Memorial Day

Tradition is big in our family. Memorial Day in Dallas is a tradition that we all love and cherish. Time with family is always special. We headed down this morning for our annual grave cleanup/family picnic time with Doug's family. The weather was perfect and we had the best day.

Cousins.... these three are always excited to see each other!

Grandad always helps the kids fill their water cans... a tradition within the tradition! :)

The kids are always a great help cleaning up the graves. 

My Ben. He's graduating from high school next month. I'm kind of having a hard time with that! 

Handsome and handy... love this guy!

One of my favorite shots of the day... 3 generations working together. 

We headed from the cemetery to Dallas City Park and had lunch. The kids love this place!

Old school play equipment is so cool!!

The kids eventually made it down to the river to play in the water. Such a great place to do that on a hot day!

We headed home with happy hearts, thankful for those who have gone before us, and thankful for those who gave their lives for our freedom. 

Happy Memorial Day!

AWANA Award Night

A bittersweet night tonight as we end another year of AWANA. It is also the FINAL year of AWANA at Beaverton Christian Church after almost 30 years of the program at the church. Our family has been involved with AWANA since Evelyn was 4 and both kids have loved it and have learned to memorize God's word during their years in club. Doug and I both have served there as well. The relationships that have come from this program are special and we will miss seeing our AWANA crew on Wednesday nights.

Sadly I didn't get a whole lot of photos as I was up on stage quite a bit of the evening, here are some I did get capturing our kids' final award night.

Tom. He and his amazing wife Sarah were our commanders and did such an amazing job!

My Sparkie kids... all in red. Adam was our fearless leader. I was secretary. I will miss these kids so much!

Heidi and Evelyn became friend their very first year in club, when they were 4! I love their friendship!

Doug and his other Truth and Training leaders. 

My Sparkie leaders... so grateful for them!!

My sweet boy getting his year 2 book award.  He worked so hard to memorize all his verses. His love for the Lord is inspiring!

Evelyn worked hard to complete TWO books this year. Continue to be amazed at my girls ability to memorize scripture and pray she is always able to do so. 

What an amazing 6 years we have had doing AWANA. We will most likely continue club at a different church in the fall, but we will never forget our time with this particular club, and are thankful for the people that blessed us and our time here.

Shakespeare is Awesome!

Evelyn had read all her library books and decided to grab some Shakespeare off the "grown-up" bookshelf. She actually really is enjoying it. However, tonight she said "I'm just so fed up with all the "thou's"and "art's" and other weird words! It would be a great story without those!" 

Love my sweet reader and her fun sense of humor!

Shakespeare is AWESOME! :)

Mother's Day

I was celebrated very well today. What a gift and an honor to be a mom to two of the most precious little people on the planet!

Lots of fun notes from my sweets...

A fun tradition continues.... they get me one of these every year! I love it!

The kids helped Doug make breakfast, too. 

Loves these guys so much!!

We went to dinner at Salvador Molly's... one of my favorites. A great way to end the day. Thank you, Lord, for the privilege of being a mother!!

Lewis and Clark Expedition... 4th Grade Style

Learning about Lewis and Clark, the Oregon Trail, etc. takes center stage in fourth grade at our elementary school. One of the things the kids do is go to Hoyt Arboretum in Portland's west hills and do some "treking" in the wilderness like Lewis and Clark did. It was an all day field trip that I was fortunate enough to chaperone. The weather certainly wasn't the best, with lots of rain and clouds, but the kids did great and overall had the best time!

Evelyn, Tori and Evelyn ready to head out!

Mr. Peterson, their fearless leader! :) 

Waiting for the bus. We took public transporatation and it was a great experience for the kids!

Lots of fun on MAX... these are silly kids! :)

We got off the MAX at the zoo to find it POURING! We huddled up for a pep talk and an attitude check then headed out on the trails. Thankfully we were expecting bad weather and most of the kids were prepared with rain jackets.

These three were great encouragers to each other.

We had a uphill hike to the trail shelter

The girls studying the map and planning our route. The kids were in charge of figuring out which way to go and what they wanted to accomplish.

My five charges for the day...

We spent the day hiking around, looking at things and learning about things. Lots of cool things to see for sure!

Big worms...

Big trees...

Cool plants...

Cool rocks....

Huge banana slugs...

Fairy houses....

A cool wooden bench...

...and one wet mom! :)

These kids did great, both navigating the trails to get us where we needed to get safely and on time and in seeing God's beauty around them. It was a super fun day!