Mt. Hood Snow Trip

Isn't this beautiful?? I miss snow and mountains.

Last Saturday I went on our youth snow trip to Mt. Hood. I have to admit after the crazy busy day before I had shooting a wedding, the last thing I wanted to do Saturday morning was get up early and spend the whole Saturday away from my family. But it ended up being a really fun time and a beautiful day (Well, the time we were tubing was beautiful - as soon as we got back to the parking lot it started raining and rained almost the whole way home! Talk about lucky!)

I could not believe how deep the snow was - you'd think a girl from Utah wouldn't be so impressed by the depth of the snow at Mt. Hood, but I have been an Oregonian for 9 years now. If I could guesstimate, I think I'd guess that the snow was 15+ feet high from the parking lot. We had to hike in the snow a bit (sinking down every other step) to get to this big hill and I do not own a pair of snow pants. I didn't even think about asking to borrow any until too late Friday night. Oh well. I was a little uncomfortable, but the two girls that came in regular pants AND regular shoes (no boots) were in even worse shape that me. We all survived though and had so much fun, we didn't even notice the wet. Here are a couple cute pictures of the crew.

We discovered that any time three people tried to ride down together, it always ended bad! Most or all of the 3 would be thrown off eventually. (O:

I saved the best for last.

I am a chicken. Let's just get that out of the way. I planned on just watching the girls and boys and crazy adult leaders have a fun time while I stayed safely at the bottom. But I am also easily talked into things like this with the right encouragement (not annoying pestering). Even though I am a chicken, I also have a side of me that wants to live life, try new things and not be a fuddy duddy. I want to experience new things (not that I've never gone sledding before - it's just been a LONG time.) and I want to have fun and let loose. You only live once, right?

So, when my friend Kelly sweetly encouraged (notice - not pestered) me to come along and said she'd go with me, how could I say no? She grabbed the tube and started carrying it up before I could decline. As I climbed up the steep hill, I wondered how I'd feel about this idea when I looked down from the top. I am terrified of heights. Then when I looked down from the top . . . YEP it was scary. And it seemed so steep. Luckily, we didn't have to wait long for our turn or I would have surely had time to mentally freak out.

I just got on the tube and yelled at Dave (pictured above in yellow slicker) to not push us too hard. I should have kept my mouth shut - that was asking for it. And as you watch the video below, I will admit - the blood-curdling screaming is coming from my mouth. It doesn't even sound like me and I am so far away from the camera microphone - how is it so LOUD? I wonder if Kelly is having a ringing in her right ear this week?

So this video is dedicated to Kelly, who helped me do something scary. Even though I looked/sounded like a fool - I'm glad I went ahead and did it. It was fun.

Please notice too that we very nearly crashed into another person along the way - so my fears weren't all unreasonable. My life passed a little before my eyes for that split second. I am grateful it all ended well. (o;

And here's a funny one of one of the guys taking a tumble. Just for fun. The guys definitely had some more exciting tumbles. The best was when one of the young men went off the jump shown in the video below and landed head first up to his neck, in the snow. Unfortunately, my battery died before that one.

Photo Shoot

Dad had a fun idea to get a picture of all of us together before mom, dad and Chris had to leave the next day. So I pulled out my tripod, flash and set up a mini studio. I'm not including the whole family ones to honor Herb's* request that I not put up pictures of him, but we got a lot of funny ones - I just kept hitting the timer on the camera and we got a lot of fun random pictures. These make me happy! (o: Thanks for the idea to do this dad!

Playing Hookie at OMSI

I was naughty and pulled the girls out of school one day during grandma and grandpa and Chrissy's visit. It's so hard to get out and do anything big with the kids coming and going to school all day. So we had one sluffing day. Shhh, don't tell. We still had a very educational experience since we went to OMSI - so that should count more as a field trip, right? (o:

Of course, we had to get lunch somewhere, so I decided to take my family to a really snazzy place downtown off of Burnside called Eat Pizza. A friend of ours is good friends with the owner - that's how we heard about it. It's this funny little restaurant and I mean little - with the best pizza ever! It's got a lot of character and the owner is the nicest guy. Maybe it helped that we knew Barry, but anyway, he took very good care of us. He even gave us extra garlic knots just for the heck of it. For you locals, he is opening another in Beaverton soon - a little closer to us.

Cute!

Natalie always has the best expressions. (o:

Look at the shape of this building. It is literally a corner with a road going on either side. So cool!

Sarah, Natalie and Angela LOVE the garlic knots! And they love people watching out the window.

Playing at OMSI with aunt Chris. Did you know that OMSI is especially a cool place to visit when everyone else is in school?? Not that I want to promote doing that - but man - you get everything almost to yourself. Except for the kids who are really there on an official field trip! (o:

Sarah's cute picture in the computer lab. That's Abby Bear and her.

Playing Connect Four - the OMSI way. With robots! (Just in case you were wondering, I won the game against Christine. I know you were wondering.)

More friendly competitions! I think we should have had an OMSI Olympics!

When you go to OMSI with grandma you get candy!

And grandma gets big hugs for her "thank you".

Sarah checking out a periscope.

Mona Chrissy

We loved the Da Vinci exhibit - what an amazing man. And what a super duper fun day we had together at OMSI.

The other days we had fun swimming at the hotel pool, watching movies, going to see Coraline (Only I would not recommend taking little kids - too scary and an even scarier seen with the biggest boobs ever that you will not soon forget - YIKES - not appropriate for children, we learned the hard way! Live and learn... (o:) And we hung out a lot and talked, the boys had a manly field trip which ended in two injuries to my dad - no it wasn't karate (o:, went to church, did puzzles, looked for beach houses to visit this summer for a reunion with my whole family and just had a fabulous time together. Love you mom and dad and Chrissy - it never feels like long enough when we get to be with you!!

Guilt-O-Meter

I had a funny conversation yesterday with a friend that I recalled this morning. She said she was feeling extra guilty that day and I joked about how we have different levels of guilt every day over something as mothers and women. Today, I am having a higher than average guilt day. On my female induced guilt-o-meter, that reads between 50 - 500 killoweights (never zero - are we ever experiencing ZERO amount of guilt? And 'killoweights' because of the feeling of guilt weighing us down). My meter is at around 296 killoweights today. Not particularly high, because I've done worse than the things I feel guilty about today, but I've had better days too.

So here are my confessions of a less than perfect mother. They may seem piddly or shocking depending on where your guilt-o-meter registers at today. (o: First, I am feeling bad about something I did this morning. I sent Sarah to school in a cute pink shirt with white lace, white corduroy pants, pink socks, and a white coat. I know, terrible isn't it? That is unless you realize that today is St. Patrick's Day. Now I know this isn't the worst offense a mother has ever committed, but for some kids this is a big deal. For Sarah, I know that this is a BIG deal. I KNOW that once she realized that it was St. Patrick's day - perhaps when a friend got on the bus decked out in green and asked where her green was - she experienced two distinct feelings. One, the sadness of being left out of something, however trivial, something that is a big deal to elementary kids - I remember. Two, the feeling of anger at me for forgetting yet another thing. I've mentioned before how Sarah gets annoyed at how I forget things. This is a perfect example. They are not huge, devastating things, they are more annoying things to her. I wouldn't be surprised if she rolled her eyes as she thought of me forgetting as she tried to hold back tears of being left out of this "holiday".

St. Patrick's Day has been a big deal to Sarah since Kindergarten, when she made a fantastic leprechaun trap with her daddy and presented it to her class. Every year, we now have to set up a trap for "Lucky" the leprechaun the night before (which we forgot also!) and definitely wear green. Sometimes we even have green milk or other treats to celebrate this funny "holiday". We always try to make it fun. But we have been a little distracted as we have been having a super fun visit from grandma and grandpa and aunt Chrissy. We were watching movies and swimming at grandma and grandpa's hotel pool until 10 p.m. last night.

My other guilt has come from something a little more scary and less trivial. During the before-mentioned swimming at the hotel pool last night, I kept gravitating toward the hot tub. It has been pretty cold here in Portland lately and a nice hot bathtub sounded more appealing than the cool pool water. Of course, the girls didn't mind the cooler water and wanted to be in the big pool. At one point, Angela wanted to go back to the big pool and I let her go on the condition that she stay right on the stairs. My mom and Chrissy were right by her, but they were in their clothes on the side of the pool. Sarah was also swimming close by.

I had a nagging feeling that I should go be by her, but I wanted to stay warm. So instead, I watched her like a hawk from a distance too far away. And sure enough, she was having a little too much fun and stepped off the bottom stair. I took off to help her - it was all in slow motion. Sarah was actually closest to her and in what felt like minutes, but was really just a few seconds, Chrissy called to Sarah to grab Angela. Sarah swam right over and picked up her poor sister who just went under after doing a panicked doggie paddle for a couple seconds. I felt the weight of guilt instantly. What was I thinking being so far away, just so I could stay warm? Selfish. I also felt so grateful for Sarah who was quite calm and went right over to help her sister. She was our little hero. Angela did have aunt Chrissy and grandma right there too, who would have gotten in to get her, clothes and all, and I could have grabbed her a second or two later, but it was dumb to not stay closer to her. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

So the guilt-o-meter is at a healthy medium high today. It's always fluctuating, but rarely gets very low.

Just an additional note: After writing this, I went to Fred Meyer to find some fun St. Patrick's Day necklaces or headbands or something to surprise Sarah with. I found a cute green four leaf clover lei and a crown with a flashing green clover. Angela and Natalie got to pick one too, as they were my little 'helpers'. They were excited to surprise Sarah and Natalie even said a prayer that morning that Sarah wouldn't be too sad about not wearing green. (o:

I took the surprises to Sarah during her lunch/recess time. When I got there she was surprised to see me, of course, and I asked, "Were you sad that we forgot to have you wear green?" She said, "Nah." Well, so much for my whole imagined story mentioned above. I was shocked. Sarah is growing up. She then said she was a little disappointed, but she was fine. When I pulled out my little surprises, she got a big grin that made my little "mission" worth it. She put on her crown and necklace and I watched her go skipping out to her friends at recess. It made me feel so happy to see my cute 8 year old skipping all the way across the playground. I guess I underestimated her ability to get over little disappointments. And I guess I overreacted about things and should not have felt so guilty.

Huh . . . who knew?

Food, Shamrocks, Shopping and Really Big Boots

I discovered this salad on Valentine's Day when Brady* and I ordered take out from Cheesecake Factory. It's called the Luau salad. Anyone who knows me well knows that I LOVE salads. Well, I have to say that this is probably my most favorite salad that I've ever tried. I have been dying to go back and have it again. My family's visit was the perfect excuse!
My cute mom and dad! We always eat very good when we get together. We decided that it's a good thing we live far away from each other or we'd be humongous from eating non-stop. Just kidding, I'm sure we wouldn't do that. We would only eat grapes and lettuce if we lived closer together.

A little bit of shopping is also a fun tradition when we get together. This time around mom got me a cool salad recipe book (see I told you I like salads - mom knows me well) from William Sanoma. I also found a great deal (50% off) on a really cool journal I can use for my nature journal. (See the entry about books I'm currently reading.) Oh and I found some greeting cards in the same store, Papyrus, for only 50 cents each! I love a good deal. Some of the cards normally sold for $7.00.

More eating pictures! (o:

We got to celebrate St. Patrick's Day together. If you read my "Guilt-o-meter" entry you can hear all about my last minute run to Fred Meyer for St. Patty's Day paraphernalia. Angela picked this "funny little hat" as she called it. She wore it all day - even to the mall and Cheesecake Factory. She got a lot of smiles because she looked so darn cute in her "funny, little hat".

Christine also looked darn cute in the "funny, little hat".

Funny Angela being silly with aunt Chrissy.

Natalie loved wearing grandpa's huge boots. Apparently my brother wears these as part of his police officer uniform and my dad wanted some too. I can see why a police officer would like them. Who needs a gun, when you can just stomp on the bad guys with these! Natalie was actually jumping around - getting airborne - with these monsters on. It was very entertaining, but I was a little worried she would crash right through the floor!

Oh look - here we are eating again! I'm being spoiled. Do I really have to start cooking again when everyone leaves. B O R I N G. (o:

A Peek Into Sarah's Journal

Sarah was reading some things from her journal to grandma and grandpa on Saturday night and I realized she has some gems in there that I had to document. She gave me permission to blog them. Sarah's journal is so cute and creative. She has one where she writes about her days, but she has this other one that's kind of a smattering of creativeness, science facts, poetry and drawings. She loves to write. Here are a couple of my favorites.

All About Me by Sarah

My name is Sarah. My age is 8 and my favorite number is 19. My favorite color is perrywinkle and my sisters are Natalie and Angela. My dad's name is Frank* and my mom's name is Jen, Jenny or Jennifer. (o: My pets are Herby the turtle, Redie and Bluey the fish and Twilight the cat. My favorite holiday is Christmas. My favorite subject in school is music and my 5 best friends are Monica, Taylor, Jenna, Natalie and Allie. My grade is 2nd and my favorite book is Igraine the Brave. My two favorite book serese are: Junie B. Jones and Disny fairy's. If I had three wishes I would wish: I had magic power, there was no such thing as dieing or getting sick, and that I was a princess. When I grow up I want to be a ballet person and a karoty master. Now I've told you a little bit about me, why don't you do the same, exept yours will be about you.

These were a few lessons she wrote down around last spring when we had science girls...

Science Lessons - by Sarah

Lesson #1
Adomes (meaning atoms)
Addomes are teh bilding blocks in everything you see.
example - I am made of adoms.

Lesson #2
Gas
Steem, farts, air, perfume, wind
example - you can breth gas.

Lesson #3
liquids are things that are wet. It can not be mushy.
example - you can drink liquids

Lesson #4
soleds are things that are hard.
example - gold is a soled (drawing labeled "brick of gold")

Gases, Likwids and Soleds
you've seen some things that discribe gases, lickwids and soleds but now i'm going to right a page abowt each of them on their very own page. You will get to see what cool things they can do. Some of them have activetys you my try out. Somtimes experaments don't work but just have fun. Some things might stane that's why you should be preperd. So why don't you go have some fun in my book!

How Do you Make and egg float?

it's simple! That is if you have salt, an egg thats still in the shell and not cracked, a teaspoon and a bowl filled with water.

Steps
#1 take the bowl of water and swet it in front of you.
#2 Put 20 tsp. of salt in the bowl of water
#3 put the egg in and watch it float

Ta da! If you tried out my experiment, sighn right here ________________

WHY THE EGG FLOATED
When you put an egg in water randomly, the egg sinks to the bottom because the egg is heavyer than the water. When you add on tsp of salt it does not float. 2, no, 3, no 4 no 5 no 6 no 7 no 8 no 9 no ten no 11 no 12 no 13 no 14 no 15 no 16 no 17 no 18 no 19 no 20 yes!. Yes because when you add 20 tsp. to the water, the water becomes heavyer so the egg floats to the top.

Emergency Prepearednes - by Sarah

#1 flashlight
#2 water
#3 snackes
#4 a small stuffed animal (just in case you have to leave your houes and your sad)
#5 scriptures
#6 matchis (so you can make fire for food)
#7 pot (you can cook food in it)
#8 caned food
#9 baderease
#10 potcho
#11 a whisel (if you get lost you can blow it)
#12 a notebook and pen (you don't know how much your going to miss righting)
#13 bandade
#14 a backpack (to put all this stuff in)
#14 a wash rag
#15 sleeping bag
#16 lipstick
#17 loshin
#18 toothbrush
#19 toothpast
#20 vidamins
#21 shelter
#22 medasin
#23 glowestick
#24 somthing small to entertane
#25 benefiber ( (o: )
#26 flaverd stuf that goes with my benefiber (Sarah has a water bottle with crystal light and Benefiber every day - my little constipated one!)
#27 silverwere and plats and boles
#28 exstra water for cleaning
#29 soap
#30 pillow if it dident come with the sleeping bag
#31 can opener

and my personal favorite...

My Favorite Things - NEW! (to the tune of the "My Favorite Things" in the Sound of Music) by Sarah

Little black kittens and ginger bread houses
Spongebob Squarepants and little stuffed mouses
Junie B. Jones and singing
These are a few of my favorite things.

Monica and Taylor, my two very best friends
birthday partys that never end
talking and chatering over wings
these are a few of my favorite things.

mom, dad and Natalie Angela too
righting books and playing Guess Who
trying on dresses and putting on rings
these are a few of my favorite things

when the germ comes
when I'm in trouble
when I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite things
and then I don't feel so bad.

Movie Commentator

Sarah is becoming quite the young lady. She makes me laugh a lot lately and it's good for our relationship! (o: We've been going through a rough time this year as she gets older and already thinks she knows more than me. I get a lot of eye rolls, dramatic sighs and grumbling. And every so often a disrespectful comment about how I always forget things or other pokes at my weaknesses. Sarah is just too smart for her own good and has figured out way earlier than I had hoped that I am not perfect. Drat! What's a mom to do?

Well, I am getting over the fact that I am not up on a pedestal anymore - sniff sniff - and I am moving on to the next phase in our relationship, I guess as more of an advisor. There are really fun things about Sarah getting older though. It's not all sadness for those of you with younger kids who still look to you as the center of the universe. (Lucky!)

Sarah is really funny. We have a lot of fun laughing together. She is getting old enough to understand more things and we can have some really good conversations. Sarah's mind is constantly figuring things out and probing, asking questions, etc. One example was when we were watching the Narnia Prince Caspian movie, or whatever it is called, with my parents and sister last night. (Yeah! We have them for three more days for a fun visit!)

Anyway, here are a few things Sarah said or asked during the movie. I couldn't remember them all. After looking over the list I realized that I might not want to take Sarah to a theater for a while. These comments made me think of some annoying people I've sat by at theaters in the past. (o: But as a mom, these were cute and funny...

"How do they get the animals to talk?"

"I want to be one of those girls in a movie, what are they called? That would be so fun." (The actresses)

"How did they make her fall like that?" (the part when Lucy falls down the side of a hill)

"How do they make the centaurs?"

"What if the horses pooped during this part?"

(during one of the big battle scenes) "What if you were going out to the mailbox and this was going on outside?"

"What's a lioness?"

(commenting on the funny masks with beards the 'bad guys' wore in battle) "Oh, man, I wouldn't wear one of those things if someone gave me $2000! That's just ridiculous!"

"Hey, that's a tsunami!" (the water part at the end. Sarah has been learning about natural disasters at school)

Welcome Grandma and Grandpa and Chrissy too!

We have been looking forward to a visit from my family this month. It always goes by way too fast, but we pack in as much as we can and always have lots of food, laughs and good quality time together. Even if it does rain almost the whole visit!

Grandma, grandpa and Chrissy were welcomed by this lovely sign on our door saying, "Welcome grandparents! (Chrissy, I remember you)" We haven't seen Christine since last August and boy have the girls missed her!
Unfortunately, Christine's and our spring breaks didn't line up together. So the girls had school Mon. Tues and Wed. of the visit. They came home with big smiles every afternoon and got a big welcome home hug from grandma and/or grandpa right off the bus.

Angela wasn't feeling good Sunday morning and was very cuddly. She couldn't get enough of grandmas hugs to help her feel better. This picture was taken while we were trying to eat brunch. Angela kept reaching over for a hug. She and grandma were making up for all the hugs they don't get to have because we live far away. Grandma couldn't eat her food for a while because of all the hugging, but I don't think she minded much. (o:

Angela did a lot of puzzles during the visit. Grandpa loves doing puzzles too - they had fun working together on this hobby they have in common!

Ahhh, we've missed you Christine!! (o: You always make us happy!