Christmas 2014

We had a great Christmas this year. We played lots of games and watched our kittens be naughty.

Most of all we enjoyed relaxing and hanging out with each other.

 Jake was thrilled with his crab pot from Grandma and Grandpa

 I am going to blame this mess on the PUG

The number one gift Jenna wanted was these Giant Peppermint Patties! 

New Kittens

In October Jenna's sweet kitty Holly passed away. It was unexpected and really sad. Holly was such a sweet cat. We loved her very much and we were heartbroken.

We decided we would get a new kitten to fill the void and some how one kitten turned into getting two kitties-one for Jake and one for Jenna

 What better Christmas gift than 2 sweet kittens

 Meet Maylie and Oliver

This is Maylie 

This is Oliver

I had plans of taking lots of cute kitten photos but they did not think they should cooperate with that. They would rather run and play than pose for pictures. They are sweet and lots of fun, we love them already!

Thanksgiving in CA

We were so lucky to get to spend Thanksgiving in California this year. It was great to have Thanksgiving dinner with George's family. 

 Dinner outside since it was 80 degrees

 The kids were so eager to eat this chocolate turkey-then they had a blast stabbing it.

Visiting with Grandma Pauline

We spend 2 nights in Newport beach and met up with my cousins family-it was great to see them since it has been many years. We had 2 days of nice weather at the beach, Jake and George went boogie boarding while me and Jenna sat on the beach enjoying the sunshine.

Of course we spent several days at Disneyland, even running into Jenny one night (we knew they were there and they spotted us in Cars land) George's family came with us one day to Disneyland, I think we wore them out.

 We stayed the night at the Disneyland hotel one night (thank goodness we get a good discount from George's work)

A trip to Disneyland is never complete with out getting a rice crispy treat from Marcelines in downtown Disney.

It rained on us the day we went with the cousins but we still had lots of fun.

As soon as we got home we were on a search to get a new kitten since our sweet Holly passed away before Halloween. We decided to get 2 so they would have a playmate and maybe not bother my cat Belle too much. Yesterday we found 2 sweet little kittens at a shelter.

 This is Maylie

This is Oliver

Back to school, again

So sad that summer has come and gone and now it's back to school. Jenna is now a freshman, such an exciting time!

Ready for the first day of High School-luckily it was a freshman only day.

Ready for the first day of 8th grade-Jake is now 5'10" and wears a size 12 1/2 shoe. I think he has officially passed me up.

I insisted that Jenna go to her first high school football game, she was not so fond of the idea but since Sarah's mom insisted she go too they tolerated going. I had a good time, they said they were bored. I also insisted that Jake and his friends go along-they mostly ran around and did not watch the game. I am not sure if either of them will be asking to be taken to another game.

Before the football game I took them all to Taco Bell. This was the first time that Sarah had ever been to Taco Bell!!! We had to take a picture! We are a bad influence.

The boys sat at their own table-you can see they are so excited to get to the football game!

Weekend Trip to Stehekin

This past week we took a little trip to Stehekin, a small little community that is only reachable by boat. It is located off the north west side of Lake Chelan. The place has no cell phone service, no TV's, no computers! How would we ever survive? I was very hesitant about going but after George begging me I caved and decided to go. We went with Jake's best friends family. Amazingly we had a great time and did not miss our electronics at all. There is very limited transportation there, to get around we had to ride bikes that we rented there and we took a tour bus once to dinner. 

 Riding our bikes to Rainbow Falls and the bakery. It was a great ride, I only wanted to quit once.

 Giant cinnamon rolls at the bakery

 Stehekin's one room school house

 Us with the Renschler's

 Rainbow falls

 Fishing

 We rented to Polaris for a couple of hours, that I enjoyed driving around.

People can arrive to Stehekin by Sea plane. This was the view from the hotel. Us girls stayed in a hotel while the boys camped nearby. Awesome trip!

Crabs, Seattle and glass

More of our summer adventures with my parents.

 Here are our glass creations from our glass blowing.

 We went crabbing on day and caught several crabs-only one was a keeper though. We were excited about cooking our first crab ever. It was yummy!

 We also spent a day in Seattle at Pike's Place

 Mom in line to get her favorite piroskys.

We can't leave Pike's with out getting amazing flowers for so cheap-$15 for this giant bouquet.

Crabbing

Several years ago we went camping at Kayak Point, while we were there we saw people crabbing from the pier. Ever since then I have wanted to try crabbing. This year for my birthday my parents bought me a crab pot-yippeee!! Today we headed out to have a try at crabbing off the pier. We had a great time. We caught several crabs, although none of them were big enough to keep (one was just a tiny bit too small). We will go again in a couple of days and take my parents, hopefully this time we will get some we can bring home to cook.

 Jake and I trying to untangle our rope.

 Waiting

 Our first crab pot-we were thrilled to have crabs in it.

 See this one was almost big enough!

 Jake decided to try clamming and he kept reaching down into the sand and pulling out big clams, but we can not keep those.