More Labor Day camping at my dads

Fresh oysters on the fire with melting butter (for those of you that like them)
Amber, Mindy and Kandi eating oysters

Kenna and Kimber eating dinner

Ryan and Josh around the fire

Kevin and myself

We needed some new facebook profile pictures. hehe

Bridger and Kyler talking

Kimber on Kennas 4 wheeler (Bridger Kimber and Kenna rode it down the driveway hill so fast it about gave us all a heart attack. Kenna did actually bite it once and ended up with scrapes on her forehead and nose)

Mike and Kandi

The never ending pictures of Ryan with his finger up his nose

The blue shirts vs the lime green shirts

Michael and Mindys dog Titus

New family picture for my blog header. (since some of us aren't fat anymore. hehe)

Kenna (isn't she the cutest grand daughter EVER!)

Ryan being Ryan

Libby

Happy Birthday to my parents

Both my parents birthdays are in April (my mom on the 8th and my dad on the 24th) so my sister and husband and the 4 of us headed out and met them in Poulsbo for lunch. I love this place. It has the best tarter sauce with dill in it. Yummr.

birthday fun!

My mom doesn't like her picture taken so these are for her! Happy Birthday Mom!

she even showed the bottom of the plate!

Poulsbo is such a cute little town, we headed around the corner and went to Sluy's Poulsbo Bakery.

Then a little walk up the street to the Liberty Bay Bakery. Both were good!

Then we walked down to the water and sat and talked for a while until everyone was too cold. Bridger on a rock

I want to say Kimber was having a moment but really, she is either happy or in a moment. Here is a picture of one of her moments!

Then she was out of it and happy again.

Bridger and Libby

Liberty and I.

Great afternoon in Poulsbo and we didn't even get rained on. Happy Birthday Mom and Dad.

Special Olympics Cycling Weekend

I am going to drag this out to a few posts (just so you don't get too board with over a 130 pictures that I must pick only a few........right, a few) and you will have to wait to see how well or not so well, Kyler (as an athlete) and his cousin Josh (as a peer partner) did by the last post. sorry!

Here are the Puyallup Vikings cycling team with there coach Kelly (Danny wasn't in this picture...not sure why)
Typically cycling has been out at Fort Lewis Army Base. We love the Army guys. They have always been so nice to the kids. Always helpful, Always a lot of them around (to help or be nice) ect. This year because from what I had hear (the army base has some construction going on so they move it to McCord Airforce Base. Now I was excited, Airforce..........jets ect. How fun, something new. Well the cycling was right out on the air strip. But to get there was alot, I mean ALOT more hoops to jump through and felt totally like if you moved wrong you were going to get shot by some guy in uniform. I understand, thats the way it needs to be, but they didn't have to be quit so scary and maybe a bit more friendly. And unless someone did something wrong, there were only 1 or 2 around at any given time (Army was way more friendly) please don't get all cranky at me over my observation, this is just "my" observation. THE JETS WERE COOL. More cool than just hearing very loud gun shots going off at target practice over at the army base. But I would have rather been at Fort Lewis Army Base.
Typically every year they do a cycle inspection. Its very cool, the army guys set up a tent and totally inspect the bikes. Cool for more than just the reason of being safe but cool because maybe some athletes cant afford an inspection or maybe don't have a family member that can do that for them (Yes I am speaking of a guy around, sorry don't chew me out for thinking only a guy can fix a bike. I know others can, I am just saying, me as a woman, I wouldn't be the one to fix Kyler chain, low tire ore heaven forbid something with gears or oil, I would make Kevin do that and I would have cute cupcakes waiting for them when they finished hehe.) Man being politically correct in blogging is getting harder and harder. Anyway, this year McCord Airforce Base made it MANDATORY. Cycle inspection would be done on base from 7 to 7:30am saturday morning. MANDATORY. So we got up at 4:45 AM in order to be out there to get it done. THEY didn't even have a station set up and never did them! Kyler and Josh's first race was at 1pm. Did you all read that.......... we had to be on base at 7AM and his race wasn't until 1pm. (then of course they were running behind schedule. Our first race ended up starting after our last race was suppose to be finished. IT WAS A LONG DAY.

Here is Kevin killing time. Doing his favorite thing to do...crossword puzzles. He's so smart
My brother in law was killing time talking on the phone.
Kandi and Kimber trying to stay WARM. It was 41 degrees when we got there and it didn't warm up until way later in the afternoon, which we then ended up with red noses.

They didn't mow the grass so it was really tall so Bridger decided boots (even with shorts) would keep the tall blades of grass from bugging his legs. The draw back of wearing boots, your socks keep falling down.

Kimber jumping around trying to entertain herself (or us)
Kimber watching the races
Bridger watching the races.
Kimber turned a stop watch into a phone to keep herself entertained.

Saturday May 10 2008 a great day in more ways than one

18 years ago today, I gave Kyler one of my kidneys and we spent Mothers day in the University of Minnesota Hospital. Everything went so well, it was one of the best mother days. And it lasted for 15 years for him.

Today was a crazy busy day again. Kyler had to be in the next city over for cycling practice at 8:30am. I took the little kids with me so they could play at the park for a couple hours (in between dodging raindrops) Kevin headed over to our old house about 7:30am to get working. (last night he spent a few hours working over there along with my sister Kandi and her husband Mike) Bridger, Kimber and I came down last night for a hour or so also. This is what the kitchen looked like this morning when Kevin started working. I don't have a good picture of it before, but that is the old cupboard on the left side of the photo. They were wood, but tired and old.
Here is the mess going on. A couple of cabinets put together and alot of stuff on the floors to get put together.

After cycling practice Kyler helped put some together. See how he smiles nice when he wants too!
Kevins brother Mike came down this morning to help. If you have never put together IKEA furniture its horrible (usually) we have had a few things, but its been a couple of years since we bought anything that needed put together. Maybe they changed the way they do things, because after you put one cupboard or drawer together which took an hour, the next one would go together in mere minutes, no joking. It was great.
Getting so much done!
Look how nice the white really brightens it up. This kitchen is pretty large and it only has one small window. Back when it was a 2 bedroom house, the back doors were glass french doors so it let alot of light in, But we added on a family room, master bedroom, laundry room and master bathroom, so there was less light from the two family room windows than the french doors use to let in. Its kind of dark in there but the white really adds to it. Hope the new owners (who might come along soon?) like it.

We are alot further done than I ever thought we would be just since we picked everything up on thursday night. WOW
There will be a new sink under that window but it has to be cut in.
We had bought a new white frigerator, a new white dishwasher but we had not gotten to the stove yet. Yep, its cream. And its going to stay that way. I actually like it better than the one I have now but we cant trade it out (it wouldnt work right)
Usually Kyler washes the outside of the house once a year with that windex stuff you screw onto your hose. Well he always runs out before the side no one sees and he weasled his way out of it last summer, so it was dirty. Today he pressure washed it. Bridger took this picture.

the next picture after this one should be before this one. But anyway, I am not starting over. Heres Kyler pressure washing the house. It really didn't look so dirty but mud was coming off the house as he sprayed. HOW? WHY? its not like our house has wheels and is driving down the road with other cars back spatter.
Kandi and Mike showing Kyler how to use the pressure washer. (yes my kids have two uncle mikes and two aunt Kandi's (Candy)
Kimber had to "pressure" wash the house also.
Kimber said this was a screwdriver and a baby driver.