First Day of Spring

Yesterday's newspaper said that "the Puget Sound region's weather this winter, which ends today, not only has been mild, it's been the best in the nation when compared against 30 year averages." According to data compiled by the Weather Channel for the winter of 2009-10, the top weather cities are: 1. Seattle, 3. Portland, OR and 5. Spokane. 3 of the top 5 cities are in the Pacific NW, that's pretty amazing in my opinion! Even funnier is that the worst weather city this year is Miami, FL, with southern cities, Dallas, TX at #4 and Oklahoma City #5. How weird is that??

My question is, with a mild winter, does that mean the slugs and snails are going to be worse this year? They have been busy eating my trilliums already, as you can see in these 2 pictures.

One of the first outside chores that I do each year is to trim my ferns, like the one below, and I got started on doing that this afternoon. In addition to that chore, I put out some slug bait around my trilliums, so that the rest of them won't get eaten up.

Celebrating Birthdays

This is our sweet 5 year old boy!

Sunday, we celebrated the birthdays of 3 out of the 4 Youngs. Saben will be 5 in a week and both of his parents have birthdays within a few weeks of each other. As we got the presents out for them, Annika started crying and asking "Where's my presents?"
We were able to distract her and she had fun helping the other members of her family open their gifts and putting ribbon on Seth's head.

Annika also enjoyed hiding her head in one of the gift bags.

Saben got several "Toy Story" items and Seth seemed to like them also, especially the "Buzz Lightyear" figure with a button to push that made it talk.

When there was only one gift left to open, Annika all of a sudden realized that she didn't have any presents and got upset again. I had a couple of things in my closet, that Kari and I had put in a gift bag in case she got upset again. So we went ahead and gave it to her and it calmed her down. It's hard to be 2 1/2 and be the only one in your family not getting any presents! Hopefully next year she'll be able to understand better, but for this year, I was glad I had something in my closet to give her.

Saturday, March 13 - Part 2

Seth and Todd had a little time to play the piano before we took all 3 kids to get their pictures taken by the "Antiquities" company. "Antiquities" are pictures done in a sepia color with the kids dressed in some old-fashioned looking clothes. The boy's basic outfit consisted of a white t-shirt with jean overalls and Annika wore a dress made of lace. The photographer added some props, hats and scarfs when she took the pictures. I wasn't sure if they would be able to get any good pictures of all 3 kids, but it seemed like they were able to get some good ones. The pictures will be ready to be viewed on Sat. Mar. 27th, I'm really anxious to see how they turned out! There were a lot of cute poses done so it's going to be hard to resist them. Ken has decided that he should go look at the pictures without me, so I don't spend all our retirement savings. ; )

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Saturday, March 13 - Part 1

Last weekend we had my mom, Saben and Annika at our house in the morning, then later in the afternoon, Todd, Betsy, and Seth arrived. Before lunch, I showed Saben and Annika where I had some dress up clothes stored. Annika loved the box of jewelry and promptly put almost everything in the box around her neck.
Later she added a bunch of plastic lei's and the blue hair wig that Kari wore once for a costume while Saben tried on some clown items that Todd wore for Halloween one year.
Later, Saben went out and rode his racing bike up the street.

He is just starting to learn to ride it, so we walked and ran beside it to make sure he didn't have an accident on it. Getting another grandchild hurt this week was not on my agenda! He did great though!

While I made lunch, Great-Grandma read a story to them.

MOPS Gymnastic Day

One of the women in MOPS likes to plan special outings for the other MOPS moms and their kids. Last Monday she planned a trip to a gymnastics place and I asked Kari if I could take Saben and Annika to it. There were a couple of obstacle course set up for them to do. The first one involved walking on these bars.
Annika, ever the daredevil and quite confident that if Saben can do it, so can she, walked across the bars also. Most of the girls her age just held onto the bars with their hands and walked on the carpeted board underneath the bars.
Saben enjoyed climbing this little "hill" and jumping or sliding down the other side.

They both walked on the balance beam, the first time holding my hand, but getting braver and not needing a helping hand after a couple of times. Unfortunately, Annika climbed onto the beam by herself at one point and fell head first to the ground. You can see in this picture, how there are mats close to the beam after you walk onto it, but where they get on, there was some stairs on one side and nothing down below where the balance beam leg is. When Annika fell, I think she must have hit her mouth on the balance beam leg. She cried awhile, but then went merrily on her way, so I didn't think much of it. A couple of days later Kari called and said that she had chipped 2 of her teeth and that one had been knocked loose and had to be pulled out. I felt really bad, but as Kari said, it could have happened any time at any activity, since she does like to climb and has made me nervous before when I've taken them to the park. It's just not something you want to have happen when you're the one in charge. Both of the kids did have a great time and didn't want to leave when it was time to go, so in spite of the injury, I'm glad we went. In the video below, you can see the cool trampoline they got to jump on. I had never seen one like it, it was so much fun to watch them jumping on it!

Going to the Zoo

I got behind on my blogging, but am almost caught up. Two and a half weeks ago, before the Olympics and the trip to Wenatchee, we got to take care of Seth on a Sunday afternoon. We decided to take Seth to the zoo, since it was a fairly warm, sunny day. After we picked up Seth, he fell asleep in the car on the way to the zoo, so we sat in the car about 15 minutes while he finished taking his nap. We figured it wasn't a big deal, it was only about 3 o'clock, so there was no rush. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that during the winter, the zoo closes at 4 o'clock. We debated about whether to spend the money to go in for an hour, but the guy at the gate said that we could walk around in the zoo until 5, so we decided to go ahead and go in.

The first place we went was the petting zoo area, which is not open during the winter. You can look at the farm animals in their pens, but you can't go in and pet them. Seth seemed to enjoy looking at them any way.

Seth and Papa with African huts in the back ground.

Some of the animals were being fed or getting ready to be fed, so they were up and moving instead of being asleep like many of them are whenever we go to the zoo. We had a good time, even though we didn't have as much time as we would have liked. Afterwards, we went back to Todd and Betsy's house and had some time to just play with Seth. A fun day all around!

Root Canal

A week ago tomorrow, I had a root canal done on the last tooth on the top of my mouth. Everyone seems to really dread root canals and moaned when I said I had to have one. They actually aren't nearly as bad as people seem to think they are. Yes, it wasn't fun, drilling into a tooth rarely is, but it really wasn't painful either (and I didn't even use nitrous, they wanted to charge me $55 for it and insurance won't cover it. I think it's the first time I've been near a dentist, including cleanings, without using nitrous in many, many years!) I have had virtually no pain this past week, other than if I happen to bite down on the tooth. So imagine my surprise when my lower jaw started turning green, purple and black, toward the end of the week. It definitely looks worse than it feels. I talked to someone at church yesterday who used to be a dental assistant and she said that having that happen is really unusual! Leave it to me to have the unusual happen!

Bathroom Remodel Continued

After several weeks of getting things ready for tile, choosing the tile, and doing some plumbing to accommodate our new fixtures, Ken started putting the new tile on the wall last night.

He took the day off work today and was able to get quite a bit done.

He got this much done plus the row of small glass tiles on the top and one more row of large tiles, before running out of the cement. I'm really excited about how good it's looking and can't wait for it to be done, so we can get the grouting done. We have a lot more to do and I don't know when we'll get to the painting part of the project, (we'll be painting it a green color) but I'm really anxious to see the tiles with the painting done. As in lots of remodeling projects, there's a lot to be done that doesn't show spectacular results like this, so it's nice to be working on something that shows some progress being made!

He Is With You

I"ve been hearing this song on the radio a lot lately and really like the words.

He Is With You

There's a time to live and a time to die

There's a time to laugh and a time to cry

There's a time for war and a time for peace

There's a hand to hold

In the worst of things, In the worst of things

He is with you when your faith is dead

And you can't even get out of bed

Or your husband doesn't kiss you anymore

He is with you when your baby's gone

And your house is still and your hearts are stone

Crying "God what'd you do that for?"

He is with you

There's a time for yes and a time for no

There's a time to be angry and a time to let it go

There's a time to run and a time to face it

There's love to seek in all of this

Through all of this

He is with you in the conference room

When the world is coming down on you

And your wife and kids don't know you anymore

And He is with you in the ICU when the doctors don't know what to do

And it scares you to the core

He is with you

We may weep for a time but joy will come in the morning

The morning light

He is with you when your kids are grown

When there's too much space and you feel alone

And you're worried if you got it right or wrong

Yes, He is with you when you've given up on ever finding your true love

Someone who feels like home

He is with you

When nothing else is left and you take your final breath

He is with you

He is with you

90th Birthday Party

Saturday morning, we drove home from Vancouver. After arriving home, I packed another suitcase and headed to Wenatchee, while Ken stayed and worked on the bathroom we are remodeling. Saturday evening, several family members came to Mom's for dinner and to play games.

Sunday we celebrated my Uncle Leonard's 90th birthday. This is him with his 2 children, Larry and Carol. He was married to my Dad's sister.

2 of Carol's grand-daughters sang a song for their Great-Grandpa called "I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck". That's probably not the title, but it's the beginning of the song and the only part of it I know. They did a very good job, really singing loudly and looked so cute doing it.
This is several of my cousins on the Elliott side of the family that were able to attend the birthday party. Back row left to right: Larry, my brother Tim, EllDee, Darrel, Terry, and Dale. Front row is: Carolyn, me and Carol
This is my cousin Carol's son, Adam, with his daughter, Olivia, who is 4 months old. I hadn't seen her before, so it was nice to meet her.
Carol and Larry played their accordians, while their Dad played a mandolin and he even sang a song for us. It was a lot of fun to see them play together.

Mom and I went and got Dad from the Adult Family Care home where he is staying now. It was the first time he had been on an outing since he had moved there in January. It went very well, he was able to go from his wheelchair to the car pretty easily. We did have to keep an eye on him at the party, because he kept trying to get up out of his wheelchair, which he isn't supposed to do. All the relatives that were at the party were excited to see him there and thanked us numerous times for bringing him. He didn't know who anyone was, but they all told him who they were and explained their relationship to him. He seemed to have a good time, I even saw him tapping his foot to the music a couple of times.

As we were taking the picture of my parents, brother, and I, my cousins decided they wanted to be in a picture with my parents also.

Vancouver Olympics 2010 - Part 2

Friday morning we woke up to rain and knew we were in for a wet morning. We were scheduled to be at a parking lot at 7:30 am to catch a bus to Cypress Mountain and since we had a 45 minute drive from where we were staying, we had to get up earlier than normal. (At least what is normal for me!) We got up on time, had no trouble getting to the parking lot and onto our bus, with some help from the friendly volunteers in blue coats again. After riding the bus for about 35 minutes, we arrived at the drop off point. (This is not to be confused with arriving at the venue!) We then had to walk another 30 minutes uphill to get to the seating area, which was on the other side of the wall at the top of the picture. Even though we were walking in the rain under an umbrella, we were so excited to be there, even the walk and the rain wasn't that bad (at first)! After we got to a partially covered spot on the stairs, we got out our $2 rain ponchos and put them on over our coats, because we knew we couldn't use the umbrella once we got to our seats. (Ken decided that those ponchos were our most valuable piece of clothing that day!)We found our wet, cold aluminum bench seats and put our blanket down to sit on, to try and keep our bottoms semi-dry.
This is the event we were at, you can see that there is not a lot of snow beyond the snowboarding slope.

It was not only raining, but it was windy and foggy also. I was actually surprised to find that the only part of my body that was kind of cold was my knees. My feet and fingers are what usually get cold when I'm out in the snow, but I didn't have a problem with either of them.

We were looking right up the half-pipe run where there had been competitions earlier in the week. The bottom part of the slalom course was easily seen, but most of the runs we saw were not visible at the beginning of the run, so you stared into the fog until you caught a glimpse of them coming down the course. The starting gate is up there toward the middle of the picture in the fog.

Toward the end of the time that we were there, the fog lifted enough to be able to see the staring gate. Every time after a snowboarder went down the run, a bunch of the blue coated volunteers swarmed all over the course to make sure everything was still OK for the next group.

I took this picture right before the snowboarder on the left crashed.

Crossing the finish line!

Now for the sad part of the story, after the qualifying runs were over at about 11:30, about 2/3rds of the audience, including us, decided they had been in the rain long enough and abandoned ship. There was a mass exodus back to the buses and it was during the trip back to the bus, that I started feeling cold. I foolishly decided not to put our camera back in it's case on the walk back to the bus, just in case I wanted to take some more pictures, which I didn't, since we made a beeline to the bus. We found out later that the camera had gotten so wet, that it wouldn't work when it came time to go to the short track skating event, which was a major disappointment, to say the least! Luckily the next morning, after drying out overnight, it started working again, but what a bummer to not have your camera work at a once in a lifetime event!

Anyway, back to what happened after leaving the snowboarding. When we got to the bus, after another 30 minute walk in the rain, we took off our ponchos and I was surprised to see how wet my heavy coat was. It was basically sopping wet, but luckily, it was just wet on the outside, so I didn't feel wet at all. We ended up having lunch in a place that had TV's tuned to the Olympic events and watched the end of the race on their TV's.

The short track speed skating went much better, especially since we were indoors for them. We had wonderful seats, 13 rows from the rink, on a corner facing the finish line. The skaters entered the rink at the opposite end from where we were sitting, but left the rink at our end, so the skaters were pretty close to us. I would definitely recommend it as an Olympic sport to watch in person, the races were fast, exciting, and a lot of fun to watch, even if you are surrounded by Canadians routing for a different person than you are routing for. I had a little American flag I waved whenever an American skater raced and didn't even get any grief from the Canadians. The ones we were sitting by were very nice, but definitely routing for their team. One race where there was no Canadian racer, they routed for the American with us. We even got to see the medals handed out at the end of the racing, so we got to see Apolo Ono get his last medal of the games. They took place at the end of the rink where we were sitting, we were behind and a little to the side of the medal podium. All in all our Olympic experience was very enjoyable and we are really glad that we took the opportunity to go when they were so close to us. We had one last adventure after leaving the arena, the city bus we were riding back to where our car was parked was having a problem with the back door on the side not shutting after people got off the bus. The driver called the dispatcher and asked her to arrange for someone to look at it after his run. She told him to try a couple of things and if that didn't work, then he would have to tell everyone they had to get off, that he couldn't continue his route with a defective door. We ended up having to get off and the next 3 buses on the route were not going to go to the area where we had parked. When the 3rd bus came by Dad went and talked to the bus driver and told him we had been stranded by the other bus and could he take us where we needed to go. There were about 12 people besides us. He actually agreed to change his route and took us to our parking lot. Another example of how willing they were to help people out during the Olympics!

Vancouver Olympics 2010 - Part 1

Last Thursday and Friday, Ken and I got to go to the Olympics. Thursday we just hung around the downtown area and absorbed the atmosphere.

The first thing we did when we arrived in town was head down to see the Olympic flame. We didn't take the time to stand in line to go onto the viewing platform, but the line really wasn't that long. It was estimated that it would take 30 minutes to get onto the platform, but we had such limited time downtown and it seemed like the view from down below was fine. The only bad thing was that the picture with us in front of the flame had the chain link fence showing behind us.
We were amazed to see all the volunteers that were standing around the street corners waiting to help anyone who looked the least bit lost. Every time we got our map out to figure out where we wanted to go, a person in a blue jacket, came over to see if they could help or answer any questions. This was the case wherever we went, not just downtown.
After seeing the torch, we went to the area where they had a zip line going for people to ride for free. We didn't stand in line for that either or even look to see how big the line was, since we weren't interested in taking that ride. Many of the buildings downtown had a picture, words welcoming you to the Olympics or at the very least a Canadian flag displayed in the window. Granted, we have never been to a city hosting the Olympics before, but we were impressed with the Olympic spirit being shown everywhere we went.
One of the streets had a display of lanterns for a light festival.
Look closely to see all the flags hanging from the balconies of these apartments. Again, you saw patriotism everywhere, from flags being displayed in stores, apartments, and on car antennas, to red colored, maple leafed, clothing and hats whatever direction you looked, and even mini flags painted on cheeks of many people including the children. I had hoped to get a picture of some cute kids with flags on their cheeks, but never managed to take one.

Some parents of a friend of Kari's let us stay at their home both nights and also invited us for dinner Thursday night. We had never met them, although they knew Kari and we knew their daughter, but they were willing to open their home to us during our trip, which saved us from an exhausting day on Friday. (Our original plan was to drive up, attend the events, then drive back home all in one day. What were we thinking???) As was the case with all the Canadians we ran into during our stay, they were very welcoming and friendly and we came away feeling like we had made two new friends.