Day 12 - Slip, slidin' and sleddin'!

Today was so much fun, we all had a blast. We woke up to about 5-8 inches of the white stuff on the ground with a slight dusting coming down. The kids squealed with delight (and so did we :)) and we couldn't get breakfast made fast enough. We ate in the condo this morning. Hannah and I whipped up yummy pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, fresh marionberry yogurt and OJ. A great start to a busy day! I have to say that I LOVE staying in a home instead of a hotel. Between the flexibility of being able to prepare meals at "home" instead of always eating out and the availability of a washer and dryer, makes this mama to a family of five, very happy!

Here are some photos of the day (in no particular order). See ya'll tomorrow!!

Day 11 - hmmm, finally posting

Well, I have been "saving" all the posts in drafts because Bob wanted to add some witty comments however, I believe if I keep waiting on him to add anything, you'll never know where we were, what we did or how our trip is going so here are the posts.

Day 11 - Snow Day!

Day 10 - Bend Bound....

After cleaning up the motorhome, wrapping up lose ends and having breakfast we finally made our way over to Bend around noonish. Snow was supposed to be coming in and I didn't want to drive over the Santiam pass in the snow nor did I want to have to deal with chains on the tires if I didn't need to. We timed it perfectly and was able to get over the pass before the inclement weather set in. Made it all the way to Sisters, OR before stopping for gas and a minibreak. Temps went from about 34-40 in Salem to 24-28 in Sisters. Brrrr......lovin' it!

Arrived at the new place and LOVE it! 2-4 inches of snow on the ground and the kids couldn't even get in the door before they started a snowball fight! After we got settled, the kids went back out again fully gloved and clothed properly this time and played once again, made snow angels and just ran around having a grand ol' time!

Time for dinner, I'll catch up more tomorrow.

Day 9 - Ready to head out

Our last day in the homestead with Shay and Derek. She turned us on to VRBO.com to look for a place to stay in Bend and I think I have found a new love! Vacation rentals by owner is the site and I may never stay in another hotel ever. We found a great 3 BR, 2 bath place completely equiped in Sunriver, OR for the same price as a hotel just about anywhere. The guy who owns the place lives in Portland so we met him halfway and picked up the key and dropped of deposits, etc. I'll be interested to see the place in person tomorrow but the photos look amazing. Very excited about this find. Bob and I will be checking out VRBO for places to stay for the remainder of our trip!

Rain set in today and temps dropped once again, a great day to stay by the fire. Shay and I caught up, swapped photos, recipes and old memories of days gone by. The kids played, we hiked out and about and had a good day! Still no complaints about our trip!

Day 8 - Hanging in Salem with the fam...

What a LAZY day. The kids are up to their eyeballs playing with their new toys. We are still stuffed from the great meal last night and today is a day to just catch up on old times.

The highlight of our day was heading to Cinebarre (a movie theater where you can eat a sit down meal, drink a beer and catch the latest flick all without ever leaving your seat) - so we watched Sherlock Holmes. It was awesome. I LOVE Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law was equally as good. There was some serious bromance going on, lol. The relationship between Homes and Watson remided me so much of the relationship of House and Wilson in the tv show House. All in all a good movie.

That was about all we could muster for the day! Back again tomorrow folks!

Day 7 - Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! Today was a wonderful day spent with family and friends. Santa found the stockings we left for him and filled them to the brim. He sure knows how to make those kiddies happy! Granted, it was a small Christmas in terms of gifts but meaningful in terms of spending time with those we love!

We wrapped up the day with a delicious meal of ham, turkey, potatoes, corn casserole, homemade sweet tea and some yummy desserts! What more can you ask for? Life is good and today was exceptionally good!

Day 6 - back to Salem

Well, we didn't get up to Seattle like we had planned but we have romped, hiked, played and stayed all around the northwest part of Oregon so far and the kids aren't disappointed in the least, so it's been a great trip! Sometimes when you try to plan too many activities it gets to be overwhelming so allowing the kids, weather and whatever the day brings to plan the trip has been refreshing and fun!

Today we finished up our laundry, checked out and headed south. Tillamook Cheese Factory is always a fun stop and once again the kids loved checking out the cheese process and hanging out. This made a nice rest break along the journey. Next we headed to Pacific Beach over to our favorite brew pub - the Pelican. The restaurant is situated right on the beach and about 100 yards off the beach is an absolutely enormous rock monolith that is simply amazing. There are also these great sand hills that my kids love to run up and down and when I say sand hills, I really mean mountains as they are not hills. We got there just as sunset so here are some photos of the monolith and the kids!

We have been checking norad Santa tracking all day and it's time for us to get home, into our new Christmas jammies and ready for the man in the red suit to arrive! Great place, great fun, great chili and beer but time to head out on our journey once again!

Day 5 - OMSI

Late morning. We have not been on a schedule and have had leisurely days on this entire trip. It's been nice and very relaxing! Breakfast at the Pig N' Pancake (per Shay's recommendation) and it was delish! We've tried to eat out no more than once or twice a day and this was a worthy meal out! The kids thought the hot chocolate was 2 thumbs up!

Headed over the pass into Portland, driving through our first snow, it sure made it feel like Christmas is upon us!

Getting into Portland after lunch made for a short day since it is dark by about 5pm these days. We headed for the OMSI - Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Since it closes at 5:30 we decided to hit the museum and catch an OMNIMax show on Bugz in the Rain Forest, after seeing the Bugz show (which I fell asleep in), I wish we would have caught the show in the planetarium instead, oh well, the kids had fun. The OMSI is a really neat place and they have so many exhibits and hands on things for you to touch, see and interact with, the kids had a blast!

Knowing that we had an hour drive back to the coast, we didn't get to stay in the city for as long as I had liked. The kids were hungry and tired so home we headed. Tonight we found a great little pizza place off the beaten path, picked up a pie and headed back to our room for dinner and a movie. It was a great day and no rain!

Day 4 - Seaside bound...

Shay and Derak have to work for the next few days and only have Christmas off so we decided to head over to the coast and then north. First we headed down to Depot Bay - home of the World's Smallest Harbor and famous for whale watching. They have a great restaurant there that is one of our family favs, Gracies Sea Hag and Grog however we were disappointed to find it closed on a Monday, schucks, now where to eat in this tiny town with few options. Thankfully right next door, and open, was the Chowder Bowl which we decided to try. No disappointments there, the chowder was excellent and sure gave Gracies a run for her money.

We headed north to Lincoln City, passed through Pacific Beach, Tillamook and headed up to Seaside. We were lucky and were able to get 2 nights stay at the Shay's timeshare at the WorldMark Resort on the beach in Seaside, north of Cannon beach and south of Astoria (for those keeping up with where we are staying). Beautiful place on the beach.

Today was a lot of driving to get from Salem to the coast and north so we are in for the night and have great plans for tomorrow.

Day 3 - Monday w/ the fam!

Shay is off today so we decided to catch up on some last minute Christmas shopping for the kids. We grabbed a bite to eat at this wonderful little bistro, the Wild Pear. I had probably the best veggie quiche ever. It was filled to the brim with delicious veggies. I topped it off with a cup of hot chicken and rice soup that made for a perfect meal on a rainy cold day.

It was great hanging with Shay, however shopping was a bust as I couldn't find a few of the things I had in mnd. Oh well, this trip wasn't about big gifts anyway.

Making my famous Paul Prudhomme's chicken and pasta dish tonight for everyone. Now, off to take a mini nap and enjoy listening to the rain.

Day 2 - NW Adventure - Salem, Oregon

Well, here we are. We are nestled all comfy cozy in the motorhome outside of Shay's house (to give us some privacy) and enjoying catching up with the family. Surviving on only 4-5 hours of sleep the night before we all crashed soon after we arrived last night and enjoyed a blissful night of slumber! After leisurly waking up and getting ready (it was almost noon when we were finally ready, lol), we headed out to the local Public House - a McMenamins Brew Pub - they are famous here in the NW and this one was one of our local hangouts when we lived here. They have the best fish and chips! Once again, the food and grog did not disappoint.

Of course, the rain was here on arrival and is just as we remembered it. Hasn't bothered us a bit and are actually enjoying it. Being able to pull out all our hats and gloves has been great, especially when where we live it is a perpetual summer, 1 season year round with almost no rain.

Today has been a lazy day and we wrapped it all up with a night out with some of Shay's friends for a party they host every year called the Winter Solstice. Everyone brings a dish to share, they build a huge bonfire out back and everyone brings their bongos, drums, guitars and other instruments. At one point, they turned out all the lights, we lit candles and celebrated. It was a fun evening. Hannah and Christian loved being a part of the drum circle and Xander really showed his musical talents on the guitar tonight even impressing the 18 and 19 year old boys that were there playing along side him. We were very proud of him, he did great!

Again, early to bed. Tomorrow I am looking forward to spending some time with Shay shopping and hanging out. Fun times!!

The journey begins....

Today we begin a 2 week unstructured journey of the Pacific NW. Our plans are to use my cousin Shay's home as our base camp making day and overnight trips everywhere from Bend, Portland, the coast, Seattle, San Juan Islands and more.

Left the house at 7am this morning - decided to change leave time after the horrible traffic heading towards LA late Friday night. Good idea on leaving this morning as we didn't have one traffic problem, yeah for us!

We were going to stop but decided to make the drive straight through since the kids were being so wonderful and the traffic was so good. After 15 hours are driving we finally made it from San Clemente to Salem!!! YEAH.

The most eventful part of the trip was the gorgeous view of Mt Shasta all covered with snow, it was simply amazing.

We'll post more each day, stay tuned!

Manic Monday

It's raining, it's pouring...... and a perfect day to stay indoors and get many of the things done, I need to get done. You know all that dreaded wrapping - although I love making the presents pretty. Sometimes the package wrapping is better than the gift, lol!

Three quilts to craft this week, 2 for American Girl doll bunkbeds and 1 for Xander, his is long overdue as I was supposed to make it last year. Oh well, I am only one person with so much time. Speaking of time, I am down to the wire. We leave for Orygun as the natives say it (Oregon) next Friday and I couldn't be more excited. My cousin who lives there said that it was 34 yesterday but felt like 25 and rainy. For some of you that may sound like torture but for us, we live in a place where it is summer year round so we are excited about getting out our hats, gloves and rain gear. The weather certainly won't dampen our parade!

Lots to do before the kids get home. We'll be blogging our entire trip. Yes, I know we are intermittent bloggers, lol however you always know we blog on our vacations and with new laptops, life has become easier and more mobile so stay tuned for more updates!

Happy holidays - did you get your Christmas card from us yet? If not, send me your address and I'll send one right out! XOXOXO

Getting ready for the holidays!

It's official, Christmas cards are out! Albiet a week late for me they are done and out. I am so excited, these are my favorite cards yet.

The days are turning in to a big blur as we get ready for the holidays and ready to leave for our trip to Oregon. Very excited about driving back and looking forward to spending it with old friends and family. Hopefully, we'll get everything done in time.

Hope all is well in your world as you get ready for friends, family and the holidays! Please let us know how you are doing!

Much love. XOXOXO

Pumpkin Patch ~ October 2009

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Hannah and Vanilla

Hannah was the 2nd student in the class to bring their mascot home. Vanilla goes home with each child for a week and this was Hannah's week with him. Looks like he had a great time!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Quote of the Day

"History will be good to me because I intend to write it" ~ Sir Winston Churchill

May we all be blessed enough to leave a rich and memorable history where yesterday once was!

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Philmont Backpacking Trip Photos

Feel free to check out our journey here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/my3happykids

It was an awesome trip that I hope I get to do again sometime in the future!

See ya in 2 weeks!

Backpack packed, check. House cleaned, check. Groceries in the pantry, check. Kids bathed and ready for the week, check. Calendars printed, schedules arranged, check. Time to leave for two weeks on a grand adventure with my son! Very exciting.

Happy birthday to my baby Christian, turning 5 on 8/2 and my oldest Xander, turning 14 on 8/4 - I love you both! Hannah you take good care of the the boys while I'm gone! I love you. Mwah!

A special happy birthday to my mom who has a birthday on August 6th that I won't be home for as well. I love you and will call you when I return! Have a wonderful day!!!

I'll post again when we get back. Much love to everyone.

Tasty Tuesday - Apple Enchiladas

Apple Enchiladas
Super easy and DELISH!
A family favorite and I always double or even triple the recipe.

1 21 oz. Can Apple Pie Fruit Filling
6 8 in Tortillas
1 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
1/3 cup Butter
½ cup Sugar
½ cup Firmly Pack Brown Sugar
½ Cup Water

1. Spoon fruit filling evenly down center of each tortilla; sprinkle evenly with cinnamon. Roll up, place seam side down in a lightly buttered 2 qt. Baking dish.
2. Bring butter and next 3 ingredients to a boil in a medium saucepan; reduce heat and simmer, stirring constantly for 3 minutes. Pour sauce over enchiladas; let stand for 30 minutes.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
4. Serve hot with vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream.

AWESOME DEALS!

(FB users, click "View Original Post" to see the full article in my blog!)


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Made with love...

I am so behind in my posting that I totally forgot that I had this one saved in my drafts (since December) and never posted it because I kept forgetting to add the photos, this is a good one, many mom's will understand and quite possibly relate ....

My children have all had a "lovey" to keep them comfy at night or during times of need. As most parents know, when that lovey disappears you will move heaven and Earth to find it. Christian and I went to Michael's shopping this past week and he asked if he could bring his boppy in the car, my first mistake, and I said "sure". We get there and he asks if he can bring it in the store, second mistake, and of course I say "sure" because I am feeling like he will be responsible. Between the time of entering and exiting I have long since lost thought of this beloved blanket from my mind. Fast forward 8 hours to bedtime when it is no where to be found. Michael's was still open so I sent Bob on a wild goose chase to no avail. Not content that he looked "like I would have looked ;)", I proceed to go back to Michael's so that I could be the hero when I found it. Unfortunately, I came home empty handed and felt more like a sap than a hero. So we comforted Christian, got him to sleep and assured him that tomorrow we would tear the house apart and go back to Michael's looking for this boppy.

This boppy is a well loved blanket that was made special for him by our dear friend and old Oregon neighbor, Auntie Diane. She had monogrammed it with his birthdate and name and this boppy never left Christian's side, think Linus from Peanuts. Sometimes this thing got washed more than once a day when he was sick or it had been drug through the dirt and other times I just gave in and let it be this gross, nasty embarrassment of a lovey that I was horrified for any other mother to see although I knew somewhere in their minds they would understand and had been there too. I just couldn't keep up with all the "loving" he gave this thing. So to have lost it meant that Christian lost a piece of his soul.

Notice all the "loving" he gave this thing? He would twirl the corners of the quilt around his fingers until finally the corners are so shredded and it had been washed so many times that all the batting came completely out of the quilt, it is now merely 2 pieces of old, tattered fabric barely held together. He treats it very gingerly these days!

As any mother would I woke up and began the boppy hunt again to no avail long before any of the kids woke up for school. I even stopped homeless people around the shopping complex to look into their carts as someone had told me that they had just seen it at the store on the bench up front (and even described it to me to a T and said that it was "just here"). They also told me that they had also seen a homeless man loitering right outside the store within minutes of seeing it. I was ready with cash in hand to beg, borrow or steal this boppy back from anyone that may have taken it from Michael's. The employees had seen it, other people from the previous shift had seen it and everyone was sure that it was still there. Again to no avail, no one homeless or otherwise had it in their possession.

Now I am mad, crazy woman because my son lost a piece of his soul. I send him on his way to preschool and everyone off to their respective places and make a mad dash to the fabric store. Who knew that you could buy fabric, cut perfect squares and assemble and sew a full quilt in less than 10 hours? That's exactly what I did. There was no way my son was going to bed without a "lovey" that night. I worked in a mad dash to get this completed and mind you I can sew however I have NEVER made a quilt before nor had it ever crossed my mind to make one but I did.

New quilt. Every intersection is hand knotted and it is nice and snuggly. He calls it his "new boppy", not quite the same as his original but he "tried" to love it just as much to make me happy since he knew I made it with lots of "mommy love"!

At 8:30pm when it came time to say prayers, I snipped the last thread, said a prayer when I tied the last quilting knot and already washed and dried it. I handed my babe a fresh warm out of the dryer brand new quilt. Whew, disaster averted!

During all this mayhem, I emailed Auntie Diane to beg her for scraps of the same fabric she had made the first one from however I just couldn't wait the weeks it would take to get it and had to take matters into my own hands. Much to my delight she made him another one that arrived as a surprise a few weeks later. So now he has THREE boppies. The one I made, the replacement on Diane made and lo and behold his original one.

New Auntie Diane quilt! Notice how bright the colors are? Believe it or not, this is the same fabric the original was mde from.

Where was this original boppy? Two days later, Hannah was cleaning out from under her bed and guess what she found? His boppy. The strange thing is, is that Bob and I had both looked under there, the Michael's store manager had personally found it and put it on the bench waiting for the owner to return, other people had spotted it and we could not find it anywhere for 2 days of constant searching. After lots of prayers, I am a believer that no one "person" put that boppy back in our hands, it was a true gift as I am telling you it was NOT under her bed previously!

After all the hooplah of making the quilt, Hannah and Xander decided that they too needed homemade quilts. Here is Hannah's and I have yet to make Xander's but I have all the fabric and Xander has decided that he wants a big X from corner to corner with all the other colors surrounding it. So here is my new claim to fame and I liked making them so much that you too, may find a "Kimberly Quilt" in your mailbox someday as a special gift made with love!

Hannah's new quilt I made for her. Notice the "H" in the center? She picked out the colors and fabrics. I think it turned out nice.

So the countdown begins...

"We're leavin' on a trai-ain...." instead of a jet plane. Next Sunday Xander and I leave Fullerton on an Amtrak 24 hour train ride headed for Raton, NM where we will then drive another 45 minutes to Cimmaron, NM to "base camp" at Philmont Boy Scout Ranch. Philmont is the pinnacle of scouting excellence and offers great adventures like the 10 day 54 mile trek that we headed on beginning Wed. July 29 after we get checked in, weighed in, the rangers go through our backpacks with a fine tooth comb and we get the green light to go.

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HighAdventure/Philmont/Camping/ExpeditionsandTrekItineraries.aspx

To get to experience Philmont means that a scouting troop has put in an application and your "lottery" gets drawn. Our troops last opportunity to go was in 2004 so when the opportunity presented itself, we jumped on it. I am sure that you are wondering WHY I am going on a boy scout backpacking trip instead of Bob, the dad, the male, the teenage boy's compadre? Well, 2 reasons, Bob cannot take that much time off work and plain and simple, I personally wanted to go! Bob and I have been on 2 10-day backpacking trips to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming (both prior to our 2 additional children) and I wanted to treat myself to an early 40th birthday present that says that life "begins at 40", it doesn't end and I am still capable of such treks! Besides, Xander and I do so much outdoors stuff together that he is excited I am going and I love being around all the other scouts, they are quite funny and like to have a good time. There is one other mom going on our 12 person crew so I won't be the lone female :)!

What is Philmont? Philmont Ranch used to belong to the oil tycoon Waite Phillips (of Phillips Petroleum), here is a link to another scout troop that has great information on where we are going and how the boy scouts actually got the land. http://www.troop6bsa.org/philmont_info.htm

Our trek starts out right at 7k ft and tops out at almost 12k ft before descending again. Check out the map if you want to see where we will be: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/Itinerary4Map.pdf Every day either along the trek or once we get to our next camp, we will be treated to fun activities. Some of the activities we will experience are: Archery, Black Powder Rifle, Blacksmithing, Campfires, Cantina (unfortunately not stocked with margaritas I am sure), Chuck Wagon Dinner, Fly Fishing, Gold Mining and Panning, Homesteading, Horse Rides, Jicarilla Apache Life, Rock Climbing, Search and rescue, Waite Phillips Lodge Tours, Tooth of Time and more. So you can see, in addition to backpacking, we also have events at every stop along the way. Should be fun if I am not too tired by the time we get to our destinations to fully appreciate it, lol!

So, I am sure some of you are wondering if we have to carry all our own stuff and YES, we have to carry EVERYTHING, tents, sleeping bags, pads, clothing, food, first aid, toiletries, etc. No, there are no bathrooms, we are in the backcountry folks and you gotta use what God put out there for you. No, we don't have to carry our poop out, thank goodness, but we do have to carry everything else out so here's to hoping that I scheduled mother nature appropriately to arrive outside of this trip otherwise I'll be having more fun than a human being should be allowed, yippee skippy! We have to filter and carry our own water and they drop food to use every 3-4 days. I am quite positive that I'll lose more than a few lbs on the backpacking diet of oatmeal, bagged chicken and tuna (yuk - call me a food snob :) but when you are hungry you'll eat anything), crackers and whatever other delightful morsels they send our way. They do cook for us one night so all won't be lost and I hear that the dutch oven peach cobbler they make is the absolute best, I can't wait!

All in all, we are very excited. I won't have any contact with the outside world for about 12-13 days. Bob will be getting GPS coordinate updates that will be sent out from our SPOT (google it - every avid backpacker and outdoor enthusiast should carry one) we will be carrying, I will have him post them here so you can at least look up in the Google maps where we are in the world.

I'll be posting many photos upon our return (and my recovery :)). Stay tuned....

TGIF!

I tried to find time to update every day this week but alas it is now Friday and I am just "gettin' round to it"! The week was nice, the usual... boy scouts, gymnastic, summer math camp for Hannah and summer sleepovers for the kids with friends. Life is good!

The only hiccup was when I walked into the garage Wednesday morning to discover our doormat all wet. Seems that our hot water heater had been leaking for some time and had finally decided to let us know about it. 24 hours later, new hot water heater installed, all was good again, so again, not too bad and a good week indeed!

Tonight Bob and I are headed out for a long overdue date night. I think we are headed down to the harbor in search of a relaxing ocean view and a nice plate of fresh grilled fish and veggies. Ahhhh, we live a great life, have the best weather in the world and still find time to enjoy each other after almost 13 years!

It's been a great summer so far, here are some random photos from the summer. Tell us all about your summer, we'd love to hear from you! Be sure to leave us a comment.

Sara, Christina, Skyler, Hannah and Emma - June 2009

I LOVE ModPodge - the cute frames that the girls made to commerate their summer backyard "Girls Night Out" campout. They were darling!!

Leave me ALONE! - Kern River Whitewater Rafting Trip June 21, 2009

Now, I am mad!

I'm gonna get you now! ;) See what happens when you make me mad!

A little monkey business at the San Diego Zoo with dad!

Cub Scout Day Camp on Camp Pendleton - June 2009
Wrist Rocket Range