Wednesday, May 20, 2009

ok, it has been a very busy week and half. last week was our normal every day stuff with soccer practice and gymnastics. On friday though I closed daycare early. My girl scout troop went on a camping trip. And of course Kaelyn had not even started packing her stuff so I spent friday morning doing laundry and packing and watching kids. at 3:30 we started loading up the van and at little past 4 we pulled out and headed toward Mt. Hood. We went to Camp Namanu which is just past Troudale close to Sandy I think. We were stuck in traffic and a 40 minute drive took us over an hour. We had 11 girls and 3 adults. When we first got there we had to load all our stuff into one vehicle and then we walked down to the camp while Angela drove our stuff down. We got lucky and our cabin was a new one that had a bathroom and shower in it. there were 2 rooms with bunk beds 1 room with nothing and the main room. We found couple extra bunk mats and set them up in the main room for the adults to sleep and the girls organized themselves into the bunks. We ate our dinner and then did a scavenger hunt and then camp fire. Some of the girls were pretty tired by this point and did not want anything to do with campfire. but they made it through ate their smores and we headed back to the cabin. the older girls came and sang to the girls as they were getting into their beds. hugged them good night and went off to another cabin to to sing to the other campers. lights out at 10 however it took about another hour for them to go to sleep. Saturday morning we had badge work to do until lunch time so we split up into 6 groups and went to different stations to learn about Leave No Trace and our 2 badges Science ecology and going outdoors.


The first station that Kaelyn's group was at was skits. they were learning about trees and what happens to the animals when they are cut down. Kaelyn's group did a skit about bat's and trees. and Kaelyn was the tree. and few others were bats.


Then the loggers come and cut down the tree and the bats had no home so died.


Trees were replanted and grew again and then bats and other animals had their home back.


The other stations were not as fun as this one. they learned about what you would need to take if you were in the rain forest or Mountain ranges. Another station was about bird's, one was on other animals and how you should not disturb them or their surroundings such as leaving your lunch garbage out or walking on area's that are not meant for walking because you could distrub small animal habitat's. I think that one of that stations was on decomposition. We then had a break and did another scavenger hunt to finish off the badge work. We went to lunch where we had baked potatoes, fruit and veggies. We then headed to our afternoon activities which were desert cookout. the older girls helped our girls build a fire and cook backed apples. we then got to do some boating in the little pond. We had an odd number of girls so 2 of the boats had 4 girls in them and then kaelyn's boat only had 3. however Kaelyn was much stronger then the other 2 girls who were paddleing both on the same side and Kaelyn was paddeling on the other side by herself and they still were doing circles. She was much stronger and it took them a while to figure out what to do. I think what they ended up doing is the 2 girls paddled all the time and then Kaelyn would paddle and take a break if the boat started turning. they Made it to the end of the pond and back.

After boating we went and did Lummi Sticks. We did not get as much time as we wanted with the Lummi sticks because the group of girls running that station had to go and do one of their activities. bummer the girls were having fun. So we left there and went to Arts and crafts were we made sit-upons, suncatchers, painted rocks, and some made rock neclaces. the girls at this point were very tired and hot and ready for a break. we headed to the cabin to drop off our stuff refill water bottles, and clean up a bit before we headed to dinner. Dinner was pizza fruit and veggies. After dinner we headed to campfire where each troop got to sing a song and eat smores. here is a clip of my girls. they Sang flying purple people eater.





After campfire we headed back to our cabin where we made out own Lummi sticks and then went to bed. the older girls came and sang and hugged everyone good night and then it was lights out. We got up Sunday morning and started packing. we then went to breakfast and then flag. Where my girls did the flag ceremony for the very first time and did a great job. I was really proud of them. Back to our cabin to finish packing and cleaning up our cabin. We left the the camp and hiked our way backup to the parking lot. loaded up the vehicles and headed for home. We returned home about 12:45, unloaded and waited for parents to come and pick up. it was a great first girl scout camping trip and the girls can not wait to go back next year.

Sunday, May 10, 2009


Hello everyone.
It has been a good week. I am still looking to fill daycare spots but one of the kids that is leaving, has extended daycare for another month so I am a bit less stressed, for now anyway. Sean has not had soccer this week so it has been a bit less crazy. Jake got his glasses this week. He looks so grown up. He is doing pretty good with them. So far he likes them. We will see in a week or so if he still likes them. On Friday the kids school had a spaghetti feed fundraiser for the PTA, so we went to that for a while. the spaghetti was not that good but the kids had fun. We finished up our Mother's day projects that we were working on and ended the week with a nice game of basketball with Uncle Matt. (Will, Jessie and I cheered the others on). Jake had so much fun that Saturday he is having Dad play basketball with him when they get home from T-ball. Jessie has been really funny this past couple of weeks. All of a sudden, she is afraid to do anything on her own. She was going down to the drinking fountain and bathroom at church and at the gym by herself. Well now she wants someone to go with her so she does not get scared. if we are out and about and she does not see me she starts crying and panicking a bit until she finds me. but she did say something that I thought was really cute. "mommy I am not afraid to be home by myself if Sean is home" kind of funny, we do not get the concept of my myself yet. She said that at church too. "Mommy can I go get a drink by myself" I told her yes so she turned around and said "Jake will you come with me to get a drink so I won't be scared" Anyway, we will have to work on this before kindergarten starts in the fall. Maybe she will out grow it before then.

Yesterday Jake had a t-ball game and the 3 younger ones had gymnastics. Sean went on a service project to earn some community service hours. He got to help little cub scouts learn to fish. He said that he had to work all day but I think he enjoyed it. After gymnastics the 3 younger kids all went with their Aunt Angie , Uncle Matt and cousin Will to Chuck e Cheese. I took off to meet my Co Leader for girl scouts at Jo Anne Fabrics to pick out some fabric for a project that we are doing and that took forever. We cold not decide. An hour and half later we chose something and hopefully the girls will like it. I got home about the same time as the other kids and we ate and got ready for bed.

Today Sunday (happy mothers day to all the mom's)

I woke up and started waking everyone up. Erik jumped up and started helping. they shooed me back upstairs to focus on me while I thought they were getting their own breakfast. but they surprised me with a breakfast tray of food that I shared with them and cards and gifts. they each made me a special plate. We then headed to church and then home to pick up Erik and go to his parents house for lunch. but we ended up taking Grandma's dog to the vet for her because she ate some rat poison. She is home right now and is doing OK. We ate dinner and relaxed a bit and then took the kids to the park to play for a bit. We are now home and working on laundry. Anyone want to come and help? Hope all you mom's had a great day. talk to you all soon.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Sunday 5-3-09

hello everyone

Another busy weekend. Yesterday I had work from 9:30-12:00. I left there and went and picked up KK from her school car wash fundraiser. She was having lots of fun and did not want to leave. They are trying to earn enough money so they can go on a Jet boat field trip. they would all board jet boats and take a tour under all the bridges. before they start their bridge project mid May. Grandpa took a few pictures for me and as soon as get them from him I will post them. Jake's t-ball game was canceled due to the weather, so Erik got a bit of a break. I put them all to work doing some cleaning in the house to get it ready for a daycare interview. We had a quick storm that came through around 3:30ish and had wind gust up to 60 mph with rain and hail. Our street looked like a river flowing down hill. We were worried about more branches falling but luckily nothing came down. Jake had his eye exam yesterday and will recieve his glasses in couple of weeks. (darn it) He was cute though. He jumped right up on the chair, did what he was asked and then when it came time to pick out his glasses the only ones he would even look at were ones that had a sponge bob pictures on the lenes (nickelodeon brand). He picked out a pair and wanted to take them home right away. We will see if he is this excited over them in couple of weeks when he has to wear them all the time. We ended the day with a nice relaxing evening doing absulutly nothing.

Sunday
I went to work like normal and Sean and Erik headed to Sean's soccer game. the other team scored 1st on a penalty kick, then Sean's team scored tieing it up. I got there right after the 2nd half started and it went way down hill from there. they let the other team score bringing it to 1-2 and then they just kept on scoring. we lost 6-1. so they are out of the state cup. Not bad though they went from wining division 1 to being one of the top 4 teams in State cup. most of the teams that they were playing were gold and silver league teams. So maybe next year will be their year. For now we get a break from soccer for a week and then they will start preparing for summer tournaments. Tonight I am making a big dinner for Erik's birthday. And a few of my family will be coming over to hang out and eat.