Guess who turned 11?

Yep, that's right!  Mikael turned 11 on February 18th!

 Yes, I made the cake but it was still edible!

Expectantly waiting to open his package!

Playmobil!  Ok, so he probably is a little old for this, but he absolutely loves it and plays with it constantly during his free-time.  My consolation is that he's at least trying to farm like he would in real life, and even have a family that he has to provide for.  It's good clean fun (except when he's cleaning manure out of the corral!).

Here he and Nathanael are at the pizza barn where Mikael chose to go for his birthday dinner.  That was good because I was completely worn out that night - surgery was still sapping my strength!

 

We're so proud of both our boys, how they have a love and compassion for others,
(not always each other, but we're working on that)
and that the Lord really is working in their lives,
redeeming the poor training we gave them in their formative years!
Thank You Lord for the blessings of our sons!

Christmas - finally!

 (From left to right, Back Row: Dannylle, Denean, Syd, Hanna, Charles;

Front Row: Nathanael, Mikael, Sydney)

So... it takes me a while to get things posted sometimes, and that's why I'm just now getting to Christmas!  

Christmas Eve is always at my Dad's house, so we had a great time there.  Then we went to Christmas Eve Service at our old church and then home to Grandma's to get ready for the big dinner the next day!

(as a side note, we still call the little home in Southern Oregon 'Grandma's' because, well... it's just always been that, and the other names we tried for it didn't fit!)

The big day came, filled with too much yummy food (as always!) and a house full of family - just like it ought to be!  It felt like old times except for Grandma and Grandpa not being with us.  We even had a special surprise - my niece came for dinner too!

 Here's the little wood cook stove that my Grandmother cooked on for all those years - and it's what I cook on too when we're there!

Here are few pictures of our Christmas trip back home to our little house!

 Mikey putting on the tree topper

 Our 'little tree' at Grandma's

 

 Stockings all hung (not by the chimney) with care

 

 Mikey - Christmas morning

 Nathanael - Christmas morning

  

The boys - ready to tear into their packages!

  Nathanael leading us in a Christmas carol

 Snow at Grandma's - the day after Christmas

The boys and their Grandpa Syd (my dad) the day after Christmas and about to leave for home.

Pictures from Kentucky

Just a quick review of our recent trip to Kentucky... in pictures (with some commentary)!

Friday 2.4.2011

First whole day in Kentucky: spent in the hotel with a sick child!

Mikael played in the pool, watched movies and lounged in his pj's. His brother slept and took fever reducer, and slept some more! I made homemade chicken noodle soup and fried chicken dinner! We were all right at home!

Saturday 2.5.2011

Creation Museum!

Everyone figured I'd be too chicken to hold the snake, so here's the proof that I wasn't!


I'm sure the botanical gardens are beautiful... when it's not freeeeeeeeezing outside! We walked out to the petting zoo and saw a wallaby, zonkey, zorse and camel (which the boys fed).


Sunday 2.6.2011

Here the guys are standing at the base of the world's largest bat at the Louisville Slugger Bat Museum where we toured the factory, held some history and bought new ball caps for the guys!


It just isn't vacation unless you get to play in the pool, right? The boys spent quite a bit of the evenings in the pool (at both hotels).


Monday 2.7.2011

No, the boys did not sleep with their souvenir miniature bats - they were posing! They love their little bats and play baseball with a foam ball in the basement all the time since we got home.

What a lovely and flattering picture of me - not! This is just hours after surgery, back in our hotel room. Yes, I was checking email from the laptop.


Tuesday 2.8.2011
Here we are, back at the Bat Museum, less than 24 hours after surgery and killing a bit of time before our flight leaves. We're sitting on a 34,000 pound Kentucky limestone baseball glove that sits in the museum.

Getting a bit of energy out before the long flight home!

Here's Mikey taking a few swings at the batting cages at the museum.

Nathanael took some good cuts!

Here's my handsome husband as he gave one a ride!
He took some swings too, for old time's sake!

My little Mikael on the plane headed home! He sat with me and kept me company as well as helped me with anything I couldn't reach or lift while we were in flight.

Charles and Nathanael mostly snoozed on the way home, enjoying the long legroom we were blessed with when the woman at the United desk found out I had just had surgery - she upgraded us for free and we got to board first!
What a blessing from the Lord!

Travels and Field Trips

I'm finally getting around to putting my pictures on the computer from the last 3 weeks, and I wanted to include a few from our travel to the coast during all the flooding! (1/14-17/2011) Nope, no flooding pictures, sorry. I guess when it's something that is normal to see in the winter and you're used to it, you just forget to take a picture of it.

Instead, we were trying out the new camera and took a few pictures of Gnat Creek Falls, just up from Gnat Creek Fish Hatchery. These falls (not overly large) were where many Native Americans trapped salmon in years past. There were very nice interpretive signs posted along the trail.



Here is a small "feeder" to Gnat Creek. After visiting Gnat Creek, we stopped by Big Creek Fish Hatchery, but... not really picture-worthy in any way, at least not this time of year.



Next in line is the foggy (not due to camera malfunction, but due to the weather) picture of the Astoria Column. Charles and Nathanael went on a field trip with Nestucca Valley Elementary School to the 'Astor' Column 2.5 years ago but due to renovations taking place, did not get to climb up the spiral staircase to the top. Though you cannot see it in this photo, the entire column is painted in murals depicting Oregon's history.



This time, they did get to climb the column, and so did Mikael and I, all 164 steps to the top! Whew, did I realize how out of shape my legs were! Yeah, we got to the top and then looked around and saw an absolutely stunning view of grey, grey and more grey murky clouds. So, some other year we'll have to do it all again to see all there is to see! On a clear day I'm sure we could have seen the Astoria-Megler Bridge, which, on our way out of town, we drove across just to say we did it!



We then drove down the coast to Tillamook, where we stayed for 3 nights and visited old friends and our old church. It was so good to see so many friends! On our way home (which had to take a couple detours from the originally planned route due to flooding and other complications) we stopped at the viewpoint just south of Oretown on Hwy. 101. We took a couple pictures of the ocean where the mudflow from the Nestucca River was making quite a show (the picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice!)



We made it home safe and sound and in time to finish getting the house ready for Apologetics! Then, after some 'back to routine' days, we set out again for another adventure. This time we were headed almost directly north of where we live - to the Pendleton Woolen Mills in Washougal, WA. (1/27/2011)



We saw and learned a lot of interesting things as we enjoyed our guided tour of the mill. Wow, we were impressed! And then we shopped and shopped and shopped for something for family and a small item for each of the boys. Nathanael ended up choosing a rather fashionable hat and Mikael chose a messenger style bag with Native American design. We would totally recommend scheduling a visit to the Mill if you can!



As you can see, it was a sunshiny day! So on the way home, the mountain was clear and beautiful, so we took a couple pictures (this one while driving down the road at 55 mph just to see what the camera would do).



This is my favorite Mt. Hood picture that we took that day!
(see the sky-lined horse?)



And here are a couple more just for fun!



That's all the recent stuff! Sometime I do plan on getting Thanksgiving and Christmas on here... maybe after surgery while I'm convalescing!

Kentucky here we come!

In two weeks Charles and I will be in Kentucky, first spending some time at the Creation Museum and then I'll be having a Tubal Reversal surgery in Louisville on February 7th, 2011. We're all fairly excited around here, so thankful for God's blessings to us! If you want to check out a bit more of the journey to this point, just link on over to my other blog and see what's been happening over the past year!

I'm hoping to do a bit more posting over the next week to include our long weekend on the coast (we missed all the good ol' times when it flooded so we thought we'd spend the weekend stranded at our hotel while it flooded!), a bit about Thanksgiving and Christmas at our "new" home, and then maybe a bunch of pictures of the little home in the woods that we now call our own!

May you enjoy every day as given by God, but especially those with a little sunshine :) !