One more before we go

Good thing school is done because Holly got her wisdom teeth pulled on Tuesday!  She did awesome, very little swelling and she's almost back to normal already...of course she did have an awesome nurse.

 

And lucky for her, I was able to give her my undivided attention since Sam and Katie were in South Dakota with Gramma.  I have no pictures of Katie but as you can see, Sam is missing me a lot.

Sam's birthday "party" and a present for his mom too

Since that Sam I Am was going to be in South Dakota for his birthday (we figured out that he has spent five of his ten birthdays at Gramma's house) we celebrated a little early before him and Katie left.

We had pepperoni pizza (his choice) and he got to open some presents.  He got a "Wimpy Kid" book from his big sister.

I love this pic.  They usually aren't smiling when they are this close to each other :)!

Since his gift from John and I was a little large, I sent him on a scavenger hunt all around the house for clues.  He finally ended up in the shower to find his new GOLF CLUBS!  He was pretty excited.

I am thinking this is probably the first time ever that John has picked out a gift for one of our children.  He did a great job despite the fact that gift giving is not his love language.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUDDY! 

And because I birthed all of his children (I assume), John got me a present too!!!  Isn't she beautiful?!  She is so shiny and has so many bells and whistles that I almost feel like I should name her. 

Uncle Glen, I am well aware of the fact that she is not green and yellow and does not have a zero-radius turning ability but not all of us have as much money as you do. Maybe some day you'll give your favorite niece (no, I am not talking about Amy) one of your "leftover" ones. 

Random

Holly sure knows how to multi-task.  Here she is studying for exams while bonding with her Gramma.

Sam last day of 3rd grade.  He had a good year.  He was pretty nervous when the class list came out because none of his good buddies were in his class but he made some really good new friends.  It's also amazing how God picks out just the right teacher for him year after year.  Gramma and I went to his class party at the end of the day.  One of the moms made a video for his class, it made me cry (I know, huge surprise here).  He got an award for outstanding attendance. 

Katie's last day of preschool.  This was her second year with Teacher Leslie and although it was pretty hard to say goodbye, this girl is ready for kindergarten!

 Sam finally got his summer haircut.  Here's a before...

 And after.  I love me a buzz cut!

 Katie was feeling a little left out so I took a before and after of her too.

Katie's Field Trip and HOBY

Katie's end-of-the-year-preschool-picnic was at Hovander Park.  Again, a cool and rainy day (do you sense a pattern here?) but we bravely ignored the elements and carried on.  Teacher Leslie always has fun games lined up.  Here the girls are lined up and ready to race.

I believe they are suppose to be racing kangaroos.

The new playground was lots of fun.

Usually the park has lots of animals and Teacher Leslie bring bread for the kids to feed them.  Unfortunately, the only animals that weren't in hibernation were two rabbits.  Those rabbits ate A LOT of bread that day! 

Last fall, Holly (and a fellow classmate) were selected by their teachers to attend the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY) conference in Spokane.  HOBY was founded in 1958 by (shockingly) Hugh O'Brian, an actor who was most known for playing Wyatt Earp on a television series in the 50's.  If you want to know more, here's the link http://hoby.org/.  HOBY conferences are held annually in all fifty states and this year's Washington conference was in Spokane (about a six hour drive over the mountains) and right before final exams - not exactly ideal.   Holly heard great things about it from the girl who was chosen last year and she knew this was a once-chance deal (only high school sophomores are chosen) so she decided to go for it.  The conference started early on a Thursday morning and the other student's parents graciously offered to take Holly with them.  Since my mom was here, we decided to take advantage of Gramma's babysitting services and make our way slowly to Spokane to pick her up.  We left Friday afternoon and took the scenic route (lots and lots of curves on mountain roads that John likes to take at 80 m.p.h.) to Wenatchee.  We ate in a wonderful pub that night.  Funny story here...John was asking the waiter about his favorite beers and he mentioned they also had a Root Beer on tap.  I wasn't in the mood for an alcoholic beverage so I decided to try that.  It came in a nice, frosty mug and I took a big drink only to discover it was REAL beer.  Apparently, "Root Beer" means something completely different in Eastern Washington!  The food was great but the place was packed and it took a long time to come so the waiter offered us free dessert.  We were stuffed and had no room for dessert but we are also very dutch.  John noticed the pub served breakfast so he asked the waiter if we could just get a gift certificate and came back for breakfast in the morning.  Our breakfast was just as yummy as our supper!  
Saturday on our way to Spokane we made a little detour to check out the Grand Coulee Dam.  I never realized it was the largest dam in America.  It was built in the 1930's and is the largest electric power-producing facility in the United States and one of the largest concrete structures in the world.  I leaned all this on the dam tour we went on.  By the way, we had a lot of fun saying over and over again, "Let's go on that dam tour" because we are really mature that way.

Inside the dam.

On top of the dam.  It was very interesting because the tour was very secure.  You could only take a camera (without the case), we had to walk through a metal detector and we had federal officers that followed us on the entire tour.

We finally made it to Spokane that afternoon and stopped at Riverside Park to walk around.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day.  Sam and Katie would have loved this slide.

Sunday morning we headed to Gonzaga University where the HOBY conference was held for a parent's orientation, luncheon, and closing ceremonies.  Here is Holly and her group receiving their "diplomas".

Afterwards, posing for some pics before saying goodbye.

Holly and her HOBY partner, Sam.  Sam's parents brought the kids there and the plan was to study the entire six hours.  From what I understand that didn't exactly happen.  They talked. A lot.  Surprise, surprise.

The plan was that Holly would spend the entire trip back home studying for exams.  That didn't exactly happen.  She spent about an hour and a half telling us all about her experiences (she had a great time, you'll have to ask her about it) and the rest of the time sleeping.  They apparently didn't sleep much at HOBY.
In closing...usually when I find random pictures on my camera I immediately know who the culprit is.  That Sam I Am loves to take pictures of his Legos, stuffed animals, his sister's throat, etc.  This time it appears someone else "borrowed" my camera.  Any guesses who??

Yep, it's Gramma. 

Seriously, I can't believe it's the middle of June



Yep, I'm a little behind in my blogging again.  No excuses this time..just lazy.  Today I am going to cover Katie's birthday (she turned five on May 28) and Sam's field trip with a few other random thing thrown in.  My goal is to get caught up before we leave for vacation.  Here we go...

Katie loves helping me bake.  We made cupcakes for her preschool treats.  FYI, sometimes she licks the spoon before we are all done.

One day before the other two kiddos were done with school, we had a tea party.  Owl, Bunny, Lizard, and I were invited.

Sam had a field trip to Post Point in Bellingham.  This is a GREAT place to go to see lots of cool sea creatures.  It's one of my favorite field trips so even though it was a dreary, drizzly day; I  tagged along.  At first the boys were much more interested at throwing rocks at a floating piece of driftwood than they were at looking for cool sea creatures.   

The rock throwing eventually got old and they started exploring.  We found a sand bar that had literally thousands of sand dollars on it.  I love this picture.  Sam's hair was just a little out-of-control by the end of the year.  He wanted a summer buzz cut but didn't want John to do it until school was done because he doesn't like people touching his head and (his quote here), "I don't want kids to call me a dork".  

Here are some sand dollars up close.  Before we moved here I thought things like sand dollars and star fish were brown like you see them in gift stores.  Actually that color means they are dead.  Sand dollars are  soft and furry when they are alive.   Mrs. T. told the kids they could only take home things that were dead so I had lots of kids running up to me with sand dollars saying, "Hey, Sam's Mom, is this thing dead?"

 We found lots of star fish (actually the name is sea star because they are not a fish).

We found a whole bunch of fish eggs under this rock.  I know my friend Susie will like this picture because she is a home school mom and she likes to take opportunities to teach whenever she can.  I still remember taking our kids to McDonalds to jump in the balls and she would turn it into a learning time.  "What color is that ball Holly?" "Let's count how many balls are in this disgusting, urinated in, ball pit?" 

Moving on to Katie Kat's birthday.  Sam's field trip happened to fall on Katie's birthday so she got to spend a couple of hours with her Aunt Sally.  That in and of itself is a party.  John had a meeting that night so we ate supper really fast so she could open presents before he left.

 

 Aunt Kerri came over and brought gifts too.  She was pretty thrilled with these flip flops.

Since I didn't make a cake or anything (did you know John and I are trying not to eat wheat?), Kerri and I took Sam and Katie to Dairy Queen for a treat. 

Happy Birthday Katie My Lady!  I cannot believe you are five year old already!  In some ways it makes me sad that my baby girl is growing up so fast but mostly I am just so excited to see what God has in store for you.  You have such a fun personality and are so eager to try new things.  Watch out kindergarten...here she comes!