Arizona on Hold

So, I am sorry to report that we are postponing our move to Arizona until next year! ouch. I am super bummed, I was truly hoping to NOT have to spend another winter in the Northwest. Dan and I have decided to let him get finished up with some more school and save a little more money before we make the move. The kids are all pretty happy that they do not have to change schools again. My mom and sister are jumping for joy. It would be easier to not feel so bummed if it would EVER warm up! It is still in the mid - low 60's and rainy! What the heck!

A Thief in the Night

We have spent time, money and energy this "Spring" into our first garden. We are super excited for "Summer" and to be able to eat some of these yummies. We have planted green beans, carrots, romaine and butter lettuce, red bell pepper, Serrano peppers, pumpkins, sugar snap peas, tomatoes (3 kinds) and Yukon gold potatoes. This morning I was totally startled to look out onto our garden and see this:



As you can see, it looks like a bull dozer came through our yard! I wanted to cry. At first I thought it was my boys - they play outside and are not always careful about where they are playing. I could easily imagine them running through the tomato plants trying to catch a baseball. Then my thoughts turned to Noelle, our dog. She is a great dog, but she also LOVES people food. None of these had actual fruit on them yet (just blossoms) but maybe she could smell the possibility of people food. Then upon closer analysis I noticed this:

WHAT IS THAT - you ask?? CAT FUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't own any cats but I live on Cat Condo street! Between our 2 neighbors and the lady across the street we have 10 cats surrounding us. I am terribly allergic to them too! I don't know what to do. Ever since we moved in we have dealt with them. At first they were going to the bathroom in our front yard under the kitchen window, so when it would rain (and the window was open) my kitchen would get this lovely fragrance! They also like to sleep on MY front porch - what the heck is wrong with their front porch? The suspect is "buck tooth cat" I don't know what his real name is but he is the UGLIEST cat I have ever seen. This picture is actually a good picture of him, his buck tooth is not showing.

Why is there a double standard with cats and dogs? If I were to let Noelle run the streets she would get picked up by animal control or the neighborhood would be knocking on my door freaking out. I have decided that I am going let Dan train her to hunt - cats.

Trip to the Coast

Here in Oregon it is called "The Coast" not "The Beach". Beach is a term used for sunny, warm, overcrowded coastlines where you can actually swim in the water. Here the water is a warm 30 degrees and it is a GREAT day if the weather gets above 60*. Lucky for us, Friday was almost beach like on the Coast. The sunshine was out, it was in the low 80's and the wind (which is usually the killer) was at a minimum. It was fantastic. We decided to pack up everything when the kids got home from school and head out that way since our home does not have air conditioning and it was a warm 95* outside, which made the interior of our home 89*! This was Olivia's first trip to the coast - so here are some pictures.

That is Livy's legs and the other 3 kids in the water.

Family Pictures - again

Doesn't it seem like we just did family pictures like 6 months ago - oh yeah - we did! But we have a new member of the family since then and the Willamette Valley could not be more beautiful this time of year so we went for it!
Dan & the boys

All 4 Kids ~ Spencer (7 1/2), Ryleigh (10),

Olivia (4 1/2 months), Ethan (5 1/2) Jeni & Dan - yeah we still love each other after 8 years!
Jeni & the girls
Jeni and her boys
Dan & his girls Ryleigh
Spencer Ethan Olivia

Nothing

I feel like such a slacker because I have not posted anything in a while. I do apologize - I have been awful about remembering my camera and I don't like to post without a picture or two, but today I will give an update!

We have been SUPER busy lately, of course it is our (okay, my) own fault. As you know I am the Vice President of Softball for the Albany Little League, which usually is not too overwhelming but at our last meeting I volunteered to be the chairperson for an upcoming Aquafina Pitch, Hit & Run tournament that we were hosting. I volunteered 10 days before the scheduled event and found myself a little overwhelmed with the responsibility. I am still trying to recover from it! Alas - it did go off without a hitch and you would never know that I needed 22 volunteers and only got 5! I am so grateful for those 5 and their willingness to multi-task.

Of course our kids baseball & softball games have been keeping us CRAZY busy too! Where we live we do not have a "sports complex" so the kids play their games at the local elementary school fields. Which is fine - except that each one of my kids play at DIFFERENT schools! YEAH - I know! We have at least 1 game every night of the week. I am really looking forward to the days when we can eat dinner before 7:30 pm!

This last week was my Dad's 50th birthday! He thinks he is all old and stuff but really - he is pretty young. My sister put together a little slide show-DVD of his life that was really sweet. It made me a little teary of course (I don't know what happened to my toughness - but I am a wuss!). I got to help out with the slide show by scanning 200 photos of my dad's life into my computer. It is pretty fun to see how much our family has changed through the years. Here is 2 pictures of me with my parents & brother's and sisters. The top one was taken in 2006 and the bottom one was taken in 1993. crazy.
Top Left-Right: Dad, Devin, Tyler, Justin - Bottom Left - Right - Chad, Kristi, Andrea, Me Mom
Top Left-Right Me, Mom (holding Chad), Justin, Dad - Middle Left - Right - Andrea, Kristi, Tyler - Bottom - Devin