C Eagle Scout Project

Back in May 2012 we set out to Blaine, WA to see about an Eagle Scout Project for C.  We met with one of the managers at the City of Blaine, and he told us about a 350' trail up on Lincoln Park that needed to be refurbished.  We thought "350' not a problem".  Well we will be thinking differently when it comes to T doing his project.

Here is the before picture.

There was a lot of measuring/determining what needed to be done before C could begin doing any work.

After he measured everything, then he decided to work on the bench that needed to be installed at the beginning of the trail.

This is what the board looked like when we got it from the City of Blaine

After a lot of work sanding, sanding, and more sanding, then painting...

The installed bench!

Then the hard work began.  C set up work parties and had people from church/friends and family come out and clear the path.

 Then the pit run needed to be put down:

We were really lucky with the nice weather that we had...until it was time to put down the road fabric and the gravel :(.  It was rainy and wet, but we are so thankful for everyone that came out and helped that day.

After all that was said and done and a few more days (ok, more like a couple more weeks) :)  we (really meaning C) finally finished the project.

The before and after pictures!

Trek 2013

Toward the end of July, C headed out with our church on an adventure.  He and (I don't know how many other kids) dressed up as pioneers and drove over to Eastern Washington in school buses to be reminded of what the pioneers went through as they made their journey West.

Here he is the morning they left.

They headed over the mountain in school buses.....

And then they had a few problems with the buses, the buses broke down a couple of times and they ended up at a gas station/mini market until another bus could come and get them..

They finally made it over to Eastern Washington to begin their Trek experience (a little late, but they made it)

They were put into families of people they didn't even know and were told to load of their belongings onto a wooden handcart and were told to head to "Zion"

It was hot and dusty....

They had to travel through rivers and over hills

It was an experience C will never forget!!

He came back from this experience a new person...

He wasn't sure that he even wanted to go..Do you blame him?  But look at that face!!  He loved it!!  He said that he would go again in a heart beat.  

I think that every child should do this.  What an experience to go and act like a pioneer, dress, cook and pull a handcart.  There were no electronics, no cell phones, just a bunch of youth who were taking 4-5 days out of their summer to do something out of the ordinary.  

TO BE PIONEERS!!

:(

I am a horrible blogger!  I don't even know if anyone even reads it.  I have an entire summer worth of activities (and now fall) that I need to blog about.  I hope to get caught up!

Springtime Jam

The summertime fruit was ripe early this year, so before school was even out, strawberries were ready.

We get our strawberries from Boxx Berry Farm and they are delicious!!  I get the processed berries, they are cleaned, stems taken off and then sliced.  It isn't much more than picking and saves my back and me listening to my older kids whine "Are we done yet?"

E and I made the jam this year!

She is quite the helper.  She enjoyed smashing the berries and being in the kitchen with mom.

I think we ended up with 52 jars of homemade strawberry freezer jam this year.  I wish that I could say that would last us for more than a year, but my kids love homemade strawberry freezer jam, so we will be lucky if it lasts us until next strawberry season.  YUM!!

Camping at BP

We had the opportunity to go with some friend out to the BP Refinery in Ferndale at the end of July to go camping.  There were 4 families that went and we had a blast!!  It's too bad that we didn't get a better group picture of all of us.

Where we camped was right by the baseball field and across the the playground.  All of the kids had so much fun. 

They rode bikes:

Played Badminton

Played Frisbee and Kickball

And the adults were able to sit around and visit

We stayed up really late playing games around the campfire and didn't get a lot of sleep, but that's what makes it fun.

We hope to do it again.  Thank you to our friends that work out there and make it possible for us to camp there.

Trip to Disneyland

This May Kendall and I had the opportunity to go to Disneyland with the Ferndale High School Marching Band.  They had the opportunity to march down Main St. in Disneyland.  It was a fun experience and I'm glad that we had chance to go.

The first place that we went was to the Grammy Museum.  Then we went to Santa Monica and went to the Santa Monica Pier.  I have never been there before and it was so nice and warm!  The beach was gorgeous with all the white sand.

We went on to the pier and had some lunch and walked to the end of the pier.  There were a lot of interesting people there!

After we left Santa Monica we were stuck in traffic for 2 1/2 hours!  I am so glad that we don't live in California.  We got to the hotel and went to dinner.  After dinner we walked over to Downtown Disney to explore and stretch our legs from being in the bus so long.

We went into the Lego Store.  T would have loved it!!  All of the statues outside of the store and inside of the store are completely made out of Legos.  It was amazing!!

We walked around Downtown Disney for a while, then went back to our rooms and crashed!!

The next day, we got up and went over to Disneyland.  As soon as we walked into the gates, the Disneyland Band was there performing and Mary Popins happened to be with them.

This was our first ride (and my favorite):

I even went on Splash Mountain and for being afraid of heights I thought I did pretty good.  There were actually alot of rides I went on that I had never been on before, maybe it was because of the group of people that were with us.  They were the best!

 We had so much fun together!  This is some of them:

I loved the fireworks at night over Sleeping Beauty's Castle.  It was magical!

We also went over to California Adventure and went on rides over there.  I DID NOT do the California Screamin' roller coaster or the Ferris Wheel.  But I did go on the new Cars ride.  I even went twice!  That is big for me.

The main reason we came to Disneyland.  All the kids in the marching band had a workshop to go to the first day we were there.  We weren't allowed to go backstage with them, but we heard from the kids that it was a lot of fun. During the winter concert we were able to see/listen to what they did.   They got to act like they were in a recording studio and were handed some disney music they had never seen before.  They practiced it for about 5 min and then they recorded it.  The people of disney then took the music the band played and put it into the movie that goes along with it; like they played the music from Lion King when Simba goes up pride rock to take his place as king, it totally sounded like the music from the movie and not the band playing.  It was awesome.

The next day was Sunday and that was the day they marched down Main Street, Disneyland.  It was so excited to see C marching playing his Alto Sax!!  I didn't get a good picture of him, but I did get a few pictures of the band.

My son even let me take a picture of him before we left :)

We all had a lot of fun.  I am excited to go on T's band trip in four years.  It may be back to Disneyland, it may be somewhere else, but wherever it is, it will be fun!

Trip to SLC

We made our annual trip to Utah a few weeks ago. What a beautiful place Temple Square is at Christmas time. It was short time, but we were able to see everything we wanted to. We even had snow!

We went to This is The Place monument and were able to walk through the little town that they have built up there. Emma even got in some snowballs!





On Sunday we were able to go to the Spoken Word. Kendall, my dad and the boys were able to be in the conference center with the choir while the taping was happening for the actual broadcast, while Emma and I were in the conference center theatre.



After the broadcast we went over to Temple Square and took some pictures.





I can't think of a better place to be to start the Christmas season than with my family on Temple Square at Christmas time. What a wonderful spirit you feel on Temple Square.




Here is part of the talk written by Lloyd D Newell at the Spoken Word:

" At this festive time of year, we go to great lenths to assure that we have a happy holiday. Family traditions take on special meaning as we prepare favorit foods, light candles, hang ornaments on the Christmas tree, and sing the carols of the season. We do all this because we want to have a "good" Christmas. But how do we really judge theq uality of our celebration? We might consider the cost and number of gifts we give or recive. We could compare our elaborate decorations with those of our neighbors. Is our Nativity scene larger than the one down the street? Does our Chirstmas tree have more lights? Or maybe we could judge the quality of our Chirstmas by things that are harder to measure but more important. Do our friends and family feel remembered, included, and cared about? Are gifts lovingly given withou exceeding the spending limits on credit cards? Is the focus only on fun or on the real meaning of the season? Successful holidays are determined not by the size and expense of the production but by the little things that may even go unnoticed - the light in the eyes of a child as he wraps a homemade present, the smile and laughter of one who is often lonely, the joy of lovingly seving someone in need. When the material gifts are worn out and forgotten the memories of love and the feelings of joy will still be cherished."