Alyson's 16 Now

Alyson's birthday was last Thursday.  Kylee made her her favorite cake, cheesecake.  Chinese food for dinner and cheesecake for desert.  Hey, that's what I had for my birthday.  I guess Alyson and I are more similar than she thinks.

Alyson is coming along very well.  She can be stubborn but she is so smart too.  She is a good friend and can get along with anyone.  She's good at motivating people too.  She can be the life of the party and help everyone feel included and cared for.  Now we just need to get her to work harder in school.

Besides Kylee, Alyson has had the hardest time with Laila being gone.  She really misses her big sister.  She might talk like she doesn't but she was barely able to say hello to her when Laila called from the airport on her departure day to Kentucky.  Alyson cried into the phone for fifteen seconds and then passed it on to one of her sisters.  It was very cute and endearing.

Alyson is such a wonderful person.  I'm very lucky to have her as a daughter.  She's so beautiful and full of life.  She loves the gospel and sets a good example to those around her.  I know she will grow up to be a wonderful woman.  I love her very much.

In the Field

Laila made it to the mission field last week.  The mission home sent us a picture of her and her trainer, Sister Wilcox.  Yep, the sisters Wilcox will be force to be reckoned with.  She's still very excited to be a missionary and is learning a lot from her trainer.  Laila's pretty awesome.

Sending Laila Off

Yesterday morning I got up at 3:15 in the morning to take Laila to the airport.  I sent my oldest daughter off, on a plane, by herself, headed to Provo, Utah, to the MTC to be trained for serving her mission in the Kentucky, Louisville mission for 18 months.  It wasn't easy but I'm so pleased she has made this choice to serve a mission.

My mission has blessed me greatly and I know Lails's will bless her too.  There is so much that is learned serving the Lord.  She will learn to teach, to love, to work, to pray and how to study the scriptures.  She has spent her whole life preparing for this even though she wasn't specifically preparing for a mission.  She is a wonderful example to her siblings and everyone around her.  Now she has the opportunity to share her example with people in Kentucky.

Last night I was able to go to bed at 9:00, very rare, and had a very sound sleep.  So much so that I didn't wake up at all during the night and did not add wood to the fire as per my normal practice throughout the dead hours of the night.  This morning when I got up just before my alarm went off, I was well rested but the house was a little chilly.  The fire was completely out and the fireplace was just barely not cold.  I got the fire going and it was burning well before I left for work but I'm sure it was still a little cool in the house when Kylee got up.  Laila is worth it though.

Beach Trip

We've been whining about how long it's been since we took a vacation at the beach so we took care of that Memorial Day weekend.  We rented a condo in Lincoln City that was right on the beach and has a pool.  In Oregon, in order to swim at the beach you need a heated pool.  It was nice for everyone to relax and enjoy not having to do anything.  Kylee and I also liked being able to watch the kids play on the beach from our room and not in the cold, always present wind.


We arrived Thursday afternoon and were able to have the pool all to ourselves in the evening.  We swam for a couple of hours and nobody bothered us.  Friday night we started out alone but after an hour or so a couple of families joined us.  Actually, their kids joined us in the pool while the adults just sat around reading.  Kylee and I felt like awesome parents because we were actually playing with our kids.  No swimming on Saturday or Sunday.  The pool was too busy.

Our inside time was spent playing games, and watching a couple of movies.  Our main game was Uno.  The girls had never really played it before so we did some instruction and then played standard Uno for a while.  Kylee got antsy and wanted to play jungle Uno because regular Uno was too slow.  After we felt the girls had a good grasp of out-of-the-box Uno we introduced them to jungle Uno.  I don't think Laila ever really caught on, but everybody else loved it.  That was the game we kept going back too.  Monopoly went well too but the money got stretched a little thin with six people playing.
On Saturday we went for a drive.  We checked the tides and headed down to Devil's Punch Bowl when the tide was almost all the way out.  The weather was beautiful and we had a lot of fun running around the beach, climbing rocks and checking out all of the little pools for whatever marine life happened to get stuck there.

After that we went up to Otter Crest and saw a couple of grey whales.  They have a very nice observatory on top with windows all along the north and west side of the building.  They have binoculars available for people to use as well.  It has the atmosphere of a library which Kylee realized after she openly expressed her excitement about seeing a whale surface.  It surfaced good.  Other people got excited too but Kylee was very excited.

On the way back to Lincoln City we stopped in Depoe Bay and wondered around the board walk for a while.  The kids each bought a souvenir and we also bought two bags of saltwater taffy because we couldn't decide what flavors to get.  They're all so pretty and colorful and tasty.  We finished both bags before we got home because they all tasted so good.  Home in Beavercreek, not Lincoln City.  It did take us a couple of days to it them all.

We've always enjoyed going on vacation as a family but it seams to be more enjoyable now.  There's more time talking and laughing and playing games.  We don't have to change diapers, feed babies so they'll stop crying and make sure they don't aimlessly wander off.  They're all old enough to not eat sand, feed themselves and do the dishes.  They still ask for food all day long but that's just part of growing up I guess.

Fruit Trees

We planted fruit trees this weekend. Well, I did. Since Kylee broke her foot two weeks ago she hasn't been able to get around very well.

Kylee found a sale at a nursery in Redland. $8.00 a tree for bare root trees. We tilled up a large garden area last year and allowed space in the back for some fruit trees. We finally bought some this year.

When we got home, I went in the back yard, dug eight holes, put some kind of potting soil in them (Kylee bought the soil and the trees, I'm just labor), put the trees in, covered them up, and soaked them with water. We're told that some of them should produce fruit this year. Now I just need to finish my fence to keep the rabbits out so I don't have to shoot them.

2 - Apple
2 - Pear
2 - Plum
2 - Peach

I sure hope we get some fruit this year. We're also hoping for a better year with our garden. We learned a lot last year. As long as we get more than tomatoes and a few short carrots I'll be happy. Maybe some real corn too.

Seattle

I found out a couple of weeks ago that I was being signed up for a three day SQL Programming class here in Portland. I was being signed up with a co-worker who was hired to replace our database guy. Last week when they actually tried to sign us up it was discovered that the class had been canceled due to not enough people registering for it.

The next class is in April, or they were offering the same class in Seattle at the same dates as Portland. Last Wednesday I was told they signed us up for the Seattle class because the training company was willing to pay for our hotel. That meant that we were leaving Sunday night and returning home Wednesday night. Kylee wasn't real happy about it, neither was I for that matter, but I didn't have much choice.

Friday afternoon I finally received confirmation from the training company that finally gave us some information. Up until then we didn't know where the training facility was actually located or where we would be staying. I quickly went to Yahoo! (I think Google's over rated) and looked up the hotel. When I got home I told Kylee that the "Suite" I will be staying in has a fireplace and a full kitchen. We get a hot breakfast and a hot dinner. Kylee said she wanted to go, and I said why not. Then she made some arrangements for the girls and Sunday after church we left for Seattle.

My co-worker was planning on flying up on Saturday to stay with some friends, this was one of the reasons Kylee wanted to go, but on Sunday he called and said he was still here and needed a ride up. I had to talk Kylee back into going, even though we didn't get three hours to ourselves in the van. When we checked in she was definitely glad she went.

The suites were laid out like apartment buildings. Each building had eight suites, four on the bottom and four on the top with access to two bottoms and two tops on either side of the building. We were on the top, which was classified as a town house. Within the town house we had two floors. One full bathroom and bedroom upstairs (that's where Griffyn slept) and one full bathroom and bedroom downstairs with a full kitchen and living room with the fireplace. It was very nice.

Kylee spent Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday sleeping in and playing with Griffyn. I had it pretty easy too. My class didn't start until 9:00. We took a 1½ hour lunch at 11:30 and finished by 4:00. Kylee enjoyed all the shopping centers and malls near by in the evenings when we went out and she even enjoyed the company of my co-worker on the trip up and back.

The training company has many more classes that I am trying to get into. The training was good, the instructor was good and the lodging was great. I definitely want to do that again.

Weekend Without Kylee

Kylee went to the beach with her friends. They usually go once a year just to get away and have adult girl time without constantly being interrupted by children asking for this or that or having to take care of their childish helpless husbands who can’t tie their own shoes let alone cook anything if their lives depended on it. Please note I over exaggerated the husband part. I’m sure they talk about us that way but I currently have no proof. That’s why they travel so far away to have those conversations.

When Kylee’s gone for any length of significant time I try and get something done around the house. I find it easy to work when she’s not around. She’s too distracting to be around. I find myself just sitting around gazing at her beauty and wondering how I got so lucky to marry someone as wonderful as her, if she’s there.

This year, Kylee left Thursday afternoon and returned Sunday afternoon. This gave me two full days to get stuff done. So, early Friday morning, after the oldest three children left for school, I plugged Kinzley into the computer and I started tearing out the tile on the bathroom floor. The process was fairly easy but I had to stop every 15 minutes or so to change the game that Kinzley was playing because nothing kept her interest for very long. By the time Audrey made it home from morning Kindergarten I had most of the tile removed. I had both girls go potty while I made them lunch and then I removed the toilet and the last of the tile. Then we went grocery shopping.

On our return home from shopping it started snowing at the house so by the time we made it home, the roads were covered. It wasn’t much and it was very slushy but we don’t normally get any of that this time of year. Thank goodness for global warming or we would have a couple of feet by now. Course, we don’t normally get anything until January or February but who’s keeping track. And we don’t normally get more than an inch or so, every other year.

I’m sure last year was a fluke with the 18 inches of snow that covered all of Portland, not just the higher elevations. Or the year before when we only had 12 inches of snow. Maybe the global warming thing is just a hoax and we’re actually cooling off instead of warming up. Maybe CO2 levels have nothing to do with trapping heat since there’s been CO2 in the air since this planet first existed and temperatures have risen and fallen since before man. Never mind, that’s just crazy talk. After all I’ve lived here in the great northwest or twenty years now and we’ve only had two white Christmas’s. And they were both in the previous two years. Maybe it will happen again this year because of all the good boys and girls here in the Portland area. Not because global temperatures are cooling off instead of warming up. Wait, there’s that confusion again. I guess the earth just runs in cycles and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Now, back to my weekend. I started to put the new flooring down in the bathroom while we waited for Alyson to get home, Laila was already home. As soon as she arrived I packed up all the girls in the van and we headed to grandma and grandpa’s house to spend the night. With only one toilet in the house and it was currently in pieces in the tub I knew the girls wouldn’t make it through the night. They do use the great outdoors during the summer when they’re out playing but it was windy and there was snow on the ground so they weren’t inclined to expose their little bottoms if they didn’t have to.

When I made it back home I continued my work in the bathroom. The time consuming part was taking measurements in the bathroom and then going down stairs to the garage to cut the flooring and then back up to fit the piece in. More than once I had to take something I already cut back down stairs and modify it. I tried to cut as many pieces at once as I could but some of it has to be measured from the pieces I had to cut and install.

On top of that, the last full piece of flooring in the box was damaged and I needed it. I had just enough pieces to do the bathroom so I had to drive twenty minutes into Oregon City to Home Depot and get a new piece. They were very helpful about it but it still took an hour of my evening to go do.

Once the floor was in I installed the baseboard behind the toilet which I have not been able to do before because the toilet was in the way. I caulked and painted behind the toilet and then put the toilet back in and hooked it all up. By 11:30 I had a working toilet again and a very nice, smooth, level floor. Then I sat down and watched the movie I rented to watch while Kylee was gone because I knew she wouldn’t want to watch it. At 3:30 I finally went to bed. I did a few more things in the bathroom before I went to bed, like putting the door back on. Then Kylee called me at 8:45 in the morning to see how everything went.

On Saturday at 10:00 I went in to pick up the girls because we had work outside to do. Mom said she was working with Laila on something and to drive in slowly so I stopped at a couple of place to get some things before I picked up the girls, instead of after. By the time I got to mom and dads the girls still weren’t ready so we hung out for a while. It was nice to relax a little since my Friday was so busy.

When we finally made it home we all went out to the chicken coop to clean it out. It had been awhile since we had replaced the pine shavings and it really needed to be done. After some whining and complaining from the girls we finally finished. Now the chicken coop has that nice fresh cut wood smell. For a little while longer anyway.

It was getting dark so we went inside and showered and had dinner. The girls watched Tinkerbell and then went to bed. Kylee and I talked on the phone for an hour or so while she was trying to get Griffyn to go to sleep at the beach and then I went to bed for some much needed sleep.

One of these trips that Kylee goes on I want to stay home and do nothing. I had hours of Amazing Race to catch up on and plenty of movies to watch and games to play. Maybe next time. At least the bathroom looks good.