Trying to Finish Well!

We had a nice day weather wise on Sunday so I took my kids and the neighbor girl Madison out for a stroll around campus to see the change of colors in leaves from the last time I took pictures. I was absolutely an awesome day along with Saturday's weather when we took the kids out to the "Pumpkin Patch" on Sauvie Island. It's been on and off terrincal downpouring today and last week Sat. and someother day. Shane's been camped out in the library writing his paper due on Tuesday. I think it helped both of us for him to be there.

New things for this week? Shane has two test this week for the same teacher. Different classes, still enjoying school. I finished up with Western Civilization last week, I'm currently reading C.S. Lewis "The Problem with Pain". The wind stopped blowing last Friday, raked up branches and leaves the last two days. The kids are all doing good, all healthly still praise the lord. No major mishaps this week thus far.

Or maybe Pause. Happenings this last week that shocked me, most notable is yesterday Daniel told me that Seth was on the stairs. So I'm thinking like bottom step since he's been interested in them lately. Yes I do have a gate, just wasn't by the stairs yet. Seth was four steps from the top. Seth is such a crawling monster and like to stand up whenever possible. Such an active little boy. My other younger boy, we are having tested for allergies since he's been having digestive issues for about a year. The doctor told us to pull him off dairy and wheat for two weeks, recommended him drink tea, take a digestive tablet to help with when he does have dairy, and a tums each day. We are a really big dairy, wheat family we've bought some rice milk, and gluton/dairy/wheat free pasta and bread for him too. Now for my older boy Shane, snicker...Big YEAH!!! He got his diploma from UofI yesterday. He's an official College Graduate with Bachelors in Art/English. As he put...

We are having fun times with Shane's parents while they are visiting us for 10 days or so between a trip to D.C. The kids are really enjoying having a set of Grandparents to play and spend time with. Hopefully we aren't wearing them down to badly. The kids all have snuffly noses, hopefully won't develop into anything nasty. Enjoying the weather full of sunshine, cooler temps. but no major rain yet. Nothing to much besides playing 'Settlers of Catan' with Fred & Marie everyone has one a game, so I guess the gloves are coming off now :-) Seth has been pulling himself up to standing, Kelli and Daniel are enjoying school, and Dakota isn't sure what to do during that time yet. Seth is laugh crying at me right now.

Big happenings this week, Kelli lost her two bottom teeth. One yesterday during school then the other one today. Daniel is having a good time at his school, still needs his listening ears at home though. Dakota were working on potty training she's getting better about giving us lead time to find a bathroom. And I trimmed about 1" off her hair. Seth is a crawling maniac,sitting up all by his self, and only has his bottom two teeth. Looking so grown up at seven months. Shane is writing his final paper for his Degree Completion class that wrapped up this week. And I'm trying to finish up my homework for Western Civilization class tomorrow.

Sorry no pictures yet, I did take some last week when we had a our last free Friday for sometime. We ventured out of the city to Multnomah Falls which for those who don't know are about 30 min. East of Portland. It was a beautiful day, had fun taking the kids up to the bridge which parallel the middle of the falls. We then (since kids were napping)decided to continue west and go back to the u-pick farm we had found the Sunday before last. This time picking up tomatoes and peaches, not so many ears of corn. Sunday we went to church at the "Mosaic" then had Scott & Kathy (fellow Seminary couple) 1st year, over to dinner. When they left Shane started peeling peaches so he could justify watching the baseball game and not do homework. So I sliced & froze a bunch of peaches. On Monday we had a low key day, I started working on Tomatoes, making salsa & plain tomatoes. By the evening I finally got them all water bathed and cleaned up. Tuesday was Kelli's first day...

This past weekend showed us some new adventures in getting to know the area in which we are now submerged for the next three years. Last week the neighbor who likes to Bow hunt, he was looking for a hunting partner for opening weekend here in Western Oregon. Very serious in his searching for game, Shane left me early Sat. Morning and came home Sat. night with a pulled muscle and telling me he is not quite as young as he once was. Sunday we went to one of our three finalist churches, then I told Shane he owed me an outing. We chose to go to Sauvtic Island where there are many U-Pick farms with ripe Peaches and lots of other produce to chose from. We had lots of fun and came home with quite the bounty which I'm now canning with my new pressure cooker & water canner which I've had since Kelli was a baby. Today was Shane's first classes as a Seminary student. Kelli starts school next Tuesday, not sure what to do with Daniel, Dakota is acting like a three year old, &...

Wow, what a whirlwind of the past two weeks has been and promising to be these next few weeks to be. After our trip to Lake Stevens we made an impromptu trip to Buhl to visit my Mom & Dad before this week and Shane starting school. We headed down Tuesday afternoon arriving about midnight, spent a fun filled week with my folks. We went clothes shopping for the kids a couple afternoons, looked at fabric with my folks friend Jule at my Aunt Clara's house, tried to catch some fish, (but they weren't biting). Played with our cousins Garrett, Colton, & Daley (picture in Previous post). Then headed home Saturday stopping off to visit Shanes sister & family. Our Church shopping had us visiting the "Imago Dei" church not to far from our house. One of Shane's future Seminary Teachers is a Elder there and actually taught this past Sunday. We felt comfortable there, kids really liked it. I'm still not comfortable with each of the churches we've gone to h...

I promise an update of our most recent activities and whats happening in our lives. Everyone is healthy and gearing up for next week.

This weekend we put up the kids play yard. It only cost me one impact driver for Shane to agree to pack it from Lake Stevens down here to Portland. The kids were very excited to be able to swing again. As far as "Church shopping" we only went to one church this past weekend. "The Pearl" just barely got started so they didn't have children church for the kids, they got to play with toys. It was a good service, but it didn't fit our current needs. Shane had a migraine which isn't fun for him or me. Luckily he was able to fight it off and be normal today. Found out that I can register Kelli for school, which doesn't start until Sept 8th . Daniel we are not overly concerned about getting into school, we have his name on a couple waiting list for Pre-school. Dakota is doing good, working on making it to the potty chair before peeing. She tends to say "potty" pull down her undies and go wherever she happens to say the words. Yeah.... Seth has c...

So as mentioned previously Shane & I are "Church Shopping", this weekend we tried out three different Churches. Yes it is insane, & Kelli keeps asking as we are leaving "So which Church are we going to next?". The story is on Sat. night we drove out to a church maybe 30 min. away from the house East of Portland called the "Good Shepherd Community Church", it was a good service. Kind of big, but as we were leaving the service, there was a $20.oo next to are drivers side of the van and no cars around. So we figured God wanted us to have the money to put some gas in the Van. So Sunday morning we pulled into the Gas station on our corner, as were sitting there we notice a large van which has over heated and a man dressed up for church talking on his cell phone. When we pulled around him to air up the passenger side tire, Shane goes over to see if he could help in any way. The story was that the van keeps overheating and he needs towed back to his churc...

As most of you weather watchers know this is the week for hot tempts in Seattle and Portland area. We here in Portland have hit over 100* the past two days and predicted for Wednesday & Thursday also. The kids and I have been having water fights and we bought an A/C for the house which has helped keep the kids rooms cool and pushed some cool air into the main area which makes it tolerable. Shane is working his last days at Seed IP Law Group. He's been working there since he came back down from Alaska in 1999. He started as a temp in the Mail Room, got hired on as a Permenant just before we got married in 2000. Started as an Patent Paralegal shortly after that and has been going strong with ups & downs since then. Just continue to pray for us as we are going into this new stage of our lives with Shane going from Full time worker/full time student to Full time student/part time worker. We've lowered the price again on the house in Lake Stevens hopefully someone will thi...

Well our transitioning down to Portland is almost over with. Shane is up in Seattle for a couple days working, the kids and I stayed so that we can keep them on schedule and I can get some work done on the house. No hits on the house, it would be a God thing if we didn't have to pay a mortgage for a while with Shane's last days at Seed come to a close. Here are some pictures for this week, I'll clean up the kids rooms so you can see there new digs. Thanks Carrie for helping build dressers with Shane last week and helping me organize closets.

We had a wonderful week, this past week full of lots of adventures. The biggest was Kelli turning 6! OMGoodness how time has gone quickly. She was able to have a sleepover with her friend Caylee Carter. I believe they had a good time and both want to do it again. On Kelli's actual birthday Aunt Carrie flew into Portland and helped us get the house in Portland a bit more organized and set up. It was a blessing having her with us for a few short days she was able to take between working. Thank you so much for the time! We also got to spend some time with our cousins in Boise before coming back up to Washington. It was fun to spend time with all our cousins we haven't seen for a while.

We are home from Idaho, and up from Portland. Short layover before heading back down, it is stuffed full with repairs, shopping, packing and a six year olds birthday party. Whew. Kids have sinus gunk, we had a wonderful time in Idaho. Thank you Mom & Dad for letting us stay and play, holding kids, and reading stories. It was good to see those who've we got to see. Oh and thankyou for letting me wrestle some bales Dad.:-) It was interesting watching a gaggle of five/six year olds watch a friend open Princess birthday gifts. Man I hope my friends & I weren't that silly at that age, (no wise cracks from the Peanut gallery) :-) I'm thinking with so many great pictures will have to do a slide show to show you.

As suggested we've been busy visiting family this past week. We had a great time at Dawna's annual Backyard BBQ Bash last Sat., then Sunday we packed up the Uhaul and headed down to Portland with one more load. Monday Shane had school, then we loaded up again and headed down to Southern Idaho to spend a week with my Mom & Dad. We've had a great visit so far, the kids got to go fishing and go to a parade. It's been awesome weather wise, but unfortunately the kids have developed allergies trying to turn into Sinus Infections.

New things in our life,.... we have a new mailing, house address, and phone number down in Portland. If I haven't emailed it off to you please let me know via-email and I will get that to you. SO far the transitioning down is going well, don't quite have the next load figured out, might start moving more of the furniture and clothes down. Leave the house in Lake Stevens skeleton function. Don't know seems pretty surreal. Yeah for Shane, he finished his classes for the U of I this week. So after "muffled" years he is going to graduate from U of I. His last week of work is also happening this week. He will work Wednesdays/Thursday thru July then he will be onto a new job in August god willing. I'm thinking about taking advantage to living on a College Campus and going back to school to finish out my college experience and getting a Bachelor's degree in Biblical Foundations. I've sent off request for my transcripts, if I start in Nov. or Feb. of next ye...