April Happenings

Here are some happenings from Mid April:

*We had the missionaries over for dinner and just as I started cooking dinner the power went out.  Luckily I was able to finish cooking it on the burner on the barbeque.  The power went back on right as I finished cooking it. 

*We went to a couple of home track meets.  The first one we went to was cold and rainy.  Evan rain in two events the 1500m and the 3000m.  The 1500 was the second event of the meet and the 3000 was the last event.  So we went and watched the 1500 and then went home and ate dinner and then came back for the 3000.  We were freezing by the time we got home.   The other meet was about a week later and the weather was nice this time.

*Shannon came home from college on April 14th.  It was nice to have her home again.  She had a great first year of college and I think she was a little sad to say good bye to all her roommates and see the the semester come to an end.  She had much better roommates the second semester, which made it more fun.  She had started her mission papers while at BYUI, so when she got home we got into full mission prep gear. Two days after she got home she went to the dentist for her checkup and had one small cavity.  The next day she had her doctors appointment.  We found out a couple of days later that she is anemic.  That would explain all her ice eating and a couple of almost passing out episodes that she'd had.  She also started back to working at Dairy Queen, so she can build back up her bank account.

*I also helped out at the kindergarten open house.  I helped run the sunflower planting station.  I helped the soon to be kinders plant their sunflower seeds.  It was pretty fun, but made for a busy evening for me. 

*At the end of the week Lewis and Clark had an awards assembly and Whitney got an award for music. 

Easter 2018

Easter fell on General Conference weekend this year.  The Friday before Easter we dyed our Easter eggs.   The kids are getting older, but we still enjoy our tradition of dying Easter eggs.  We don't usually do too many because we don't really eat that many hard boiled eggs.

Easter Sunday was also Conference Sunday.  The kids searched for the Easter baskets in the morning before the first session.  I got sandwich fixings for lunch because the missionaries were coming over to watch the afternoon session with us.  We ate lunch with the missionaries and then watched conference.  I bought some Easter treats for the missionaries. 

After conference we went over to the Phelon's for Easter dinner.  We had our traditional egg hunt before dinner.  Whitney was our only egg hunter this year.  Our kids are all getting too old.  

Missionary Update:

Tyler is doing well on his mission.  He is serving in Parkville, Missouri right now.  He is really liking that area.  I think he has been there since the end of January.  In February he had a baptism.  A hispanic couple that he has been teaching were baptized.  Their names are Hillmer and Isabelle and they have a four year old daughter Miranda.   At Easter time he sang in a cantata for a stake Easter service. 

Spring Break 2018

The last week of March was spring break.  I was so excited to have the week off, so I could sleep in.  I love being able to sleep in.  Here is what we were up to on our week off.  Monday Kirk and Evan cleaned the chicken house good.  They removed the old feeders and put some new rat proof feeders in.  We have been having some rat problems down at the chicken house and pen.  They also put rat poison down the rat holes. 

Tuesday Kirk and Evan went to Intel to check it out.  Our stake president works there and he invited Evan to come and see what he does.  I think Evan enjoyed it.  While they were at Intel they girls and I went to the mall.  Lauren's friend Natasha went with us.  She and Lauren went off together and Whitney and I hung out together. 

Wednesday I had to take Evan to the doctor to make sure he didn't have whooping cough.  He came home from the robotics competition with a cough.  He wasn't feeling sick anymore buy still had a cough.  I was pretty sure it wasn't whooping cough because his cough didn't sound like whooping cough.  They diagnosed him with a mild case of bronchitis.  They didn't even test him for whooping cough because it didn't sound at all like whooping cough.  He was suppose to go to another robotics competition in a couple of days but they wouldn't let him because the doctor's office didn't test him for whooping cough.  It was so frustrating for him not to be able to go.  First they told us he could go if we got a letter from the doctor's  office which we did, but then they changed their minds.

Thursday we took a trip to the coast.  We road the ferry across the river and drove on the Washington side of the river.  We crossed the long Astoria bridge back to Oregon and ate lunch at Burger King.  Then we went and drove down the jetty and then went to Fort Stevens and walked around.  Then we headed back home. It was a fun day. 

Friday morning I went to the temple.  It is always nice to be able to go to the temple and escape the world for a bit.   I hadn't been in awhile so it was so nice to go.  Saturday and Sunday were conference weekend.  I always love conference weekend.  We watched all the sessions.  While Kirk and Evan were at the Priesthood session I took the girls to Dairy Queen to get some ice cream.  Sunday was also Easter, but I'll put that in the next post. 

Whitney's 11th Birthday

 March 15th was Whitney's 11th birthday.  Her birthdays are always a little bitter sweet since she is the youngest.  It's hard to have my baby getting so old, but it's also fun to watch her grow.  We had our family birthday celebration that night.  She opened her presents and blew out her candles.   The next night on Friday her friend Morgan that used to live next door came and spent the night with her.  They always have a great time together.  it's too bad they moved an hour away, so they don't get to see each other too often. 

The chicks are growing fast as they always do.  Lauren and Whitney enjoy getting them out of their box and letting them play in the grass in the sun.  It's fun to watch them running around and interacting with each other.  We had to go to Walmart and buy them a bigger box for their home.   The one they had been living in was getting too small and cramped. 

Whitney decided to try out the chicks new box after we bought it before we moved them into it.  She fit.  It was a little cramped.  It'll be perfect for the chicks.  They'll have lots of space now.

Some March 2018 Happenings

*March 6 Mark and Lel stopped by to visit for a couple of hours.  It was nice to see them and catch up.  They were only in town for overnight.

*Thursday March 8 Lauren had a choir concert.  It was good like always, but it was so crowded.  They do the concerts with a couple of the high school choirs.  You have to wait in a long line in the hallway and have to get there pretty early.

*On Friday Brad and Rhonda Fox came and picked Lauren and Whitney up to go to Longview to get some chicks.  They picked out three Americaunas .  They are cute, but sure smell the garage up. 

*Kirk and I went to the woodland tree sale.  We had to get there early and wait in a pretty long line. We bought eight baby noble firs.  We planted them down near the orchard.  Unfortunately they all ended up dying in our hot dry summer.  We didn't keep them watered well enough.

*Evan had his first robotics competition March 15-17.  It was in Yakima, Washington.  The night before he left for the competition he was doing his laundry and accidentally washed his phone.  Luckily after drying out it worked fine.  They did fairly well in the competition and made it to the semi-finals before they got knocked out of the competition.  He came home a little sick with a bad cough.

*The 15th was also the day that I took Lauren to get the first two cavities filled of the six that she has.  She can't get her orthodontist consult until they are all filled. 

Robotics Reveal Party

March started out pretty busy.  Most of my weeks seem to be that way these days. Whitney had to go to the dentist. Luckily she didn't have any cavities.  That was good news after Lauren's dentist trip.   Lauren had a freshman orientation at the high school.  It was called "Becoming a Lion".  They had pizza for dinner there and then had a presentation about high school, then we could take a tour.  Evan was in the robotics shop and told the incoming freshman about robotics. 

At the end of the week on Friday the robotics team and a reveal party for their robot.  It's a chance for the families and the community to come see the robot.  They had some refreshments and a silent auction going on too.  It was nice to see what Evan's been spending every waking moment working on.  It was interesting to see what it could do and how it works.  I wasn't really sure what to expect. 

A Snowy Week

We ended February with kind of a weird week that ended up being weird because of snow.    We didn't go to church because of the snow, so the week just started off weird.  I went to ward council and it started snowing while I was there.  It was coming down pretty fast and it was sticking up at our house, but not at the church.  So I decided we should stay home from church because I was afraid we wouldn't be able to get up the road.  Then it stopped and started to melt, so we could have gone after all.  It's so hard to know what to sometimes. 

Monday, February 19th, was Presidents Day so we had school off.  We stayed home most of the day.  I went to the Legacy lab to get blood work done to check my thyroid levels.  Luckily they were all in the normal range.  Then late afternoon we went to Bi-mart, Goodwill and Fred Meyer.  Then we went to Burger King for dinner.  Such an exciting day off.

It started to snow again sometime during the night.  We woke up Tuesday morning to a dusting of snow on the ground and it was still snowing.  Seminary was cancelled but they didn't cancel school.  We just stayed home because it was accumulating pretty fast and I was afraid we wouldn't be able to get up our road.  Kirk took Evan to robotics later in the afternoon because they had to have the robot done by 9pm Tuesday night.  It started snowing again about 5 pm and was accumulating fast again.  Kirk went and picked Evan up from robotics about 7pm.  About 8pm we found out school was cancelled the next day.

Wednesday morning we woke up to about 4 inches of snow.  Evan and Kirk shoveled the driveway and we had quite a bit of melting during the afternoon.  About 3pm Dad and I ventured out and most of the roads were pretty clear.  That evening we got the call that there would be a two hour late start Thursday morning. 

Thursday since it was a late start I only had to work 1 1/2 hours.  Kirk dropped us all off at our respective schools in the truck because of the snow.  He was really late coming to pick me up after work, so I freaked out a bit and a coworker drove me home.  When I got home he was gone to pick me up.  So I called him (luckily he took his phone ) I told him I was already home because he was late.  Lauren had a dentist appointment at 2pm, so I had to pick her up early.  She had 6 cavities.  That girl better start brushing her teeth better.  Actually she has pretty bad teeth, so it's not totally her fault.  After the dentist we went to Winco and did the grocery shopping.  While at Winco I got a call from Evan saying he left his phone on the bus.  Dad also got pulled over for speeding that afternoon.  Luckily he just got a warning.  That was the craziest day.

Friday things were back to normal. Our only normal day for the week.  It was the only day that I taught most of my groups for the week.  Evan went on an engineering field trip to Oregon State that he didn't get home from until 9pm.  Thank goodness he was able to get his phone back before he left for the field trip.  He went and stood in front of the high school Friday morning and waited for 20 minutes until the bus arrived to drop kids off.  It ended up being kind of a crazy way to end February.