Trip to Silverwood

A week ago we made a trip up to Silverwood. For those that don't know, Silverwood is an amusement/water park above Spokane. It is a great place to practice standing in long lines and negotiating swarming wave pools. That place definitely needs to put a cap on how many tickets it sells for each day.

The highlight of the trip was spending a few days at Freeman's lakeside cabin. Along with playing with the kids, there was plenty of time for relaxation. Alise and Juan, and my parents also took time off work to get away from it all. Here are some photos:

There seemed to be no end to the schools of fish stacked up under the dock waiting to bite any worm drifting by. Bailey caught 17 fish in the space of about 30 minutes. Twice a fishing pole went missing, only to be found at the bottom of the lake with a fish still on the hook. First lesson of fishing: don't leave your pole on the edge of the dock with the hook hanging in the water. There is always a fish stupid enough to bite it.

I will upload some more photos later, for some reason it won't load any more right now.

To be cont'd......

Happy Easter! Did anybody else try to go to church and have one of their kids vomit in the car just as you were pulling in the parking lot? Fun fun!

It was Olivia if you are wondering. It made church even shorter than the time we forgot to set our clocks ahead! Luckily we snapped these pictures before leaving. The girls got easter dresses, and the boys got 3d kites.

An Ending of an Era.....

Another stage of my life has officially ended. I can no longer watch shows with "innuendos" and expect the kids to stare blankly at the screen in total ignorance. This realization dawned on me the other night when I was indulging my occasional guilty pleasure of watching the Simpsons.
What? Sometimes it is real funny!
Well, there were a few comments made by some characters in the show (that I was grinning at out of the corner of my mouth) when I noticed a veiled snicker coming from somewhere to the left of my person. Knowing that couch cushions do not snicker, I turned my head to discover the source of my distraction and noticed Clayton staring at the screen in quite the opposite of "total ignorance". In fact it was more of an embarrassed laugh. Warily, I asked him what he was laughing at. He then proceeded to explain the entire joke to me, while continuing to suppress giggles and constantly shrugging his right shoulder (those that know Clayton will remember that he has several noticeable habits; one of which happens to be a disconcerting shoulder shrug that gets noticeably worse if he is nervous).
After being tutored in the subject of "adult cartoon humor" by my 8 year old son, I promptly turned off the TV and told him it was time to do something else, preferably singing church songs or some other agenda that would scrub his brain innocent again..... Luckily Heather was not in the room and I was able to sweep the whole situation "under the rug" so to speak. The Simpsons have yet to make another appearance in our home, and are likely banned for the remainder of their primetime lives. Which if their past and current success is any indication, could be the next 40 years. Can you hear Taps being played in the distance?

First Real Post

The weather has been turning real nice the last couple of weeks, and the kids are running around bare foot outside in t-shirts. Spring is definetely here.


Taking advantage of the spring weather, the boys and I went out to Grandpa McGary's house this last weekend to go motorcycle riding. There were 10 riders, a pretty good group. Ben and his two boys came out, along with Tyson and Cody, and all in all it was a great time. Here are a couple of photos of the boys on their bikes Christmas day after they found out what Santa brought them. They are significantly faster now then they were then. I am surprised to hear myself telling them to slow down sometimes. But they do love their bikes and usually ride till dark if we let them.

Clayton:

Alex:

Bailey has been having daily fun with all the neigbor girls that have come out of hiding now that the weather is nice. The family next door just put up a new fort/slide/swing contraption they bought at Costco and it is now the neigborhood playgroud. She is also excited to have a girl from church sleep over this Friday night. We told her that her friend could sleep in the garage, but Bailey said "No! She is going to sleep on the floor next to my bed!". Obviously she was intending to remain in her comfy "princess" bed while the "commoner" slept on the floor. We informed her that they would both be sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor.

Olivia is getting bigger and now has some real speed when she takes off running. We can no longer walk and keep up with her. This lets her make full use of our 1 acre lot at home, but the church hallways are no longer the lengthy adventures they used to be. She now ends up in nursery each week with dad (she is only 13 months) since it is the only place for a disruptive child (and fathers who are avoiding church leaders just waiting to corner you in a room and hand you a calling).

As for us adults, we are busy doing odds and ends around the house and getting ready to start landscaping. Having just completed a back lawn at our last house before moving, we are not too excited to start the job over again. Oh well, it will look nice when it is done.

Getting Blog Started

Well we finally decided to jump on the blog band wagon. We will be updating it for a little while, trying to figure it out. Stay tuned.