My sister is amazing!

Check this out - is this not totally incredible or what? Thanks, Ang. Check out her website at www.portraitartbyangela.com

We arrived home last night at 3:13am after 3,999 miles in 3 weeks and one day. We're wiped out, but we had a fantastic trip!!!

Newport Beach

 

 

 

 

We loaded up this morning and headed to LA. We met our cousin, Michelle, at this rockin' restaurant called Pat & Oscars. If you ever come to CA, I HIGHLY recommend it! The food was great and we got tons for the money! We met Michelle and her cute girls, Alicia & Amy. We went to the beach (Newport Beach) after lunch. The kids L-O-V-E-D it! The sand was awesome (although marred somewhat by tar), and the water was great. Kenneth & Johnathan had fun riding the waves. Daniel & Zach played in the waves for a while, then everyone played in the sand with Caitlin. What a FUN FUN FUN afternoon! Thanks, Michelle!

Tonight we are in Buttonwillow. Tomorrow we will part :( and Angela & her family will head to Paso Robles for a family reunion and my kids and I will head to Sacramento. We have had a wonderful vacation and made lots of awesome memories, but I must admit, we're ready to be heading home pretty soon....by the time we pull in our driveway we will have been gone 3 weeks and 1 day. Wowee. We've never had a vacation like this before - it just keeps going and going and going.

More photos

 

 

 

Legoland, Day 2

 

 

 

 

So much fun in so little time!

Legoland

 

 

 

 

We spent today at Legoland California. I've got a FUNNY video clip I hope I can figure out how to post...

Anyway, we're missing our daddy who is home working hard (or hardly working :0)! We found a "man" to fill in for the bottom photo, though.

How's your summer?

 

 

 

 

Top: Orick Beach (CA)
Next: Kenneth (Pacific Ocean in back ground)
Next: Redwood Forest (N. CA)
Bottom: Kenneth in a 4th of July Parade (Mendicino, CA)

Weekend Update

I had an awesome weekend with Amanda in North Carolina. The visit was too short, but much appreciated. We went to Cheesecake Factory Friday night after my arrival...then we stayed up talking until 2am! We slept in on Saturday to make up for it. Then we went to the nursery (talking plant nursery, here), Home Depot, Target. We put together a dresser for Amanda & Danny's room. We talked a lot about plants and flowers and trees. We cleaned up and got pedicures and went to Pei Wei for dinner (YUM!). We got Dunkin' Donuts and ran to Wal*Mart. I thoroughly enjoyed her church services (such an awesome ward!), despite feeling like I was getting up at 4:30am! We hung out and made brownies for her family dinner after church and went for a brief walk. We met a neighbor and talked flowers with him, too. He was so great. I was delayed in Chicago coming home and was very tired by the time I touched ground in Seattle, but I was so pleased to have made such great memories and to have seen Danny's new motorcycle as well as their lovely home and neighborhood. I missed my kids and Steve, and I think they missed me, too.

Monday we ran errands for 6 hours getting ready for our big trip coming up. We also planted 4 plants in the back yard and watered our new grass seed. Today we went to the park and enjoyed the SUNSHINE!!! YAY!!! Then we ran some more errands and played with some friends.

Update

This week has been a busy one filled with preparations for me leaving and us going camping next weekend. I leave in the morning to go to North Carolina. I am so excited to go and see Amanda, but sad to leave my family. I will miss them. Then, I get home Sunday night and on Friday night we're off for an adventure. So - next week will be filled with MORE preparations. :)

A few notable things: I made beef/vegetable soup this week. It was really yummy. I even used oregano and rosemary from my herb garden. We LOVED having Grandma and Grandpa Hansen here for a couple of days. We had some WONDERFUL crab, and we found an amazing Italian restaurant, too! The house sure seemed empty when they were gone. We hope they've had a wonderful cruise this week. Steve's project at work got shelved, so he's moving on to bigger and better things. He has mixed feelings about it. We got a grill/fire pit and we've used it twice now (steak, hamburger). Steve is GREAT at the cooking and it's fun roasting marshmellows on the coals when we're done! Our neighbors chopped down 7 trees in their front yard. The entire look of the street is dramatically changed with so many trees missing. Everyone is up in arms that they couldn't have possibly had a permit to do that. However, I asked if we could have the wood and they said yes, so now we have lots of fire wood for next winter! (We just need to rent a splitter to get it all cut up!) I finished re-work on the back yard, so now both the front yard and back yard have been thatched, de-mossed, re-seeded, and composted. Here's hoping for gorgeous new grass! (Steve also aerated the back yard).

I think that's just about it. Today was Kenneth's last day of school and we went on a cub scout field trip to the newspaper after school. The boys had a ton of fun and I think they learned a lot about the newspaper. Kenneth is very excited to be done with the 3rd grade.

Happy Father's Day

I know it's late in the day, but I wanted to do a "Shout-Out" to my dad, and to the father of my children. I have been blessed with 2 of the most amazing men in the world, and I am so grateful.

Happy Father's Day!!

Growing Up

Does it ever just dawn on you out of the blue that your kids are growing up? Well, it has dawned on me. Kenneth is REALLY getting OLDER!!! It's amazing to me that my "baby" will be in the 4th grade next year. I REMEMBER the 4th grade...a LOT! It was one of my all-time favorite years of school. I had Mr. Groff, and he just rocked. I noticed after I posted those pictures in my last post that his face is looking older, and he's really growing up. I'm trying to modify my parenting a little to account for the changes, but it's HARD!

Anyway, other than that, we're just plugging away. We are getting our first VISITORS tomorrow...and it's exciting! Dennis & Mary are coming through on their way to an ALASKAN CRUISE (I know, we are so jealous!). Anyway, we're so excited to see them and have our first visitors. (Translate: Joy's been cleaning ALL DAY). :) Anyway, it's been a while since I posted, so I thought I'd just share a few thoughts.

Some things never change

 

 

This is Kenneth practicing for the Children's Choir audition he has scheduled for Tuesday. Earlier he licked the cake bowl clean. Some things never change. Those of you who have known and loved him as we do, know that he has no boundaries when it comes to food. His food ends up on his face, in his hair and on his clothes - and that's a bare minimum. Usually it also ends up on the table around his plate, too. :) We love him in spite of this, don't we?

Random shots

 

These are the kids last Sunday before church. I made them snack outside because I didn't want to clean the kitchen again!

 

 

Caitlin is such a helper with the boat!

 

Photos of flowers - as requested

 

Top left - Kenneth's petunias
Middle top - a pot w/ a white petunia, small roses, and a marigold that Kenneth gave me for Mother's Day
Top right - my oriental lily I bought myself for Mother's Day - I wish I'd taken a picture with the blossoms, they were so lovely
Middle left - bay (for bay leaves)
Middle - Rosemary/Oregano
Middle Right - Spice basil
bottom left - one of the 4 roses I planted in the ground
(the cause of the landlady grief)
bottom middle - a patio tomato
bottom right - a knock out rose I put in a pot to take with me

More Game Farm

 

 

 

 

Game Farm

 

 

 

 

Fun, Fun, Fun!!!

Photos from Sequim

 

This is at the Railroad bridge - the river in the background is the Dungeness River.

 

The Dungeness River is running over right now - so it's kind of muddy.

 

On the spit.

 

At the Railroad Bridge - just down the road from where we stayed. Isn't the green beautiful?

Cuteness

I was just asking Daniel & Caitlin what they want for lunch. Daniel wants Dino-nuggets. I said to Caitlin, "Do you want Dino-nuggets, Caitlin?" and she said, "No thank you, I want macaroni and cheese."

How can you say no to that when they're so polite?

Off I go to make Dino-nuggets AND Macaroni and Cheese.

Sequim...again

We had another fantastic weekend in Sequim! We just love it there. We got there LATE Friday night and went straight to bed. Saturday we got up and went to the Oak Table (a family favorite), then to a candle shop that I found on the internet. I got some yummy-smelling candles to go in my new Mother's Day votive holders. :) We headed over to the Game Farm (pictures to come). We all got a kick out of making the bears (trained - Disney bears) sit up before we'd throw them bread. The kids and Steve got a kick out of me getting grossed out that the HUGE Elk was LICKING MY WINDOW!!! YUCK!! The car in front of us wouldn't move and so I couldn't even avoid it. We saw prarie dogs (so cute) and Peacocks (SO BEAUTIFUL!!!). Did you know when Peacocks get mad they rattle their feathers....it sounds just like a rattle snake! I couldn't believe it. There was a sea gull getting too close and the peacock was NOT happy. It was a amazing. We went to the beach and hiked down to the spit. The kids threw rocks into the ocean and played in the sand. We grabbed some Mexican food for dinner before heading over to the High School for the Wizard of Oz. Seriously - amazing show!!! The actors and actresses were fabulous, and they rented flying equipment from Las Vegas and everyone flew on and off the stage (think - tornado scene - witches - good and bad - flying monkeys - etc.) VERY COOL! The music and choreography were fantastic. Any show that can keep all 3 of my kids entertained for a solid 2 1/2 hours MUST be good!

The highlight of the weekend, however, was going to church this morning. It was so good to see so many familiar faces and feel like I was "home". Bill Keith recognized me right off, Rena Keith said she didn't recognize me, but she said Daniel looked just like Danny and David Fellingham. Isn't that cute? I thought it was fun. Jim Heintz is the bishop, Lamar Millett was there, Myrna Duce came over and said hello. So many others..... it was so fun. All 3 kids said they want to move to Sequim on our way "home". We'd move there in a heart-beat.

Anyway, I'll share some fun Game Farm photos later....so stay tuned.

Good News

If I were really tricky, I'd link this post to a previous post "It sucks getting old", but I don't know how. So...you'll have to go looking for it if you want to re-read it. Anyway, the followup news on Steve's shoulder is NO SURGERY!!! YEAH!!!! At least not for now. The orthopedist says significant improvement can be made through physical therapy. I'll leave it to him to expound on the how's and why's if anyone is interested in more detail. But...we are both pretty stoked that Steve has avoided the knife once again.