The Princess Alexa Foundation

Wanted to help get the word out about The Princess Alexa Foundation.

http://www.princessalexafoundation.org/index.asp

Since halloween costumes are now 50-75% off, I'm getting involved. I bought 5 costumes today in prices ranging from $3.50-5.00.

Sweet little kids getting chemotherapy for cancer get to dress up and imagine their lives differently for a short bit.

Meet Candy...

Our new puppy is here!! Curtis has settled on the name Candy. Let me tell you a story about it all....

So we go visit the house on Wednesday where the puppies lived. Mama had 10 puppies and 3 had found homes already. We visit all the doggies and Curtis is in heaven. We direct him towards the brown dogs since Maggie was black and we have 2 black cats and 1 black cavy. And I knew we wanted a girl. So we look at the 3 brown dogs and decide it's good. I tell the man we'll be back to get one after I check with Paul. I decide to stop by today on my way out of town and let them know we'd be back. Curtis and I pull up... and there are no dogs. Come to find out, the man decides to give up on finding homes and was heading to the humane society with all the puppies but the one like we wanted. So wife calls him and says, "Bring one back." We said we'd be back after we buy puppy food and a collar. As we are leaving, a man pulls up and says he, too, wanted a puppy! So the wife calls her husband again and tells him to bring another one home.

When we got back, there were several puppies there. She said they decided to wait one more week before taking them in. She told me the man wanted the lighter brown one and I said it wasn't a problem, so we pick the caramel one. And now we have Candy, and Curtis said, "Does she know I'm her Mama?"

I have to admit... I'm pretty excited too. :)

Novembrrrrrr

The cold has hit!

But really.... Paul is a wonderman! He fixed my dishwasher.

We went and looked at puppies today. Oops.... puppies are too cute!! Some day one will probably be ours.

Actually, the only reason I'm posting today is because Paul fixed the blog sign in so it's no longer under his name so it should be easier to update. If anyone is listening...

Until next time America.

School Year

We are well into our school year. Karen and Krissy are both doing well. Krissy's first progress reports showed all As with one B. Pretty good! She is also doing well in volleyball with her first game tomorrow.

Karen hasn't been sent to the principal's office yet, so that's always good news. Karen's cavy Abe got bonked on the head or his eye and we made an emergency run to the vet. He may lose his vision, but he'll be fine overall.

Curtis will be dismissed from speech therapy next week. I'm also not having him go to preschool since I am not working. We'll continue to work on letters and number recognition and him writing his name. He has already lost two teeth and was excited about the tooth fairy's visits.

creepy crawlies

I just had an unnerving experience. I went out to get our pool towels off the clothes line. We just toss them back up there for the next time we need them. There were 5 kinda stacked on each other. So I go to pull one off.... and there are about 50 wasps just hanging out in a fold. It's pretty cool today (well, only 81°) and they weren't active. I grabbed the can of wasp spray and soaked those suckers down. Then watched them fall. It gave me goosebumps and creeped me out!

Life is Good!

Things are going very well for us. I'm so thankful to Jesus for that. Our family got to enjoy a week at the coast, courtesy of Paul's Cousin Julie and family. They lent us their beach house (rough, eh?) and we were 4 blocks from the sand. It was Curtis' first time and he loved it. The weather was gorgeous the first 3 days and sunnier than we expected. The last 2 were cooler, but still very nice. We traipsed down to Seaside and Astoria a couple days. We ate salt water taffy, fudge, calamari, shrimp and other tasty bites.

We spent our week and shared the house with Uncle John, Aunt Chris, Cousins Emily & Ellen, Aunt Kim, and Grandpa Keith and Grandma Jessie. We had a great time all being together. And the best part: no GameBoys, Wiis, cable TV or computers!

So Julie... if you are reading this: THANK YOU! It was such a blessing to have the time off and to use your house. You saved us oodles of money since we could cook our own food. And it's also been several years since we've had a real vacation, so we greatly appreciate what you did for us. THANK YOU!!!!!!!

Karen flying her first kite.


at a lighthouse at Cape Disappointment
Curtis doing the Lighthouse Boogy
Our family.
Beautiful sunsets captured by Paul

Emily & Curtis
Karen digging in the sand
Krissy
Curtis' first time to see the beach



School begins in 2 weeks. Krissy will be in 9th, Karen 5th and Curtis will go back to speech group.

My parents return from Africa in 5 weeks.

Paul's garden is going great and we have eaten some great produce.

My Aunt Jeanne, Uncle Craig, Cousin Cleighton and his new wife Natalie came up from CA for a visit. It was our first time to meet Natalie. It was so good to meet her.

Sneaking up on July

We are nearing the final days of June. The middle of summer is approaching. The hot days will finally arrive. It has been hot enough for this Mom's minimum requirements to hit the city aquatic center. I think Curtis went down the frog slide 100 times. Last year: zero.

The big news is that we have a new daughter. Krissy is 13 (birthday is in August) and going into the 9th grade. She could be with us for a long time, so start Christmas shopping now! We're breaking her in fast: she gets to meet the Steeles next weekend in Ontario. I tried to prep her by showing her family pix on everyone's blogs, but Paul said that doesn't really show her anything. Curtis likes her but can't remember her name. Karen likes her, too, so that is a bonus.

And speaking of fostering, we have decided to no longer do the littler ones. Five years and up. So on July 18 we will be having a very large yard sale. I have 17 (yes, seventeen) totes full of clothes from Karen and Curtis, plus cloth diapers, toys, shoes, blankets, that we will be pricing and hopefully selling. I am going to keep just one tote for each kid of special things for them to take with them. I have about 5 dresses from when I was a baby and I'm sentimental enough to do the same for my kids. It'll be so nice to get those clothes out of the attic. (And stroller, car seats, diaper bags, kick-n-play) Whatever doesn't sell will be donated to the Foster Kid Closet at DHS (so they can give clothes to newly picked up kids).

Paul finished up Stage One of the Fence Project. Not sure when there will be time to do Stage Two: South Side. Our neighbor is quite impressed with Paul's handy work. In our surveying of property lines, we did find out that the prior neighbor owners put in sprinklers about 9" into our yard. Since we are so kind and loving, we did a hand-shake agreement to adjust the property line our way to be in-between the sprinkler lines. Sure beat being mean and telling him to move the sprinklers!

This is a 'wild' squash. It sprouted by itself amongst the flowers. We're letting it go to see what it will do. I figure it'll be ironic if it produces more food than the 'real' ones in the garden.
I know there is housework awaiting. I did get through all the totes and checked to see what I wanted to keep, what I wanted to give away, and what needed to be tossed. Then helped mow (Karen started, Paul finished). Got laundry on the line. Put out lunch, cleaned up lunch and started the dishes.

OH yes... Krissy brought her cat with her, so now we are up to 3.

The Fence

At the moment, the blog gods are not allowing me to move my pictures around. So they are very out of order.

Our berries are ripening. Joe & Abe are helping with the weeding.

With Mrs. Bolland

Last Day of School. She's mad at me because I accidentally got sunscreen in her eye.

Karen receiving her awards:

again

pitching in the last game


at third base

This week we are having a Staycation... Paul is off of work and we are staying at home. Paul is fencing.

May-hem

The month of May has kept us busy. I'm still at Karen's school 2 times a week. Curtis finished up speech group for the year. I ended my first 1/2-year of Bible Study Fellowship. Karen is finishing up her last 7 days of school. Paul...he still works a lot not matter what month.

Karen as Lady Liberty during their patriotic concert.

We did get our house painted.

It's taking some getting-used-to, but we are pleased with the results and glad we didn't have to do it all ourselves.

Paul is busy getting his hands in the dirt. The garden is growing well. At the moment, he is putting in 3 flower pots in front of the house. Two large berry-colored ones under the big window (either side of the yellow chair above) and a smaller turquoise one below the mailbox.

Karen's last softball game is Wednesday. They still haven't won a game, so I hope we win this last one. She is doing very well in school, if you can keep her brain busy. She did score a perfect 5 on her story-writing state assessment. She will receive special recognition at the last awards ceremony at school. Her math is also out-of-sight. She is a couple weeks ahead of the 5th graders in class work. She is doing it all on her own. I'm not sure what they'll do with her next year!

My parents are in Africa now. They'll be back in September. Just before my gramma's 90th bday.

My ILs... are busy, too. Keith is still working at a pharmacy in town. Although...I did hear he's sneaking in a fishing trip here and there. Hopefully Karen will get some casting time when she's up next month. Jessie is in TX for another couple days hanging out w/ her mom and sister.

I'm excited for our VBS next month. I get to teach part of it. We're focusing on Service to Others. I will be doing that part... planning the service activities. We'll be doing things for our local retirement home and our police/fire departments. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm not working this summer so I can be more involved this year.

Paul put up two new tire swings...one horizontal, one vertical. A big hit with all the kids.

On our walk around town, Curtis had to stop and kiss the frogs.

until next time....

Easter Egg Hunt

Well, it's technically a Walk Around And Pick Up Loose Candy Off The Ground. But there were a couple eggs out there that had prizes. Curtis didn't know there were prizes... he just wanted the hot pink egg he saw. Unfortunately, so did the other 30 kids by him. They took off after it and he was too slow. Paul caught this moment, forever disappointed and heartbroken.

He just breaks my heart. There are thousands of candy pieces around him, but it does not matter. He did not get the egg. We keep plastic eggs on hand, so we took the candy they collected and some coins, and I hid eggs around the yard. That made him happy.

It's a Monday

I've had a week... if you count from last Wednesday to today, it's within the week.

I'll fast forward to Friday, since I don't wish to rehash Wed/Thurs. I'll not even be posting a lot about Friday, since it is not very exciting. We got an emergency placement of 2 little kids, but they will be going to a to-stay-at home tomorrow.

Karen got home from her week-long field trip to the coast on Friday night. She was pretty pooped from the constant travel and being on the go all the time. She did enjoy herself, so that's a good thing. She behaved herself, which even bigger.

Her first softball game was Saturday. She got one good hit and got one of the team's two runs. She also won the Spirit Stick for her sportsmanship. YAY! We practiced her pitching since the poor girl who pitches for their team can't make it over home plate. Oops, did I say that out loud? Karen has the power... now to work on consistency.

Paul's garden is going amazingly well, already. He has most everything still in trays in the house and in the garage. He should be able to transplant here soon. We are having gorgeous days, so the threat of frost should be gone in the near future. This weekend he also planted 2 flowering crab apple, 2 lilacs, kiwi and strawberries. It's so nice having a green-thumbed hubby. We'll be eating nice and healthy this summer!!

Oh, and my apologies to those who are still asking if we are moving to The Netherlands. That was just an April Fool's joke. We're here for a good long time, as far as we know. God's surprised us before.

My parents leave for their 4th (and final?) trip to Africa in less than one month. This time they'll be gone for 4 months. They asked if we want any souvenirs, but I told them to spend the money on those there that need it and bring me stories and pictures.

I should get moving. I'm 2 days behind in my BSF lesson for this week. Curtis is at Speech Therapy and the 2 little ones are napping. It's quiet, so I should be able to focus on Moses and Deuteronomy.

Job Transfer!

We got word that Paul's job is transfering us to The Netherlands. We leave in August, so we have plenty of time to get ready. We plan to sell most of our stuff to make shipping easier. We should only be there for 2 years.

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As most of you know, I'm a number geek. While we were on the road home from Seattle, Paul was closely watching the spedometer. He told me we were getting close to the big 100,000....

tada! Then the car broke down and we got towed into Zillah.

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April Fool's on both... we're not moving and the van is still running strong. :o)

Wii is Funnii

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzP-GgqKBVk

Cavies

Joe and Abraham are here.

a.k.a. Guinea Pigs