Super Busy Saturday!

Alexandra participated in the Ski to Sea Jr race on Saturday morning. Her team did wonderful!!! It rained the whole time...but this IS Washington!


Alexandra did the running leg :) of the race. When they started, a ton of the kids took off like a bullet! Alexandra stayed near the front of the pack the whole race and did a really good job of pacing herself! She took off quickly, but not so fast as too tire herself out. They had to run to laps and by the second lap, you could tell who had started really fast! They were near the end ;)

The runners started the race. Next came the three-legged, bikers, soccer, then finally the obstacle course. Their team did really good!





Their team was the Sour Patch Girls! They had their last names on the back. Love the bright color of the t-shirt! If you couldn't tell, their team number was 64. :)

They didn't get first place, but I thought this was a fun photo op!

After the race was over, I went to work for a few hours. I got off a little early so that we could go to our very first Sounders Game!!!!!

We had a blast! We got our tickets through the Bellingham Sportsplex. They offered tickets to the game and a chartered bus! That means no driving for me:) I was all over that!

Best part was the view from our seats! This was taken from my seat without my zoom on....that means we were that close to the Sound Wave! The best drum line EVER!!

This is with the zoom! :) They were great! After the game was over, they moved to right by where we left our seats. We had to walk right by them! If there weren't so many people and we didn't have to catch the bus and we knew how to get to the bus quickly, I would have stood there and listened a LOT longer!

McKenzie had a great time. She did not want to miss a minute of the game. I asked her if she wanted to get something to eat. She asked how much longer to the start of the game. I told her about 10 minutes, and she had to think about it! She wasn't sure if she wanted food and possibly miss the first 10 seconds of the game, or watch the game and not get food! Food did win out, but we had to go FAST!

We had to walk right by the mitt at Safeco Field to go the Qwest Field. And not to miss a great photo op, I told the girls to hop in! Jay rolled his eyes at me for stopping foot traffic to get their picture in a big metal mitt, but I told him to get over it! :) It is not everyday that they can get their picture in a huge metal mitt!

All in all, it was a very jam packed, busy, fun and exhausting day! We are all off to bed now! Have a great day!

Happy Mother's Day!

Mom and her four darling children!

I know.....Mother's Day was a couple of weeks ago. I have been very busy! Here are a couple (OK!! a LOT!) of pictures that were taken on Mother's Day.

Katherine, Kellie, Lesley, & Michael

Mikey and his Mommy!

I was hoping for some good photos of our little group.....instead we got some GREAT candid, creative, interesting photos! But they represent our real family and I am glad we have them!

Richard, Alyssa and Aiden (and Katherine!)

Aiden and his mommy!

Grandchildren!

Mom with her grandchildren: front row is McKenzie, Alyssa, Alexandra, and Derek

back row is grandchild-in-law Richard with great-grandchild Aiden!

Lesley with Mommy!

Katherine and mommy!

Kellie and mommy! :)

The Dexters!

Dwayne, Lesley and Derek!

(it won't be long before Lesley and Derek have to switch places in their line-up!)

Me and my girls!

One of the photographers!

She doesn't look real confident!

It was a great day! Lots of food, fun, and family! We even had a bit of sunshine! What more could you ask for!

Chocolate!!

For class, McKenzie has to pick something she is interested in and do a report on it to present to her class. They did this a month or so ago. She did elephants.

Mrs. Galbraith told them, "If you did an animal last time, do something different. If you made a poster last time, present something different for your visual."

McKenzie was a little bummed because her and Emily already had their animals picked out! So, we talked about it. I gave her lots of suggestions on what she could do. Of course she didn't like any of them! :)

Then she picked one. CHOCOLATE!! Now why didn't I think of that! :)

She looked online for some chocolate information. We found a couple of books on chocolate. Then I got a brainstorm! We need a field trip! We must see how chocolate is made. Sample some very yummy chocolate.

So.....we went here:

This is the machine that mixes the dark chocolate. (the milk chocolate machine is next to it). On the left side you can see some chocolate in molds. The shelf they are sitting on vibrates. It shakes all the bubbles out. Then they put it in the fridge to set. Sometimes they fill them. They have TONS of different molds! We saw animals, shoes, golf clubs, flowers, cars, martini glasses, a little cottage, and soooooo many more! All made of CHOCOLATE!!!

This is how they get their chocolate! This is Belgium chocolate. It comes in huge bricks! (You can also buy them!)

These are the beans pods from the trees. They split them in half and take out the beans. The beans inside are covered in cocoa butter. They scrape off the cocoa butter and toast the beans outside in the sun. I didn't know the pods were so big!

This was the best part of the field trip! SAMPLES!!! We also had to buy some :) For research!

I am glad McKenzie picked Chocolate for her research project. I learned a lot! I just have to make sure I let her do it! :) I had so much fun, it would be very easy for me to take over her project! :)

Have a great day! Go eat some chocolate! :)

SNOW!!

Yes, that is right! SNOW!!

I woke up this morning and had to rub my eyes a couple of times to make sure they weren't playing tricks on me!

They weren't. It was really snowing! On April 14!!

Bellingham has about an inch that is sticking. There have been a couple of accidents on the freeway

I remember a couple of years ago, it snowed for a soccer game. It was also picture day.....McKenzie's team had their team photo in the snow! They ended up cancelling the afternoon games because nobody could see the fields, the kids were not showing up (!!) and most importantly, the fields were being damaged! :) In soccer, it is all about the fields!

Enjoy your day!! Stay warm!

Seattle Mariners Game

We went to to the Seattle Mariners Game on Sunday. Lesley took this picture of me, and I like it! It is hard to find pictures of me that I like, but I do like this one.

This is a group photo that Dexter took from his end of the row. At the far end is Mom, McKenzie, Me, Alexandra, Jay, Lesley, Anne, part of Del and then Dexter (you can't see him because he is taking the picture!)

Here is a group photo with everybody in it! It was taken by a friendly Eagleridge parent!

I love this fun crazy picture that Lesley took of us! Crazy girls! :)

The girls in there FREE Ichiro Mariners t-shirts. It was kid appreciation day at the game and all the kids got free t-shirts.

We had a great time at the game. We left about 9:30 and picked up Jay, then picked up Mom, stopped off at the bank, filled up the gas tank and we were off! We stopped off at the Northgate Mall for lunch (not a very good food selection in their food court!) Then went to the game! We met Lesley, Derek, Dexter, Anne and Del there. (Eagleridge had a group rate discount, so a bunch of us went!)

They did end up losing (what else did we expect!) but made a couple of pretty cool homeruns! It was a fun day, and we had a great time!

Have a great day!

Wednesday

It is the middle of the week. Spring Break is half over. I had yesterday off. I slept in a little, went over to Alyssa's for a little bit (to help put stuff away in her new apartment!), dropped McKenzie off at Emily's to play, took Alexandra to soccer camp, came back home to drop Alexandra off, started dinner (Alexandra finished cooking it) went to Bellingham for an AWANA meeting, came home ate dinner, dropped McKenzie's overnight stuff off at Emily's, came home and played Wheel of Fortune on the Wii with Alexandra, then went to bed! Very relaxing day off!! :) I am cutting card pieces out for the card class on Monday night! I may post samples of cards we are not making...but not today! Have a great day!

Spring Break!!

Aiden getting a little extra fiber in his diet!

McKenzie and Alexandra playing more soccer!

Dexter and Aiden getting ready for their "sword" fight!

Aiden does love his bubbles! He found this empty container and was super excited about it! He played with it for at least 10 minutes!

Brothers! Derek and Jordan were "forced" to stand together so I could get a picture!

These pictures are not really from our Spring Break. They were taken last week during Jordan's Spring Break.

Our Spring Break started Saturday with Alexandra's 8AM soccer game! McKenzie spent the night at Emily's house, so she missed it! :) We had to be on the field at 7:15. We got there at 7:20, the same time as the coach! :) It was cold and windy and sorta rainy....normal soccer weather!

After her game, we went home, dried out, picked up McKenzie and went back to the soccer field for McKenzie's first of two games (11:20 and 1:40). It was raining sideways at the first game! I did remember to bring our hand and toe warmers!!! McKenzie scored a hat trick during her game! The score was 3-3. They played really good. The next game they played Lynden! Tough team. They won 4-2 with a hat trick by Mariah! (and a great assist by McKenzie!) By the end of the second game the rain stopped, and we even saw a couple of blue spots in the sky!

Sunday was church and then Costco! The only reason we went to Costco in Bellingham on a Sunday after church was to get our VITA-MIX blender!!! We are SSSSSSOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!! about it! We have wanted one for so very long! I have had a little envelope stashed for the last few years that I kept putting in $5, $10 or $20 whenever I had a little bit extra! They were here and I had the money! Now we have the blender! I made a smoothie yesterday with carrots in it! You couldn't even taste them!

Alexandra has Soccer Camp this week (Mon-Thur) from 1-4 at the Sportsplex. I work at the store everyday but Tues and Sat. Lesley and I are prepping for our Card Class on Monday night. And we are super excited about going to the Mariners game on Sunday!!

That is our Spring Break in a nutshell! (are you looking for the nutshell?) ;)

Have a great day!