The glass is half full

What a day! But amazingly enough I'm not bothered by it..

Last night we said goodbye to mom & Thom for a year, they were asked to extend their mission in Wy for a year. They came home, brought their RV back stayed for a week and a half and then had to go back out to WY.
We have had a great time the last week and a half visiting with them and enjoying their company.
The last couple of days Keagan has been complaining about a sore throat, so this morning he stayed home from school. I left him home while Darri & I went walking, telling him I wouldn't be gone that long.
In the middle of our walk Ray calls and says mom & thom broke down, they're at exit 99, it's their water pump.
After my walk I came home picked up Keagan and we went over there picked them up and took them to the auto parts store. We got to visit for a couple of hours while Thom fixed the water pump. Luckily the only thing I was going to do today was clean the house, laundry, & get ready for preschool tomorrow. Thom was teasing me that I will do anything to get out of house work as the day went on. I called my sister and she came over and we all had lunch together at the truck stop- subway. We talked about what a blessing it was that if they were going to break down at least it was here close to us and we got to visit more.
Thom got the truck all fixed and I said I'll wait until you leave to leave to make sure everything is ok. They got almost out of the parking lot and I started the van... or tried to start the van.. nothing! Not only that, but because I had rolled the window down (electric) there wasn't even enough juice to roll it up and it had just started to rain. I get out of the van and I'm trying to flag them down, waving putting up my hand in a stop formation (Ok, go ahead and laugh, I was) The battery in the van was dead!!!
Luckily they just went around the parking lot to make sure their problem was fixed, it wasn't - their truck was smoking, luckily it was just smoking because something needed tightened.
Ray to the rescue, with jumper cables, and I got to the school with 2 minutes to spare to pick up Jadyn & Aurora.
So I haven't been home all day, had a broken down car, but I got to have lunch with my mom, thom, Keagan, & sis. And I didn't have to clean my house. :) Hopefully that is all the adventures mom & thom will have before they get to WY!

What a great weekend!!

I have been quite a slacker in the blogging department lately! It just takes so long to upload pictures and get it all lined up the right way... AND I'm so far behind that I don't know where to start. I'm starting with current stuff and will start working backwards, but will date it like I actually blogged it on the correct dates. I have lots of summer things to blog about.

Anyways...



We had such a great weekend!!

It got an early start with the kids not having school on Friday.



Thursday night I went with the young women in our ward to D.I. (a thrift store) in Federal Way. Our Young women are so much fun! We did an 1.5 hours of service, helping hang clothes back up on hangers & putting them back in the right spots. Melissa was pretty funny, she pushed a cart around with her in case she found anything she wanted to buy. She found a pair of jeans and a great outfit for spirit day that I will post a picture of soon. We ended the evening with ice cream at McDonald's.

Friday we got to sleep in and be lazy! yah! I read a book most of the morning. Then we had some good friends come over & we went and got Pappy Murphy's pizza for dinner. YUM!

Ray also planted grass seed in the back yard.. can't wait to see how well that will turn out!

This weekend was General Conference weekend, which I always love. (General Conference is where twice a year our prophet & apostles give talks to uplift us and give us guidance in our lives).

So many things to love about General conference! Besides the usual - being spoken to by our prophet and listening to all the great talks, hearing the announcements of the new temples, some other favorite things,

* My kids getting along (for the most part...) and being excited for conference. I love how it is a tradition in our family and they don't even question that we are going to sit through all the sessions of conference!

* Watching conference at home in our pajamas!

* having cinnamon rolls for breakfast!

* we went out for dinner after conference on Saturday... although it almost seemed like we were breaking the Sabbath. I love Happy Terriyaki! (and then left overs for Sunday!)

We also watched some Monster Truck racing on t.v. that Keagan had recorded. I love watching that, see my blog below about that.

Saturday it was sunny in the afternoon and I took the kids out & about after we went out to eat (Ray went to the priesthood session). We went to Tumwater Falls(another blog), drove by the Capital(another blog post), went to JoAnns fabric store, and ended it by getting milkshakes at Big Toms. Yummy!

Sunday we watched conference at home, had quiche for breakfast, and leftovers for dinner. Pretty much a perfect weekend! Monday came a little too early.

Tumwater Falls

I love going to see Tumwater Falls! It is so beautiful!! I realized I hadn't been there in quite a while. It was a place I used to take my kids all the time when they were little. My camera didn't do it justice. (There is a short video of this picture at the end)

Melissa didn't want to walk down and see the big Falls, so here she is waiting for Keagan & texting... typical teenager!!

Here Keagan is down below, he liked getting "sprayed" by it.

Poor Melissa is deathly afraid of bridges. This one really freaks her out, so she waited until it didn't have anyone on it and then she kind of covers her face and runs across it.

Keagan always being silly!

The fish hatchery was pretty cool, too. I was more interested in it than the kids... man I miss the preschool days when anything entertained them. There were a ton of big fish in there and they were jumping like crazy... until I got the camera out. You can kind of see them here. The videos are very short.

The first video is of the water fall. I love the calming sound of the waterfalls!

Our Capitol building

I love our Capitol. I think the grounds are beautiful. I love how on a sunny day you can see it everywhere downtown. I think Ray is very blessed to be working in such a beautiful area. I love it all through out the year. These pictures don't really do it justice. I have blogged about it before, here for a beautiful sunny spring day & here for a beautiful winter day. Here is a website that lets you take a virtual tour of the capitol. I love the inside as well. The dome & the marble are gorgeous. If you live around the area and haven't been in a while, you should go visit our Capitol grounds... just don't go in January.. until mid April when they are in session, unless you don't mind lots of people milling around and the parking is really hard to find.

You may find this suprising...

that I

LOVE

Monster Truck Racing!

I didn't post about it this year, but we went in January & the January before that & I think the January before that...

They come every year to the Tacoma Dome in January. We usually go with my mom & Thom. My bday & Ray's bday is in Jan. We usually go for our bday presents.

I don't really have a favorite truck, I don't watch it enough to know the trucks. I love when they jump in the air & when they crash & get back up. I love when they safely catch on fire and it is put out right away. I love how loud they are and you can feel it in you're whole body. (tv doesn't do it justice) Here is where I blogged about it before. Sometimes it is a little too cold & sometimes too smokey...(from the truck's exhaust) but mostly just FUN!!!

Now you may wonder why in the world after not posting for so long would I randomly post about this? We recently got the sports channel (for football purposes) added to our channel line-up, and they have Monster Truck racing on there. Keagan has been recording them on the dvr & we watched it Saturday.. in between conference.. I know felt a little weird.. like we were breaking the Sabbath or something, but it was so fun to watch. Who wants to come this year with us in January to the Tacoma Dome? My mom & thom are gone on their mission..

This one was really cool because fire was coming out the back! :)


The view from our seats.. we actually had really good seats this year.

They usually have some kind of other event there too, before they do the Monster Truck races, this year they had motor cross. It is really fun to watch, too.

Happy Birthday Melissa 15 years old

Melissa has been Gently reminding me that I haven't done a birthday post for her and her birthday was over a month ago now. I have been telling her it has been 1/2 way done for a long time, it just takes toooo long for pictures to upload! I know too many excuses, it is nice for once for Keagan to have something first and for her to wait... And maybe if I don't post it, it could mean that she's really not 15?!

Happy Birthday Melissa!

This is her on her birthday at the park with the young women, it was ward YW activity day.

She loves to go to the park with her friends &

to be silly & goofy.

This is also on her birthday!

Thanks to the Olivers for saran wrapping our house and her room!

They got us pretty good!

It was HILARIOUS!!!

This year she has the awesome experience of going on trek. Trek is where the youth 14 to 18 years old dress up in pioneer clothes, pull handcarts for a few days and re-enact our pioneer heritage. They get to cook, sleep in a tent and pull the handcarts several miles a day with their gear loaded in it.

Melissa was the only causality of trek, and one of the tires ran over her big toe and bruised the bone(we learned that after she came home and went to the Dr.) She came home dirty and tired and spiritually fed. She was such a trooper and had a terrific time! Even with her injury she says she would do it all again.

Here she is riding in the cart after she got her toe ran over with her good friend Katie.

Here is her trek family.

Everyone is divided into families, a ma/pa and several children

They even have a "baby" that they have to take care of.

Here she is modeling one of her trek dresses we found at DI(a thrift store), she was so excited because it had butt ruffles! Silly girl!!!! She made her own aprons and bonnets. She was very excited to make the aprons and bonnets, so she could use fun material. She used dinosaur & zebra print for the aprons & star & Polk-a-dots for the bonnets. (Notice how clean it is before trek!)

She even cleaned a fish!

Here she is riding a horse after she injured her toe.
I think she looks more like a hippy than a pioneer, here.
:)

Here she is at our cousin reunion riding the go cart
&
Getting muddy!!!!
It was pouring that day!
But she loved it!
Melissa has been in a clogging/tap class for the past 6 years.
She has gotten pretty good at it.
Here she is performing one of her favorite dances
to the Napoleon Dynamite song.
She's right in the middle.. hands on hips

Her 2010 dance picture

We love to tease her.

about many things.

One of them being.. around the house she will wear things that don't match and we fondly call her

Grandma Stambaugh.

That was Ray's grandma who would walk around the house not matching.

Melissa also loves fuzzy socks and to wear mismatched ones on purpose.

Here she is helping paint the bathroom. She is a very good helper and I miss her when she is busy.

She loves any kind of party or spirit day, anything to get dressed up. She dresses up for all of the holidays and spirit days at school. Here she is on St. Patricks day & below Valentine's Day.

She is a good friend. Very loyal and true. She has been blessed with many good friends & many good friends that she has known since she was born or known she was too little to know any different.

She also loves her ward family and especially her youth group. I love her youth group, too! They are all kind and nice to one another. Love that! Here they are at the Vancouver BC temple open house.

Some more of her good friends & Aurora.

She loves to make silly faces,

she had just got her new camera this day &

was playing with it.

Playing with her camera &

her little cousin Aurora.

She is such a good cousin to her!

Here is a short (11 seconds) video of her creation from Keagan's Christmas present.
She worked on this for a few days!

Making silly faces

AGAIN!!

She is a really good big sister, too!!

In Seattle,

on the phone,

I'm not sure if she is taking a picture or

TEXTING!

I love having Melissa as a daughter! She is funny, kind, sweet, hard worker, etc., etc. She is a good babysitter, too. We love having her in our family, when she is gone is it quiet. Which unfortunately is more and more. I can't believe she is 15 already! I don't think I'm ready for next year... good thing I have another year to prepare for it!