BBQ etc....

Most fourth of July's we try to go boating, play in the water and relax. This year we decided to try a little bit different agenda since we have a lot of foster kids around and playing in the water isn't always an easy task. We headed up to the Mountain house and had a bbq, played, celebrated Logan's Birthday and chilled.It took a few of them to figure out that the gas wasn't hooked up to the BBQ. One little thing can ruin a bbq if your not careful.

 Ambria and I tried to sneak up on Saige and her cousins. We tip toed down under the camper bed and listened, until we were bored. The girls weren't talking about anything good so instead we scarred the beegeebies out of them.

 Some of these cute girls on the fourth of July-Ambria, Saige, Isabella and Kennedy.

 The younger kids had a good method going of how to get wet. Rylan would stand on top of the porch and kick water out of the mini pool and than the other kids would stand under it, as if they were taking a shower. Perfect solution to cool off.

 Later in the evening we headed down to the port to watch the fireworks. The wind was blowing so it kept the chill factor in the air. The kids made due with running around playing TAG and duck, duck goose.

 Rylan ended up hiding in her sleeping bag for a little bit because she was so cold-but in the end she sweet talked her Dad to going back up to The Brennan's to watch the fireworks.

 Kaedra has a style of her own-reminds me of when my kids were young. My favorite part of the evening was listening to her sing America the beautiful. She had most of the words down, and what she didn't have she made up. Kaedra would sing and wave a small American Flag in the air.

I am so glad for the people who serve our country to keep us free and to keep peace in our land. I think most people take for granted what an amazing country we live in. To think of some of the other countries and the constant civil war's going on makes my heart heavy. I am grateful for This beautiful land.

Independence day parade

 Time to celebrate our freedom and America. We always enjoy going with family and friends to the local Hood River fourth of July parade. This year was just about right for the weather. It was sunny and in the high 60's, low 70's so pretty mild for this time of year, but great for a parade.

 We wore as much of our red, white and blue gear as we could and took on the day.

 Let Freedom ring!!!

                           Our family loving the spirit that the fourth of July brings.

 Kelsey with part of her gang and than me with my big gang, ok little gang.

                       Happy Independence day from our family to yours!!!!!

All Alone

Once in awhile we will only have one child at home with us. It is rare but also pretty fun. Ambria was so excited to be the only child that she begged us to go out to eat so she could feel what it was like. It wasn't too hard to push us out the door to one of our favorite Hood River Restaurants, DIVOTS.

 We decided to take in the out doors, Which we kind of regretted once the sun went down.

 But with a view like this you can wait all afternoon and be quite ok. I love the view from here-and you feel like there are no houses around. It's so peaceful.

 Ambria went with a nacho supreme which turned out better tasting than I would have ever expected. I had fish and chips and Mark had some hamburger. Needless to say we were all nice and full but of course had to make room for the "fudgy wudgy pudgy cake"-ok it's called something like that but that is the name I have always called it.  My all time favorite desert-and I don't normally like Chocolate cake. Even though the bill was ridiculous-gulp. It was fun to take Ambria out and have some one on one time with her. Love you Preemie.

Cherries all around

 Cherries----It's that time of year again and our wonderful Boss lets us come to his orchard and harvest as many as we want. Sadly all we want them for is to eat, and eat, and eat. I have never liked cherry pie, or ice cream or any of that sort of stuff-just a yummy ol' cherry to pop in my mouth. I get kind of addicted to picking the cherries and could stay picking all day long-I have to have my family rein me in to tell me it is time to leave.

 Ambria was really into picking the cherries. She got right up on the ladder and picked away at the Bing's.

 Woops someone got a little bit of cherry on their shirt.

 Samantha and Saige were not thrilled to be helping us with this chore but they didn't have an option. The only bad part is they thought it would be fun to get all the split and nasty ones. Had we known that was their game plan we would have sent them back out to pick a heck of a lot more. Unfortunately we didn't find this out till we were long gone.

 Look at those babies. I picked Rainier because that seems to be our family favorite. Bings aren't too far behind. They bring back great childhood memories. We use to climb in my grandmas tree and eat as many cherries as we could handle. We would than have a cherry seed spitting contest, and typically would spit more at each other, or whatever cousin we didn't like that day.

 Dale taught the girls how to pick cherries so that you don't harm the fruit for the next season. I had no idea that they had a special way to be picked. All these years I think I have ruined the trees. Note** Cherries will last longer if left on the stem too. Rylan's favorite part about Cherry picking-is climbing the ladder. It is pretty high and cool.

 Mark almost ate more than he picked. For some reason more ended up finding the route to his mouth than the bucket. That's ok though because we had more than we needed.

Time together

 Working during the summer is never my favorite thing to do. I miss out so much on fun times I could have with the girls. I try my best to take advantages of the evenings or my days off. Normally we are so busy we still don't get to chill and have fun.

 Our favorite thing is huckleberry smoothies and milkshakes so we don't mind sharing one whenever I can pull away from work and we can enjoy ourselves.

 It was well into the evening and my 2 older girls and I decided to go watch the kite boarders since it had been very hot and windy all day. But of course by the time we got down there the wind had died down. So I read a few pages in a dumb book and than we skedaddled back home. We tried and that is half the battle.

Gloria

 Are daughter may be 16 but we have caught her sleeping with her hippo Gloria lately. It could be that she has been watching scary shows lately, it could be that she is just plain tired, it could be that she loves to snuggle. I think everything loves to be loved and I hope Gloria is feeling the love now days. Love you my cute daughter and your little hippo too.

Hall's FIRE/BURGLAR/ and everything SAFE

A few months back my husband inherited this massive safe from a family friend. It is quite the antique and quite the load. This safe weighs well over 2.5 tons and makes dents in the pavement as it sits and waits to be moved. We had this gem stored in one of our small units but decided it was time to move it to a new home in our garage. This thing is so heavy besides using a fork lift you have to get pretty inventive.

 Mark worked for days on a pulley system that he could use to get this baby up the incline and into our garage. Late last night (like 11pm) Mark had an idea. He called me from my bed to help move the board every time he moved the safe. He would crank the safe up a few feet, tighten and I would place the board under it's wheels and back away quickly-it would crush any limb I had and flatten it to a pancake.

 It took about 30 minutes and every muscle in my husbands body working to get this puppy up into the garage. He ended up getting this sucker up and in and than he ached for hours after.

 (Here he is making the cables tighter to get over the lips of the garage.)

Hall's safe and Lock Company was founded between 1846-1848 so this baby is old. The pictures are unique and it's a vault inside a vault. I think we can safely  put anything in and feel protected. There is no way a burglar can swipe this bad boy without us knowing. Phew-now I can sleep at night.

Every dog has it's day

My little girl is a rollerblading, Heely queen. It is as if those things were glued to her feet. Luckily we live in a wonderful paved facility that is a rollerblader's dream

But just like everything in life sometimes you have to learn with a little bit of pain behind it. One wrong turn and this can happen. However 20 minutes later, after a band aide she had her heely's back on and she was rolling around like nobodies business.