ temps in our fair city, and so the mountain respite was especially nice. I have to admit that the manmade pool felt good tonight, though :)

weekend visitors

2008-06-23T19:08:00.002-07:00

We were so sorry for the occasion--Ruby's (Lana's mom) funeral--but enjoyed having some extra company over the weekend. It was really fun to watch the 4 kids play together--they did well, especially with extra sun, little sleep, and lots of togetherness thrown in! Here are a few mug shots of the crew.

conv. friends

2008-06-22T14:55:00.007-07:00

It was perfect this year in every way--so nice to have mom out for Parma. Of course there's not one picture of her...but lots of other little folks. We loved watching the kids play and play and play...
A small part of the younger set--that's Sadie in the front :)

three little monkeys....
A rare family picture

Saturday am--Remy and Corbin

Siena and Emma--they are good buddies and had a ball together--very sweet!

Some of the tent-city kids--figuring out duck, duck, goose.

Shanna read a bedtime story.

A few of the kids on Thursday morning--and then we took a walk through the cornfields.

bedroom paint!

2008-06-03T19:40:00.002-07:00

Summer project #1 is sort of finished--that is, the walls are painted and now I need things like a new window covering, new trim, etc. I don't know how well the color will show up but I wanted a 1960s aqua color. The room is pretty dark and so the duvet cover is mostly white and the white dressers look nice against it.

I'm not really sure about the bed in the corner there--it's a bit awkward--but it does then free up a little space for a sitting area. Of course we've never been ones to actually sit in our bedroom so the chairs will probably be clothes-gatherers...and the chairs are the wrong color totally, but I'm hoping that perhaps pillows will tie them in? I also need some art for the walls, and more turquoise/aqua/white stuff.

I'd love to know what you think--any decorating ideas? The bed needs a tailored skirt since you can see right under it now...art, more light, what else? A

Spring playtime

2008-06-03T19:32:00.002-07:00

Some friends in MI got us a book about how brothers are fun to play with, and the kids have proven it to be true. The first two years of Remy's life, I wasn't so sure about this two kids thing. It sure is fun now, though: they play, a lot, together. Yes, they fight sometimes too--but they play and giggle and tell secrets and are good buddies.

Tracing each other -- a new art trick their buddy Mike S. showed them:

Last Sunday:

More spring fun

2008-05-23T09:23:00.003-07:00

We've only had a handful of nice days this spring, but these capture a few. First: Race for the Cure, which happens right outside our house. Adrian and I went with Siena--Con stayed home with a sick Remy, and Audrey was sick too. :) There are 14,000+ runners/walkers so it's quite an event.Con and Remy watched from our back yard:
Earlier in the month, Siena learned to ride her bike without training wheels! There's a lot of growing going on around here.

Last week we were lucky enough to have some master sidewalk chalk artists with us. I can't believe this is the only picture I got of Jay and Mike--we loved having them and got one greenbelt walk in. The kids *love* them and Mike spent a lot of time playing.
Happy Mother's Day!

may--getting caught up!

2008-05-22T20:53:00.005-07:00

The last day of preschool--with her good buddy Nicole:

Spring soccer camp. I don't have a picture of the first Saturday--the one where it was maybe 35 and nearly snowing. Good times!

Mom and dad came for a quick weekend trip. Too bad they're lurking in the shadows here. It was a beautiful weekend!

A Saturday bike ride with Brennah and Anette (and parents).

more cousin fun

2008-05-22T20:26:00.004-07:00

Then the cousins came to us! The fun continued. These are out of order ...first here is Brennah and Anette's birthday party. Recognize any rugrats?
Whoops--now we're on to Sunday am...

...back to the birthday party...
I included this one because it's so flattering of Kim and Brice both. :)
Another momentous occation: the first lost tooth! The two bottom ones are now gone.

We're so behind! A recap: March

2008-05-22T19:46:00.007-07:00

...okay, okay. We haven't fallen off the planet--we've just been caught up in surviving a busy, fun spring! Here are a few highlights from the past few months.

So....way back in March, we enjoyed an action-packed spring break: first it was cousin time in Lake County. We headed for Ft. Bragg and caught a gorgeous blue-sky day there. I loved finding the glass beach with Kim (and Aschi and Con)--the kids had a good afternoon playing on the beach (except for Remy--he didn't like the waves so much).

Believe it: this is the best of about 5 shots of the four of them. Oh well.

Then we headed to S-ton for more cousin fun--and a Wiggles concert to boot!

Friendly Dig

2008-02-25T07:31:00.003-07:00

Here's the team. What a hoot!

Kids' pictures

2008-02-13T10:52:00.003-07:00

We had the kids' pictures taken last week, and you can see a few of them here. But when did they get so big????

Get Well Soon to Uncle Stan

2008-02-07T12:04:00.000-07:00

Uncle Stan has been in the hospital in San Francisco. Apparently, he is doing better. The kids and I thought we should make a Get Well Soon card and send as an email. I read them the email from Pam and we decided to make a picture of the boat and fishing. I can't tell but Auntie's fish might be bigger then Uncle Stan's. I also like the hospital bed picture in the lower left hand side.

This would be a blue boat with Auntie and Uncle Stan catching a big fish. The moon on the boat has something to do with fishing at night. (To me it looks a little like Uncle Stan and Auntie driving Santa's sleigh being pulled by Rudolph the green nosed salmon)

GET WELL SOON

sleeping kids and snow

2008-02-02T11:51:00.001-07:00

I don't know why we love to take pictures of our sleeping kids, but we do. There's something so absolutely adorable about seeing them this way. For much of the time, they're really good buddies, and they often sleep together!

Yes, we've had white and more white, and then some more. We're lame-o parents who whine about getting cold (or at least I do) but luckily the kids have this friend named Adrian who takes them outside and builds snowmen with them. This one's a big frightening, especially now; it's lost everything except one eye. Ew.

friend fun from a few weeks ago

2008-02-02T11:44:00.001-07:00

We had to get our Settlers game back (wrenched it from Greg and Amy's hands! :) ) after our trip, and so they came over for dinner and a few rounds of trading, road building, and settlement-making. We also got to watch Koby and Spencer for the evening as it was Lana's birthday! Fun times:

Attic project

2008-02-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

Con and Adrian have been working on putting down a rough floor in the attic space so that we have a bit more storage (boy, do we miss having a basement. What a lovely midwest invention.) The kids have been 'helping' up there...

Interesting Stolen Art story

2008-01-29T11:27:00.000-07:00

Having just been in Paris we heard about this story from our friend Deborah. You may find it interesting as well.

FAMOUS PAINTING STOLEN

A thief in Paris planned to steal some paintings from the Louvre.

After careful planning, he got past security, stole the paintings and made it safely to his van.

However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas.

When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and the make such an obvious error, he replied,

"Monsieur, that is the reason I stole the paintings.

I had no Monet

to buy Degas

to make the Van Gogh"

And yes we did have the De Gaulle to post this to our blog for we had nothing Toulouse.

Thanks (or blame) goes to Deborah for the bad joke.

JetLag - A picture says a 1000 words

2008-01-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

Jet lag is a pretty weird thing that is hard to explain. It is best experienced. The leading picture is a good example of being so worn out that you think it is a good idea to kneel on a chair for a little nap when common sense suggests that you should just go crawl in your bed or simply lay on the floor. I remember my first experience (1992 trip to Switzerland) riding to Berne from Zurich and being unable to stay awake and trying to support my head with my hand as we drove along with my head falling out of my hand every 10 secs or so and being too tired to do anything about it.
It seems to us to be worse coming back then going but there could be lots of reasons for that. I think the flight is longer due to the jet stream and I also think we are a little sad about our trip being over and this also makes it worse. So the way it worked we had a 25 hr day starting out in the early morning in Switzerland with the sun coming up and then fly with the sun all day eventually with darkness coming somewhere over Kansas. So after about 20 hours of sun it gets dark. I never can sleep on the plane, well, no what I call real sleep. At least not like picture number two with two little varmints.

This time around we awoke as a family at about 3:30AM bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for the day. We tried to get the kids to stay in bed in hopes they would sleep longer but they were up running around the house by 4AM. having a breakfast of mac and cheese. Then there was usually a mid AM nap and as hard as we tried we we couldn't stay up past 7pm. It took about 3 days before we were sleeping in until six. Now that it is a good 9 days later we are back on our old routines. The extremes are always surprising to me. How you can be so tired at 7pm and how you can be so awake at 3AM. I am happy to see it all behind us for now.

Thursday the 10th--travelllll

2008-01-14T13:12:00.001-07:00

Our day began at 4:45; we left K and A's at 5:30, with Aschi and the kids waving us off. It's about 1.5 hours to Zurich. We made it there and said a teary goodbye to Kim--wahhh. Everything went smoothly; it was a bonus to check in with Swiss as they weren't too picky about the bag weight. Our flight to Frankfurt was quick, and we then found our Frankfurt-Philadelphia flight. This was a better cross-oceanic flight as we had individual entertainment systems, so at least the kids could watch cartoons. They did, and we did, and the time passed. Then it was the joy of customs and reclaiming our bags and rounds of security in Philadelphia. One of the goofiest things US aiports do is make you pay ($3 per cart) for luggage carts -- once again, folks, any thought for those who've just landed from another country? Why are these carts free in Europe? Anyway, all went fine and we staggered through our rounds 0f lines.

The kids slept on the Philly-Phoenix flight--Siena from takeoff to landing, Remy almost so. I, however, did not (see previous post) and we weren't that sad to land and find that we'd missed our Boise flight. In fact, they mis-booked us as the flight had left an hour earlier. We got a hotel room and vouchers and crashed for the night, and took a mid-morning flight up here the next day. It was lovely to see Adrian again on Friday! And to see our luggage all arrive...and, yes, to eat chips and salsa at Baja Fresh. Yum. I guess we're really back home :)

Wednesday the 9th--catch-up, errands, packing

2008-01-14T13:09:00.000-07:00

This day was a blur of last-minute things; we took Siena to the dr. in the morning. She was very nice and kept apologizing for her poor English as she explained medical concepts to me in it. Hmm. Siena's meds seemed to begin working right away, and I certainly felt better (and I think she did too). We packed a few bags in the am, and then in the afternoon Kim had an appt so I (all on my own, feeling brave!) took the older kids to the play land at the Wankdorf shopping center. I then hit Coop for miscellaneous things--a new Globi book, raclette sauces, snacks for the plane.

We went home and packed some more, and then ate before a nice last meeting--it's so great to see everyone, each time we visit.

Tuesday the 8th--quick D-land, then home

2008-01-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

We headed to Disneyland again this am but only had 1.5 hours--which felt like barely long enough to get into the park. We did the Autotopia cars with the kids and then they got to choose one last ride--the girls chose Star Tours and so Aschi and I went there with them while Kim and Con went to Dumbo with the boys.

We then headed to the car to drive back. On the way, Kim called and got an appt with Zoe's dr. for Siena on Wednesday since her ear (that is, Siena's) was still dripping. Last night she'd moaned and cried with ear pain, so I was feeling like a delinquent mother again.

We had an uneventful ride home, although it was kinda boring--Kim was in the back with the girls and I was one row ahead, so we couldn't really talk that easily. The country is pretty, though--we drove through Champagne and that valley area is nice.

We ended at Ralph and Heidi's for dinner, and what a hoot to have Colin there visiting for a day! Dinner was fun and tasted sooo good after eating out for a few days. Yummy, yummy food (I think I gained 10 pounds!) The kids really had fun all playing together so that was sweet to watch. We left early enough so that the boys could go to a pharmacy in town and get antibiotics for Siena; the dr. had asked us to start those tonight.

Monday the 7th--Disneyland Paris!

2008-01-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

We got up for the complimentary breakfast at our hotel (including yummy bread, ham, cheese, espresso, croissants, and chocolate croissants, of course) and then headed to Dland.
This is on our shuttle ride to the park. The funny story about the baguette Remy's holding (and eating) is that it was from the garbage bin--about six baguettes from breakfast were sticking out of the garbage and so Auntie Kim broke off a chunk for "remy the rat."

Aschi decided that Kaioa wouldn't have so much fun until after a nap and so he took him to a nearby mall while the rest of us headed to the park. It was cooolllld--maybe around 35, with gusty wind and clouds. We were all bundled head to toe and the kids didn't actually complain about the cold--we started with the Haunted House (Remy and I waited that one out) and were going to go on Thunder Mountain but it was closed for two days :( Conrad and I did Indiana Jones (which is a roller coaster here) while Kim took the kids through the Swiss Family Robinson.

Then we made another pass through the fun kids' ones (Dumbo, Peter Pan, Small World)
and did some others (Pirates) before heading to the Blue Lagoon (this is the restaurant by Pirates of the Carribean) for a fun lunch. It had great atmosphere (that's for you, Kim) and we had a fun lunch all together. Prices are pretty out of site--but it all feels like play money anyway, so we pretended that it really was.

At the end of it, Aschi and Kaioa walked in and happened to find us there! Cell phones were having problems so we lucked out.
Then we did some more rides--Small World again, Star Tours (which Siena and Zoe declared "their best ride!"), and others.

The girls enjoying "fuzz," as Zoe called it.

Waiting to see "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience". This is a show-type thing with special effects--like a million white mice that run out, feet-level, in 3-D--just as air whooshes on your ankles. The poor woman in front of me--I'm afraid I trampled her hair as I stampeded for the seat back!

The park closed at 6 this night so we left about then--and headed down into Paris to see a few sights. Our able tour bus driver braved the interesting Paris traffic to take us to the Eiffel Tower and down beautiful ancient streets--was nice to see some sights that we'd like to come back and spend some more time with.

By 8 or so we were tired and hungry, and so we found a cafe for dinner and it was yummy yummy. Kim and I shared a steak with Roquefort sauce, fresh french fries, and a goat cheese salad.

The kids held up amazingly well through a busy, on-your-feet, cold day. I loved that I was in Paris, eating good food with good friends and family in a corner cafe--amazing.

Sat the 5th-Sun the 6th

2008-01-14T12:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday:
We dragged the kids back around to do some returns and reshuffling of things we'd bought on Friday--oh yeah, on

Friday, Kim took us to the Bear Pits and then shopping in Bern. It was freezing cold and Siena was not feeling so great, I don't think, but they liked the cartoons at H&M (of course).

We found some great sales for the kids at H&M -- snow pants for Siena for next year--$12; fleece-lined tennis shoes for Remy--$4, etc. Conrad even bought some clothes! Now that's news. Kim also took us to this fun shop that has t-shirts in Swiss German, so I got one (chosen because of the colors and the use of umlauts in the word--the saying is not so nice, something like "person who is picky about everything") and the kids got one each--Luusbueb and Luusmuetli (silly boy and silly girl). That night, we went to Heidi and Markus' for dinner--it was great to see their new apartment. It's beautiful--wood floors throughout, a gorgeous view of Bern. The kids immediately plowed through Globis and Tin Tins! Heidi had the table set beautifully, of course, and we started with a wonderful pumpkin soup. I'll have to get her recipe for Thanksgiving next year--it was much better than mine :) After another yummy meal, Dani played piano for us and we chatted...

So back to Saturday. We got out of the house so Aschi/Kaioa could sleep. We needed to exchange some of the things we'd gotten yesterday and then ran a few other errands. Oh, and we hit IKEA, where they were having a *fabuloso* sale (like 4' high candle holders for a franc--about 75 cents!! And wrapping paper, and candelabras, and so on...) We had a blast and bought a whole cartful of things for 50 francs--now that's fun!

When we came home in the late afternoon, Siena was crying with hurting ears and had a 101 fever--and Heidi/Markus were on their way to babysit for the night so we could all go out. And what to do. Siena was miserable and begging for me....we called H and M and asked them to stop and get some medicine for her and they came on over. H convinced me that they were just fine with us going and that Siena would be fine; by the time they arrived she'd fallen asleep. So, feeling a bit negligent, we went off for pizza and a hockey game. The kids had a ball with H and M--they are amazing babysitters. All the kids were asleep and even on time. I guess Markus fell asleep too :) Heidi has the magic touch--she's like a Deborah. It's amazing to have these extra grandmas in our kids' lives.

The hockey game (match?) was super fun--tons of shouting fans and feisty Swiss smoking in spite of the "nicht raucher" announcements. Gotta love that spirit. "Our" team won and it was more interesting than I'd expected!

Sunday the 6th: We had a nice meeting and then were off for...Disneyland Paris!! We were pretty excited to do this--it was a splurge but fun. It's about a 5-6 hour trip, and we had borrowed Heidi and Ralph's 8-person van which was really nice. We made it several hours before a stop at an AutoGrill for a late lunch/early dinner, and then it was on to our hotel. We dashed in and discovered that a shuttle bus left in 8 minutes--so we were out the door again. That night we enjoyed a light show on the castle ("Look, mom! Tinkerbell!") and a princess parade--it was beautiful at night and really fun to experience with the kids (oh, and Siena's ear was dripping this whole time. Hmm.)

Above: Siena believes, furiously, in the princesses. Now this was adorable.

Peter Pan for the Peter Pan boy.

We collapsed back at our hotel at 9 or so, kids and us, ready to get charged up for our full D-land day on Monday.

1.2.8 - 1.3.8 Sickness Again

2008-01-04T01:12:00.000-07:00

The 2nd of Jan is a holiday in Switzerland and so nothing is open again expect the bahnhof. Uncle Aschi was sick with sinus problems and so we went to the bahnhof Apoteke for medicine and that was the extent of our day besides a game.
The 3rd of Jan began early with Auntie Kim whistling her meat all morning. Uncle Aschi was up all night with Kaioa and Auntie Kim so it was decided that "the Americans"would venture out on there own to let everyone else sleep and recover. We made it to IKEA by ourselves and put the kids in the play place for 1.5 hrs then had lunch and met Heidi M at the mall by the stadium and did some shopping. We once again put all the kids in the play spot and then an hour later they called to say Hannes was whistling his meat and to come get the 6 kids. Off we went to home were the convalescing Uncle Aschi had transported 2 cords of word and was working on stacking it. We then worked on trying to fix the car as someone put 4 ltrs of gas in the diesel. Sorry no pictures. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow we have plans for going to downtown Berne and also to the Rotenbuehlers for dinner.

1.1.08 New Year's Day

2008-01-01T13:17:00.000-07:00

Alles Gute in die Neue Jahre!

Not surprisingly, we slept in as long as we could this morning. Then we gorged on a wonderful late breakfast--rosti (yummm), homemade bread, scrambled eggs, and auntie pancakes a la Conrad. It was yuu--uumy, as Remy would say!

12.31.07--New Years Eve in Donneloye

2008-01-01T13:08:00.001-07:00

On Monday we stayed here and cleaned, washed clothes, ran to Migros, etc...the kids are playing great together so that's been fun to watch. Aschi had to work but we all were home. At about 5 we headed to Heidi and Ralph's for New Year's Eve dinner and festivities...their place is *amazing* to see in person after having seen so many pictures and hearing so much about it from K and A, and Shirley and Bill. It's huge--beyond huge--and really nice. It'll be great to be able to visualize convention there this summer!

When we arrived, Heidi had a kids' table set up next to our table, and all of the kids decided to sit in a row on one side. They played amazingly well both days--they have a wonderful set-up because the kids can go upstairs and play without bugging the adults :) and play they did. Hannes was super sweet with Remy and Dylan played great with Siena (and Zoe--really they all played together).

The kids went to bed about 9:00 or so, but first we did a Tischebombe with them--so this is all of them running around for the little prizes and toys.
Amazingly, the six of us made it to midnight and beyond :) Settlers got us through...at midnight the clock tolled for about fifteen minutes, and it's only about a block from their house so it really echoes through the house. It's beautiful. The kids all slept in Hannes and Dylan's room--I wish I'd have taken a picture of them all piled in there like kittens!

12.30.07 Sunday part 2

2008-01-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

On Sunday evening, Heidi, Markus, and Daniel came to visit. |It's been so fun to have them as a regular part of every visit we've had to CH--amazing to think that we'd get to know Adrian so well. Who would have ever known 15 years ago?

We're realizing on this trip that we really are getting old--people who were kids on our early visits are now grown, married, and raising kids of their own.

It was great to have an evening with them, and then Dani stayed late and played Settlers with us--very fun. His English is great and so it was super to be able to communicate more freely with him.

Oh, and Adrian? At dinner, Remy said to Dani: ''you are my new best friend." Uh-oh....

12.30.07 Sunday am

2007-12-30T08:59:00.001-07:00

These are the knitted hats and skirts from Grammie, with matching coats and muffs supplied by auntie Kim. Too cute!

12.29.07 home from Chalet; to Markus and Dora's house

2007-12-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

We got up early to clean like crazy--our last shot of the chalet:The girls' car just had to stop at H & M for a few goodies :) the girls got to play in the kinderparadeis together and had a ball (a play area where you check the kids in--kind of like the IKEA one). We enjoyed driving home on another gorgeous, sunny day--here's the view from K and A's:

Saturday evening we went to Markus and Dora's for dinner. He sang at Aschi and Kim's wedding so we'd last seen him then--over 14 years ago. It was fun to see him again and to meet his family--they have an interesting Swiss house/condo.

12.28.07 the sledding day

2007-12-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we hit the slopes for the fun sledding--and it was just as much of a blast as we remembered from 8 years ago. Sledding at Grindelwald is a whole other deal from the kind of sledding where you get sweaty walking up a little hill and then slide down...this involves a bus ride up a super steep, twisty, snowy road about 5 miles--and then you sled down the same road! As you can see, it was another amazingly sunny day--completely breathtaking and super fun. The kids had a ball--Remy and I took it slow :) and the others were speedier but took a few falls. We got a late start and so we only did one run down. Remy kept saying "this is bee--U--tiful!" and he was right. I'll let the pictures talk.

12.27.07 The sick day

2007-12-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

We battled jet laggy kids and adults again--lots of Ï wanna snack"and Ï wanna drink" in the middle of the night. Remy ended up sleeping with me and Con up with Siena. She kept saying that her stomach hurt and...that morning, she proved it right :( Luckily she only puked for the am, and the medicine that Heidi M recommended worked great. She was feeling punk, though, so we laid low and just hung around the house. It was a gorgeous day and the sun felt great; it was fun to go and get bread and medicine with Kim and see the sights on a blue sky day.

Swiss trip day 3--first day at the Chalet

2007-12-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

I'm taking over for a bit now; Con and Aschi went out to go to his sister's for a computer repair job (sounds just like home!) On the 26th, we headed for the chalet--a house of one of Aschi's colleagues. Before that, though, we took in the view from K and A's place (or Conrad did--I was sleeping!) and the kids played.
We'd heard about the place and so were excited to see it. It's on Lake Brinz, which is near Interlaken. The house overlooks the lake and the mountains. It was cloudy this day and we had to get packed and get out, so we didn't leave the house until early afternoon. The kids immediately began a cartoon blitz, so we finished off the day with that--and with a brief trip to a small park so that we didn't feel too guilty :)

The long day.........Swiss trip day 2 - 12.25.07

2007-12-30T07:17:00.000-07:00

So we arrived at 10AM Swiss time 2AM ID time on Christmas day. It was cold but not much different than ID. We stuffed all the suitcases in the van and went in for a snack and to look around. After some sandwiches we climbed back in the car and hit the road for the 1 hr drive to Boll. The weather was cloudy and icy with all the trees frosted over. We got home and lugged all the suitcases upstairs. After dinner we brought out all the presents. The Meyers stopped by so it was great to see all of them too.

After all of the presents we headed off to bed. One would think after nearing 30 hrs of being awake one could sleep for 30 hrs but unfortunately after about 5 hrs the whole family was awake which doesn't make any sense to me. I eventually got up and read for a few hrs then slept for a couple more before getting up.

Flying, flying and more flying............... Swiss trip - day one 12.24.07

2007-12-30T06:51:00.000-07:00

We got up early and made it to the airport at 5:15 AM and met up with Heidi's work colleague who was nice enough to drive our car back home. It had snowed the day before but had stopped but the skies and weather report threatened more. We got our 13 bags into the airport and got them weighed and tagged and on the conveyor. Security was a breeze and only Heidi got the wand treatment. We then boarded the 1st plane with it starting to snow a gale but after the deicing we lifted off for Phoenix and made it with 5 hours before the next flight to Philadelphia.
We had a less then stellar lunch at Chili's in Phoenix and wandered around the airport finding a kids play area which was nice. There we some kids playing there that had lived in Ann Arbor which was funny. We then got on the plane and of course because we had only 1hr 19 mins for our next connection to Zurich the plane was 1 hr late leaving Phoenix. Luckily they made up some time and we got there only 20 mins late. So then we discover the terminal is on the other side of the airport and walk briskly for 30mins we get on the plane just in time.
The plane was a little crusty and the movie died half way through but all was well and the kids slept pretty well after dinner and into the next day. The good news was that our flight to Zurich was 1 hr less then predicted and we arrived before our ride. We found all of our bags and headed through customs and they just waved us through. We waited for 15 mins before Auntie Kim and Zoe arrived.

thanksgiving, etc.

2007-12-20T16:09:00.001-07:00

...and the 3rd birthday!

2007-12-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

Fun is the season here. This was way back in Nov, but I can't seem to stay caught up....

The 5th Birthday!

2007-11-17T10:55:00.001-07:00

Horses are a thing right now...
You probably can't tell, but the frosting is purple (of course) and the sprinkles are a bit...clumpy. But yummy, yummy cream cheese frosting!
Remy had a hard time keeping his hands out of the fun...

The fishing game, from Audrey and Adrian!

Halloween

2007-11-17T10:48:00.001-07:00

Cinderella....
With her dad, the swiss army man.
With a simpering Peter Pan (or petow pan, if you're 2).

pumpkin patch visit

2007-11-17T08:45:00.000-07:00

This is one of Siena's good buddies--she came and spent the night several weeks ago. We unfortunately chose the coldest day of the month to visit a pumpkin patch, but the kids had fun anyway. And we warmed up with yummy Flying Pie pizza afterward!

misc pics

2007-11-17T08:39:00.001-07:00

Earlier this month, Siena got a terrible bug bite that swelled her eye shut. Here's the evidence.

Computer kids--probably playing Elmo on sesamestreetworkshop, or watching a tumblebook through the library!

more grandparent pics--a month later!!

2007-11-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

Milestones....100th Blog posting, 40th, 3rd, and 5th BDay's

2007-11-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

Wow. One hundred posts. considering I took a good part of the summer off posting this is pretty impressive. If I had to guess how many posts I had written I would probably guess half of that.
Speaking of hard to believe...............Yes there are less then 30 shopping days before my 40th birthday. It seems like just a couple years ago in Reno we had the 30 yr "Get Ugly Fajita" party. This time around we are thinking about a 40 yr "Fondue/rook tournament party" sans kids. Should be great fun. This next week we also have a 3rd and 5th birthday coming up with multiple parties between daycare, friends, family etc. With the birthdays on thenext celebration is Thanksgiving with multiple families coming and Xmas time we fly off to Switzerland for a couple weeks with celebration of Die Neue Jahre in Switzerland. Then it is back to the cold realities of winter and debt having spent more money then we should of with our weak dollars in Europe but with some good memories no doubt. Hopefully, with all the exciting happenings there will be lots of pictures and news to post .......or maybe not. It remains to be seen.

Goodbye Passat

2007-11-11T21:55:00.000-07:00

Today, after 7 yrs and 66,000 miles, the Passat drove away not to return. We are back to a 2 car family. This is good in the respect that the driveway is free and frost will not have to be scraped off the window of the outside car and the $ means we can think about doing some small home projects or try to pay off the other car. Anyway, it was a nice car and one that I will miss but I imagine there will be other cars. I am not sure it was my favorite but pretty close.

Flying Cows??

2007-11-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

You may have seen this story in the news:

Cow Falls Off Cliff, Crashes Onto Van on Highway

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

MANSON, Wash. — Charles and Linda Everson were driving back to their hotel when their minivan was struck by a falling object — a 600-pound cow.

The Eversons were unhurt but the cow, which had fallen off a cliff, had to be euthanized.

The year-old cow fell about 200 feet from the cliff and landed on the hood of the couple's minivan, causing heavy damage.

A Chelan County fire chief, Arnold Baker, said the couple missed being killed by a matter of inches in the accident Sunday on a highway near Manson.

The Eversons, visiting the area from their home in Westland, Mich., to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, were checked at Lake Chelan Community Hospital as a precaution.

Everson, 49, said he didn't see the cow falling and didn't know what happened until afterward.

He said he kept repeating: "I don't believe this. I don't believe this."

This is a bit of a crazy story and the even crazier part was that we know this couple from Michigan. We were sent the link form another friend in MI but saw it online and in the newspaper. We had no idea they were in our part of the country. It would have been fun to see them but I am not sure if they are coming through ID. This will certainly be a story for them to tell for years to come. Thank goodness they are ok.

Losing keys and our minds

2007-11-05T22:19:00.000-07:00

Last week I am at work and get a call.
"Do you have the key? I can't find mine."
"Yes I do have the key" So I drive back home give the key and go back to work. The key is looked for and not found. Then the next day my key goes missing we are down 2 keys (actually 3 because one was lost a yr ago) and actually have zero keys with the car seats locked in side the car. So after much looking and cleaning still no keys and my favorite part is the craziness that your mind goes through trying to figure out where any of the 3 keys might be. It starts out pretty reasonable. You look where the keys are usually put, then you check your coats and pants and shirt pockets from piles of clothes you have recently have worn but then it degenerates in to thinking that somehow the keys could have found themselves hiding in a box I haven't touched in a year in the back of the closet (Well maybe the key fell out of a coat pocket and just happened to fall in a corner of this box...... Or maybe we sucked it up in the vacuum (as if we wouldn't hear it.) I can't tell all of the far fetched places I looked to find the missing keys. Of course I managed to find 1 key and yes it was exactly where I keep my key in my bag but found on the 3rd inspection of the bag when I turned it upside down and emptied the contents exclaiming how pointless this was to be doing this for the 3rd time that day. So we are still down 2 keys and you guessed it they are the ones with the remote that cost 200+ to replace. We will keep on looking in strange places and hoping one of them turns up.

BSU predictions

2007-11-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

Update for those of you not in the know. BSU has won all of their WAC games and lost only one early season game in Seattle against U of W. They are ranked 19 and Hawaii is ranked 14. Boise has just two gimme games(Utah State 0-9, and Idaho 1-9) before the season finale in Honolulu. Hawaii plays a good Fresno State team at home and a decent UNR team in Reno. If Hawaii can win out then it comes down to the last game to see who wins the WAC and gets a potential good bowl game. CBSsportsline has their prediction below. The only difference is that BSU will be in the Sugar Bowl instead of Hawaii. So mark your calendar for Nov 23 at 9pm for the game against Hawaii. Now once BSU beats Hawaii I might not be so bold about my predictions for BSU beating a good Georgia team. Unfortunately, they won't be able to sneak up on a team again like they did with Oklahoma.

2007-08 Bowl Predictions
Date	Bowl	Location	Prediction
Jan. 7	BCS Title	New Orleans, La.	Ohio State vs. LSU
Jan. 3	Orange	Miami, Fla.	Virginia Tech vs. Missouri
Jan. 2	Fiesta	Glendale, Ariz.	Oklahoma vs. Arizona State
Jan. 1	Rose	Pasadena, Calif.	Oregon vs. West Virginia
Jan. 1	Sugar	New Orleans, La.	Georgia vs. Hawaii

GO BSU

Pottytalk and Volleyball

2007-11-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

Now with the weather turning a bit crisper it is time to start the blog back up. There are a few noteworthy things to report. The most exciting is our Big little guy is now officially potty trained. It has been about 3 weeks now and he is still quite enthusiastic and we get lots of smiles from others when he races back from the bathroom at stores, restaurants, after meeting, etc exclaiming at the top of his lungs, "Mommy/Daddy I went potty in the potty."
One of the favorite taboo subjects which they are not to talk about at daycare is "pottytalk". For those not in the know "Pottytalk" refers to the use of pottywords (peepee and poopoo). They very much enjoy slipping up and then trying to tell on the other person if it wasn't them.

Then the other excitement is our weekly volleyball games. We are playing on a coed Volleyball team made up of assorted friends and it has been great fun for adults and kids alike. We play one time a week. It is best of 3 or 45 mins which ever happens first. So far we have not lost and have always won in 2 games. I think we are getting better each week. It has been good exercise and fun to see our friends more often then we normally would. There are 4 levels of play and we are in the 2nd from the bottom but likely will move up one level next year. So we bought a ball, kneepads and actually talk strategy and practice hitting balls and working on vertical jump. If you want to follow our schedule and progress you can check these sites. We are the "Friendly Digs". Standings and schedule. We have a few fans that come to cheer us on.

Grandparent visit in early October...

2007-11-03T16:12:00.001-07:00

...and this is the only picture I can find to record the visit!! Waffles on Grampa's lap--not bad.

Perhaps more, soon?

company fun

2007-10-08T20:11:00.000-07:00

Pics from Auntie Deborah Poppins' trip: presents, a trip up Camels' Back (with a thunderstorm lurking above and the remnants of a park fair below), and a trip on the Boise Train. So much fun that we can't hardly believe how lucky we were; Deborah and I even snuck out for a morning of shopping in downtown Boise! The kids loved every minute and so did we.

First day of preschool...

2007-09-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

They're getting big, of course. Buddy wouldn't keep his eyes open for anything. Girly is holding "Tarissa Parissa," her favorite kitty. We have no idea where the name came from, of course.

Both are loving being back in school and say goodbye with just a wave--it's fun to see!

catching up--a few pics for the fam

2007-09-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Some pictures from the past month or so...

...Lining up their 'babies' on the couch (a favorite past time, this lining up activity. Takes lots of time and energy!)

An early am Tin-Tin reading session by two superkids...

The Swiss arrives!

Kids' Room

2007-08-12T20:45:00.000-07:00

The bedroom pics are in the house renovation blog, which isn't listed here yet,
Extrem4 House Projects:
http://extrem4-houseprojects.blogspot.com/

August kid fun

2007-08-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

Yes--that's ketchup, mustard, and pasta sandwiches. Yum!

So this is what happens when I'm at school in the summer and Extrem is with the kids....

...and yes, the nickel came out

2007-08-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

...nothing like a little suspense for a few months!

So: Con's added me to the family blog. Remy passed the nickel 3.5 days later--some fun poop-digging, that.

May/June: cousin time, much fun was had with lots of time with K/A and kids. We're still talking about it! This is a Lakeport pic:

June/July: I traveled a little, Con worked a *ton*--so I took the kids and we did our first solo car trip all the way to mom and dad's place. We were there over the 4th and had a ball--a day at the Oregon coast (where it was actually warm enough to go in the water. In a swimsuit. Amazing!), a small-town 4th parade, dinner with Hamiltoes, and an afternoon of...kid-free shopping. Ahhh....

I brought mom back with us and she was here for 10 days or so. In that time I had a 2-day trip, so it was great she was here. Unfortunately it was the hottest part of the summer and she melted! :( The kids loved the extended gramma/grampa, and then gramma, time.

Con started the porch project then. It's almost done now--just needs a few finishing touches--and we like it. It's a nice outdoor space--nicer than our indoor spaces :) I wish I had another month and I'd paint the whole house inside--ah well.

August: we went boating with Spam and Banana and co., which was tons of fun. This last weekend we cleaned and cleaned on Saturday and then had Vogts over for swimming and dinner. That afternoon, Remy *finally* ventured off the second step (we've been going every day for the whole summer. Good night.) He went from clutching the step to asking me to "throw him to the sky!"....so that was major progress! Yesterday afternoon at Karl and Sonja's, after union mtg., Siena decided to ride a bike on her own. Another big breakthrough! Wow!

More coming...

(by Heidi)

Hey it has only been 2 months since the last post...

2007-08-06T13:56:00.000-07:00

Ok 2 months and 1 day but who is counting. Many things have happened over the summer and I will try to do the readers digest version mostly by photo if I can get it together. We have a week before ourextended company returns from Switzerland to start school at BSU. We have been working on the house and have nearly got our porch project done and have a new project to start on the front porch. The kids are learing to swim slowly but surely. We took a trip to SLC to see cousins and go to IKEA. There have been blogable experiences but blogging has not been a priority for some reason. I will try to better in the future. I w do will probably start a new blog to chronicle the house updating and link it here.

No change........yet

2007-06-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

Well, the other night I was getting our little 2.5 yr old ready for bed. He decided it would be interesting to swallow a nickel. I heard him make a funny gulping noise and what had been a nickel in his hand became a nickel in his belly. So far no nickels have reappeared but no problems either. We called and the recommendation was to watch and wait if there were no obvious problems. So we watch and wait. What fun to search for hidden treasures.

Holiday Over

2007-06-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

Well the inlaws and outlaws have come and gone. We had a great trip to CA and to the ranch for a couple days. We then drove back to Boise and brought the whole family with us. It was a quick couple of weeks but very enjoyable. Boise has been hot and we came to really enjoy the pool and our big girl is really taking off. She went from a timid swimmer needing both noodles and water wings to swimming with wings only. It has cooled off with snow anticipated in the mountains. I will work on getting some pictures up on my next day off.

You don't see this everyday

2007-05-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

We heard something out back the other night thinking it might be raccoons we found this instead:

Cousin Pictures

2007-05-15T19:55:00.000-07:00

Trader Joe's Boise

2007-05-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

I am of the belief that Boise could support 2-3 Trader Joe's and it seems they will eventually get here but for now we are not on the suply line. So it is a little annoying to Boise that Bend, OR has broken gound on a Trader Joe's to open next year. The news it seems is that Trader Joe's plans to put a store in Boise after it puts a store in Spokane. Here are the news clippings that I could find.

Boise Trader Joe's 1
Boise Trader Joe's 2
Bend Trader Joe's

I suppose that Bend is closer then any other Trader Joe's (maybe SLC) and it is on our route to OR and only 4-5 hrs away. On a regular basis we lament the fact we don't have a Trader Joe's and every time we go out of town we make a trip to stock up. I have a feeling that once they do open here they will be overwhelmed by the hordes of shoppers on their grand opening.

Did I win the 5K race? Did I cure Breast Cancer?

2007-05-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

The answers are no and maybe. I did not win but did post a personal best. As I have never run a 5k before it must be a personal best, right?
Well, after my extensive training which amounted to 2 short bike rides and wearing my new running shoes for a week to break them in..........I can say we finished. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what place or what my time was. In fact it was not the most organized event and there were 13000 people in the race that just kind of did their own thing. The kids and I hung around for a while waiting for a chance to start the race as people with strollers were supposed to go last but I saw plenty of others with strollers going so I figured I better hop in. The bad part is that a good many of the horde in front of us were walkers and it was next to impossible to pass with a bike trialer turned to stroller. I probably only got to run half of the race because of the traffic.
The winning time was something like 16.06 mins. The course doubled back on itself so we saw the leader coming back toward the finish line. He was screaming at the pace car "GO! GO! GO! for them to hurry up as he was about to run over the top of it. One of my coworkers from the hospital finished in about 10th place at 19 mins and we saw him almost wipeout as a little girl wandered in front of him and he had to essentially hurdle her to keep from colliding with her.

My legs are a little sore but not too bad. That night we also took a 6 mile bike ride that evening with some friends so I guess I am on a fitness kick.........I just need to keep it up.

If you watch all of the video clips you might see us but I didn't bother. Next year we will try it again but with a new strategy. Get out in front of the walkers. The nice thing is that it is just out our backdoor and the race route is the road off our backyard.

You are still wondering about my curing cancer. It is possible that my meager donation will pay for the reasearch for a cure. So, if there is a cure in the next year you can bet it was my 20$ that made the difference.

New Leaf? - We shall see

2007-05-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

So here is the deal. Although I have lost a fair amount of weight in the last year the one thing that has not changed is my general couch potato attitude toward exercise (hey we live in ID we have to support potatoes right?). I work in an office where everyone else either plays tennis, mountain bikes or runs. Two are training for a half marathon and I can only get tired when they talk about 10 mile plus runs over the weekend. Now on occasion I do take a little 2-5 mile bike ride but that is about the extent. So at work the other day my coworkers sign me up to run a 5K in the Race for the Cure sponsered by the hospital. That may not sound like much to you but I have not run 5K consequtively ever and not collectively over the past 10 years. I am not really a runner. I tried a couple times in MI but never quite made it. I think I need someone to run with me to keep me going or something. In NV Jim got me to go a few times and I almost got to the point where I felt like I wanted to go but then I remembered that I probably didn't.

So here I am 6 days before my big run. My training has amounted to this:

1. Buy running shoes.

So maybe this is one of my problems. I have lots of shoes (at last count 25 pair or so) but no running shoes. Now that this is taken care of I think I am set. I don't think it makes sense to go out a try to do a bunch of running to get ready as it ain't gonna happen in 6 days.

One of our favorite family stories is about a Swiss brother in law (to remain nameless) that decided to see how many situps he could do in a minute the night before his military duty physical. He did great with 50 some situps that night but the next day struggled to make 10.

I have a feeling that walk or run as long as it is a start in the fitness direction that is a victory. We have no excuse as we are right off a great trial for running and biking. BTW my wife go some shoes as well so no more excuses for her either. I am not so sure that I will ever become a runner and do any marathons or anything like that but I would be happy in being in decent shape and not get so winded just listening to the women in the office talk about there weekend runs.

Blah blah blah

2007-04-30T19:44:00.000-07:00

Well it was a very nice weekend and it has been great weather in Boise. The Spring is great except for the assorted allergies that seem to come and go for me but it is beautiful and we had a great bike ride tonight out on the river down to the park.
So I finished my 21 days in a row of work and now have only 8 days on and 1 day off in the middle. The life of a prn SLP. Feast or famine. I am trying to make up for the famine and getput back some of the savings that was sacrificed during the lean season. No home fixing going on until the finances are a little more secure and until we figure out what in the world we are going to do or at least where to start.
The sister, niece, nephew and grandparents were here for a week too bad I work most of the time. I tied to post some pictures but so some reason it is not working i will try later I guess.

What a Croc!

2007-04-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

I have finally bought some new shoes for work. The others almost had holes in the bottom and I really needed some new ones but being cheap I didn't want to spend too much money. I just happened to get a dividend check from REI so I decided to buy my shoes there as I had 15$ in store credit to spend. So for 20$ I got a pair of these Crocs. They look a little funky and some would say downright ugly but I like them well eough and they are quite comfortable. They are very light and have little knobbies on the sole that kind of give you a little foot massage as you walk around. You can also throw them in the diskwasher to clean them up. So with 2 days of wearng them I reccomend them.

Work, work, CEU'S and more work

2007-04-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

Well, I have gone from being nearly unemployeed to working everyday for what looks like it will be a 14 day strech. When it rains it pours. The sad part is that my sister will be here to visit in the middle of my 14 days. I will get evenings and 1 weekend with her but the weekend I am home my wife will be in TX so it is a bummer. This is all good for the bank acct or I should say the Visa people.
I am quite enjoying work actually as I have fun colleagues and people are generally happy to have you try to help them to get better. I was in a 2 day training course in Seattle this weekend and am now a certified E-Stim provider for dysphagia therapy. It was rather a long trip to Seattle on Fri about 8 hours and an even longer trip home on Sunday (arriving home at 1AM) with work starting at 8AM the next day. They kept us busy on Sat from 7:30 AM to 6:00PM for the course but it was interesting and the time went by quickly. For those interested in Estim I will place a link so you can read more about it. VitalStim

Unfortunately, Bryan of Moments of Adequacy fame was out of town and I did not get to see him. There is not so much to report except to say the weather has been stinky and no roof down driving has been occuring except with heater and heated seats on which is a little silly.

Warning: Ranting and Raving Ahead

2007-04-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

Today you are the beneficiaries of a rant. I have cell phone service through Sprint. I can't complain too much but I may or may not stick with them after my 2 yr contract is up. I like them much better then my former carrier AT&T but that is another rant.
Here is the situation. About 2 months ago I started receiving text messages all of the sudden that were your basic spam messages. Not ever using texting I just thought they were annoying because they drained my battery due to the ringer and phone light come on when they are received. I didn't really think that I was paying for the privilege of receiving junk spam text messages. But lucky me I spent between 15-20 dollars last month for this scam.

So I call Sprint and I say, "Turn off the texting which I didn't sign up for." Randy told me I have to call, email, or use website to opt out of the service I hadn't opted into. So I took the 800 number. I call the 800 number. Hmmmmm what a surprise. No such number. So I call back wading through the computer lady asking me to "Para Espanol presione por favor el número dos" and tell me my little problems before I can get to the real person, then I have to give the name number and SS# for the acct holder and explain the situation again. The second time around I get, Ebony, she says yeah, 'Those companies change their numbers alot". Hmmm doesn't sound like a scam to me. This time I get the text number to text and ask them to cease and desist. I get off the phone and try to text them only to realize I have blocked the texting so back through the hoops to talk to Mark. I go through the scenario again (Take 3). Mark agrees it seems like a scam (as if they are not dealing with this daily from disgruntled customers) and he agrees to refund me 5$. Whatever. I am not going to refuse. I get off the phone send my text message (which I don't think I had ever done before) and then hope that Mark remembers to block my text messages in 30 min as we agreed. I plan to call in an hour just to make sure.

In the end I think that Sprint and probably all of the other phone people out there are in cahoots with these companies to make extra money off me. The original scamsters get advertising money for sending spam text messages, sprint cashes in on the charges and tries to look good refunding some minimal charges and bad mouthing these companies but I don't think they try to hard too keep the spam from happening.

I guess I will wait for the next class action suit in which I will receive my 32 cents and feel only slightly vindicated. The moral of the sorry respond to any junk email with the reply "STOP/CANCEL/UNSUBSCRIBE". You will be out 30 cents for the 1 incoming and one outgoing message unless it is a premium message which is 9.99. Then you can wait 2-3 years for your class action suit check of 32 cents and make about 2 cents on the deal. This is just my 2 cents.

IKEATOWN - Bloklok

2007-04-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

I came across this at another blog. IKEA sells prefab homes (apts). I guess it is not really new in Scandinavia(1997 first one built)but they are expanding to the UK. No talk of coming to the US. You can put them up in about a day. Ships in flat boxes with one allen wrench. Just kidding. (I guess the IKEA prefab house division is pretty sick of that joke). The concept is interesting with the idea behind it being inexpensive and compact. My wife and I have been interested in the concept of living big in a small place. I am not saying that is what IKEA does but if you look at books by Susan Susanka. Her ideas are interesting although we have no plans to build any "Not so big houses". For now we are sticking with our 80's home with the goal of doing some upgrading some day as finances allow.

Talk about insulting!

2007-04-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

I am approaching one of those monumental birthdays. It is in the distant future not until December. So at this point it is not too much of a sore point but you really don't want to think about it and you certainly don't want people pointing out your advancing age.
So today I got this letter that I find highly offensive:

I am not sending any of my money away but I think I will carry this card around and see if it will afford me any senior benefits.

Out with the old in with the new

2007-03-31T13:54:00.000-07:00

After the last 6 months we have been sitting up to a metal patio table to eat our meals. We have had plans to get a new table and we finally had an excuse to go to IKEA in Sacramento and got a new table and chairs. Here is a picture of the old and the new.

Assorted pics from vacation

2007-03-31T13:18:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE DUSTIN

CHEESER

CINDERELLA

Robinhood and Little John

Fireman

We had a great trip to CA and back. It was short but sweet. Too bad we didn't get up to the ranch but we were all sick and not too excited about spending more time in the car. We did manage a trip to IKEA and Trader Joes. We got a new table which I will feature in the next post.

2007-03-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

If you have some time a fun thing to do is to spend 15 hours in a sitting behind the wheel of a car. It is even more fun if you you choose to drive southeastern ID and northwestern NV. So basically the route was Boise to Stockton to Oakland and back to Stockton. With 2 previous nights of short sleep it was actually not that bad. It is also better considering that we are in a nice car and that we are not driving a wagon with a team of oxen.

Grandparent plague

2007-03-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

It has been a consistent pattern. The grandparents come and everyone gets sick. We made it through the entire winter without a single cough or runny nose since the grandparents left last fall. As I predicted within a week of the grandparents arrival the noses started to run and the coughs started to bark and throats turned sore. It starts with the kids, then moves to the the grandpa and the dad and eventually to the grandma that has the cold until the next season we see them. So no more sickness is expected until later this summer when the granparents might return.

For those requesting pictures of the "No Roof Car"

2007-03-24T22:04:00.000-07:00

I have posted a few pictures to the new blog "No Roof Car". I decided to document improvements and maintence etc on the blog so I can see how far we have gotten and where we have been. So far a few little things have been fixed and the 5 times over the car washx2, clean, polish, wax. There are many things to get it into the shape it should be but these things will take time and money. At least it is now able to legally ride on the road and it doesn't act like it will leave me stranded yet.