Oregon

What a great 4 day vacation we had!

We left here at 7am Friday morning and had a quiet drive the first 3 hours where we reached the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center.

Well, actually, that wasn't where we went first. We went to the Oregon Trail History Museum.....by mistake. I was very disappointed in the 2 story exhibit, it wasn't at all like I was expecting and what I had heard. We were the only 2 people in the building and I was getting creeped out by all the odd mannequins everywhere. The older ladies that worked there were very very quiet (and very very old) and I was so glad we had not driven over just for this.

After we left and saw a billboard, I realized we were in the WRONG PLACE. I wanted the Interpretive Center, NOT the museum.

This place was FANTASTIC. If you live in or are passing through the area, it would be well worth your time

Kaitlynn thought this was a beautiful place to tie up horses.

How about THIS view?

She was allowed inside the pen with the 2 eleven year old oxen, Ezra and Job.

As we continued our drive, I saw a sign for the scenic highway and we took it. How glad we were that we did!

We discovered some beautiful waterfalls!

The first one we stopped at was named Horsetail Falls.

I was taking pictures of her taking pictures. She looked so cute as she tried different angles.

This was her expression when I got caught.  :)

So beautiful.

We finally arrived at our destination, Lincoln City. It was about a 10 hour drive. Five minutes from the hotel, it started to rain, so we didn't get to go to the beach that night. But the room that Sam found for us was right on the water! We opened those curtains that you see and opened the window, and the ocean was right there! There were no screens on the windows, but we kept them open anyway.

It made a great night for a fire!

The next morning, it was chilly, but it was beach time!

Here is her first visit to the Pacific Ocean!

 

That water was so cold that I think my feet were almost frostbitten. She didn't seem to mind and ran and played and splashed for a few hours.

(Playing with shutter speeds and the shadow)

Playing with the reflection.

 

After leaving the beach to warm up, we wandered downtown for a few hours. We found a arts and crafts show at the community center, then we found a HUGE outlet mall. Not normally a mall person, we had a LOT of fun and even did some shopping!

At 5:00, our friends met us and we went back to the beach.

Here are Kaitlynn and Ariadne. The girls haven't seen each other since before their first birthdays. They hit it off instantly and spent an hour kite flying.

 

The kite was so high, I couldn't get it into the picture.

Here we are at sunset.

The Lewis Family! Stephen and Amy, Ariedne (10), Kyrie (8),

Peter (6), Calvin (4) and Zachary ( 7 months).

I love these next 2 pictures.  :)

The Gulf it isn't, but what a gorgeous place. I am thankful I finally got a chance to see the Oregon coast.

We went back home Saturday night with Stephen and Amy, joined them for church on Sunday morning, then spent the rest of the day visiting and playing.

We had SO MUCH fun.

Monday morning we started the drive back home, stopping at the 2 waterfalls we missed the first time.

More waterfall pictures!!!  :)

This was the big one, with the visitor center and bathrooms!! We hiked up to the bridge so see the view. It was a holiday, but it wasn't overly crowded.

This tree branch looks like an old ladies hand.

This is the view looking back from the bridge we hiked up to.

We passed another sign a few hours later that said to exit for the "Bridge of the Gods".

I thought it would be something photographic, something "natural", but it was this bridge, and since we were in the lane we had to drive over it, not knowing that we would end up in the state of Washington! So, we laughed, took a few pictures and spent 5 whole minutes in Washington, a state I had never been in before.

I love unique road signs, and this one was a great one!

 

I tried to get Kaitlynn to get out of the van and take her picture by the sign, but she was cozy warm and didn't want to.

All in all, it was a FANTASTIC trip.

THANK YOU AMY for letting us come and visit!

 

 

 

A Brand New School Year

 

Wow. Another school year is upon us. It truly blows my mind how old they are all getting. Probably because I remember being in those grades. And it makes me feel old to think I have kids in those grades that I remember being in!

Today was the first day of school for the state of Idaho. It was day thirteen for us, since we started up a few weeks ago, but now that it is "official", I thought I would post.

Here is Collin, our SIXTH grader.

Collin's classes are:

Algebra

Spanish 1

Latin 2

Spelling

Science

Grammar and Writing

Vocabulary

Literature

World History and Geography

Bible

Intro to Logic

Typing

Editing

Piano

Here is Kaitlynn! Our FOURTH Grader!

Her classes are:

Saxon Math 6

Grammar

Handwriting

Spelling

Science

Editing

Latin 1

Piano

Trust me, as each year adds on more subjects, I am more and more overwhelmed and time consumed, but we have had a great start, a lot smoother than in years past. It has been hard giving up all the free time I had all summer, I know for a fact that the number of books I get to read will be going WAY down. :)

Now, onto the strangest of Smith news.

Here is Christopher, who is now in Kindergarten!

And, who is GOING to Kindergarten.

Sorry, should have warned you, hope you didn't hurt yourself when you fell over in shock.

Many months ago, we found out that Sam was to be gone for 8 months, basically the entire school year. Knowing how hard it is for me to be a single parent and not even being able to comprehend the prospect of doing it for so long, I made a hard decision. As parents, we all sacrifice a lot for our children, making decisions that are best for them. Sometimes though, we have to make decisions that are best for us. And it would have been better for me to not try and homeschool a third child for the first time being alone for the school year. I prayed a LONG time, had others praying, and was at peace with the decision,

With the summer turning out the way it did, and not only is Sam not deploying, but now we are moving, I again struggled with the decision. Do I put him in anyway? Up until this morning, I was still doubting. Is it the right thing? Daddy isn't gone, and that was the reason I signed him up in the first place. I decided to go since the parents had to stay today and then make up my mind. I am glad I went. I felt such peace in the first 5 minutes. For 5 - 6 weeks, this will be a lot of fun for him. Mrs. Norris is fantastic, her room was so great, and he will have a lot of fun. As the move gets closer, the less time I will have as we will have so much to do, and now I won't feel like he is getting shortchanged.

Here is our handsome little guy!

He was VERY excited about his new Spiderman backpack.

 

Today we drove, but most of the time he will be walking. The school is right next to our neighborhood.

 

Here he is at the line, where they wait for the teacher. He is easy to find, look for the tall one. ;0

There are 18 kids in his class.

He is in the afternoon class, from 12:05 - 3:00. They have computer lab, library, art, music, along with learning to read!

Mrs. Norris explaining the class rules. I chose this teacher because she is good, creative, yet FIRM. I saw exactly that and I liked it.

So, this begins a new and different school year.

The big kids have asked a lot of questions, since Tiffer is the FIRST one to ever GO to school. And I do have to admit, it was kind of fun to experience the "first day of school" that I have always heard about.

Tomorrow starts the regular schedule, I am sure there will be many stories to post about. I pray he has fun, he learns and mommy adjusts to having a child gone for 3 hours a day for the first time ever.   :)

OTHER NEWS:

The papers have been signed! I repeat, the papers have been signed!!!!!!

One last signature awaiting from the top of the command chart in Texas, and all is done.

Sam leaves for Mississippi next week for his meeting with the Guard and, hopefully, to find us a house! Please pray for safe travel for him, and for a house.

His first weekend of Guard duty will be January, and it looks like we will be moving in OCTOBER. Maybe even early October. Like, FIVE weeks from now. Whew. The nerves have hit and the reality has sunk in. We are leaving. I am excited, yet sad at the same time.

Other , other news:

Since we are leaving 9 months ahead of when we thought we would be moving, there are things we wanted to do before we left that now have to be done in a hurry.

I have a great friend in Salem, Oregon that I have wanted to visit, and now I am!

Kaitlynn and I leave Friday. We are having a "girls" weekend. We are driving to the Oregon coast, about 9 - 10 hours away and staying right on the beach. We plan to stay up late and sleep in late! With walks on the beach, the cliffs, a little antique shopping in the cute little stores, ect, we are very excited. Amy and her husband and their 5 kids will meet us over there Saturday evening so I can do sunset pictures on the beach for them, then we will follow them home and stay with them for the rest of the weekend. Stephen pastors a church in Salem so it will be nice to go and worship with them. We met in our first year of Seminary in California 13 years ago. Amy and I taught jr. high together while our husbands went to school together. She was with us in the delivery room when Collin was born and we share a lot of great memories. Her oldest daughter is only 5 months older than Kaitlynn, so we are excited about getting them together. The girls haven't seen each other since they were crawling. Amy and I met up 2 years ago at a Dude Ranch in Oregon, but I am excited to meet the rest of her children, who I have only seen through pictures. We will make the drive back on Monday. We plan on stopping at the Oregon Trail museum in Bend, Oregon, and one of the major waterfalls as well.

I KNOW there will be plenty of pictures and stories to post after this weekend. Please pray for safe travel for us, I can't remember if I have ever driven that far by myself!

Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement. This is a stressful, yet exciting time in our life and we are anxiously awaiting to see what God has in store next.

 

Olympic Mania

I have been and probably always will be, an Olympic fanatic. I can and will watch them non stop for hours at every opportunity. What is so wonderful about watching the past few has been the TiVo machine. You can scream at the tv, "NO WAY!", the rewind it and watch it again. Your favorite gymnast is about to make her dismount for the gold, and the phone rings, you can press PAUSE and can talk away without ignoring whomever is on the other end because you would rather watch then talk. You can fast forward all those interrupting commercials.

Except our new favorite one: the one about the laptop crashing, where the little (what is he anyway) elf? dwarf caveman? runs out with a basket of fruit singing

"We're so sad you lost your files
Here's some fruit to make you smile
Hoo- Ha"

Belly laughs every time we see it. Of course, we now use the exact tune every chance we get.

"It is time to go to bed
Time to rest your sleepy head
Hoo-Ha"

Now you need to sweep the floor
Don't forget the crumbs behind the door
Hoo_ha

You get the picture. It is driving Collin CRAZY. I call his name, and he just knows I am going to sing to him. But he is laughing as he walks away, thinking what a crazy mom he has.

Anyway, because Momma is glued to the TV to watch everything, it has either been a learned behavior, or it is in their DNA, but I have birthed / created Olympic watching kids. They are as hooked as I am.

10:35 at night and yes, they big 2 are still up, and we are SCREAMING at the TV, well actually, screaming at Micheal Phelps in several of those races. When Jason Leezak came from behind to win the relay I think we were all jumping up and down as we were screaming. When Micheal won the 100m fly in a hundredth of a second, we were still screaming. When the judges WRONGLY scored a great vault routine lower then one who fell on her face and the face faller got the medal, we were still screaming. We yelled for the rowing team, cheered for the gold medal volleyball match last night, shrieked when one of the horses fell after missing a jump, held our breath with the synchronized swimmers and tried not to blink when our favorite diver catapulted herself off a 3 story platform. We are in awe of the pole vaulters, (how do they travel with those things anyway), amazed at the stamina of the marathon runners and flabbergasted at why someone would spend their entire lives training to throw a metal Frisbee.

I am exhausted. I haven't been to bed before midnight since the games opened. I have to stay up and see it live because I don't want to read about it the next day and ruin the viewing. I dream about tiny Chinese women, and weird things to eat, and some of those dreams combine all sorts of sports and people I have watched that night that I wish I could remember all the crazy details.

I was in the other room last night, yes, watching the Olympics, and for once, I was alone. The kids were playing in the den. I hit pause to listen to what they were doing.

I hear, "Collin! That routine was worth a higher score!"
"No, you had deductions for to many balance checks."
"But I want a higher score!"
"Then you need to adjust your start value."

I peek in and the kids are having their own Olympic games. I arrived in time for the medal ceremony. :)
Notice the correct placement of the pillows? 3 for gold, 2 for silver and 1 for bronze. Collin was carrying the medals in on another pillow. If I had had real flowers in the house I am sure they would have used those as well.

Tonight, Daddy has agreed to judge.

Let the games continue. I am going to have with drawls when they are over. But at least I can stop buying so many boxes of Kleenex!!! I don't care what country you are from, if I see you crying on the medal stand, or they show your parents crying about how proud they are, I am a goner. Kaebrie got worried about me the other night and asked about my "drips." :)

The Olympic games they are so great

Even though I stay up to late

Hoo-Ha

Weekend Trip to the Mountains

 

Last weekend, Sam and Collin took off for a backpacking trip up in the Sawtooth mountains. They left here Friday afternoon, and their great friend, Josh, joined them on Saturday morning. Here are a handful of the pictures that were taken. Since I wasn't there, I will let Collin tell you the story of the weekend in his own words. (Sam did say Collin preferred to take a lot of pictures rather then to fish the whole time, and I have to say, WAY TO GO MY SON!!)  :)

Hi!

This is Collin.

My pack weighs between 30 - 40 pounds, Daddy's weighs more.

Here we are Friday late afternoon. Daddy used the self timer on the camera.

 

Daddy took this picture of the sun setting on the mountain.

 

This one below is me climbing over the ridge we took to hike to our campground. Bushwhacking is really hard.

This was where we slept the first night. We didn't make it all the way to the lake because we got a late start.

 

Daddy was really cold and he couldn't believe I wasn't. But I dressed warm. During the night, Daddy woke me up and said to listen. A minute later we both hear this sound, "ba-bump" ( or something like that). We keep hearing it. It was not a  deer, we think it was an elk.

Mr. Josh arrived early Saturday afternoon. He is a lot of fun. He hiked that trail faster then I have ever seen.

 

Now for the fly fishing.

I took all these pictures of Daddy. It was a lot of fun watching until Mr. Josh asked me if I wanted to fish. He had already caught 5. He wasn't fly fishing, so he stayed dry. I like these pictures a lot because I got them from a lot of different angles. My favorite ones are from up high.

 

Mr. Josh caught this first fish. Here is my fish! I caught 2 fish total. I ate the fish you see in the picture.

 

It was really yummy!

It was a really fun trip. Hiking was a lot harder then it looked.

This is the stuff I will miss about Idaho.

Ramblings

 

 

Saturday was a great day! It was my annual fighter-jet-family photos. This was the first time I have done this squadron and I enjoyed meeting a lot of new people.

I was told we were doing the pictures in a hangar (my preference) so I was a bit unprepared when I saw the setup. Yes, the jet and the families were inside, but as you can see, my lift was outside. After about an hour, I put in an emergency phone call for sun screen and was rescued from totally burning up for the 6 hours I was out there.

I did 26 families. This squadron is deploying soon and since I can't tell you where, just know they are going far far away and won't be back until early 2009. So a lot of these were to be for family Christmas card pictures. Some families did show up in their red sweaters and scarves! Please keep them all in your prayers as all of these sweet families will be separated for awhile.

Pets were welcomed as well. And getting large dogs into the cockpit of an F-15 can be VERY difficult!  :)

Yes, this really is a Siberian husky in the cockpit of an F-15 E. It looks Photoshopped, but I promise it isn't!  There was so much dog hair in the seats that the last pilot of the day to get photographed complained.  :)

 

Below is one of my favorite pictures of the day. Ryan was Sam's roommate in Bahrain for the month of May. They are great friends and neighbors.

 

It took me about 10 hours over the weekend and yesterday and today to get all 346 pictures organized, edited, uploaded and emailed. But as of a few minutes ago, I AM DONE!

The kids are all at Vacation Bible School right now. This is Kaebrie's first year to be old enough to participate and Collins last year to do it. And for the first time EVER, I am not helping. I did help decorate over the weekend, but I am not involved this week. I do fight some guilt, but I think everyone is entitled to a break every 10 years or so. I don't ever get time alone in my house, and 3 hours of total peace and quiet this morning was something to be cherished. It is just amazing how much I got done! I guess I am so used to all the 1,000's of questions and interruptions and noise all day long that controlled chaos in my normal. I have plans for the rest of the mornings this week, lots of school stuff to get installed, organized and a few things left to order. 

 

Yazoo City News:

The session unanimously voted yes for Sam to join the Guard. That was one big step to get finalized. Now he can move on with that part of the paperwork he needs.

We still don't know a moving date, the Base Commander has been out of the country and unable to sign the papers. We do not know when we will know anything.

We had a professional appraise the house on Friday. It is very sound and in good structural shape. The kitchen will need updating sooner rather than later and there is some minor work to be done on the wood outside. His opinion, is that they are asking way to much for the house. So we will be patient, keep looking, and hope they come down on their price and will accept a lower offer. We would also both like to go back and look at houses, especially this particular one we both think we want. We need a moving date before we take that step so we will know when we need to close. Some friends here have offered to keep the kids for a week, so that may work out where I can go with Sam. We would drive one car down there to leave and fly back.

Please continue to pray for a house, and for Sam to be able to get some dates finalized.

More later when I know more!

Sixteen Years

08-08-92

08-08-08

 

We celebrated our anniversary by going out to our favorite restaurant, Carabas, with some great friends who were also celebrating their anniversary. It was Josh and Michelle's 9th anniversary.

We had a great time! This is pretty much the only place we go when we have dinner without kids. We love the food, the prices aren't to expensive, and we ALWAYS get the same waitress. Staci has known us now for years. She spoils us! She gives us certificates for free food all the time and even brings us free food. Tonight she treated all of us to free dessert and espressos. Once, she brought the manager out to meet us and introduced us as "that couple I told you about that drives 100 miles round trip for dinner."  :)

(If you want to eat out, Boise is the only option, so really ANYWHERE you eat you have to drive about that far.)

 

We told her tonight that we were moving sometime in the next few months, but promised we would be back before then.

16 years. That sounds like a LOT! Bit it feels like it has flown by. Then I think about all that has happened and all we have seen and done and accomplished and the places we have lived and the people we have met and I realize it has been a longer time then it feels.

I picked the right hubby, that is FOR SURE! I have things in my past I would change, but the decision to marry Sam sure isn't one of them.

I LOVE YOU SWEETIE!!!!!!!!

"I LOVE MY DRAGONFLIES" (an original song)

I was trying to get a short video of the hundreds of dragon flies that live in our bushes, when Kaebrie burst into spontaneous song. She sings WHATEVER pops into her mind!










Poppa and JuJu, you need to watch the entire 5 minutes and catch the reference to Alabama she just won't forget!

I don't think you can really see all the dragonflies, sorry!

Presenting.........................

Another great success with a week long children's theater extravaganza!!!

 

Collin was given the part of one of the knights, a chance to show his comedic side and he did very well!

Kaitlynn was a gnasty, gnarly, gnome! And she stayed in character the whole time!!

There were 50 kids participating this week from grades 1 - 12.

Leigha and Anna Brooke were beautiful singing villagers

The cast of Gnomes! Everyone except Kaitlynn is now a happy gnome.  :)

The 4 assistant directors joined the royal cast in this group picture.

I took them out for a late supper after it was over. A lot of the other cast members were there too. Not that there is much choice as it is the only place on base open on a Friday night!

The group of teenage girls who played the Wizards were sitting behind us. The squealed when Collin sat down, said they were looking for him. He asked why and they said they wanted to give him a hug!!!!

He raised one eyebrow and grinned a little bit.

I wanted to tell these WAY to old 14 year old girls to keep their hugs off my 11 year old son, but I didn't. I ignored it.

Where is all the parenting books on how to handle these situations? I know what to do when they throw a fit in Wal Mart, I can handle imaginary friends getting sick in the pew on Sunday mornings, public nose picking, embarrassing stories, lost library books, ect. But flirting???? From older girls??? Was NOT ready for that one!

Here are the Smith actors waiting for their Burgers! Kaitlynn is still in grumpy mode.

Below are some video clips. I was trying to juggle both cameras, so I missed a few things, but it is a good idea of the play and how they did.

After the big 2 left for dress rehearsal, Kaebrie came in the door crying, she got herself stuck in Tiffer's bike helmet. She truly was tangled, and crazy mom that I am, I made her pose for a picture before I rescued her.

I am sure me doing that at various points in their life will come back to haunt me later.

Enjoy the show!

And that was the ending of the play. What a GREAT week for the kids. They have fun making new friends, it is a wonderful learning experience for them, and I spent the whole week they were gone getting the classroom cleaned out, organized and ordering all the stuff they will need for this school year.

I do count this theater week as school days, and regular school is supposed to start on Monday for us. I have a really bad cold, so we will see how the teacher feels on Monday. :)

Knowing we will be moving in the middle of a school year makes me that much more determined to start a few weeks early because I know we will be way off schedule for a few weeks or more when we do move.

Maybe there will be a town close by that does children's theater, because they really do love it!