Sweet Sightings

Frog Baby Shoe Models

2009-11-03T19:10:00.000-08:00

"Hey you, check out my shoes!"

Cute shoes, huh? My kids are modeling these specially imported shoes from Taiwan. (My Dad brought them back as gifts for them) They are kind of like those Croc shoes material, but a bit stiffer. Adele wears hers all the time.

I get moms stopping me often, telling me how cute these shoes are, or asking where I got them.

You like them? You want a pair? You can't get them in the United States... unless you know ME. (Or my sister, so for any of my family and friends in UTAH who are interested, I can hook you up with her).

They come in Pink, Green, Blue, and Yellow. Christmas is right around the corner. I have very limited supplies. Let me know if you are interested...

Halloween

2009-11-02T11:59:00.000-08:00

Adele is a Princess. Samuel is an unwilling superhero.
Didn't want the boots or the cape.
Finally I distracted him with some Baby Einstein. See how it's a wonder pets cape? (It's actually Adele's cape that she got from a birthday party).

Adele was very specific about how she wanted her pumpkin carved this year. Last year, we carved these fancy pumpkins, where Danielle made Cinderella, and I did Prince Phillip.

All year long, she was saying how last Halloween, she wished she could have a pumpkin with two eyes and a nose and a mouth. All that work, and really, all she'd wanted was a traditional jack-o-lantern! So this year, we were sure to get it right. Specifically, she wanted triangle eyes, a circle nose, and a curved mouth with teeth. Thank goodness she wanted these more simple designs. All we had to carve with was a butter knife.

Then she wanted Samuel's to have triangle eyes, a triangle nose, and a curved mouth with NO teeth.

Aaron took the kids to a science museum on Saturday (Halloween).
He and Adele entered a pumpkin weighing contest. She wanted to put down 40 lbs., but he encouraged her to write 5 lbs. They came in at 2nd place. She won a prize, she picked coke bottle glasses. She was excited that they would match her doctor set glasses, and that she and Samuel could be able to wear them at the same time.

Me: "I will get the camera if you will get your toothbrush and start brushing your teeth." Hence, the picture of the glasses while she is brushing her teeth. Wasn't hard to get Samuel in the picture, he climbs right up on the stool with Adele when she brushes her teeth. He loves to be involved. She is good at sharing (with him) and never pushes him off the stool or complains about him being there (like she does with Dawna).

Elsewhere and Portland

2009-10-26T11:14:00.000-07:00

The kids got to pick out a pumpkin from Grandma and Grandpa's patch. They'd cut the pumpkins and put them in the barn, under some straw, to keep them warm. So they said to just go find some under the straw in the barn. It was fun, like a game. The barn was dark, and we didn't know which stall to look in. When we did find it, we still didn't know if there were pumpkins under all that straw, and where exactly to look. So rather than picking pumpkins this year, we also had to find them!

We enjoyed Jason and Courtney's wedding. Jason is Aaron's cousin. Jason fainted during the vows, which was fun, because his brother Jacob caught him, and Jason popped right back up - he actually "feinted." He was telling Courtney, during the vows, that that was the way he felt when they met. He really got us all, big gasps from everyone. I guess those boys were always big jokers.

Samuel in his prayer pose. Folding his arms, bowing his head (well, his whole body) and closing his eyes.

Astoria

2009-10-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

Ecola State Park near Cannon Beach
Aaron had to hold Samuel back, so he wouldn't touch the catipillar.

They love to wrestle

Astoria Column.
We climbed it, 166 steps.
(According to a guy coming down while we climbed up)

We could see the valley from up high.

Oh Health Me

2009-10-20T16:03:00.000-07:00

Help me with Health.

I waited to schedule my kids' well examinations because I wanted to change our health insurance to an Oregon plan. After all, the last time I took one of them in (when we lived in Oregon back in Jan-Mar), the visit (which involved looking at my son for 10 seconds and never touching him, all done by the nurse practitioner "oh he has a rash? It's no big deal. It's just __") cost us over $200. And, since we just don't live in CA anymore, we obviously need to switch.

Well, the underwriting for this new health plan has taken over 2 months. It's ridiculous. We ALMOST have it... just waiting on one more medical record. Never get sick if you plan on changing insurance, it is such a headache to get on a different plan. I mean, insurances don't want to offer health insurance to anyone but the SUPER healthy. Anyway, with all this attention to swine flu, and knowing tons of people living around us who already have had it, and with stories of hospitalizations, I figured I better get the kids vaccinated. After all, if they get sick enough with the flu to go to the doctor, that one visit could cost us over $200. (We pay everything to a very high deductible, except for their yearly exams and shots). Not worth it, if we can prevent it, right? It seems like a common thing to go in to see your doctor when you are sick with the flu. And I have heard plenty of stories of kids being dehydrated and needed to go to the hospital to rehydrate with IV fluids. Can't imagine how much THAT would cost...

Well, I have called 2 doctors offices (that have several doctors). Pediatricians, family practices, etc. No one is accepting new patients. I called another and they said maybe, they will get back to me. Okay, any day now. AND they are out of swine flu vacc AND seasonal flu vacc. I called the local pharmacies. They don't offer them to kids. I called the county. They won't give kids under 3 the swine flu vacc (which rules out my son) and won't give kids over 3 the seasonal vacc (which rules out my daughter). So they can each have one of each vaccine. So I was running out of options... no place to get my kids their flu vaccines, their immunizations. CAN'T let them get sick. I finally just hung a bottle of hand sanitizer on my belt loop and went crazy with it when we dropped Aaron at the mall today (the kids wanted to play on the germ happy indoor play structures). I'm not always a germ-a-phobe. Mostly when I know there's flu going around, schools are closing because of it, and we can't afford to get sick with more than a cold.

So finally, I just called my kids' primary care pediatrician back in CA. They set up me with an appointment to see them, nice and easy. They have both vaccines available. So the kids get to see the doctor and have lots of shots (due for immunizations too) when we come home for the holidays.

Our ugly morph and my parents visit

2009-10-18T16:52:00.000-07:00

Aren't you glad our kids don't look like this?

Aaron's forehead, my eyes, top of my nose,
bottom of his nose, top of my lips.
His chin, part of my hair.
Woo, that is ugly!
(We were at the Science Works museum
and experimented with light and mirrors)

My parents came to visit us this weekend. We went to Mill creek falls. Last time, we only hiked to the viewpoint because of all the snow. This time we were excited to hike down the canyon into the Avenue of the Boulders. Giant moss covered boulders lined either side of the trail. Huge canopies of yellow and green trees with their changing colors made the light golden, and it felt as those we were in a dream. Then we visited Natural Bridge by Union creek. The river flows under the lava, there are these natural lava beds (much like the ones in Lava Beds national monument that we just visited) except these ones have the creek (which is a very big creek and feels more like a river) running through it. Then, since we were so far down 62, we decided we might as well use our National Parks pass and scoot on over to Crater Lake for a quick peek.

We all held hands. Samuel grabbed Adele's.

Barr Creek Falls

Some of that golden light behind us -
it never shows up in pictures as well as what we really saw.
Crater Lake
(My parents hadn't been back here since they took the whole family as kids. And they confirmed that we did NOT take a boat to the island, as an unnamed sister thinks we did. At least, Mom and Dad and I have no memory of that. The boat we took was most likely to Shasta Caverns, which is by Shasta Lake in Northern California).

Kite flying

2009-10-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

Larry and Cheryl came and brought Adele a kite for her birthday. Adele has been excited all week long about flying that kite. So today, Aaron decided to take her out flying, even though it wasn't windy.

But what a kite! She threw it up, and up up up it went into the sky! Then she flew it herself. It was such a great kite, it seemed to want to stay up by itself. I still don't know where the wind was, but it was sure fun to watch the kids fly this kite.

Birthday and fun

2009-10-10T15:22:00.000-07:00

Adele's favorite thing - helping me bake. Samuel has newly discovered he enjoys helping me as well. That can be difficult.

North Mountain Park, the Bear Creek Salmon festival. We all got to sample smoked salmon.

North Mountain Park

Adele helped us stack and frost her own birthday cake. She really wanted to. I figured, since it's her birthday, she ought to be able to help if she wants. She had asked me for a cake that was "round and round and round and the smallest round on top." Huh? Then she said, it was the one Sleeping Beauty got for her 16th birthday. OH. She wanted a tiered cake! With sprinkles. Her grandma Cheryl was here and helped me make the cake too.

We went to the ScienceWorks hands on museum for her birthday - a membership so we could go back all year (instead of a birthday party). She LOVED it. Her favorite was a ship she could play on. The kids really liked this pin thing too.

There were animals there. And all sorts of neat science experiment things. The kind of stuff you'd see (except MUCH smaller scale) if you've been to OMSI in Portland, or Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley. Or maybe Exploratorium in SF, - there's dozens of these kinds of museums I have always wanted to see in the bay area. Now I have a membership, and we can go to any of them for free! So everytime we visit home, we're hitting one of those museums, or the Tech museum in San Jose, or the Chabot Space and Science center in Oakland, to name a few others.

Tire blowout

2009-09-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

What a week. Things just sound dramatic, but really I like to just exaggerate the things that happen to us. We drove to Portland on Friday, dropped the kids off with Cami - THANK YOU CAMI!! She watched our two kids and her 4 kids while her husband was out of town! I couldn't imagine dragging 6 kids to 3 soccer games by myself. On Saturday morning we drove to Seattle, just me and Aaron. It was exciting, and we decided it was our wedding anniversary getaway, since we did literally nothing on our wedding anniversary back in August.

We enjoyed a beautiful wedding on Saturday. Aaron's friend since kindergarten, Ben, married the beautiful and witty Natilee. The best part of the wedding was when Ben's little brother Zach showed up at the reception dressed up as Elvis. A full on, custom made suit. They'd made some pact when they were in grade school that they would do this, and it could only be vetoed by the bride. Bride was cool with it. Seattle is so beautiful.

We picked reunited with the kids on Sunday, and were lucky enough that a Severson dinner was scheduled that afternoon. We got to see cousins and aunts and uncles that we love and miss. Then we drove home to Ashland. But one hour into the drive, our tire blew out. Here's the part that sounds dramatic but really isn't because we are incredibly blessed. So we pull over on I-5, and the people driving behind us saw and smelled what happened. So they pull over immediately. Two guys help Aaron change the tire, and two girls help we watch the kids. Luckily there was a big grassy area by the shoulder, so we were far enough from traffic. We happen to get the blowout right by the exit you take to get to cousin Scott's house. So Scott and Michelle were able to take us in, since we couldn't drive 4 hours home on a spare donut. So really, we could've been seriously hurt, or taken hours to get the tire changed, or had to find a hotel. But instead, things were quite smooth, and we had a warm place at a relative's, and I really was glad to have time to hang out with Scott and Michelle. The next morning, we replaced our tires. (This is lame part. I had been calling around last week to find the best deal on tires, and since we had to do other car maintenance $$ , I decided we could wait just one more month to replace them next month). Next time I think about it, I really ought to just do it! Anyway, Aaron only missed 3 hours of work. I dropped him right off at work, and that was our weekend.

Fire close to home

2009-09-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

By Staff reports

September 21, 2009

Update (3:56 p.m.): The fire in the south Ashland hills is almost contained, fire officials said at 3:45 p.m.

“Unless there is a change in fire conditions, the fire should be fully contained within the hour,” read an update on the city's Web site.

Once the fire is fully contained, officials will work to open roads and allow residents to return to their homes.
—Hannah Guzik

===
The fire is a few blocks from here. The neighbors, some friends from our church, lent us their car, since they knew we were carless (Aaron has it at work). I put a few things in, just in case we have to evacuate. What a relief to know we have a car now, if we need. The people who come water the yard came over just now, with big masks on. They came to water the yard and the house down, they even got up on the roof. That was REALLY nice of them.They didn't even stop to have lunch today. (Jeanine Sturm, good lady). I had Adele doing it with me this morning, but the air was bad and I didn't want the kids out there very long. So now we are just waiting and hoping the fire gets under control. My piano student just tried to come over for her lesson, but the roads are closed so they couldn't get here. 3:30 pm

From http://www.dailytidings.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090921/NEWS02/909219998

By Staff reports

September 21, 2009

Update (3:24 p.m.): Locations under mandatory evacuation order:

Tolman Creek Road: addresses 1300 through 3530

Morninglight Road: all addresses

Related Photo Galleries

Links

See a map of the fire's location

Timberlake Drive: all addresses

Lupine Drive: addresses 2200, 2260 and 2285

All streets south of Bellview Avenue

Bellview Elementary School

(Information from the Jackson County Emergency Operations Center)

Two overnight shelters have been set up for fire evacuees.

Those displaced by the fire can go to First Baptist Church, 2004 Siskiyou Blvd., and the Oregon Army National Guard Armory, 1420 E. Main St. Cots will be set up at the evacuation shelters, county emergency response officials said.

Evacuees with large animals are being directed to the Jackson County Expo in Central Point. People with small animals are being advised to check with the shelters to see if they can stay there.

Update (3:10 p.m.): About 108 homes are under a mandatory evacuation order in the Ashland hills near Tolman Creek Road as the fire continues to tear through the bone-dry brush.

Approximately 80 acres have burned so far, fire officials said.

Officials have ordered evacuations for homes above Siskiyou Boulevard on Tolman Creek Road, Bellview Avenue, Green Meadows Way, Morada Lane, Apple Way, Ranch Road and other surrounding streets.

Residents are being told to leave immediately.

====

From: http://kdrv.com/page/141951

ASHLAND, Ore. -- Fires crews from all over the area are battling a four alarm grass fire in Ashland. The fire is burning above the SOU campus near Siskiyou Boulevard and Crowson.

Two structure fire have been reported and the structural strike team is on scene.

Air units have also been called in to help.

The city of Ashland has a wildfire hotline for people to call to get updates on the fire. It is 552-2490.

At roughly 12:20 pm, authorities have issued an evacuation order for the 1400 block of Tolman Cr. Rd and Timberlake Drive.

Newswatch 12 crews on scene and will bring you the most up to date information as it becomes available.

Check out http://twitter.com/kdrv for faster fire updates.

Adele hiked 5 miles

2009-09-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

Samuel tried to grab at the sunbeams

We drove to the Grizzly Peak trailhead. It was only a half hour at most. Grizzly peak looks kind of barren when we look at it from Ashland, but when we got to the trail it was a wonderful surprise. The size of the mountain where you hike to the peak is all green and lush. A misty fog hung in the air for the first part of the hike, which made it especially beautiful. Adele was wowwed by the mist. We meant to hike to the summit and back, which would have been 3 miles round trip. But at the summit, we found that there were no views. The views were on the loop trail that continued on, but we didn't know this. We just kept hiking until we could see some views. And by the time we saw some, we figured we might as well keep going. So Adele ended up hiking all five miles. Yes, 5! She never even asked to be carried. What a girl. I admit, sometimes it was very very slow going. But I am proud that she hiked so far on her own.

No wonder this kid falls all the time.
No such thing as "too risky."

Lithia Park and Pony Rides

2009-09-13T20:19:00.000-07:00

This is beautiful Lithia Park. It's the downtown park in our city, just 5 minutes from our house. (Everything is about 5 minutes away if it is in the city limits).

Behind Samuel is a bridge that goes over Ashland Creek.
Samuel sees the playground and is ready to play!

Samuel watching Adele climb up the web.

Samuel is sooo pleased with himself.
He's climbing like Adele and Aaron! (In background)

Picnic. Adele still enjoys feeding Samuel.

Adele sitting on a rock in the middle of the creek.

Then we went to a party.
Adele and Samuel in the bounce house.

Adele's first pony ride!!

My visiting teaching companion is a student manager for family housing at OSU. So they put on a back to school BBQ and she invited us! Fun and free. Adele saw the pony ride when we got there, and before we even suggested going for one, she said "I don't want to do that!" Okay, you don't have to. But after bouncing in the bounce house and watching the pony rides, all of a sudden, she said she really wanted to do the pony ride. She loved it.

"What seems to be the problem?"

2009-09-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

Well, my cell phone broke. I didn't break it, it broke by itself.

(caution: this is a ranting blog, so if you don't want to hear me complain, don't bother reading this. )

Considering that this is the second time, and that it happened TWICE to my dad with the same phone, you would think they would still replace the phone, since it was only ONE WEEK past the year warranty. I mean, FOUR phones that break the exact same way, obviously the phone is defective. (Mine broke in May, had it replaced, then it broke last week. Warranty ended the end of August. Dad's phone, on the same plan, broke 2 days before the warranty ended, and the replacement phone broke the next week. 2nd phone was on a 90 day warranty).

I spent 2-3 hours on the phone (most of the time on hold), spoke with 4 different departments (customer care, warranty, relations something, business care), talked to 8 or 9 different people. I got disconnected twice. I had to explain what happened EVERY time, and believe me, it was frustrating. Sometimes, I just said "read the notes, I am tired of explaining." It took maybe the 7th person I talked to, until they finally said they would replace the phone. It took 2 more people after that, since i kept getting re-routed or disconnected. I felt bad because I was kind of mad and spoke like I was upset with them. But it's upsetting to be put on hold for 45 minutes, then be told by the next person the same thing the last person said. "Your warranty expired." Well I know that, but you replaced my phone with another defective phone! (I mean, are we supposed to send our phone back every 3 months to make sure it doesn't break before the warranty is out, since we know it will break soon?) I suppose they finally offered to replace it because they were tired of hearing from me. Finally, the second the last person I called, asked me if I was calling about wireless number "..." before I gave them any info. They were probably sitting around the call center saying "hey, watch out for this caller, she's really ticked off." I think the two most frustrating times were the time I was on hold for 45 minutes, and then the time I was done talking it over for a LONG time, and he finally said he would replace it, and then we got disconnected. Then I felt like I had to start ALL OVER again.

Was it worth the trouble? Well, if my phone breaks again just after 90 days warranty is out, then it probably wasn't. Let's hope this phone either lasts until the contract is up, or breaks BEFORE 90 days. Moral of the story, is that I ought to stick to Nokia phones. My Nokia phone is 5 years old and still works great. We definently won't be going with S... brand anymore.

Caves

2009-09-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

If you like exploring caves, Lava Beds National Monument is the place for you. There's an endless supply of caves here, created by lava flows. From beginner ones with red lighted paths, to more difficult ones that involve descending steep ladders into pitch black tunnels. We had the kids of course, so after exploring some easier ones, we did ones that required stooping and crawling, and wore recommended bike helmets. Good thing, because I bumped my head a few times.

The wind was so strong, we spent an hour setting our tent up twice, until finally the poles just snapped. So Aaron hung a string and we had - kind of, a tent to sleep in. The kids slept in the little one.

The terrain is all lava rocks. Some times it was sort of sage brushy with rocks scattered about. But otherwise, lava rock everywhere!
These tunnels were so long and dark, that even if we had all our flashlights on, pointed in front of us, if I looked behind us, I couldn't see anything but black. Definently a spulunkers good time. We didn't do any of the hard caves. There were so many to see, we just saw a fraction of them.

And since we were already in Northern Cali, why not go to our favorite, Burney Falls? I figure if I tell my father in law we are going to Burney, we can almost always get him to come.

At the base of the falls, we went fly fishing. I caught my biggest fish yet. A 15 inch rainbow. Yeah, on the fly, not a spinner!

Close to home

2009-08-31T13:56:00.000-07:00

We did a bit of venturing out close to our home in Ashland.

Here we are at home, eating the vegetables the homeowners left for us to eat. I don't know how Samuel got this zucchini off the counter. He only nibbled the top off and left the rest. One thing I LOVE about Oregon is the blackberries. No pictures. They all end up in my tummy.

First we decided to hike Mt. Ashland. We drove up close to the top and hiked up the last 1.5 mile. Adele did the entire hike up and down without being carried. 3 miles, we're so proud of her. The top of the mountain is a ski resort.Mt. Shasta in the background to the left.

At the top of Mt. Ashland

Then we stopped by Gold Hill Recreation area. We played along the Rogue River.

We're too busy looking for good rocks to throw to look at you, mom.

On Saturday night we went to the Green Show. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has these free shows in the courtyard before the plays start. It's really great to be able to go to a free outdoor concert and be able to take the kids. That night, we listed to the Portland Cello Project. They played Star Wars, played with Adam Shearer, and all sort of other contemporary stuff. The kids loved listening to it.

Front row seats on the grass

For Family Home Evening, we had a lesson on keeping our bodies healthy.
This is Healthy Helen. She's made of a peach head, raisin eyes, craisin mouth, carrot arms, cabbage dress, cheese hair and cheese feet. We had fun eating her.

Sewing Machine Woes - help!

2009-08-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

Can anyone tell me what's wrong with my sewing machine? I was sewing, then the needle didn't want to go all the way down. I thought the fabric was maybe too thick, I was sewing a lot of stuff. I took out the fabric, and it still wouldn't go down. I tried changing the needle, thinking it was just bent. With a new needle, it still hits something. If I hand crank it, it will go 1, 2, 3, rotations, and on the 4th it always hits something. I called a repair shop and the guy said it was either a timing or a gear issue, which he estimates at $50-$80 for the repair. So I am hoping it's something simpler, and that someone has an answer for me.

We Moved to Ashland, Oregon

2009-08-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

The house were were planning to move into, we got a great deal on. The owner of the house wasn't sure if she wanted to rent or sell. She decided she would sell, and rent it out in the meantime. So we got a great deal since we would have to be willing to show the house (and potentially be kicked out, which we didn't count on soon in this market). Anyway, it was a great idea, save some money. Then the management company called on Monday (Less than a week before our Friday move). The owner decided she wasn't going to sell, only rent, so the rent would increase $200 a month. Did we still want it? Well... okay, fine. We weren't going to find a better deal for a house with a garage.

Then the management co. calls us on Thursday. Yes, the DAY before were to move. Yes, after we had rented our 17 foot moving truck and loaded up the heavy dresser set my parents gave us, the old solid dining table they gave us, the humoungous TV, and the piano that our friends Tom and Joe practically got smushed and killed under helping us to move. And half our stuff. All packed. So they called us to say "She changed her mind and doesn't want to rent her house out at all).

You ask why I didn't sign a contract earlier. Well I tried, but they said that they had to go over things in person with us, so they set a time to sign the contract just before we would move in. I've actually done this twice last year in two of the places we live, and in the third, there was no contract at all. So I figured, with this well-reputed management company, that this would be okay. And don't get me wrong, they are still a good company. I just can't believe the owner would change her mind ONE day before renters were moving in. We just couldn't wait to move.

So the company found us another house. This one, the owners are on vacation for 4 months. So we moved into a totally furnished house. Yeah, we brought up TONS of furniture that we never have even USED (we ate off the ground in one apartment, put our clothes in boxes in several others). And we still aren't going to use it! I was also worried about where to put our stuff, because the garage is off limits. Luckily, this house is much bigger than we need. Even though they have a lot of furniture too, they also have lots of square footage. We managed to get most of our packed boxes of stuff (you know, kitchen everything that we don't need in a furnished kitched) into one of the closets. We put our bookshelves in front of theirs. That sort of thing.

The amazing thing, is how much stuff They left out. Pretty much everything. I mean, they took some clothes with them on their 4 month tour of North America (they own a motor home). They put away their pictures (we can't find pictures of them) and locked up a few closets. But many closets and some drawers are full of clothes, etc. They left their albums, all their trinkets, everything out. Instantly we came in the house and said 20 times to the kids "don't touch that!" We've had to take lots of pictures and move things out of their reach. It's wonderful that they are willing to even share their CD's with us, but also nerve racking to think that I have to make sure everything remains the way they left it, with our two kids in tow. They left lots of sticky notes with instructions, like plant watering, how to get onto the internet, how to compost, how we could eat all the veggies they have grown. We feel alot like we're house sitting, not renting.

So we're here, we're safe, we're happy. And we have to find a new place to live in 4 months. The moving never ends with us... (This was move number 6 since Samuel's birth).

Past Present and Future

2009-08-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

First I apologize that this is one big long blog, instead of separating into three. No wait, five. It got longer and more detailed than I anticipated. Please excuse the typos.

What's happened to us this month? A lot. Hang in there, there's some important stuff about what has- and will - happen to us! There's some chapters: 1) Las Vegas 2)Brianhead 3)short SLC Utah intermission 4)Idaho 5)The future

1) Las Vegas

We left in mid July for several family reunions. We first stopped in Las Vegas to see my cousin Frank. I love my cousin Frank. We had so much fun, and he is a GREAT host. Adele LOVED playing with Brooke.He took us swimming at the Tropicana hotel
Aaron, Adele, Samuel, Brooke, Frank, Benny, Frank's father in law.

In Frank's yard. Adele and Samuel on side. Brook and Benny on the other.

Samuel really liked Frank alot. He insisted on crawling into his lap while he held a sleeping Benny. Benny is only 3 weeks younger than Samuel.

Then we drove from Las Vegas to Southern Utah, to a ski resort area called Brianhead. It was my family reunion with my parents and siblings.

2) and 3) Brianhead and SLC area (pictures are kind of out of order, sorry)
Then from Brianhead we drove to Lehi, Utah and spent a few days with Aaron's sister Heather. We saw a few friends while we there, and I forgot to take pictures. But we really loved seeing Heidi and Zack, Joe H, Schmath, and Matt and Camille and their cute kids. Thanks to all you friends who fed us when we invited ourselves over to your house. To those we didn't see - we're sorry! We just posted on facebook that we were in town and Heidi was the one who noticed and called us up! We really wish we could've seen all of you in Utah.

I found this one picture at Schmath's.
Her husband actually put TV into their bathroom mirror,
so she doesn't get bored when she bathes!

Okay, on to Brianhead.

Cedar Breaks National Monument is this small place near Brianhead - only 5 miles from our cabin. Brianhead is right in between Bryce Canyon and Zion's National Park. Here's two pics from Cedar Breaks.

The view overlooking Cedar Breaks

A hike at Cedar Breaks

We also did one day at Bryce Canyon:

And spent some time at the lake. We went to Panguitch lake

And Navajo Lake:

Yeah, we took these pictures right after we went mountain biking. We also rafted on the lake in my sister's tiny inflatable raft.
Wami, Taisei and Jerin

My mom and Samuel

We did lots of mountain biking at this family reunion. It was so fun to see my family. My family includes my parents, my oldest brother Jerin and wife Wami and kid Taisei and dog Hiro. My older sister Esther and hubbie John, who does exist as you can see from these pictures. He is a crazy mountain biker who thinks all hard stuff is too easy and must make it harder by flying over the largest rocks. And then there is us.

4) Island Park, Idaho
So after this trip and the short in between time in Salt Lake, we went up Idaho to see Aaron's parents and siblings. So I am getting blog-overwhelmed. I will post a couple of pictures, and you read all about when we saw and did on my sister-in-law Sarah's blog. There are several blogs on our trip to Yellowstone and rafting and swimming at Green Canyon Hot springs. I'll add a little different experiences. I am not, however, going to list all the family members. We really missed Caleb and Elizabeth and their kids Sofia and Caleb. Aaron his other siblings were there, with their kids. So there were 35 of us? there. That's a lot of people in his family. We stayed in a beautiful cabin with 8 rooms.

I enjoyed doing volcanic experiments with my nephew and neices. I was assigned to do an activity with them, and decided to show them all the ways I could with how volcanoes worked. We did boiling mudpots, rising magma, erupting geysers and volcanoes.

How a geyser erupts using air pressure.

How a volcano erupts using baking soda and vinegar.
Okay, that one's not as scientific. It's just fun!

One being, that I caught quite a few fish. I really enjoyed fishing and Green Canyon, it was so beautiful there. It was fun to swim in the warm pool, and we actually took our kids fishing with us. Green Canyon

In Yellowstone, Samuel ooed and awed and all the steam:

He'd say "whoa!!"
He played in the dirt
He's a happy kid.

And we also saw the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

Again, refer to Ben and Sarah's blog for more pictures and details.

4A) extra
And finally, I worked on a little Public Service announcement while on vacation. Everytime I hear about these PSA contests, I just have to compete. I guess it's a little itch I get that started with studying film back at BYU. Here's my commercial on youtube. It stars my sister in law Heather and my adorable, sweet niece Emma. Don't worry, there were breathing holes, she was perfectly safe in the filming of this video. I ran out of time to do the extra segments I wanted to do. I am not a very funny person, so I thank my sister-in-law JoAnn for her instant ideas. (I knew if I asked her, she could come up with something in under 5 minutes).

5) The Future
Now to the future. We spent part of our vacation trying to work out Aaron's work situation and our housing. It was crazy doing it on vacation, because we had no cell phone service for our entire week at Brianhead, and no cell phone the entire week in Idaho. No internet for some of the time too. So we were getting calls on jobs and housing without knowing it. Which is another reason we ran out of time to see people. I was working on our housing and job situation. But everything worked out, I think.

We just got back and I was a little sick when we came home, which put me behind on the packing for our move. But I think we'll get it done. Well, we better. We should be pro's at this, after moving to Lompoc, then to Portland, then back to Fremont, then to White City, then back to Fremont, all in one year. This time was more daunting though, because we are actually moving EVERYTHING. In a U Haul truck, not just what we can fit in the minivan.

We're leaving on Friday for Ashland, Oregon!

The 4th of July

2009-07-05T17:12:00.000-07:00

We went to a picnic breakfast at my parent's ward. There was a costume contest. Don't you think they should have won? They were the runner ups.

(These were old outfits that Cheryl made for her kids when they were young).

Fishing in Yosemite

2009-07-05T17:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, the first picture above is not the fishing trip. But I threw it in. This is us biking at Don Edwards National Wildlife refuge, which is near our house, and REALLY near Jon and Danielle's new house. Yes, they moved. They are out on their own! I found that I could wear Samuel in my ergo backpack while I biked.

Fishing trip:

Aaron's Dad Larry decided to take us on a one day fishing trip to Yosemite. He brought my Dad too. So with our Dads and no kids in tow, we set out to the Hetch Hetchy resevoir. First we did a hike to Wapoma falls. I was so ridiculous because I forgot my camera at home. Only to realize, one we returned to the car, that I did NOT forget my camera. It was in the car all along! So I have one picture of the resevoir, and the falls WAY in the background. But really, the falls were so beautiful and huge, and Aaron scaled down them so he could fish at the base, he did catch a rainbow trout down there.
Then we hiked along some other river over at middle fork. I caught 3 fish. Larry fly fished and caught 15. Aaron actually caught 20 fish on his spinner that day. It was GREAT fishing for him. It was absolutely beautiful, and the water felt so good, so it was okay that we all kept falling in. We won't talk about how many my dad caught because he is new at fishing. He said he still had a great time.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

2009-07-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

Aaron and I decided to take our kids to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. We invited my parents, and also his mom decided to come and bring our niece Dawna.

I have never seen quite the excitement I see in Dawna. So this blog is dedicated to her. When we walked out of the boardwalk arcade and stepped out to see a full view of the ocean. Dawna's eyes got so big, and her whole body was jumping in excitement. "Whoa! A swimming pool!!!" I tried to tell her it was the ocean. She kept going. "It's HUMONGOUS!"

Samuel said it was "this big":

Aaron boogie boarded:

I don't know why we bothered to give Dawna and Adele their own hotdog. Dawna wanted the dog, Adele wanted the bun.
Again, Dawna's excitement was not to quenched when she realized we were actually going to let her ride on the rides. It was a 1907 night which meant we only had to use one ticket on each ride. Thank you Brooke for giving us all those tickets when you moved!
It made it especially fun for Adele to have a buddy to go on the rides with. They were so excited to ride everything!

Burney falls and Northwest (Washington, Oregon)

2009-06-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

I didn't know where to begin. After Aaron graduated, we went camping at Burney falls for a week. We were back for a week, then left for some job interviews and an excuse to see a bunch of national parks along the northwest. So that's why we've been missing for a month. Here we go. I just did a smattering of things we saw and did. There was much much more.

The traditionally visit to Burney falls:

We stopped by Mt. Lassen. The park was mostly closed for the winter (until June 1) except this one area. We came back later on our next trip.

Then we came home for a week, and then left again on a long long trip. Mostly camping, with a few respites of staying with people.

The northwest! Here we are in Washintgon state. This is the Olympic National Park. It's got everything here - mountains, coast, rainforest. This is hurricane ridge and a friendly mountain goat.

Sand Creek Recreation area. And lots of tide pools:

La Push beach. Part of the Olympic National Park. So much driftwood!

Our campsite in the Hoh rainforest, along the Hoh river. Best campsite ever:
Hiking in the Hoh rainforest:
Sol Duc water falls: (The falls are hard to see in the picture. It's the white. It was big and gushing).
River where we caught tadpoles. Forgot which river. There were so many. The Elhwa?Outside of the national park, up by the Straight of Juan De Fuca -
Dungeness Spit (5 miles long, natural):

Then we left the peninsula, and eventually ended up at Mt. Rainer National Park: (The mountain was SO BIG and magnificent. I recommend driving through the park).
Christine Falls: (There were waterfalls gushing out of every part of this park.
Then we drove on. Mt. St. Helens: (You can see the destruction from the 1980 eruption. No trees down there.)
Then off to Oregon. There are beautiful falls all along 138. This first one is Watson Falls:
Then clearwater falls:
the top of clearwater falls. The water is SO clear:
Crater Lake:
Back to Mt. Lassen:

Dr. Aaron Severson

2009-05-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

Dr. Severson... It sounds strange... can you believe it? He's done! He's graduated! I am so proud of him. Four years and two kids later, Aaron received his doctorate of optometry on Saturday.

Isn't he so handsome and distiguished?

Awards banquet on Thursday night.
Our friends Scott (his classmate) and wife Cindy.

We had some shared experiences with them - we all came from BYU, and we had our first two kids while our husbands were in optometry school. For a while we were the only ones with kids (Adele and Landon were born during their first year). Then his class quickly became the "most fertile" class they've had. Anyway, we will miss Scott and Cindy and their kids Landon and Parker!

Being hooded by Dr. Jacobsen

Aaron with Dean Levi

Family that came to graduation.

Aaron is wearing his school colors candy lei.

Our little family

Thank you everyone, family and friends, that have helped us get to this point!

Got Healthy Vision?

2009-05-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

This is what Aaron and I were up to when we were living in White City. We worked on a little public service announcement about healthy vision for the Transitions Healthy Sight scholarship (which he received!).

Photos by Tess

2009-05-11T14:19:00.000-07:00

A young woman in our ward, Tess Taylor, took these pictures for a girl scout project. She did a great job!

Samuel with his cousin Lawrence

cousins Dawna and Adele

Samuel and Adele

Dawna and Adele
Samuel and Larry

Notice Samuel is the only one that can't sit still. Adele had to "trap" him behind her in their picture. In the group photo, I am holding him still. The first photo where he is sitting still is because it was the very first photo taken, before he had a chance to start being wiggly.