Festivals, Family and Feildtrips

Charity got a chance to get together with all 6 of her sisters this last week. They all met in Seattle and spent the night, since all of them were flying in from different areas. The next day was spent at Pike's Place in Seattle, where they posed in front of the Famous Gum Wall. They spent the rest of the weekend staying in the farmhouse at the Lavender farms in Sequim. It was so much fun and so nice to do nothing but hang and catch up.

Before she left though she had to earn her mini vacation with 3 feildtrips packed into one week. First they went to the Fish Hatchery and watched how they kill the mature salmon to harvest their eggs and "fertilizer" Isaiah and Elijah's favorite part was when they hit the salmon over the head with the aluminum bat. :( The guys were so great there and really let the kids have a truly "hand on" experience. I had not picture my kids ever handling so many poped out eye balls, followed by handfuls of slippery salmon eggs. They all got to feed the babyfish and loved to watch them jump like crazy for their food. It was so much fun for the kids and they actually did learn a lot.

The next day we got to go to a beaver habitat that a college student was studying to write her thesis on. She was so great at letting the kids ask questions and bringing lots of props for them to play with. Below, Isaiah has a rubber replica of a beaver foot and he is trying to figure out why they have only one toenail on one foot that is purposly split down the middle. (it is so they can use it like a comb). Kenya is holding the skull of a beaver and learning why their 2 front teeth are orange colored. (cause they are an iron calcium mix, so they don't break as easily) Annecy is holding the outer layer of beaver fur (who knew they had 2 layers). The college student told the kids to look for clues that we were getting close to the beaver dam. The clues were; beaver tracks, beaver smells and chewed on wood. Elijah took this search very seriously and ended up collecting and saving all of the chewed on wood peices he found.

Lastly, the day after Charity got back from her Sisters weekend, we took on 4 more kids for the week as our friends "The Wheelers" were headed out of town. If Charity learned anything from her mom having 10 kids, its that the more worn out they are the less you notice they are there. So she did her best to wear them out over the weekend. Friday was quarter swim at the pool, so with 10 kids in tow, she went to swim lessons, followed by 2 more hours in the pool, home for dinner and some very tired kids to bed. The next morning was football and soccer games followed by a harvest party at a local company's farm. The kids got cupcakes at the cupcake walk followed by donuts at the "bobing for donuts" station and all wrapped up with a couple runs through the hay obstacle course. It almost seemed like having 8-10 kids at one time may not be such a challenge after all! JUST KIDDING! I think we may survive and be ready for another vacation by next week.

Desperate to Dress Up

We took a trip to goodwill the other day and they had all of their halloween stuff out, so of course Kenya and Annecy could not reisist using their hard earned money to buy some much desired wigs they saw on sale. When we got home they used their play make up and wigs to transfom themselves into a Tina Turner look alike (even though Annecy has no idea who she is) and a messed up version of snow white. Then as if that was not enough they moved on to giving Mom and Elijah a "make over" as well. We never knew how much Elijah and Kenya looked alike until we dressed up Elijah as a brunette with lots of make up. We had lots of fun, but I am not sure it is something mom wants to repeat anytime soon. I wish we could say the same for Elijah.

Rodeo'in and Racing around

Wow, I never thought I woul be eager for my kids to get driver's licenses, especially at this age. After spending now 2 Tuesday's racing them around to all of their sporting events and clubs, I have to say I am counting down the days till they can do it themselves. Our weekly Tuesday routine goes something like this. Isaiah soccer 3:30-5:00, Girls Gymnastics 5:15, Elijah Football 5:30, Isaiah home for dinner and change into scout uniform 5:45, Pick up girls from Gymnastics 6:15, drop of Isaiah at scouts 6:30, Pick up Elijah from football 7:00, home for dinner, pick up Isaiah from scouts 8:00, fill up with gas now cause were on "E" and head home to calapse before putting kids to bed and cleaning up the mess we made as we trafficed in and out all day. What a crazy evening, but the reward comes after all the kids crash out early and I get to hang with my hubby.

Here are some pictures of the boys at their games on Saturday, they both won by a long shot, which really helped boost their egos for the rest of the season. Elijah is in his practice gear by the tree and his game gear on the field. You'll have to wait for the girls pictures, somehow with my tuesday night schedule I did not find time to take pictures of them.

Grandpa treated us to the legendary Ellensburg Rodeo. It was our very first one and we had so much fun. Tadd thinks he could be a good competitor in the "Wild cow milking" competition next year. Guess we will have to wait and see. We are enjoying the last of the summer nights. One of the kids favorite things to do is sit out on the porch and roast hot dogs for dinner, followed by a desert of smores. We love being able to hang out without getting rained out. The eastside of the mountains has treated us well.

We went to the Special Olympics Fundraiser here in town at the baseball fields, they had old cars, police and rescue support on hand with all of their bells and whistles that you could tour and take pictures with. The kids took pictures with the 0ld cars, police cars and motorcycles. As well as a photo shoot with the animal rescue stuffed animals. It was very hot, but so much fun. Here are some pics the kis so uniquely pose for.

Garage sales and Boy scouts

Isaiah went to boyscout camp this week and had lot of fun, when we were packing him up though Tadd gave him his pocket knife and gave him the knife safety lesson. As he was doing this all the other kids decided they needed a pocket knife too. The next morning Tadd took the kids garage saleing, looking for a table for the chruch. They went to an estate sale that had a whole bag of pocket knives. So now the kids are widdling to no end. Elijah also scored and bought himself some army guys. The kids have this huge desire to jobs to make money for next saturday's garage sales. Here is Annecy and Elijah with their garage sale loot.

Here is Isaiah the day he got back from camp, he is look'in pretty rough, but I guess that means he had fun. We sure did miss him!

Joplin Missions Trip

I don't know if anyone is reading this anymore since it has been so long since I posted, but it is my way of keeping a journal of our family so i will continue to try and be better about keeping it up. We have had a play, baseball, a church open house, and plenty more little notable activities since I last posted and I kept waiting to get all of the pictures of our phones to post them, but since we can't seem to remember our camera and we can't ever seem to be home at the same time to post pictures of our phones i am just going to post what I have and I can post some old photos later if we can ever get it together. Here goes,

We just got back from a week long missions tripto Joplin MO, where they had the Tornado on May 22nd. We were so blessed to be able to go with our whole family, as well as 17 other people from our church and a few other Calvary Chapel's in our area. The kids were such troopers. They were so excited all week to work in the distribution tent, helping people get things they needed and restocking the tables when they got low.

Below are some pictures of the tornado sticken areas and some pictures of our crew helping people clean up. Isaiah and Tadd got to go out an help Demo houses and pray with people who had lost everything. We all were blessed to get to know and serve with the other 3 groups from other churches and ministries that were staying at the Chruch we served at.

as you can see in the pictures below there was still lots of time for fun.

Below are some picture of the tent we ate in an the good grub we enjoyed from the "house of luke" guys. (house of luke is a group of men who have been into drugs and criminal activity, but now have decided to give their life to the lord) Tadd is praying with one of the guys from the House of Luke, whose wife and kids left him and since he has given his life to the Lord is trying to win them back.

(above)These are endearing pictures of our 18 passanger van that we spent 36 hours on for the way there and back. It got pretty sketchy there a couple of times since we were sleeping 18 people on a bus for almost 2 nights but we managed as you can see.

above is our team picture and our team cramming into a 15 passenger bus, since the extra car
had to head to ER for a heat exhausted kid.

It was a great trip and we were more blessed than the people we went there to serve. We are excited to plan another trip soon.