Family Pictures

Pictures we had taken on Labor Day...

Question: What do you get when you mix...



















...two cute girls...

...two aching backs...












...a bit of attitude...

...four smiles...

...and a whole lotta love?

Answer: US!

The End of Unemployment (this time around)

Here's the latest from Unemployment Land!

Brian has a new job! He was checking out the Union website for the calls they had out this week, and there was a call for 8 Journeymen from a contractor that wanted people for a job that's only about half an hour away. He went into the Hall yesterday morning to see if he could take one of the open spots, and he got one. He's very excited to go back to work - it's hard for someone with a work ethic such as his to sit at home and feel like he's not providing for his family.

He will start with some prelim job stuff and training on Monday and go out to the job site on Tuesday. It will be nice to have a shorter drive, much better than the hour (sometimes more) drive out to Hanford every day and back.

It's been one of the most enjoyable summers I've spent in a long time, since Brian was home with us. We got to take some long weekends and travel, as well as spending afternoons in the park with our good friends and next door neighbors, and getting house projects finished.

We were richly blessed by our finances working out perfectly during the layoff, so much that we even got to pay off our last credit card during the time he was out of work. How cool is that?!?

So now, we get to figure out a new schedule again. It's probably good that we have to stay on our toes, otherwise we'd get really bored.

And we can't have that, now, can we?

Getting the Message

It all started with an instant message.

Brian sent me a message at work a couple weeks ago, telling me that the principal at the girls' school had called him. Apparently there was an overload of kids, and since Rachel was one of the last to be registered, she needed to go to a different school so they could even out the enrollment over the schools in the district. We registered her later than we normally would have because the early Kinder testing was in Mid-August, and we registered as soon as they let us know we could.

So she switched to a different school. She still rode the bus with Emma to her old school, and then transferred to another bus that took her to her new school. I kept wondering why this was happening, and there were many other little "issues" with the situation, but realized that it was going to be OK. Rachel got settled into a routine of going to a different school, and had a good time in her new class. She's pretty easy-going, so it wasn't too much of a drama.

Yesterday (2-1/2 weeks later) I got another call from the principal, telling me that a spot opened up in her old class. Since I had requested that they let me know if that happened, we needed to decide if we wanted to move Rachel back to her original class at Emma's school. After some thought, we decided it would be nice for her not to be on the bus so much and to be able to be at school with Emma - fun for them and more convenient for us - we asked her what she thought about going back to her old class. She though it was a great idea, so Monday she will start back at her old class again.

Quite a lot to go through for an almost-5-year-old in Kindergarten. Wow! She doesn't bat an eye at any of it, which is a blessing. I was kind of wondering what it was that we were supposed to learn through this little scenario. I'm still not completely sure, but I think this Message (not an instant one, mind you) had to do with giving up control of things and just trusting God to do His job -- take care of the way He always does...the best way.

Hopefully next time I'll remember that.

A Day at the Beach

Last weekend we went to the Oregon coast. It was beautiful!
Sunset Beach, Coos Bay:

"...People let me tell you 'bout my best friend..."

We went to Coos Bay with my family for a reunion and wedding anniversary party. We got to meet and visit with lots of family members - and our whole family got to go: My sister Tanya and her husband John, my sister Tasha, my mom and dad, and even Molly the Austrailian Shepherd.

The morning of the family reunion we took a drive to these beach places that Tasha had visited earlier this year. My mom grew up in Coos Bay and these were familiar places to her, even though she hadn't lived here for nearly 50 years. We had fun and we got a bunch of great pictures.

Adventures in Climbing

In July we visited Multnomah falls on the way home from Dallas, and after all the times we've passed by it in the last 12 years and never stopping to see it...we decided it was time. We had an awesome (not to mention sweaty) time climbing to the top. The kids made it, although we traded off carrying them once in a while.













Notice the awesome choice in shoes?









And a view from way up there...

Get the picture?

Ok, time to post some more pictures! I am going to just pretend I'm emailing a friend to show them the latest snapshots and you can pretend that I emailed it directly to you. Except that you didn't get an email and I didn't send one...ok, details. You get the picture. (No pun intended...really.) You can always come here to see the latest info, and you can download the pictures if you want to print them out or anything. I think it's a great idea.

Hopefully I can keep up with it and make use of the space here with pictures, updates on kids, life in general. I'll write a bit here and there and hope to hear from some of you!


So here we go...

The girls on the first day of school - Rachel is flourishing in Kindergarten and Emma's teacher has been known to call her a "prize student"...aren't they cute?!?

The girlies and their friend Zack at the fair

Ok, I think that's about all for now - I will post more soon.