Sunday, August 31, 2008

We made it...a survival story.

So every year Brent heads out on a hiking expedition with his brothers. They have dubbed it the "All brother's hike" or ABH. He looks forward to this every year with excitement. So he left for the airport straight after work on Wednesday. Now, as much as he looks forward to this event, I dread it. I need my break from the kids, otherwise i'm not the best mom. They start to get on my nerves. But I was determined to not have a lousy time this summer and I have to admit, I actually enjoyed myself while he was away. Wednesday we had kindergarten orientation, then the boys went to a birthday party. That night we had hot dogs for dinner. Thursday I took the boys and Claire to a friends house, and then malia and i headed to a cool dine-in theater to watch the "American girl" movie. This theater sells $3 tickets and then you can order dinner or dessert and they bring it to you during the movie..you have table to eat on and everything. The movie was really cute and we had a good time. Friday we went out to breakfast at Shari's and then headed to the library. The kids participated in the summer reading program and earned free blazer basketball tickets, free dinner at applebee's and they picked out some small toys to take home. So that night we headed to Applebee's to use their free dinner coupon. They were amazed that we went out to eat TWICE in one day! It was a luxury. we also did some school shopping and spent too much money.
Last night I invited 6 girlfriends over for a late dinner and we had a great time laughing and talking. The kids were great and stayed in their rooms and fell asleep. It was the perfect way to end the week. Brent is due home in 20 minutes and the kids are dying with excitement, and so am I. We had a great time without him, but we'd much rather have him here!!!!

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Almost time...

we've been having some serious computer issues. we lost most of the stuff on our hard drive, but installed a new drive and then last night ended up with some horrible virus on our main computer. So here I am again on the kids computer. I will blame my lack of new posts on our annoying computer.
So we've had fun winding down our summer. A few weekends ago we went camping at silver creek falls. we had a great time, although the camp sites were packed together and lacked any privacy, the kids didn't mind. It was the hottest weekend of the summer hitting 100, but up in the mountains it was perfect. we played in the water, went to a little demonstration by the forest rangers about bats, and ate smores.
Last weekend we took a trip down to corvallis to go swimming at otter beach. the kids had a blast and we stayed for about 4 hours. One of these days i'll post some pictures!
i took the kids to the Oregon state fair on Monday for $1 ride day. It was awesome. Usually they don't get to ride the rides, but being $1 day they got to ride several. There were duck races, and an omsi tent, a reptile tent and the kids also loved looking at the cake entries and picking out their favorite decorated cakes. they also make solar "smore" making boxes. not sure what the official name is. It was a fun outing for them.
Jacob had his kindergarten orientation today and it was fun to watch his excitement. He has a great teacher and is in a class with several kids from our neighborhood and church, so that makes it easier. He is so ready to start school. Malia starts in a week and is excited as well. I am also very excited! I have to admit that I probably look forward to school starting more than they do. back to school, back to sanity

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Summer update

Summer is just flying by. Only 3 1/2 weeks until school starts, and already people are talking about school shopping and who's in what class at school. And although i always look forward to my kids going back to school, it's been a great summer and i'm not quite ready for it to be over.
we spend a few days last week up at lake Cavanaugh in Washington for a Ditto reunion. We were pretty disappointed in the rainy weather, but that didn't stop us from tubing, waterskiing and riding the jet ski's. The kids pretty much lived in the hot tub and loved playing with their cousins. This past week we didn't have much planned. I took the kids to riverfront park to play and ride the carousel. I learned that claire does not like the carousel and neither do I. A very naseous mommy stepped off that thing.
On a bad note, when we got home from the lake we learned that our hard drive on our computer had crashed. brent has been working on it all week and he thinks we can save some of it. It's going to take a long time to reinstall and find everything though. I know absolutely nothing about computers, so everytime Brent would update me on the status of the computer, my reply was "so...what does that mean??" We have an older, slower computer that the kids use for their computer games, so that's what we've been using. so wish us luck in saving our millions of family photos that we procrastinated printing, and back up all of your files after you wish us luck. :)