Spirit Week....

Spirit Week and Halloween coincided the same week at school, so lots of dressing up around here.

Twin Day...

Funny thing is they always get asked if they're twins, so I'm not sure classmates even noticed they were dressed alike!  I also dressed up, like the other math teacher. Of course, he has a goatee, so my outfit was a little more involved than the girls. Photos were taken for the yearbook, but I don't have a picture to post here. Probably a good thing for me!

Cosplay Day...

Jaelyn as Mulan

Greek Goddess Kaia

My selfie as Flo

The week was topped off with Halloween. It was the first time they were allowed to go around the neighborhood on their own...

Jaelyn's on the left, Kaia's on the right. Could you guess?

Fifty; it's the new 30!

So yeah, I haven't posted in awhile, but it's not because I'm avoiding talking about my birthday! I'm actually proud to say that I am now 50! When you have both of your children in your class, that means everyone at school knows it's your birthday especially when it's such a big number. One student was so sweet though. When he heard my age, his jaw dropped and he said honestly, "I thought you were around 30!" Then I reminded him that this was math class, and that I have a 24 year old. So maybe he's not one of my A students....

Since my birthday fell midweek, I celebrated with family the weekend before.  We headed off island, and the first stop was to pick out some pumpkins on a beautiful fall day.

We did a little shopping before Mike and the girls treated me to a movie at an iPic theater. If you've not been to one before, check it out here. Let me just say it will be hard to watch a movie again, sitting in a broken chair, feet stuck to the ground!

After staying the night in a hotel, we met up with my extended family the next morning for brunch, then on to Liberty Alpacas, my brother and sister-in-laws place, to hang out and watch the Seahawk game, before heading back home. I can't remember the last time I celebrated my birthday with some many family members. It was nice, but I was missing Joshua and Kellen.

Jeff and his new Gator, hauling the kids around.

The record rain did not deter the kids from playing with the alpacas, which included five new baby crias.

You can see how wet the alpacas are

The newest one in the center. So cute!

Me and my girls.

And the rest of the girls. There were boys here too, but somehow they avoided any photo shoots.

Thanks for all the well wishes! Hmm, the next time I probably have a big birthday get together will be when I'm 60. Yikes!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Saturday's stormy weather didn't dampen our celebrating Mike's birthday! Our first gift to him was some Candy Crush, a reference to the game he is addicted likes to play.

I think he liked it, but not quite as much as he liked the Obafemi Martins Sounders Jersey we bought him.

It came just in time to wear to Jaelyn's soccer game in the wind and rain. Her team is the same color as the Sounders, so they matched perfectly. Her team won 5-1, and are now 3-1 on the season, and playing strong.

Josh had his own celebration going on that night, as he challenged his fear of clowns at Scarywood. He text this picture of he and his new love interest enjoying their evening together. I'm dying to meet her...

Testosterone...

You read that right, there was a lot of testosterone flowing through two of my boys this past weekend. First, Joshua participated in the Pullman Highland Games. His team, The Brainy Brawns, took sixth out of 15 overall. They had a lot of fun, and hey, it was an excuse to wear a skirt kilt.

The Bad Boys of Brainy Brawns

In action...

Josh is not in this video, as it's from a couple years ago, but this is from the same games he particpated in.

 

And not to be outdone by his son, but Mike ran his second 50K of the year. It was another trail run, but this time he felt better prepared, and it wasn't pouring down rain! This one was called the Baker Lake 50K. He took 18th on the course, but even better, he cut nearly 25 minutes off his run time! He forgot to take a before or after race photo, but here's a link to a professional shot that I'm too cheap to buy of him running the scenic course. And unlike the last race, he's already talking about the next time he runs one...

Media Day...

Today was quite the day around here! Remember the post from a couple weeks ago about Jaelyn's robotic arm? Well somehow word got out to a couple media outlets, so she has been busy freaking out and giving some interviews.

First of all our local newspaper interviewed her last Saturday, and was on the front page of yesterday's paper. I particularly like that they included the following from Mike, rather than overstating that this arm helps this poor girl do what she couldn't do before:

“She could really do anything she wanted,” he said.
The difference is in other people’s perceptions of Jaelyn: how the E-Nable arm has changed that first look.
"Other children gawked or touched Jaelyn’s arm. Adults asked insensitive questions. Fed up with the ogling, she would sometimes stuff her arms into the pockets of her sweatshirt."
“She’s not afraid of it, but people gave her pity and she never asked for that,” said her father.
“Now it’s ‘Look isn’t that neat,’ instead of, ‘Oh, that’s sad.’”
For Jaelyn, that’s made all the difference.

You can read the article here.

Then yesterday, King 5 news out of Seattle came to our school for an interview. After that they headed to Oak Harbor HS to interview the robotics team. Was a bit of a circus at lunch, with all the middle schoolers wanting to get on TV, but the piece turned out great. In case you missed it....
I can't figure out how to embed it here, so click here to watch the clip. I love that Kaia got on camera too (she was hoping), and that Jaelyn mentioned the cat tail Kaia asked for!

Her 15 minutes of fame are now officially over, but we still have our amazing girl!

China Follow Up....

My apologies for not following up on my China trip earlier. To sum it up, the trip was good. For the most part agendas went as planned (other than our hotel in Beijing being shut down by the government, so getting to stay at a nicer one), team members stayed healthy (okay, maybe one tummy issue, but at least that didn't hit until after the children, in Beijing), and lots of love was given and received.  In fact, positive changes were seen. However, I can't help but notice doors slowly closing in on some opportunities for transparency. One of those being that we didn't have freedom in taking photos and video taping like we usually do, and there were signs posted reminding us of this. The photos that we took were when we requested and in public, so since I had less to choose from, the quality for my video was not as good as usual. But as always, the video speaks much more eloquently than I can express...

Can You Hear That???

Shhh...can you hear that sound? Neither can I! That's how quiet our new dishwasher is.  My super hubby installed a new sink and dishwasher during his last week of summer, while the rest of us were back to school (which ultimately led to a new garbage disposal too). Being the last dishwasher we bought was before our kitchen remodel back in 2000, not to mention the fact that it was getting loud and periodically leaking, we decided it was time to suck it up and buy a new one. Of course, since we would be switching over to stainless steel, we might as well switch out the scratched and chipped porcelain sink to stainless steel also. Being we were so pleased with at the long life of the Kenmore dishwasher we had, we stuck with the brand, and found a hard to pass deal at Sears. Sadly, our local Sears lost business when they wouldn't match price or give free delivery like the online Sears would. Doesn't make for good business to me, but who am I to judge?

Not sure why the photo makes my cabinets look like they have blue trim, but they are definitely all white.  The sink is one big single bowl, which I love because it makes the sink seem so much larger without the divider in the middle. It also comes with a rack inside so that larger items don't leave scratches.

Two of my friends recently replaced their dishwashers too. Unfortunately both of their's leaked underneath their flooring. Thankfully my stud husband got it right the first time! Now honey, about the refrigerator....