Birch Bay 2008
Here are the 168 best pictures of our annual trip to Birch Bay. Warning: it will take you 8.4 minutes to watch the whole thing. You may want to get some popcorn first.
We are back!
Last night around 11:00PM we made it home from our 12 day vacation to Washington for my brother’s wedding. After Brian and I sort through the pictures we will post a slide show. For now I’ll just post two from the wedding:
Oreo’s dipped in Coffee mmmmmm
A great treat to have while your kids are sleeping and you are sitting on the couch reading the third Harry Potter book.
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It’s Been 5 Years!
On the 4th of July we celebrated our fifth anniversary. In some ways it seems like the time has really flown by (have I really been having this much fun for 5 years now?) and in other ways the time seems appropriately long (we do have 3 kids). One area that has really shown the wear and tear of our five years are our wedding gifts. Our very nice, expensive towels are now quite pathetic and have a permanent odor to them, our great set of Rubbermaid storage containers are lost, stained, or have broken lids, and our expensive non-stick Teflon pan set is quite a bit “stickier” than it used to be. I guess these things are not meant to last more than 5 years, but we don’t have the money to replace all of them now. Therefore I propose a new tradition that everyone should give quinquennialweds replacement gifts. If everyone gave their friends the exact same thing they gave them for the wedding on their 5th anniversary no one would have to go to bed under stained sheets or a quilt with 3 holes burned through it.
For those of you who didn’t know us 5 years ago here are a few pictures from the blessed event and from our subsequent anniversaries:
Jungle Boys Reunion 2008
We just got home last night from a five-day vacation/reunion/retreat in California’s central coast. The occasion was a reunion with Brian’s roommates, The Jungle Boys, from his first years at Biola University before we were married. We hadn’t all been together since the first JB got married over six years ago. (note: technically we weren’t “all together” since one JB and his family couldn’t make it)
The five original JB, together with wives and children, now number 17! And although one of the JB could not be present it was still a reunion to remember. A great time was had by all, as the photos and video below will attest.
A taste of Africa. One of Brian’s roommates is from Zambia. He taught us this song on the night of J&C’s wedding while we were sitting in a hot tub relaxing after a long day (J&C were obviously not with us that night). This is the first time we’d been together to sing it since their wedding six years ago. It’s not the best video but it captures the spirit of moment.
Catching up
Yesterday when I was spending a lovely morning with Everychapter. She informed me that she has tagged me twice and I have not responded. So since she took this lovely picture of my baby girl (and many more) I will humor her and respond.
4 places I go over and over
1. McDonalds
2. 99 cents store (I love that place)
3. Starbucks (to see Brian)
4. Trader Joes (I love TJ’s even more than the 99 cents store)
4 people that email me
1. My Husband
2. Mom’s group members
3. PBS (Paperback Swap)
4. My Creative Memories Consultant
4 of my favorite foods
1. Strawberries
2. Black Tea
3. Cheese and Crackers
4. Dark Chocolate
4 places I would rather be right now
1. The Getty
2. With my Grandma Jeanette in Birch Bay
3. Oxford (if I could vacation anywhere that is where I want to visit)
4. Watching a Shakespeare play
4 movies I could watch over and over
1. Dirty Dancing
2. LOTR
3. Mary Poppins
4. The Shawshank Redemption (I agree with everychapter on this one)
4 people I want to learn more about, you are tagged…
D is for Dragon
I’m having a lot of fun teaching and preparing homeschool lessons for the kids. For the past few weeks we have been learning about the letter D, which included a lesson on dragons. We read some books about scary dragons (like the one St. George fought) and some books about friendly dragons. I really liked the book: The Best Pet of All, about a boy who uses a pet dragon to convince his mother that they need a dog. Elliot in Pete’s dragon has become a favorite around here. Here are some pictures Autumn and Hunter have drawn of him.
Hunter drew orange for fire.
Autumn wrote her name in yellow to the left of Elliot.
Hiking with Coyotes
Last night I hiked the familiar terrain of Turnbull canyon with Dan. This hike took an unfamiliar twist however as Dan and I attempted to hike from Turnbull to the Rio Hondo Observatory. There isn’t any such trail so we had to make one. The six mile hike took three hours.
We didn’t see any snakes but we did see a coyote watching us from the shadows at the water tower just below the observatory. If not for Dan’s keen eyesight I would not have noticed the coyote silhouette among the weeds 20 feet in front of us. We heard (but didn’t see) several more coyotes walking along both sides of the trail, and then later lots of howling. We had followed some well-established game trails that were just the right size for coyotes so I thought we might be traveling along a coyote transit system (a theory that wikipedia supports). Given that we saw and heard multiple coyotes traveling along the same route prior to the howling I think they were gather for the evening hunt.
Dan took this amazing picture as the sun was setting. Click the image to read about it on his photo blog and see a higher resolution image.
3 Months Old
She has captured my heart with her smile. Many times each day I just stare at her making noises to try to get her to coo and smile. She especially likes her dad and coos at Brian the most. Here are some recent photos of our cutie:
