Shoshone Falls

For spring break this year the kids and I decided to drive over to Oregon so that we could see more of Shawn.  Shawn and I also planned to show them the house we were buying for the first time.  This was a very memorable trip! ( and let's remember that memorable things are not always so pleasant when we are in the present experiencing them):D

First of all we decided to take the Kami and Caden's car, which we fondly refer to as "Granny" since she is actually really roomy and very comfortable to drive in.  We took her, because it was either drive her over or not go at all.  Shawn had taken the Suburban back for some reason or other.  I think he hauled a load of our stuff over or something like that.  Anyways, Granny was short one seat so a couple of the kids had to double buckle, making four kids riding in the back and three people in the front.

It worked out great, but the kids had it all arranged about what they would quickly do should anyone suddenly see a policeman!  Abram was the designated person to hurriedly cover himself with a blanket so that he would just look like "an extra pile of pillows" thrown into the car:

We heard that Shoshone Falls was really flowing great, so we decided to stop there on the way.  We had to stop on the way in to pay a fee and we really got the giggles with this going on in the back!:

So very inconspicuous!

We never received the memo about how being down by the falls was like standing in a heavy rainstorm... we all looked completely like drowned muskrats in no time; it was really roaring!  Dripping wet hair and everything.  But the falls really were beautiful!!

I don't remember everything we did on this trip because it's been too long since I wrote.  But I DO remember this Saturday evening after conference.  We had shown the kids the new house and taken them to the park right by it for a picnic lunch right after. After lunch the kids discovered the  dizzying yellow merry-go-round and played on it for quite some time.  Then we took them to the local fitness facility and signed up and went swimming.  Before we knew it, it was time for dinner and Nolan said he still felt dizzy from the merry-go-round...  see that unhappy little face?:

He couldn't bring himself to eat much of anything.  The rest of us finished eating and then we got into the Suburban for the 1 1/2 hour drive back to my parents house.  About half way between Pendleton and LaGrande, Nolan sat up and said, "stop the car!"  Then he proceeded to vomit up and down Isabelle.  She was covered from head to toe. Isabelle was livid, Nolan felt bad, and the rest of us had to laugh because what else could we do? It has become a whole lot funnier with time to ALL of us.  Oh, the adventures we had during this move.

Ballroom Belle

Shawn was already working out of town for this, but sometime in the spring Isabelle had a ballroom competition that she got out of school of for a day.  Pace and I went down to watch her.  She was AMAZING!!! She ended up getting first place medals. One for a team dance, one in passo (sp?) and one in samba.  She got fifth place in waltz, and fourth place in swing. She is so graceful and confident and smiley and over- all fun to watch.  I am going to miss this most about moving.  No one even teaches ballroom around here:(

A pic with part of her school group:

This is a picture with David Green, one of her partners for one of the group dances, and also one her good friend and one of our neighbors.

Another picture with part of the group - it was hard to get everyone in the same place all at once:

And a close-up of that enthusiastic cute little face:

Holding all of her loot after the competition.  I was so proud of her!

Caden's San Diego trip

This spring, Caden went to San Diego with the school choirs and orchestra, and had a great time.  He isn't one to share pictures with me, but his friends moms are!  Hooray for that!!  He had a great time with these super friends:

Caden, Ashley Burt and Christian Packer:

Caden doing a (no doubt) impressive whale call on a dinner cruise:

The beach!:

Ashley Burt, Sarah Holloway, Kalli Whiteman, Caden, Anna Chapman, Christian Packer

Christian Packer, Caden:

Ashley Burt, Caden, Anna Chapman, Christian Packer:

Ninja or yoga...who knows??:

8 pull-ups

Back in October I decided that I wanted to be able to do 10 pull-ups by my birthday.  At the time, even though I lift weights almost everyday, I could only do 3.  I started by doing a lot of negatives every other day or so.  This was soooo incredibly HARD!!! After months of this hard work, I happened to be at my parents on my birthday, and I took a test there.  I was able to do eight, which was less than I hoped, but I am still really happy with it!  These pull-ups are the real deal.  I try to drop until my arms are almost all the way straight before going up again. The move has disrupted my routine, but hopefully, I will be able to increase it when things settle down a bit.

Pull-ups turn out to be a great upper-body toner.   Isabelle took some pictures and I sent these pics to Shawn and Kami to ask their opinions about this swim suit I was considering.  I have a hard time deciding things like this on my own...anyways, Shawn texted back and asked if I was flexing my back.  I said, "How do you do that?"  I really didn't know. I was pretty happy about that!

projects

During the process of moving, I fixed up a few things for the new house.

I figured out that you can paint old outdoor cushions and keep them soft by using fabric softener with acrylic paint.  The outdoor furniture looks like new:

I really liked these decorations (below) but am tired of red accents inside the house.  So I put clay all over the unpainted places on these vases spray painted them the new color and then peeled the clay off.  I really like the end result!  And I love transforming things and seeing how long I can make things last by fixing up and recycling:

That time between moving and being moved...

In January, Shawn went over to Pendleton, Oregon to interview for a job there, and I got to go with him!  Everything about it felt right - we really liked the people there, it felt like home and the schools had most of the activities that our kids are into.  We even looked at houses while we were there, and one of the houses immediately felt like the house we were supposed to be in.

Shawn started the job towards the end of February.  He took Evan and Jodi's camp trailer over and lived in it outside of my brother Aaron and sister-in-laws Tia's house.  Then he made the long 9 hour drive home every weekend.  There was a lot of moving things we needed him for, and he was also still the bishop clear up until a week or two before we finally moved out of the house!  While he was gone, I got the house on the market, sold it twice, packed everything up and sold a whole lot of stuff on Craigslist.  It was a busy time, in fact some days were down-right horrible for both of us.  But we made it.  Whew!

This is blurry Pace and I when we took a shuttle to Boise.  I met my mom and dad there after their temple shift one Wednesday, they took me home and Shawn met up with us there. Then Shawn and I went and looked at houses again.  Still felt good about the same one and made an offer.  It was nothing spectacular, but it felt right and nothing else on the market at the time looked even a little bit appealing to us.  Mostly because they all needed gutted and started over on...

This ride with Pace was an adventure.  I packed a lot of snacks for him and also some dollar store toys.  Early on in the ride I offered him a snack, which he accepted.  Then he asked me if I wanted one, and I declined.  He talks very loudly and this time was no exception.  He asked, "WHY?!?? Do these give you DIARHEA???"  Later I had to walk past him in his seat and he loudly announced that I had a very big bottom.  He made the trip more entertaining for everyone, I think!

Shawn was good about skyping the family every morning at 6:00 am.  (5:00 Oregon time, so this was a sacrifice for him) This particular morning, and many mornings, the boys would say, "I get to pray by dad!!" , when scriptures were over and it was time for family prayer.

After prayers, the kids would dive in to talk to Shawn for a few minutes before the morning really began.

One weekend Shawn and I decided that we needed to go over to Pendleton and find a house.  The day we left was HORRIBLE weather.  We counted about 20 cars and two semis off of the road on the way to Boise.  When we were about two hours out of Boise, my dad called to see where we were.  It was their day to work in the Boise temple, and the freeway between Boise and their home had closed during their shift!  He told us that they had gotten a room for us and them to share :D

This ended up being so much fun - I had never had a slumber party with my parents before!!  Once we turned out the lights we lay there talking and laughing.  This was such a fun and humorous event!

The next morning the freeway was open again, and the roads looked just great!  I thought this was particularly beautiful as the sun came up:

brother love

I am loving watching these three boys on the end grow up together! They definitely have their moments, but for the most part they are each others best friends.  They share everything - even their clothes, and play and wrestle nonstop.  Sometimes it feels like I'm surrounded by a bunch of hyper puppies!

I'm glad I caught this one.  Everyone excited to see each other when Pace woke up one morning:

Always lots of time playing with cars and "guys" all over the house and in the dirt:

Pace also loves his grandpa Gee and I need to throw this picture in there somewhere:

group hug:

One of many pile-ups:

Abe was always excited to see Pace when we would come to help in his first grade class:

Goodbye house

We've been moved out of our "Yellow house" for about 3 months now.  That was quite the ordeal; I sold the house once and the family that was going to buy it ended up backing out a couple of days before we were supposed to sign.  We already had packed up and moved out and shipped EVERYTHING to Oregon. I had to quickly get the house back onto the market, and we were blessed that it sold quickly once again.  It was sold in a couple of days, but we still had to stick around, first to show the house, then to keep up with the yard, get all the inspections done, sign papers, etc.  So we all moved in with Shawn's parents for a month, while Shawn continued to work in Oregon and come home on the weekends.  Crazy times, but I am grateful to Shawn's parents, and grateful that I was able to be there for Caden during his last month of high school, and also Maddie.  The original plan had been for them to live with Shawn's parents while the rest of us moved for the last part of school.  I had already pulled the younger kids out of school for the move, so they got an extra month of summer vacation!

We have the BEST memories of this house, and I will probably be documenting this with a tear in my eye because we are currently remodeling a lot of the "new" house we are in and I never enjoy living in the middle of a remodel...

A lot of these pictures I took off of zillow. I really need to get pictures off of Caden's phone and replace these because I can see them so much better

Dining room:

living room looking towards kitchen:

kitchen:

view from the front door:

kitchen towards living room:

View from "the land" towards the house:

kitchen - I probably miss this room the most!:

laundry room:

music room:

I'm missing a lot of rooms that I know we will want to remember.  I definitely will have to revisit this page sometime in the future and add better and more pics.