Life as I know it.

We are on the downhill stretch for K's vacation, I can tell she is getting more homesick as her texting is increasing more day by day. Today was a fun day we started out at Adventure kids, the new school age playgroup for out MOMS club. We had a really good turn out, there was 10+ moms with between 2-4 kids each. There was also another 14 yo there and her and K got along real well. Bug being his silly self spent all of his time playing with the teenagers instead of getting to know the other kids, but at least he had someone to play with. After the play date we headed out to the pool just north of there. It is a nice pool with a kids area that has different things, that spray, pour and dump water. Then there is a shallow swimming area, a deep swimming area and an area with a diving board and a slide. Bug played for a little while then got out for the rest of the time but K and I swam for awhile, then after she passed the swim test we went out and did the slide and diving board. We g...

We have been taking it easier the last few days. On Thur, Bug was gone in the morning so K slept in until noon or so, Don took Bug to math. So we just hung out around the house until 1ish then went and picked him up and ran a couple of errands until I had to head to work. The kids came with me and K got a nice french pedicure done while Bug watched a movie. On Fri K got to sleep in again and Bug was looking for someone to play with but everyone we called had something going on. So we ended up heading over to one of our local parks, they are building a new pool there and I wanted to see when it was opening. Unfortunately it's not till next Mon after K has gone home. The kids played for a bit but the splash pad was closed, so we ended up heading out to Starbucks and getting some drinks and then going over to another park, so they could go in the splash pad. (This is when Bug's headache that I mentioned in flashback Friday started). After that we went out to the local camp fire c...

I always love seeing these on other peoples blogs so wanted to try it on here. Don & I in June of '01 (don't we look young). Bug just home from the hospital, (look at all that black hair). Bug's 1st 4th of July, (just learning to crawl). On a sad note poor Bug got another headache today, he tried to brave it out but by the time we got home he was crying and ended up getting sick. But after a nice warm bath and some ibuprofen he was feeling better and went to bed happy.

I had to work most of the day on Wed so Don took K and Bug out to the lake with our friend Mike, his boys and their boat. I was sad to miss it it sounded like they all had a blast. K went wake boarding for the 1st time and was even able to get up for a few seconds a couple of times. They all went inner tubing behind the boat, Bug likes it nice and steady, but his buddy E is quite the daredevil, so K had a good time out riding with him. They spent most of the day out enjoying the sun, then came back and had some dinner before I picked her up (Bug spent the night out there). We came back and had some cake before bed and called it a night.

Tuesday we took K, Bug and a family friend C to Silverwood for the day. It was a great thing we took C with us because, Bug ended up with a huge headache and spent most of the day laying down in the EMT's room taking a nap. We started out over in the water park, but it was still a little chilly out, we tried one of the tube rides and Bug said it was to cold, then we tried out a bigger tube ride that we could all do together and Bug was still to cold, so I let the girls take off and go ride the slides together and Bug and I went to the wave pool to play while the waves were turned off, (he doesn't like to waves). When Bug got out he mentioned he had a headache and kept saying how cold he was. So when we met up with the girls, they went in the wave pool and Bug laid out in the sun to warm up, then we had lunch go dressed and headed over to the rides. Bug was still cold so I put my sweatshirt on him. We decided to start out on the roller coaster, since Bug had decided to try it a...

What a fabulous, insightful, inspiring & educational weekend I had. My mom, Bug and I headed over to Seattle Thur eve and got in around 11 and headed right to bed so that I could get up early and head to the Washington Homeschoolers Organization (WHO) convention at the Puyallup Fairgrounds. This 2 day convention is just what I have been needing, I listened to some great speakers. I went to one lady twice, she did 2 different talks about Internet safety and kids. It wasn't the typical stuff you hear either about keeping computers in public places and different filters. She talked about passwords and safe online names, what info criminals can figure out by looking at your online photos and the info that agencies and other sites give out about you. It was very informative and I definitely won't look at things the same when I am on the computer. Another interesting speaker talked about traveling the world with kids, affordably. The vendors were also wonderful with lots of selec...

We brought my niece K home with us for a week and a half and got in late Sun. We didn't leave the Seattle area until late on Sun because we went and finally got our family pics done for my mom that we were supposed to do back in April. They turned out pretty cute, I'll have to scan a few in to show here. By the time we got all that done, got loaded up and headed out it was after 2, then we stopped in N. bend and did a little shopping, grabbed lunch and a big coffee and got on the road. On Mon Bug had math class and also a photo shoot to have his head shots up dated. The math went great, he got through 7 lessons in one sitting. The photo shoot was interesting, we ended up late. 1st because I took the wrong exit, then the building was really hard to find. The photographer was very understanding she helped us pick out what he should wear and then took him outside to shoot, unfortunately it was very bright out so Bug kept squishing up his eyes. Also she was trying to get him to loo...

After a hectic morning we spent the afternoon going out to a movie and ice cream to celebrate one of Bug's best friends birthday. It was a nice day, we started out the day with a bike ride. The Liberty Lake garage sale was on Saturday. (the whole town of Liberty lake has a garage sale). I found a new trail-a-bike for Bug to replace the one that was stolen this winter. It's not as nice as his old one, but it will do the trick. Then we got back we watched my friend Meegan's 3 little ones, she has a 2, a 3 and a 4 year old kids. 2 boys and a girl, they are a ton of fun but also very active. I wonder how she makes it through the day without collapsing with exhaustion, they are hard to keep up with. Very polite but into everything and very, very busy, but so cute you could never get mad at any of them. It's quite an adventure to have them over and great practice for Bug to get used to having little ones around to prepare him for the foster girl we hope to get soon. After tha...

Friday night was Bunco night, I love Bunco night, it's always so much fun to get together with all my girlfriends and eat, talk and play Bunco. I have finally mellowed out about the whole game. I have been the Bunco Nazi for too long, since I am so competitive. I don't even feel the constant compulsion to keep the score. Of course everyone is so used to me keeping the score that they hand me the score book anyways. Then on Sunday I had my 1st day co-teaching the 2 year old Sunday school class at church. It was very interesting and giving me something new to think about with the whole adoption thing. For the record Little girls are very different from little boys. The class had 3 boys and around 5 girls any time one of the little girls would do something all the others would join in, a good example is one of the girls was hiding behind the chair next thing you know all 5 girls are hiding in a space big enough for 2, on the other hand the 3 boys were spread out throughout the roo...

Today was the end of the year celebration at Bug's school. the kids could show off projects or perform for the audience. With my little drama king I signed him up to sing, The Penguin Song. Unfortunately I had to work, so I sent him with some of the other kids from his school and their grandparents. Then I ended up with a cancellation and was able to move up my last client so I thought that I would make it in plenty of time to see him. Sadly I was over confident and stopped to get a bite to eat, I ended up missing his performance by just a few minutes. He was # 4 and I came in at the beginning of # 6. I was so bummed and mad at myself for stopping. Everybody said he did great though and he was very proud of himself. After the individual performances the jr high students showed off some of the dances they had learned and at the end they invited the audience to join them to learn some sort of waltz/circle dance and Bug headed on out. He was the littlest one out there but he did very ...

OK my vacation is officially over, I headed back to work today. But 1st thing this morning we went to Bug's final Parent/ teacher conference of the year. I know we school-at-home, but Bug goes 1 day a week to a school with other homeschoolers. The meeting was interesting, no real surprises, he doesn't enjoy writing and does as little of it as he can get away with. He is very sweet and a lot of his answers will reflect that. The most interesting (and frustrating) part was his reading assessment. His teacher forgot she gave him one so she did one in front of me, the results ended up so ambiguous that it was just frustrating. Bug gets in a hurry when he is reading and skips words, but the words he skips are all words he can read and they don't change the meaning of the sentences. Anyways the assessment she gave him while I was there said he is at a late 1st grade level due to his skipping words, he only misread about 5 words, not counting proper names (which don't count ag...

Well we got home Monday morning at 2 am. Jay's graduation was really good, its still hard to believe that he is all grown up and heading off to WSU next year. He and his buddies went out with a bag. At his school they let the students choose 3 of their friends to walk the red carpet with. We kept waiting and waiting for J, but they were the very last in line to make their big entrance. He came in with 3 of his guy friends, they each had their caps decorated, sun glasses on and plenty of attitude. They might as well have been walking the red carpet at a Hollywood premier. It was definitely fun to watch. They had the graduation at 7:00 on a Sun night so we had to head out right after it was over, even with that we didn't get on the road until 9:45 and we got home at 1:49 in the morning on Mon. I had a bunch of errand type things to do yesterday and Bug had a math class to be at and we had a really fun dinner with my friend Meegan and her family, the waiter was pretty slow on the ...

Well after a fabulous week at down in Long Beach vacation is over and we have moved up to Federal Way to see my nephew's graduation tomorrow. It was a nice week, we spent a day checking out things in Long Beach and took Bug to see the movie UP, which was pretty cute. On Wed we went and hiked the "mosquito coast," at the state park at the end of Long Beach peninsula. When we got out of the truck there were some mosquitoes buzzing around but we didn't think much about it and headed out, we ended up plagued with mosquitoes. It was a pretty hike but the bugs were so bad there was no chance to enjoy it, a ways along we found a side trail that took us back to the road and headed back to the truck as quickly as we could, chased by mosquitoes the whole time. Don ended up with at least 2 dozen bites, Bug had 2 bites and I didn't find any bites. Got to love those mosquitoes. On Thur we spent the day down in Astoria, we went to the Flavel house, a museum in Ilwacca (sp.) and...

Well we are on our vacation, with only a minor hiccup to start us off. I have been saying all along that we would be in Ocean Shores, so we headed out about 8:45 yesterday morning and decided to stop and do a little shopping and kill some time in North Bend, since you can't check into the condo until 4:00. So we hung out, had lunch and did a little shopping then got back on the road. We got to Aberdeen a little after 4 and decided to do our grocery shopping there figuring it would be cheaper than in Ocean Shores, headed out around 5 and got to the condo around 5:30 or so. I run in to get us checked in and the woman says "Oh, did someone check in for you already?" and I say No, so she says "Bob and Melissa?" and I say no, Don and Alyson, so she tells me she can't find us and asks for our confirmation, so I jump on the computer to get the email with the confirmation # and show it to her and she says "Um this happens all the time, but you are not booked he...