Family of Five News

No Trails

2011-07-19T20:20:00.000-07:00

This year for the annual hike I go on with Zac and group (group is a lose term, as the people change a little every year), we chose to hike in Alaska. To be more specific we flew to Fairbanks and then took a charter plane just east outside of Denali national park; about 60 miles south of Fairbanks.  Our group this year was myself, Zac, Zac's cousins Jeff and Chris, Randy (there dad), Zac's brother in laws, Doug and Rob, Robs brother Jared, and Jeff's friend Seth. 9 in total, our biggest group yet.

We all arrived in Fairbanks on the evening of the 24th, got a couple hotel rooms and packed and repacked our gear.  The next morning we caught our charter flight out. It was about a 45 minute flight. We had to take 3 planes to shuttle us all there because of the weight restrictions and small landing strip. The country below from the plane was incredible! I could easily have just flown around for hours!

Once we all arrived, we set off.  Zac (our master planner again!) had planned for about 7-10 miles each day which seemed very doable.   The first day though we struggled and only made it about 6 miles. It was crazy. At first we were literally walking through a forest of Alder scrub. After a bit we got to a creek (Virgina), that we intended to follow most of the way to a couple lake where we hoped to make it to. The creek was difficult to hike also, as the sides were full of large rocks and boulders thrown about from each years snow melt. Also we often had to climb through the Alder scrub again to get around a bend where the side was blocked by the flowing water. After a few hours, we actually got totally blocked and had to climbed through the Alder scrub again and up onto the steep hill side. We then followed the hill side through Alder scrub, berry bushes, rock fields, and a huge downfall of rain that made everything incredibly slick. We were really lucky nobody got hurt.

After a couple more hours of this we came to a spot where we reached a perpendicular creek that made a canyon blocking our way. This was a great spot though as just on the other side of the canyon we spotted Dall sheep. Apparently Dall sheep are pretty rare, and only exist in a couple valleys anymore. This was one of those valleys...

By the time we hiked back down to the creek bed again (we had been slowly going higher as our planned destination was up over the ridge line) everyone was really tired. So we decided that we would move to plan B and just camp here for the night. Night is a relative term. It never got dark. Technically there was 4 hours when the sun was down, but it looked more like a really cloudy about to storm day.

We made camp right along the creek. It was a great spot. The Dall sheep we just above us on both side of the creek, and they were fun to watch; incredible climbers. There was enough wood in the dried part of the creek bed that we were able to make a decent fire as well.

The next morning we decided to leave camp set up and do a day hike up to the lakes we intended to go to the first day, about 2.5 miles away, and come back. I forgot to mention that on the first day we hit a little ice still not fully melted from the winter. Well on this day we hit a lot more. The temperature was fairly nice, perfect really for hiking. But there was some ice that made our day a little interesting.

First though, about a mile up the creek we saw our first (only really) large animal of the trip. It was a mother caribou and her fawn. They we a ways up, but crossed the creek and came down the other side past us. They were pretty big even from a distance. Cool to see.

After this the creek turned and headed towards the lakes we were going to. Most of us continued to follow the creek, but Zac headed up back onto the hillside, which was the better route. The creek almost came to a dead end again where we couldn't pass. We were able to find a way to cross it, and then scale the edge on a large piece of ice that looked stable. Zac at this point was above us looking down and laughing at our chosen route. Once through this little section, we had to again cross the creek, and basically climb straight up the hillside to the lakes. It was worth the climb though, they were incredible!!!

After taking a long break and enjoying the lakes we headed back down towards our camp site. On the way down Doug and I walked back towards the valley that we climbed through on the ice on the way up to see how it looked from above. Wow, glad I didn't see that before I did it.

We also came across a Marmot that actually froze when it saw us, which allowed us to get some great pictures. I was actually able to put a camera with in inches of it to take some pictures. As soon as we backed away a little he ran for it. Funny little guy...

When we got back to camp we relaxed a little again and made another fire. I am pretty sure we were all really glad we didn't try to keep going all the way on the first day to the lakes, it would have been an impossibly long day.

On our 3rd day, we packed up and headed back down the creek towards the landing strip again. The idea was to go back and then up the Wood river and camp at another lake just off the river. About half way down, we looked at the GPS, and saw that if we crossed the creek and climbed over a smallish hill we could drop down to the lake without going all the way back to where the creek and river intersect. The smallish hill though was anything but easy. On top of the scrub we were getting used to hiking in/through, the ground was really spongy. The ground really sank 6 inches or more each step you took. It felt like hiking in the snow. It was tough. Anyway, we finally made it up, and took a nice long rest at the top. The view was great, worth the labor of hiking up. We were able to see our lake from above and it looked like there would be a nice spot to camp along the side of it.

When we finally made it down though we found ourselves hiking in a wet bog. When we made it to the lake, the surrounding area was all bog also, and camping there would have been wet and miserable. Around the lake were a lot of bones from moose that had been killed and eaten there. There were moose tracks everywhere.

So we headed out to the river and searched for about a quarter mile and finally found a nice wide spot where we could again camp on the side where the water had receded. This time it was sandy though, and it made for a really nice camp site. The rain came in again, and we made a fire, and went back to the lake to check it out a little more. Rob and Jared tried fishing, but there didn't seam to be anything in the lake at all. They gave up pretty quickly and we headed back to our camp. It was wasn't that late, but everyone was tired and we all went to bed a little earlier that night. Although our mileage was not high, the hiking had been really tough.

On our final full day (my birthday!!!), we decided to again leave camp set up and just day hike near by. We went down to the air strip where we were dropped off, crossed over Kansas creek and followed it for a ways. We found lots more animal prints and a large kill site (looked like a wolf pack took out a moose or caribou).

When we got back to camp, Randy had the fire going good, and Zac, Jeff, Chris and I tried to make a raft out of some fallen trees to float the river on. The trees were to water logged though and it couldn't support any weight. While we were doing that the rest of the guys attempted to make a 20 foot tall bonfire. They ran into the same problem, wet wood. In the end we were all sitting around our original fire that had been burning since the day before...

The next morning we packed up, hiked the 20 minutes or so back to the air strip and our planes came to pick us back up.

Another great adventure!!! Can't wait until next year!!!

Eastern Europe - Romania

2011-05-10T16:43:00.000-07:00

After sleeping until 10ish in the morning we woke up had breakfast and looked at our plans for the next 4 days. We planned to basically copy the Rollins trip of Romania from about a year earlier, but the last day of that trip included about a 14 hour drive, and we really didn't want to do that again, especially what would have been arriving back at their house and leaving for the airport 6-8 hours later. So I jumped online and starting sending out emails to rearrange our schedule a little. What we ended up worked out almost flawlessly.

We left at around 2 in the afternoon after saying good bye to everyone (expect the Rollin's) since they were all leaving early the following morning. This was hard on Paige as she really had a great time with Emma, and saying good bye is always hard for her anyway. That afternoon, we drove about 4 hours north to the border between Bulgaria and Romania and stayed in a hotel in Ruse. Ruse is actually a decent sized city, but after the trip we had had so far, for us it really was only a stopping place to break up the driving some. Our hotel was nice though, it smell a little of smoke, but we had a two bedroom room and each kid had their own bed. This was great for them as they had been sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor for a lot of the trip. They liked the sleeping bags too, but a bed was nice.

The next morning we woke up had breakfast and by 9 in the morning were crossing the border into Romania!

It was funny, Romain and Bulgaria are separated in this area by a river, and on the Bulgaria side everything is dry and brown, and sage brush like. On the Romania side everything was green, we really liked it. Right as we crossed over we drove past this guy who was tearing down and old building or barn or something. It was really funny, because it was one guy and he has a not very big sledge hammer. It looked like it would take years to tear the building down, maybe it will.

Anyway, after about 4 hours of driving we made it to our first stop; Bran. More specifically, we were visiting Bran Castle. This is the castle that is credited at being Dracula's castle. Dracula was a real person, Vlad Tepes Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) who lived and ruled Wallachia in the 15th century, and it is thought that he was some of the inspiration for Bram Stoker's character Count Dracula. In fact, there is no proof that he lived at Castle Bran, it is actually thought he may have spend a few nights in the castle though. In any case Castle Bran is romanticized as being Dracula's Castle, and in any case, it is simply a really cool castle in Transylvania, which by itself is just cool. So we spend a few hours exploring the castle. It is in really great shape as it was used as a principle residence of the queen of Romania in the early 20th century, Queen Marie. Now it is a museum.

After visiting Bran we drove 20 minutes to the town of Brasov. This was where we initially intended to spend the second night of this road trip, but had now cut out and intended only to spend a few hours here checking out the city. Brasov, was interesting as it had a lot of elements of a small walled in medieval town, but clearly was also functioning as a more modern day city at the same time. We really cracked up at the old church connected to the KFC. It turned only the entrance walkway to the church was here, the church itself was behind with a little courtyard.

Anyway, after walking around a bit and stopping so the kids could get ice cream and I could try a yummy local treat, we got back in the car one last time for the day and drove another hour and a half to Sighisoara. This is where we intended to stay for our third night initially. Sighisoara is similar to Brasov in that it is a old medieval walled town, and has continued to grow into a more modern city, but with Sighisoara the modern area is down below, while the walled town sits up on a hill and it still 99% unchanged. When we got there it was just getting dark, so we checked into our hotel and wow, what a hotel it was, check out our room!!! I normally don't get excited about a hotel room, my general rule is, if it has a bed, I am good, but this was great, and it wasn't that expensive either.

Anyway, after loving our room for a few minutes we walked about 2 minutes from our hotel to Casa Dracula, the childhood home of Vlad Tepes now a restaurant, and had dinner. After we briefly walked around Sighisoara to see the town lit up at night.

The next morning we set out early to walk around Sighisoara and check it out before getting in the car for what was to be our longest day of this road trip. Sighisoara was a great little town. There really wasn't anything there, a few souvenir shops, some restaurants, church's, etc. but the town was really cool. We just enjoyed walking the 4 streets that made up the town on the cobblestone roads looking at the buildings. We go to the top of the clock tower and were able to check out the entire city from above, which provided some nice views. By about 11 though we were down and ready to hit the road again.

Our goal for the rest of the day was to drive the Translyvanian and the Saxon lands, hopefully drive the Transfagarasan road over the Carpathian mountains, visit the ruins of Poenari Castle (Vlad Tepes actual castle), and make it back to the hotel in Ruse, Bulgaria where we stayed the first night. If everything worked out, I thought we would be back to the hotel by about 8 PM. Driving in the Saxon lands was incredible. We drove through several small towns where basically it was a fortified church and several houses, other than the main road everything was unpaved, and most of the people didn't even appear to have cars. We thought it might have been mostly Roma, but don't know for sure if that is correct or if that is just the simple life in this area for everyone. Regardless, it was like being in Amish country in Pennsylvania, and we loved it. We we started to approach the Carpathian mountains, I started to get excited, I really wanted to drive the Transfagarasan road, which is a famous windy road through the mountains. The road though is closed for the winter because of snow (and windiness, not a good combination...) so we didn't know if it would be open yet. To our surprise, and my joy, it was open when we got there. So we started to climb the mountain, it was plenty windy and fun to drive, but really no more so than a lot of other driving we did on the first road trip, especially around Meteora and Delphi. Anyway, when we were getting close to the top we watched as the thermometer in our car told us the temperature was dropping outside. Soon the light rain turned into light snow. As we approached the top of the mountain, which best I can tell reaches a peak but then follows the ridge line for a long time before finally dropping down the other side, we passed a snow plow and then almost immediately came to a second sign that now said the road was closed. This was a total bummer. Really, missing out on the driving of the road sucked, especially because the more scenic and beautiful part was on the other side, but also because we had to turn around, drive all the way back down, and then go around the mountains. This added about 3 hours driving to our day. The kids were also really excited to see the real Dracula Castle, which happens to be located of the Transfagarasan road on the other side, so not only did we completely drive around, but then we drove back up the same road from the other side. In the end, I think the only part I didn't drive it the segment that is famous for it picturesque views of the area with the windy road below. So when we finally got to Poenari everyone was ready to get out of the car. So ready in fact we decided to hike the 1480 steps up to the castle. 1480 is a lot of steps!!! When we go to the top the wind was howling through the area, and the castle was totally exposed. I thought it was cool, Julie couldn't wait to take a couple of pictures and head back down a little to get out of the wind. There really wasn't a lot to see, most of the castle is gone, just the front wall and one tower remains, so the picture from below is really the best view. But we needed to get out of the car, and now we can proudly say we visited the REAL Dracula's castle.

After this we drove for a couple more hours back across the border into Bulgaria, stayed in Ruse again and the following morning headed back to the Rollin's house. About 5 minutes away is Boyana church which is about 900 years old. We had a pizza dinner that night and just relaxed and let the kids play. It was a great way to end a really great (but long) trip!

Eastern Europe - Greece

2011-05-07T16:44:00.000-07:00

Our time in Greece was great. I think the best way to describe Greece is diversified. It is an amazing country and there is still a lot we didn't even see. Again, like Turkey, I could see us going back. Of course I say that about most places we go, and each year also add more places that we haven't been to the list, so who knows. Anyway, we really enjoyed Greece and really saw quite a lot of it.

Our first night in Greece we stay at a beach side hotel in Asprovalta which is just outside Thessaloniki, in the northeast of Greece. We arrived here late and were quick to get the kids (and ourselves) to bed, and in the morning planned to just have breakfast and go, but the beach called to us (or most of us), so we walked down and played in the Mediterranean water for the first time a little.

We didn't stay long though and got into our cars to head toward Kalampaka; a small city almost right in the middle of Greece. The driving in Greece was incredible. Mountains and farming land everywhere. It was just bright and inviting. When we got close to Kalampaka, we quickly hit some real mountains though, and had about an hour of steep curvy roads to drive. Once crossing over the mountain and dropping back down into the valley, we started to see the reason we came to this little city in the middle of nowhere; the awesome rocks (and monasteries) of Meteora!!! Wow!!! Incredible!!! I can't use enough words to describe it. Antarctica is still my favorite natural beauty of the world, but Meteora, with the combination of natural beauty and the incredible works of man together were breathtaking.

We spent the night in Kalampaka at a great hotel just at the base of some of the Meteora rocks. What a great location. We easily could have stayed there a couple of nights, but as was always the case (well until the last day...) there was so much more we also planned to see. Anyway, the first day in Meteora we visited the Holy Monastery of Great Meteoron, which is the largest of the monasteries. It was incredible, like a small community built on a rock several hundred feet above the ground level... We explored this monastery for a couple of hours. It is really crazy to think people would build something like this even with the technologies of today, but 600 years ago? Wow. The steps that were carved into the side of the rocks were only added for tourists, the monks hauled everything up by rope, rope ladder, or a simply built rope trolley. Totally crazy!

On the second day we first visited the Agia Triada (or Holy Trinity) monastery, which was a long climb up. It is a slightly less touristy one, I think because of the climb up, but also because the area outside the monastery itself is not well fenced in if at all; you can literally walk to the edge of the rock and look down several hundred feet. Great for adults, a little scary with a lot of small children. But it was worth it. The views were unbelievable, we could look down on Kalampaka and even easily make out our hotel.

The second monastery we visited was a small one, and it was actually a nunnery named The Holy Monastery of Rousanou (St. Barbara). It was funny to walk in, because it was obvious that it was for women, not men. Everything was brighter, cleaner, more organized... We didn't stay here long as it was small and everyone was getting hungry.

Zac led us to a little field just under some of the rocks where we were able to have a nice picnic in the sun, and enjoy our last couple of hours in Meteora before driving again. While there we found a couple of turtles (that the kids played with) a some crickets. It was great.

Our next stop was Athens (southeast mainland Greece). Our hotel was actually just out of the city to the south, which worked out great; it was less expensive and we were able to take a train into the city without worrying about parking. When we arrived our car and Zac's was ahead of the other, so we detoured and drove right through downtown. It was cool to get a first glimpse of the Acropolis, but the traffic (while not horrible) wasn't fun. In the end the other car beat us to the hotel by about 20 minutes. We got settled in to the hotel and ate at this great little restaurant (called Pita Time) about a block from our hotel. We actually liked it a lot and the prices were really good, so we had dinner there the next night also, and then lunch the following day...

The following day (day 11) we took the train into Athens. Our plan was to see the Acropolis, have lunch and then head over to the Temple of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian's Arc. We got a little late of a start though and changed plans thinking it would be better to do the Acropolis after lunch to give us more time. That was our first mistake. The Temple of Olympian Zeus was huge. Most of it has fallen down, but you get a feel for the size, which is just incredible given it was started in the 6th century BC. Those ancient Greeks were crazy!!! Anyway after an okay lunch, which was slower than we had hoped, we headed toward the Acropolis. However, we stopped at a shop selling leather goods, so all the girls could look at sandals and purses; mistake number two. Finally, we got out of there and wound around through town arriving at the entrance to the Acropolis; 20 minutes after it closed for new admission for the day... Who would have thought that the most iconic man made structures in the world would close for admission at 2 in the afternoon!!! Oh' well, we ended up hanging around on the top of Areopagus (Mar's hill) and then went and found a Geocache (another country!) before heading back to the hotel for the evening.

Obviously you can't go to Athens and not go onto the Acropolis, so we headed back into downtown Athens the next morning. The plan was to get there early, enjoy it before any crowds, get back to the hotel and pack up, head to a beach for a while, and then drive to the Temple of Poseidon, before heading north to Delphi. Two out of three wasn't bad. The Acropolis was not what I expected. It was huge, with some amazing ancient temples, the Parthenon of course, but also the Propylaea, the Temple of Athena Nike, and the Erechtheum. Plus lower on the hill side is the Theatre of Dionysus, and the Theatre of Herodes Atticus. Their is actually more, these are just the ones I remember.

So after lunch we headed south a little found a decent beach and played. We decided that trying to to the make it to the Temple of Poseidon also was not going to happen, so we spent a little more time at the beach and just had a good time. The water was cold, but it was the Mediterranean so, we had to go in, right?

Anyway, it turned out really good that we didn't go to the Temple of Poseidon, because we got to our hotel in Delphi, which is north west of Athens by about 100 miles, at around 5. This was perfect, but the hotel had lost our reservation, which was not. It would have really been bad to have to deal with that late at night when everyone was tired. It ended up working out really well for us, we got put up in nicer hotels owned by the same group at our reserved rate. That night we had dinner at this great restaurant in town. Julie and I had a homemade wine with dinner that was excellent. It was, I believe, the best meal of the trip. Although, doners (Bulgarian and Turkish) and giro's were all really good too!!! Below is a of picture from our hotel room balcony in the evening and then the next morning. Not bad, eh?

Our day in Delphi was the final day on our first road trip of the vacation; day 13. What a great day, extremely long, but great! Delphi is a like a fairy tale town. Up in the mountains, totally beautiful, quiet, peaceful, and it has a great archaeological site. The Oracle of Delphi in a lot of ways is the most incredible place we visited. The area is huge, built almost completely on a hill side, and is on the top of a mountain. Not exactly in a place where you would think "Hey, I have an idea, lets build a crazy city up there!" I couldn't imagine hiking all the way up to built the city in the first place; it was a crazy drive getting there. Anyway, it was incredible. The site has a few temples, a theatre, and a stadium way at the top. After visiting the site, we had lunch, and left on what was to be a really long drive. The GPS had us at 7 hours I think, but the curves of the roads in the area, stopping for gas, stopping for food, crossing a border, we didn't get back to the Rollins house until 2 am the next day, about 12 hours later. Literally, as we were pulling onto there street, their odometer clicked over to 1700 miles. Quite a road trip!!!

Eastern Europe - Turkey

2011-05-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

Ah Turkey!!! We loved Turkey!!! That is really only to say, we loved Istanbul, because it is the only city we visited, but really loved Istanbul and plan to go back there, and check out more of the country. Anyway, so when we arrived in Istanbul, it was already getting late, and unfortunately I made one wrong turn and we landed right in the middle of a main shopping district at rush hour. On top of that it was starting to rain just as it was getting dark. We have been in some pretty bad traffic in the past (Rio...) but this was the worst. We literally were on a 2 (maybe 3?) lane street, that had cars parked side by side 2 deep on both sides, this left less than a full lane for all the cars and tons of street vendor with there carts of goods to get through. On top of this people were everywhere. And the intersections were worse. It took us about an hour to move 3 blocks. But like I said we loved Turkey, and once we got out of the mess and arrived 5 more blocks away at our hotel we were all happy for the next 2 days (longer actually, but 2 day in Istanbul).

On our first full day in Istanbul we went to go check out some pretty incredible sites. First we stopped at the Blue Mosque. The mosque is large, and really cool to look at from the outside. On the inside it is pretty incredible also, no paintings like a cathedral has, but the name blue mosque comes from the blue tiles they used to decorate the inside. This plus the stained glass windows; it was really cool. When we got inside Jack, who wasn't overly tired, got down on his knees into a typical Muslim praying position. It was pretty cute because he wasn't intimidating anyone, he just wanted to lie down for a minute.

After Blue Mosque we went to the Basilica Cistern. This huge cistern is over 100,000 sq feet! When we got down into it we were almost immediately hit up by a tourist attraction that we couldn't pass up (and we almost always pass them up). They had robes, scarves, and hats like the imperials would wear, and they dressed you up and took pictures, which they sold to us for way too much money. But we got some great pictures and it was vacation. Anyway, while Zac and family was getting there picture taken too, it gave us more time to check out the cistern. I really just loved the cistern itself, all the columns in orderly rows, and all the domed ceilings above for strength. Like so many other things we saw on this trip, it was incredible to think that they built this 1500 years ago. However, one of the main points of interest in the cistern was a couple stone Medusa heads at the bases of a couple columns. No one know for sure why they were built into the structure.

Next we had lunch and then head over to the Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar, was crazy large, and it was like a maze, the further in you went, the further it kept going, plus on every other turn there was someone selling pottery, or these great stained glass like lamps, so you could really get lost easily. Not horribly lost of course, but turned around. We decided to split up so everyone could shop on there own if they wanted, but in the end we more or less stayed together, I think this was better... We ended up buying one of the lamps. Bargaining with the guy was a lot of fun too. I don't have a picture of it, so you have to come over and see it, it is hanging over our dining room table.

After the bazaar we started to head back towards our hotel. This wasn't a far walk. We were staying in the Sultanahmet district which is where just about everything we were seeing was located. A big thanks to Zac for planning everything so perfectly, not just Istanbul either, the whole trip really! Anyway, about 1/2 way back from the bazaar was the Blue Mosque and literally across the street from that is the Hagia Sofia. The Hagia Sofia was originally a cathedral, but was then converted into a mosque. Now it is technically a museum, but what is cool about it is the element of both Islam and Christianity that coexist inside. They are doing a lot of restoration and reveling original fresco's that were plastered over when it was converted to a mosque. Additionally, it is multiple stories, and you can actually take a ramp on the side to the second floor and walk around from above. The size was incredible!!!

This a picture of the Blue Mosque in the distance looking out a window from the second story of the Hagia Sofia. So cool!

By the time we finished at the Hagia Sofia, it was getting late in the day, and everyone was getting ready for dinner, so we headed back to our hotel, found a restaurant and had a nice meal. After dinner the majority of the group went to go see a whirling dervishes ceremony. Zac and I stay back with Jonah, Jack, Bran, Nuala, Maeve, Emma, and Riley. Paige was the youngest to go, I'm not sure she really enjoyed the ceremony, but I think it was fun to go with her mom and the other adults. Special girl!!! This is the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque at night when they were walking back from their show.

The next day (Day 8 of the trip) we went to see the Topkapi palace. The palace now is a lot of museums which we weren't especially into, but the grounds were huge, and it was fun for the kids to be able to run around a little again, and great for us to enjoy the buildings and the beauty of the grounds. While there we also picked up a couple Geocaches, so we could add another country to our list...

After lunch we had to leave Istanbul, and head on our way. Julie was a little bummed because we didn't have time to make it to the spice bazaar. It didn't bother me though, just cemented that we have to go back to Istanbul now!!! On our way out of time we drove across the bridge to the Asian side of the city, so everyone could say they had now been to Asia also. Julie took a great shot of the Turkish flag on the Asian side as we were driving. Bye bye Turkey we will see you again!!! Next up (after a long drive) Greece!!!

Eastern Europe - Bulgaria

2011-05-01T21:15:00.000-07:00

Another year, another great trip!!! This year actually it only came 5 months after our last trip! The bad side of that is now I have a long time before another vacation. Oh' well, this one was great!

This year we flew out to Bulgaria to spend time with the Rollins (Zac, Fiona, Nuala, Bran, and baby Maeve). They are currently living in Bulgaria for about another year and we really wanted to take the opportunity to see them and to visit somewhere new! For this trip two of Zac's sisters and their families Maria, with Eldon, McKenna, Hunter, Riley, and Emma, and Heidi with Doug) also scheduled to come at the same time and we did a huge caravan together. Emma, who is about a year older than Paige was especially great to have there. Her and Paige hit it off almost immediately, and were practically inseparable for the majority of the trip. Our plan was to stay at the Rollins house for 4 nights while seeing some of Bulgaria with smaller day trips and then journey out to Turkey and Greece on a road trip. After getting back 7 nights later we would spend another night at there house, then say goodbye to his sisters and there family and head up to Romania for 3 more nights. Finally, we would spend 1 more night at the Rollins house before the long flight home. All together the trip would be 17 nights in 4 countries and technically on 2 continents (Istanbul is the only major city to span 2 continents).

Day 2 of our trip we arrived in Sofia at about 1 PM in the afternoon. No one really slept on the plane coming over, and while we were all tired, we seamed to be okay being up also. Zac met us at the airport, we picked up our rental car, and headed to their house. The rest of the day we really didn't do anything. We met everyone, unpacked a little, and just lounged around the house.

Day 3 we went to the Rila monastery. Rila is a incredible trip! Not only is the monastery itself incredible, Eastern Orthodox, so all the walls are completely covered with fresco's that you could look at for hours, but the surrounding area is beautiful also. Rila is located on the south side of the Rila mountains away from Sofia.

After visiting the monastery itself, we drove a couple of miles past it, to a trail head that leads up to the actual cave where Saint Ivan hermitaged for many years. It is now a legend that if you are able to pass through the hole at the hope of the cave, that you are free of sin; we all were able to pass through, so it obviously isn't true...

Day 4 we rested...Well at least most of the day. After half the group (and Paige) got back from church we had lunch and drove up the mountain behind the Rollins house and went for a short hike. We quickly were hiking in snow, and most of us were not totally prepared for that. I for one was wearing shorts and sandals; but that is not unique for me in the snow... It was a fun hike with one notable exception. When we got where we planned, a nice site with a great view of Sofia where a creek bed of large granite boulders have bubbled out of the earth, the kids were climbing around on the rocks and into the snow below and Jonah fell through the snow and got stuck. I had to climb down to get him and also fell through, a couple times, and hurt my ankle a little. In the end though Jonah was freed and we hiked back down happy, just a little colder. On the drive back down our car stopped to find a Geocache that was totally buried in snow last time I was there.

On the 5th day we headed into downtown Sofia. But before I go into that, you need to hear about lighting! Nuala woke up with some pretty funky hair, so I called her lightning. She didn't like it much, but the name just seamed really fitting for her; she is a totally amazing sweet little girl until she isn't (lighting strikes) and then she is, well, not. Luckly for us, she is sweeter more than not.

Anyway, Sofia is a great city! I like it a lot. The contrasts between the historical buildings, the Soviet buildings, and the EU buildings make it a fun city to drive through. After driving around for a bit; we had to go to the airport to drop off a rental car that the Rollins had while their car was being fixed for our long road trip, and to a mall where we had lunch (doner kebabs, mmmm...) we parked at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. This is a really great church!!! Much like the church at the Rila Monastery, and so many others we saw on the trip, to church is totally covered with fresco's on just about every wall surface. A lot of the church is in need of restoration, but regardless it is incredible. When we left the church we headed over to a small outdoor market. A lot of people with old Soviet era stuff; medals, knifes/swords, coins, and lots of tourist type stuff. There also was a nice little parkish area there so the kids were able to run around and climb for a few minutes before we headed on our way. After this we saw the Russian church, the Svetistopped at the Alexandar Nevsky again because Julie and I wanted to buy a icon from the church, but the right shop wasn't open when we were there earlier. It turned out really cool, because a priest actually helped us and then took the icon into the church and did a small ceremony blessing it. Something you don't see every day!!!

The next day we headed out on our 1st road trip of the vacation. We were driving to Istanbul Turkey. On the way we stopped in Plovdiv (still in Bulgaria). Plovdiv has a couple Roman empire remains still in tact and was a great stop along the way. While there we spent most of our time at a 2nd century theater that was only uncovered about 30 years ago when the hillside slid away revealing it. Apparently at some point the hillside was converted into a dumping ground and the theater was forgotten. Anyway this theater was definitely one of the highlights of the whole trip, because even though it is so old and now on the UNESCO list it is still very open to the public. We paid our ~2 dollars per person and were able to climb all over it and even enjoyed a few games of freeze tag on the stage. Looking back I am still really amazed that we were able to do so much in the theatre, compared to so many other place we visited that were all "look but don't touch." I am sure given a few more years this theatre will be the same. After the theatre we walked to see a section of old wall to guard the city and everyone bought some great hand made pottery from a small shop. We then had lunch (more doner's!) and saw the remains of a Roman stadium, which was really neat in that now the new city has been built over most of it, so you look down from above to what has been uncovered. Finally, we got back into our cars and headed to Turkey. Bye Bye Bulgaria for now.

Update!

2011-03-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

It was almost one month ago (It will be a month tomorrow!) that I began a long 24 day detox to clean out my liver out and hopefully start to feel more than barely hanging in there. For most of this time, I thrived off of rice, nuts, seeds, fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices and olive oil. Yes, I said, "THRIVED!" For the first few days, I felt no difference. I felt tired (my old norm), but took it easy and enjoyed lots of Skip-bo and coloring/ painting time with my kids. Then, a couple weeks into it, it was like I woke up. All of the sudden I was able to do things that I would not have been able to do one month ago. Like I could go work out hard at the Y and then come home, do 3 loads of laundry, bake bread for the family, play with my beautiful children AND make and clean up the meals. BIG stuff! At least to me I have realized that my physical condition was deeply affecting my emotional self. I knew that my patience was thin and that I wasn't super fun to be around and my wonderful friend Mary noticed in the beginning of January that she had seen "an attitude change" in me. I knew I was grumpy! But without any energy, I could not exercise my creativity in any way. I felt trapped. I had ideas on what I could write, but could not physically sit at the computer and write them. I had ideas on how to organize or decorate my house, but could not get up the energy to do so. I had never felt so weak in my life.
But NOW! Now, I am living life again. I do not feel perfect all the time, but I do feel good. I still take a short nap in the afternoon (most days) but I do not wait from 11 in the morning until 2pm waiting for naptime, unable to do much else besides wait. Those days were rough...
Last week, Paige and I painted a mural on her new bedroom wall. This was something I would not have been able to handle a month ago. I couldn't even manage to get to the store to get paint! But, we did it last week and I didn't have to ignore our house or our meals. This feels so good!

And for those of you wondering what I eat now, I am pretty much on the same diet I have been. I am eating fruits and vegetables (minus all nightshades, bananas, pineapple and asparagus), rice, nuts, seeds, olive oil, most spices, fish, and today I introduced oats. I plan to introduce foods back into my diet every 3 days (just like you would to a baby) making sure that they do not alter the way I'm feeling. I will not be adding eggs, dairy, cane sugar, yeast, and the veggies/fruits that are off limits for 11 months at least. But I'm fine with that. 11 months until I take a blood test to find out if I still have Lupus. 1 down, 11 to go. Big hopes.

The Diagnosis

2011-02-15T15:15:00.000-08:00

Hmmm... The name of this post sounds pretty serious. But actually, it is a pretty big deal. I have been feeling really fatigued for months, years really, off and on. I have always thought it had to do with low iron stores (because I was diagnosed with anemia few years ago at one point) or hormones (because they can be blamed for everything, right?).
Well, when I got to December, I was feeling extremely exhausted. I kept up on what I had to do for the most part; cleaning the house, making meals, exercising, but I couldn't do much else. And I just kept getting more tired. I was also becoming very depressed about it because I felt like I couldn't do anything well or at all...felt like throwing in the towel. I even seriously considered putting my children in school (gasp!). I found a new doctor and had blood drawn. It took a while to come back, especially because I had multiple blood draws, but a few weeks ago, I got the call. I have Lupus.
Yikers! Have you ever seen the pictures of people with Lupus on the Internet? Really, YIKES! And I don't look like that, and I refuse to. One of my friends was surprised when I told her of my diagnosis because she sees me as a "picture of health". Those of you who know me well, know that I strive to be strong and healthy. I avoid most processed food, fast food, junk food, you get it. I exercise regularly, keep my weight in check, and eat a lot of whole grains, organic meats, fruits and vegetables. I will admit that I don't always eat enough of the green stuff...and I have had an evening ice cream habit since I was pregnant with Paige- so that's almost 3000 bowls of ice cream, mostly the good stuff, like Tillamook.
How did I get the disease? We don't know. Most likely it was the result of a virus. I believe that it could also have been caused by food allergies. You're probably wondering about my other symptoms- You've noticed that I don't have the "mask" of Lupus, but I do have problems with water retention and struggled last summer because I would get little bumps on my skin when exposed to the sun. Itchy yucky bumps.
What am I going to do with it? Well, that is a GOOD question if I do say so myself! Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune disease. If I can eliminate the inflammation, I believe that I will feel better. I have read about people who have changed their diets and now are lupus-free (even though the medical community will tell you it is an incurable disease).
I have had a food allergy panel taken and found out that I have problems with a number of foods. For the next year at least, I will not have dairy, eggs, bananas, broccoli, asparagus, sugar, yeast or any of the nightshade vegetables that cause inflammation (tomatoes and all kinds of peppers). I will eat a lot of fish and leafy greens because they are highly anti-inflammatory. It may seem like I am a very picky eater but you know I'm not picky! In fact, I love food and I am determined to come up with some awesome recipes to share!
This is going to be difficult, I know. But I am SO ready to feel good again! Right now I am on a 24 day detox program given to me by my doctor, then I'll be following my diet to a "T". My plan is to feel great and have my blood tested in a year. My hope is that my blood results will come back with a negative diagnosis then. 1 day almost down, 364 days to go...

Chickens!!!

2010-12-31T18:24:00.000-08:00

Julie and the kids decided during the summer while having dinner at Julie’s cousin Laura and her husband Jon’s house that we needed to get chickens. Laura and Jon have 3 chickens and the kids, Jonah especially, loved playing with them. So anyway, we decided we wanted chickens too. Unfortunately, because of our planned trip to the British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico in late October early November this was going to be difficult. The first 8 weeks or so of the chickens life they actually need a fair amount of care, and we didn’t want to be gone during this time. So we did some research and found a place on line where we could order chicks into November. We basically would get home during the last week or two where they risk shipping live chicks in the mail. Any later and you run a significant risk of the cold killing them. We ordered 2 Easter Eggers (lay colored eggs), 1 Buff Orpington, (lay brown eggs), 1 Barred Plymouth Rock (lay brown eggs) 1 Rhode Island Red (lay brown eggs), and 1 White Leghorn (lay white eggs). The chicks would hatch on November 8th and ship to us that day.

In September when Julie and Paige went off for 3 days at Disneyland, the boys and I went about building the chicken coop. Prior to this, I spent countless hours researching different designs, drawing plans and layouts, reading more and changing them, plus I talked to Jon a lot and got advice from someone who just recently built one. Anyway, we started in the backyard where we had previously picked out a location for the coop close to the back of our property near our sheds. I first had to dig a 1 foot deep trench around the entire perimeter where we would put in our posts/supports and later bury corrugated metal around the entire thing to help keep out predators.

After this was done we moved the operation to the garage and set out to build the walls. As I built I continued to make changes to the final design; sometimes even after all the preparation, it just doesn’t look as good in real life as it did on paper, so we rebuilt those walls. The boys helped by hammering nails into wood!

When all the walls were finished we moved them down to our site and started assembling. By the end of the long weekend we had a good framework of what the final was going to look like.

Over the next several weekends when I found time we continued to work on the coop and it slowly came together. Fall though really was a busy time, we also did some camping, Julie and Paige has some Girl Scout things to do one weekend, a couple other fun things I can’t remember now, and then our vacation.

So when we got back from our trip the coop still wasn’t done. Luckily, the chicks would need to be inside for the first several weeks away because they need more heat and can’t be exposed to the cold until there feathers grow in. But time was ticking, the chicks were on their way.

On Wednesday November 10th the chicks arrived at our post office. Julie and the kids went to pick them up and could hear the chirping before they were even handed the box.

When they got hope and opened the box all the chicks were alive!!! Yay!!! We were warned, a lot, that this might not be the case and to be prepared for a dead one or two. We were so happy they all made it, now we just had to keep them alive for the first couple of weeks until they started to get stronger.

I had made a double wide box for them to live in, and put it on the hearth right in the living room. We put a heat lamp over it to keep them at the recommended temperature too.

Julie and the kids had named them all by the time I got home. They are Bunny and Peanut Butter (Easter Eggers), Goldilocks (Buff Orpington), Pepper Jack (Barred Plymouth Rock), Brownie (Rhode Island Red), and Little Bo Peep (White Leghorn). Jonah did not leave their side for the entire first day, and hardly at all for the whole first week.

After 3 weeks they were getting too big for the first box, so we moved them downstairs into our spare bedroom and into a larger (4’ x 4’) box. This was great as they were no longer in our living room and they got a little more space, but they became very difficult to catch/hold as they could easily run to the other side of the box now. After about 2 weeks in this location we transplanted them again to the garage; same box. They lived there for their final two weeks inside.

All along I had been working on the coop trying to get it ready. Chicken coops by principle are supposed to be cheap, put together with whatever you can find, an old shed maybe, some recycled wood, etc. I tried to do this, but the engineer in me didn’t let it happen that way. By the time I finished I had a place I would practically like to live in. Oh well our pets will be happy and lucky, just like the rest of us. . I now hope they start to lay golden eggs, otherwise I will never recoup the money I spent on the coop.

On Christmas eve morning I put the finishing touches on the coop and Julie and I transferred the chicken to their new home!

Merry Christmas Chickens!!! Enjoy your coop.

Puerto Rico and British Virgin Islands

2010-12-31T15:03:00.000-08:00

For our vacation this year we decided to try a couple new locations in the Caribbean. After spending a lot of time reading about all the different islands, and trying to find a good place for kids, adults, diving, dining, and beauty, I settled on the BVI’s. The plan was to meet up with Silvio and Louise (our friends from Brasil), and have a fun/relaxing vacation and hopefully different from our trip together 3 years ago to Aruba (also really fun, but just wanted to experience different new things instead of repeating the same trips again). In order to get to Tortola (BVI) though we had to fly through Puerto Rico and the way the flights worked out spend a night, so we deiced to spend 3 and have the opportunity to explore a little, and have a mini family only vacation, before our vacation with friends.

We arrived in San Juan (Puerto Rico) on October 26th in the evening and went straight to our hotel. We normally rent a house or condo on a trip like this as we like to have more freedom, but decided to do San Juan in a hotel without a car (more or less) because we had rented a house for Tortola. I was able to get an unbelievably low rate on a 1 bedroom suite at the Embassy Suites in Isle Verde, which turned out to be a great location. Anyway we dropped off our bags and ate at one of the restaurants in the hotel that first night.

Our first full day in Puerto Rico we spend between the pool at the hotel and the Isla Verde beach.

The beach was really nice, but the kids liked the pool better. It was a great pool for Jack and Jonah as the shallow end had a really shallow in spots and they could feel safe and still have fun splashing around. Jonah was starting to swim more, which was cool to watch. As it was the end of the hurricane season, the weather was crazy, we had a large midday storm that came through while we were at the beach, and it really let go on us. It was funny to watch how quickly the beach cleared out. We hid under a large tree, but still managed to get pretty wet and walked back the hotel after it ended. We ate dinner that night at a small Puerto Rican restaurant and we had the opportunity to try Mofongo, a staple dish.

The next day we took a city bus into old San Juan city and spent the entire day exploring.

The main points of interest in the city are the two forts, Fort San Felipe del Morro (El Morro) built in the 1500’s and Castillo de San Cristóbal built in the 1700’s. The kids (and Julie and I) has a lot of fun exploring/running around these forts.

We also found some huge Iguana’s (we later learned they are not native to Puerto Rico and the locals hate them) that the kids loved to look at.

Other than the forts San Juan was a nice city, fun to explore but nothing super special. We went into an old cathedral (Cathedral of San Juan Bautista) built in the 1500’s which was cool.

We found a Ben and Jerry’s and had lunch and ice cream there!!! We try to hit a Ben and Jerry’s anytime we are on vacation somewhere where they have one.

We also found a Starbucks which we have to have in every country/city we visit. I used to do this with McDonalds trying to prove the theory that the McDonalds french fry is the same everywhere in the world (which it isn’t, China was different), but Julie and I have grown against McDonalds and won’t eat there or let the kids, so we don’t go there anymore.

On our final day we rented a car for the day and took a hour and half or so drive to the El Yunque rainforest. El Yunque receives over 200 inches of rain a year!!!

We did a small hike (about ¾ mile each way) to La Minha Falls. It was a beautiful hike, and a lot of fun to get poured on while hiking in nice warm weather. A lot different than hiking in the cold rain in Washington state.

We spent our final night swimming in the pool again at our hotel and I ordered a pizza for dinner that we had delivered to our room. A nice relaxing way to end this portion of our trip.

When we arrived in Tortola, we quickly got 3 surprises. First, our driver to take us to our rental car left without us and the rental car pick up was on the other side of the island (about 1 hour drive, and a $50 cab bill). Second, the roads in Tortola were horrible; very windy, steep, narrow, few signs, and lot of damage, plus you drive on the opposite side of the road but in a American (left side driver) car. After the first day or so I really started to enjoy driving on them, but they were still bad and Julie was constantly nervous in the car and refused to drive at all which made it difficult when I went diving. Third, the restaurants and stores were almost more poorly marked than the roads. We spent over an hour trying to find somewhere to eat lunch and we were not being picky. Places either weren’t marked, weren’t open, or didn’t exist, but it was crazy. We learned the roads, but struggled the entire trip trying to find places to eat. I was really happy we rented a house and had the ability to eat a lot of our meals there.

Tortola was extremely beautiful though! It was very green, very natural, and hilly which I really loved. The beaches were great too.

On our second day we went to Brewer’s Bay. It was a really nice beach, a lot of fun for the kids. Paige and I enjoyed the waves, she would body board on the waves using me as her board. Jack played in the sand a lot and in the water with Louise and Julie and then took a long nap on Julies lap. Jonah basically played with his Spiderman in the sand and at the water’s edge the entire time; quite a imagination she continues to have.

The next day we planned to do basically the same thing but go to a different beach; Smuggler’s Cove. On the way there though we passed by the one touristy place on the island, The Dolphin Discovery, and stopped so Julie and Louise could swim with the dolphins, something they both really wanted to do. Louise opted out though at the last minute and I felt generous with our money and signed the kids up. Jack refused to get in the water at the last minute, but Julie, Paige and Jonah were in the water for close to an hour playing with the dolphins!!! They were able to pet them, the dolphins gave them a kiss, and Julie was able to get a ride holding on to their fins and actually be pushed up on top of two and kind of skied with the dolphins pushing her. It was a lot of fun for them; I think the highlight of the entire vacation for Julie.

Smuggler’s Cove was a great beach also. We rented a boogie board with a viewing port on it, so I was able to take the kids out “snorkeling” one at a time. That was really cool for them, and me.

The next day Silvio, Louise, and I went diving in the morning/afternoon. We dove two dives off Great Thatch Island, a nature reserve.

They were nice dives. The visibility was not super, especially for the Caribbean, but it added a lot of nutrients to the water, which attracted some bigger life. We saw some sea turtles, some larger fish, a barracuda, and a couple of sharks.

Julie and the kids spent the morning at a pool at the country club next to our house. Our house had a pool also that they played in, but the country club pool was better and had a small bridge you could jump off into the water.

When we got back Silvio and Louise took a nap and Julie and the kids and I drove down to Josiah’s bay (the beach 5 minutes from our house) to see how it was and if Julie would feel comfortable bringing the kids here the next day when we were diving. The access to the beach though was washed out, and from what we could see it was a pretty rough water surfing beach and it wasn’t going to be fun for Julie. I did let all the kids drive the car though on our way back to the house. One at a time I let them sit on my lap and steer the car. Jack especially loved it and kept telling me to take my hands off the wheel while he tried to steer us into the ditch.

Jack Driving in the BVI's from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

The following day we went diving again in the morning. This time we went to the wreck of the RMS Rhone a ship that sunk in 1867 but is still pretty intact. They were two great dives, I think in the top 5 ever for me, if not my favorite. We were able to swim through the boat a couple of times and through/around the propeller which was about 20 feet in diameter. We saw more turtles, and lots of fish, but the ship itself really was the exciting part of the dive.

Julie and the kids hung out at the pool again. I really hoped they could have gotten out, but Julie was so scared of driving on the roads that they couldn’t really go anywhere.

That afternoon Silvio and Louise took a nap again and Julie and the kids and I went to Cane Garden Bay. This was our favorite beach. It was very calm and protected and the water got deeper very slowly so even Jack was able to play and had a lot of fun there.

That night we went out for a nice dinner at a place call The Last Resort. It was a restaurant on a tiny island about a 3 minute boat ride from Tortola. It was a fun evening, but was stupid expensive!!! We bought a shrimp appetizer for $18 and it was only 2 shrimp and really nothing else.

On our final day we took a ferry to Virgin Gorda. Once there we rented a truck with benches installed in the back and drove to The Baths.

The Baths were really cool. Basically they are formed by a lot of giant granite boulders that are believed to have moved here during the thawing of the last ice age. It is the only place in the Caribbean that has any granite.

We had a good time playing there and then had lunch at a restaurant just above that had a fresh water pool that the kids played at while we were eating. After lunch we did a short hike to another beach nearby to find a Geocache and then drove to another beach called Savannah Bay.

Savannah Bay was our favorite beach of the entire trip. It was just really nice and beautiful and clean and we were basically the only ones there. Unfortunitely we didn’t leave much time for staying there as The Baths were supposed to be the best spot on the island (they were great also), so we only stay for about one and a half hours before heading back to return the truck and catch our ferry back to Tortola.

That night we went for dinner a place that felt like a more local’s restaurant. It was a good meal and not crazily priced. After dinner with went back to our house, put the kids to sleep, all had a drink together and said our goodbyes. Our flight left at 7 in the morning the next day. We had a long day flying home back through San Juan, then Dallas and finally home. The kids were great on the plane, as they always have been, and we had Ben and Jerry’s again, this time in the Dallas airport. It was a long trip 3 days in Puerto Rico and 6 in the BVI’s with a travel day on either side, but we had a great time and it was really nice to spend time with Silvio and Louise again.

Jack's Song

2010-10-13T16:16:00.000-07:00

Yep, it has been a good and funny day!

Jack's Song from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

What they are asking Santa for...

2010-10-13T12:05:00.000-07:00

I know it's a little early, but the way Jack says "drum" and "drumsticks" is hilarious. Especially "drumsticks". If you haven't heard him, here is your opportunity! Also, the way Jack wants to be just like Paige is too cute. Hope you're all having a great day!

frumdicks from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Camping!

2010-09-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

So last Labor Day weekend, we tried to camp at Battleground Lake State Park. Well.... We did camp, but only for one night because of torrential rains. We had rivers running through our campsite and a lake in our tent and no more dry clothes by lunchtime on Saturday. But this year, our Labor Day weekend camp-out was a success, Friday through Monday!

Jack loves to have his picture taken. Here he is, right after we got to our campsite. He looked around for a good place to pose (this is the pole that you can use to keep food out of the reach of animals) and said, "Here Mom. Take my picture!" He loves his Dora backpack...

Mike loved his new camping stove! This is the first night- hamburgers. Yum! He also successfully cooked eggs, pancakes and chilli (that I made at home and froze for our trip).

We also used the campfire quite a bit for cooking. Of course, we had s'mores but we also made hot dogs and biscuits on a stick!

Biscuits on a stick were a bit doughy, but were pretty good if you cooked them on a low flame for a long time. Jonah's was mostly dough, since he thinks he can cook over smoke.

The kids and I thought this video was pretty funny. Hope you enjoy it! Oh, at the beginning, Jack is saying, "Where's stick? Where's stick? Where's stick that I found?" And later, near the end of the video, he says, "Can you take a picture of me?" You should be able to understand the rest! :)

Campfire! from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Our routine. Either Mike or I wash the dishes, but the kids bring the dirty dishes down and the clean dishes back to the table. In this picture, Mike is washing the dishes (obviously!) and the kiddos are waiting for clean dishes.

Saturday afternoon was spent at the lake since it was warm enough to play in the water.
Mike and Paige loved playing on a log out in the water. They would balance for a while and then jump off.

Mike, Paige and Jonah built this sandcastle while Jack and I sat nearby.

Here is Jack again posing for another picture.

And here is Jack sleeping on my lap at the beach. He just laid down in my lap and fell asleep for an hour or so. I loved this! I miss holding my sleeping babies. They are so sweet!

We spent most of Sunday geocaching. Here was one of their finds! Jack had to use the bathroom, so we missed out on finding this one. But it was a good thing. Mike, Paige and Jonah got entangled in a swarm of bees and Jonah (of course!) got stung- proving that he does in fact get stung by a bee every time he goes camping. Poor kid.

Monday morning we found a few more caches in Battleground park.

Here is Jack again, posing.

And Mike, Paige and Jonah posing in front of their earth cache. An earth cache is like a geocache in that you find it with the help of a GPS, but there isn't a box to open or anything. It is a good way to find cool things, like this lava rock. This earth cache had a little lesson with it, comparing the weight of lava rocks to regular rocks. Oh, if you didn't know, Battleground lake is in the crater of an old volcano. The water is slightly warm (74 degrees F or so) because of the lava tubes underneath.

On the way home on Monday (Well, not exactly on the way home...) we went to the "Ape Cave." It is an underground lava tube from an eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Really cool, really cold and really fun for us. Jonah was soooo cute. He was walking very slowly with his headlight pointing down, searching for mice, even dead ones. He never found any... I thought the kids would be afraid with it being so dark in there, but they weren't. I think it was like being in a Scooby Doo movie for them. They loved it!

The kids were all sad to go home. I think that is proof of a great camping trip!

Quinault Rain Forest

2010-09-07T21:45:00.000-07:00

This year we decided to go explore the Quinault rain forest in the Olympics for our annual hike. The group was bigger this year. Zac and Jeff came along with two of Zac's brother in laws; Doug and Eldon, Eldon's son Hunter, and Jeff's dad Randy. Unfortunately Ben and Greg couldn't make it, and I think after Rainier we scared Paul away. Anyway it was a good group. Unfortunately we never used my camera for any group shots, so I really only have pictures of the scenery. We planned for about 40 miles with 4 days to hike, always leaving extra time for an easy day if needed.

Eldon has a big family and therefore has an Expedition so we were all able to easily fit in one car with our gear and drive together. We arrived to the ranger station close to mid day, got our pass, drove a little further and started our hike. Instantly the scenery was beautiful.

The route that we chose went by the world's largest yellow cedar. When we got there though, it was pretty disappointing. Apparently, yellow cedar's aren't as big as other world's largest trees, and this one was either dead or barely alive. Oh well. The hike was great getting up there, and the flies were huge and many there so we didn't want to stop for long anyway.

On of our options for the first night was the Three Lakes camp. The area was nice, but it wasn't late when we got there, and everyone but Randy still had a lot of energy so we decided to continue on the last 4.5 miles and camp at Three Prune, where we would camp the second night also.

As we continued we saw lots of great meadow's where we hoped maybe to spot a bear. Everyone, or most everyone I think was really hoping to run into one, just to watch him. Zac, I believe, wanted to wrestle one, or watch Ben do it, but as Ben wasn't there, it probably would have been me to get mauled. Zac bought a suture kit before Rainier and is still dying to try it out. Crazy..., but I kinda want to also.

The first night there were two other groups at the same campsite, we were tired and really didn't talk to them. Only one group briefly who told us that our planned hike for the next day was mostly under the cover of trees and there was no places for pumping water so we should make sure to take enough. Great information...

Day 1: 11.3 miles and ~4000 feet elevation gain

The second day we planned to head up to a peak called Kimta peak; elevation 5399 feet. The hike was about 5.2 miles and we left the majority of our gear as we were camping at Three Prune again the second night. The hike ended up being about 90% directly in the sun and there was plenty of streams and snow melts (forming small ponds) where you could pump water. But in the end, it didn't matter, again the scenery was incredible and that was what was important.

During most of the day we hiked in basically two groups; Zac, Jeff, Hunter, and I and Eldon, Doug, and Randy. Throughout the hike Doug would take on the role of solitary man though, didn't seem to want to go quite our pace out front, but also didn't want to hang back with Randy. Anyway, after what felt like we had gone more than 5 miles we started to question the point in the distance that we thought was Kimta, especially as the trail started to drop away from this point and we continued to lose elevation. At this point our group had split up a little more and it was now just Zac and I. This is when we came up over a small hill and found ourselves face to face with a pretty big black bear. He couldn't have been more than 20 feet away. We stopped of course, and did what all good tourists do and started to locate our camera's to take some pictures. The lighting wasn't great though and the bear didn't want to pose, so the pictures weren't that great.

The bear basically just looked at us for a minute and then decided he wanted nothing to do with us and turned and started down the trail the other way. So we followed. After a bit the bear stopped to go to the bathroom. This I got a decent picture of...

After this he walked a little further and then finally decided he didn't want us following him anymore and took off the trail and pretty quickly disappeared into the brush. It was amazing actually how quickly he just disappeared, really makes you appreciate how well they can hide if they want.

Anyway, we continued on for a while longer and after continuing to descend further and further finally got smart, stopped and pulled out our topo map to figure out where we where. As it turned out the peak we were looking at wasn't Kimta peak at all. Kimta peak was much less dramatic and we passed it about 2.5 miles before. This made our day quite a bit longer. There was another campsite, Lake Beauty, that was 5.2 miles more past Kimta peak. We had actually talked a little about trying to go all the way there earlier in the day. This wasn't a popular plan with most at it would have made the total day 20.6 miles. But once we realized we had already traveled half the extra distance there we really had to think more about this idea. In the end we decided to turn back as we didn't know how far back the others were. We ran into them only about 20 minutes back, but were still glad we turned as we were totally exposed to the sun and already starting to get tired. After a couple stops to fill up water and a long hike back up and back down we all arrived back to our camp site a couple hours before dark. I took this last picture on the way up because I liked the way the tree framed the view. Looking at it now though, I like the way it centers on the spot where we turned around for the day; in the middle of the large exposed clearing. The peak in the distance is what we thought was Kimta peak; it wasn't.

As a side note, Julie and I had just watched Roots a couple weeks before this trip (a really great mini series if you haven't seen it) and during the entire day I was thinking "Kunta, Kunta Kinte," because of the similarity in name to Kimta peak. Anyway...

Day 2: 15.4 miles and ~4100 feet elevation gain

On the third day we had a pretty easy day planned. We were going to hike all the way down to the north fork of the Quinault river and stay at a campsite right on the edge of the river. It was about 11 miles but we lose about 2500 feet of net elevation along the way. That morning before we left camp the fog was floating over the valley. It looked really cool.

Most of the morning we were again hiking in a more rain forest area, which I really loved. I just can't get enough of how many shades of green you can see at once all together. Truly beautiful, pictures don't do it justice.

We reached the campsite at only about three in the afternoon. When we got there we immediately started talking about continuing on. Our car was only another 3 miles away and we could easily get home one night early. The only potential problem was Randy was starting to get really tired and we thought he might be done for the day. About 30 minutes later when Randy arrived we asked how he was doing and if we wanted to continue. He didn't want to, but the idea of getting home early and eating Subway that night was as appealing to him as the rest of us, so we took another 30 minutes break and then continued on to the car. We had perfect timing too, even though we were technically in a rain forest we had perfect weather the entire time (we seam to get really lucky every year and get perfect weather for these trips), but when we got to the car rain cloud started to move in. It started to rain before we had even driven completely out of the Olympic National Park. Perfect timing and Subway never tasted better...

Day 3: 13.45 miles and ~900 feet elevation gain

I have never (I can't believe this actually since I have lived most of my life in Washington) hiked in the Olympics before, but was truly taken back by the diversity of what we were able to see and we only covered a small amount of all the possibilities. We will definitely be back to the Olympics again. Add them to a list of hikes that is already longer than we will be able to do yearly hikes. But oh'well, it is great to have some many choices and I don't think any of them will ever be a bad one. All together this was a great trip. Totally different from Rainier or the coast hike, but really cool all the same. Let see what next year brings...

3 Day Total: 40.15 miles and ~9000 feet elevation gain

Nope, we're not announcing anything!

2010-08-31T20:41:00.000-07:00

Jack is wearing his "Templeton the rat" costume (a balloon under his shirt) that he wore for much of the afternoon today. The kids and I are really into "Charlotte's Web" lately. It started when we all (well... the kids and I) went to a free showing of the movie at the theater. Then, we had to watch the old version of the movie, which we have had from Netflix since the 13th of August. Jack LOVES it so I haven't had the heart to send it back yet. Plus, it is such a cute, wonderful, touching, beautiful movie. Really. And now we are reading the book together. It amazes me that Jack sits so quietly as I read from the chapter book and tonight he was even anticipating our story. "Mommy, yets read Charyette's Webb! Yay!"

I am hoping to do a little catching up on our blog. I have, in fact, been informed of my neglect. As the summer dies down, I'll be home more and will have more time to do this! We do have quite a bit to share!

Where's Dod?

2010-07-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

Jack and I were having a spiritual discussion in the car the other day.
Jack: Mom, where's Dod?
Me: Huh?
Jack: Where's Dod?
Me: Oh... You mean God?
Jack: Yes, Dod
Me: God is in Heaven.
Jack: But I han't see Him! I want to wave to him!
Me: God can see you wherever you are! If you wave to him, he can see you.
Jack (wildly waving his hand over his head): Hi Dod! Hi Dod! Hi Dod!

Paige is 7!

2010-07-04T18:51:00.000-07:00

How did that happen?! 7 is a big number! I know there are lots of bigger numbers out there, but it just seems like 7 is huge!

But our Paigey is still our Paigey. She's a sweet little girl, growing into a big girl slowly. She's really innocent and kind and so thoughtful. She loves to read, especially "American Girl" books and is also super active. She loves running, hiking, geocaching, swimming...anything outdoors! She is definitely her Daddy's girl and loves order. Her crayons always get put back into the box correctly, she never mixes playdough, and rainbows are always "red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple," never out of order...

Speaking of rainbows....Paige wanted to have a rainbow themed party this year. Here are some pictures!

Mike will do anything for his "Baby Girl"- even if he needs to dress like a rainbow to make her smile!

Rainbow Daddy on Zipline from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

The kiddos made window decorations- overhead transparencies that they cut out and painted with glass paint. They are really beautiful and should look lovely when placed on the windows- if the sun should ever come out!

Having fun with her friend!

Just being cute!

Here is Jack, helping me by putting candles on the cake. He spaced them out really well!

This cake had me slaving all day long.... Just kidding! It actually took less than 10 minutes (probably closer to 5) to frost and decorate. Woohoo!

Our pretty birthday girl!

Happy Birthday to Paige! from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

It really was a rainbow cake!

And maybe we'll even see a rainbow today when the sun comes out! Wouldn't that be cool? I know Paige would LOVE it! But she will definitely love her peanut butter pancake and smoothie dinner, going to the fireworks with her special friends and a sleepover with her best girlfriend! Happy Birthday Sweet Paige!

Father's Day Hike!

2010-06-20T20:06:00.000-07:00

Paige, Jonah and Jack have an AWESOME daddy! He's a dad who loves to spend time with them, laugh with them, teach them and take them on adventures. His favorite things to do are hiking and geocaching, so that is what we do for Father's Day, of course! This is the third year in a row that we have gone on a hike for Father's Day.

We started our day pretty early, with a homemade granola breakfast, Daddy's favorite. Of course homemade cards were given as well! Then we headed to North Bend to climb Little Si. The kids got to show Daddy how strong they had gotten from all of our Tuesday hikes with our friends. Daddy was pretty impressed. It was a 5 mile round trip hike (we did a little exra hiking for some geocaches...) with an 1200 foot elevation gain and I only carried Jack for the last 5 minutes up and for about 15 minutes on the way down. And no whining from the other kids! Woohoo! They must have wanted Daddy to have a really special day, as I am not always this lucky.

Jack and Jonah were really tight yesterday. It was pretty cute.

Jonah, checking out the view from the top. He was sure he found our house...

An awesome daddy with his amazing children.

And with Mama too.

Jonah is a monkey. You all know that, right? I was telling my friend the other day that I never know whether to look on the ground or whether to look 8 or so feet up if I think I've lost him. He climbs soooooo quickly! Here he is climbing a tree at the top of Little Si.

Here's Jack, playing peekaboo behind his bag of peanut M&M's. Another hiker talked to us briefly and the top of the mountain and said to Jack, "What a great reward you have!" And Jack responded "No! Dese are Neminems!

Gotta love M&M drool!

And here is the Papa mountain goat with his 2 little mountain goats.

They climbed way way up in no time. It took a lot longer to get down!

Mike, Paige and Jonah climbed all the way up to where the dirt begins.

Jonah never tires of climbing. Here he is perched atop a stump. Paige usually follows right behind him!

Swinging on a branch over the trail. Ooh-ooh ah-ah!

Found a geocache! Actually, we found 4 on or near the trail yesterday!

We had such a nice time together. We got home from the hike around 4 and just chilled out together watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Well, I watched most of it since I was a little busy making fish tacos (Mike's request) for dinner. Yummy yummy!

We love you Mike! The kids miss you today as you head to Germany and I do too. You are the most fun, engaging, and loving Daddy in the world. We are so blessed.

Jack's Scooby-Doo Party

2010-05-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

Jack had a Scooby Doo themed party this afternoon...

Here are Velma, Fred and Shaggy!

Gotta have a Mystery Machine cake!

Happy Birthday to you Jack! from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

And Family too!

Here are Grandma and Nana with mouthfuls of cake.

And Aunt Barb and Shaggy (aka Jonah) enjoying themselves.

Fred (aka Jack) eating his cake.

And Shaggy, just looking cute.

And a little zipline fun!

Jonah on the zipline.

Paige on the zipline.

And me. Woohoo!

And for a special treat... Nana on the zipline. Listen for Jack's laugh... So cute!

Nana on the zipline! from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Baby Jack

2010-05-27T17:18:00.000-07:00

I am not ready for my BABY to be 3 years old!

He was just born yesterday...

I would sit Jack on the counter in his little seat and we would chat while I made meals and cleaned up. Oh how I loved those sweet little sounds!

He has been the best baby in the world! In my heart and literally. He's been quite a few places!

Hangin' out in Boston at 3 months...

Here he is at 5 months, sunning on a beach in Aruba with a couple of our Brazilian friends.

And just hanging out on the beach in his suit, sunhat and in the stroller. Too much sun for our fair baby!

Who could look that cute eating a cracker? Only my little "Cracker Jack."

He has always been up for an adventure. This time, he's ready for a bike ride with mommy!

He was such a laid back baby. Very content to just have Mommy carry him everywhere! He did crawl eventually! Here he is at 12 months.

A cruise to Antarctica when I am 18 months? Sure Mom! Here he was posing for random people. He was a mascot on the cruise for sure...

In Brazil...

Jack, at 2 1/2 is my kitchen helper! Still is!

He rides Jonah's old bike now.- super fast! He wants to keep up with the other kids.

And he has an obsession with "Mickey's Christmas Carol," especially "Frooge" and "Yaycob Maryey" STILL. It's May!

And he loves "Scooby-Doo". Isn't he a hunky Fred?

I know Jack will always be my baby, but I have always considered 3 to be the age where children are no longer babies. They turn into real live kiddos, with lots of their own interests (which is great!), and they need a bit more discipline and crave more independence. Jack has truly been the most wonderful baby I could ever have imagined. He was (and is) so cute. As a little baby, he was so perfectly chubby and so happy. He was never collicky and hardly spit up and was sooooo laid back. Now, he's grown into a sweet, somewhat strong-willed, talkative, caring, adventurous, strong, heart-melting little boy who adores his family and friends and makes them feel so loved.

Oh, how I love you Jack! If I could live these 3 years over again, I would! I feel so blessed to be your Mommy! Happy Birthday sweet boy!

Our Precious Paige

2010-05-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

Paige was asked to perform "Mary's Song of Praise" at a church celebration dinner last Thursday night. Here she is, reciting Luke 1: 46-55 in front on 200+ people. She was amazing, inspiring, and so precious, causing many tears.

The very first part didn't get recorded- "And Mary said, "My soul..."

Paige's 1st time speaking to a crowd! from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Fun at the Farm!

2010-05-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures and a video of our recent trip to Farrel McWhirter Park in Redmond! We had such a fun time with the animals and with my cousin Keri and the boys she nannies for. It was a great day!

We loved the chickens! They just wander around the farm.

And we loved these cute goats too!

The turkey wasn't so cute, but BIG and really liked posing.

Jack is definitely becoming less of a chicken! Haha! He loved the animals and even tried to pet the chickens.

Jonah petting the calf.

I wanted to take him home!

Yep. There was one puddle in the whole park and Jonah found it!

Jack loves the horses.

Our monkey!

Keri was the best tire-swing pusher ever!

Friends.

These piggies were hilarious! All nine decided that they were starving at the same time. I loved the greedy noises and how the mama's belly (or is that just one large breast under the belly?) went up and down and side to side like a waterbed. Funny to watch. Probably not so funny for the mama pig.

Hungry Piggies! from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

And here they are, all filled up and sleeping. So sweet!

Zip Line Fun

2010-05-05T20:01:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to build a zip line across the backyard for some time. I have spent way too much time researching different gear, and different set-ups to make it the way I dreamt up. You see, our backyard is perfect for a relatively safe zip line because it is mostly flat with a small hill on one side. Because of this you can (in theory) ride across the whole yard while staying pretty close to the ground; safe and fun. I had one major problem though; I didn't have a decent tree on both sides of the yard. This meant I had to put a post into the ground to connect the line to on one side. It seemed that this would be straight forward because the majority of the force should be trying to pull the post over, so I buried a 12 foot-4x4 2 feet into the ground with 240 lbs of concrete and connected a 8 foot-4x4 to it about half way up, also in the ground with 240 lbs of concrete. Amazingly as I tightened the line, the main 4x4 just started to bend from where it was connection point and up. I let it bend a bit though because I wanted to test the rest of the design anyway. Here are a few pictures from our set up.

Some of the supplies.

I used 1/4 inch cable for the line and bought a massive 12 inch turnbuckle to make sure I could tighten the line enough to not have much sag in the middle. The cable is 200 feet long, and the run is about 175 feet, so 1% sag would be almost 1.5 feet.

Here are the first 2 holes, not very impressive.

Here is the only picture we took of the first set up finished. This is my mom helping Jack get on the line. Originally I attached a swing to it, so you just sit and ride.

And Jack having fun while riding!

Here are a few video's of the kids riding. In this first one you can see the problem we faced. Because the pole was bending, slack developed in the line and you lost valuable altitude, which is needed since I was trying to keep kids close to the ground in the first place. This video is actually after several runs, and as I tried to test it with more weight it got worse, actually pulling the concrete out of ground. It was pivoting around the connection point of my brace, which wasn't supposed to happen...

Jonah on the Zip Line Ver. 1 from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

This video is one of the last runs on version 1 of the zip line. The kids were still having fun even though it was sagging quite a bit because of the post pulling out, and then it really started to rain...

Zip Line vs. Heavy Rain from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

So the following weekend I took the line down and started digging out the original post. It is really difficult to pull 240# of concrete out of a 2 foot hole. What I didn't know is that this was actually the easy part. Once I got it out and moved it to its new hole where it would act a brace to the new support pole, I had to dig the hole an additional 2 feet down to make it a 4 foot hole. Of course I wanted to do this without making it too wide, and after about 3 feet it was impossible to pull dirt out with a shovel. First of all you couldn't get a good angle to lift the dirt out, but more importantly 75% of the shovel was down in the hole! So the last foot of dirt came out 1 scoop at a time with me lying on the ground dropping a small right angle shovel down and pulling it out. It was crazy. Here are the kids in the hole when it was finished.

After I finished the holes, I put a 16 foot-6x6 post in and filled it with 1000 pounds of concrete. I really figured this would be the end, no chance of anything pulling out, ever. I let it dry the following week and then the next weekend hooked the line back up, tightened it, and the fun began!

Finally, here a a couple more videos. I know this is a very video heavy post, but it is a zip line and pictures are not nearly as good as video!

Paige on the Zip Line from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Julie on the Zip Line from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

More zip line posting to come as I need to make a couple more modifications (version 3) to make sure I can ride with a minimal droop in the line. Right now it is creaking a little while I go, and bending a little when Julie goes. Really unbelievable that the top 4 feet of a 6x6 post could bend like that. Leverage is a great thing, but sure makes zip line installations without trees a lot tougher.

Highlights from our wonderful week!

2010-04-17T10:57:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful week we have had! Gorgeous and fun! Mike was out of town for most of it (Monday through Thursday) so Paige, Jonah, Jack and I kept ourselves happy and busy. We spent a LOT of time at the park down the street, enjoyed the library and lots of books on the not so pretty day, went hiking with good friends up Cougar Mountain another day and learned some new skills!
A few highlights-

Paige learned to ride her bike (without training wheels)! Her sweet friend Grace actually taught her to ride. She was so patient and knew exactly how to do it. She got Paige on a grassy hill, steadied her and then told her to pedal. That pretty much did it! I mean, there were falls and a lot of practices, but at the end of and hour Paige begged me to let her ride around the 1/3 mile loop around the park. Of course I let her! And now she's a regular rider!

woohoo!

She's riding! from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

And then not to be outdone, Jonah learned too! I taught him with the same techniques as Grace used. His only problem is braking- or not braking. He doesn't. Jonah has 2 speeds. On and off.

Jonah riding a 2 wheeler! from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

And here is Jack eating dried mango after our hike up Cougar. Look at that dirty face! It got that way by falling multiple times. He was AWESOME though. Just like Jonah and Paige, he never said he was tired or anything. He just tried to keep up with the big kids! And sometimes that resulted in a spill. Usually, he'd just get up, dust off his hands and knees and keep going. There were a couple of times that Mommy's kiss was needed though!

And this week, Jack has taken an interest in letters! Here are some more little videos displaying his interest of the week! I happen to think they're pretty cute!

Jack and the letter song from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Jack's ABC's from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

And those were just a few highlights...Hope you all had a great week too!

Paige's Memory

2010-04-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

We are so proud of our girl (and hope you don't mind our bragging just a little!)! Last week, we realized that Paige has retained all memory verses she had learned each week in January through March with just a simple word or phrase to start it off. She even remembers the references. Woohoo!
In the video below, taken last weekend, Paige was captured by Daddy and was told that her only way out was to recite Mary's Song of Praise (Luke 1 46-55) which she learned in December. She was the only 1st grader at church to memorize the whole thing. I love how it is on her heart now and that she can recite it in the midst of absolute chaos!

And Mary said... from Julie Tull on Vimeo.
So, excuse our little brag, but you have to agree (or not!). She's pretty cool!

Jack's Obsession

2010-03-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

Do you know who this is?

(Forgive me. This guy didn't want his picture taken.)

Or this?

And what about their friend, the duck?

Nope. You are incorrect.

The 1st picture depicts Jacob Marley, the second picture is of Bob Cratchit and their friend is Ebenezer Scrooge (or "Frooge" to Jack) of course. Jack is obsessed with the book, Mickey's Christmas Carol.

We started reading it in December, but I haven't been able to put it away like the rest of our Christmas books. We (mostly me) read this book almost every day to Jack. Sometimes 2 or 3 times. There is no other time that Jack will sit for almost 30 minutes. Yes, this book is LONG! But, I have read it so many times that I can read it without thinking about it. I can read aloud while planning our dinner menu in my head, that sort of thing.

Here's Jack this morning "reading" his favorite book. This is one of his favorite pages, where Jacob Marley appears first on Scrooge's door knocker. Jacob Marley is definitely his favorite character. He cannot seem to wait for those pages in the book. "Where's Jacob Marley"?! Also, Jacob Marley has become a game in our house. Jack pretends to be the Ghost of Jacob Marley and runs after the other kids yelling/moaning "IIIIIm Jaaaacob Marrrryey ooooooooo". And this morning, Jack handed me the book Go Dog Go (another of his favorites, but not an obsession) and he informed me that it was not "Go Dog Go" but "Go Jacob Marley Go". Yep, I read the whole book substituting "Jacob Marley" for "dog," which, by the way, was 58 times.

But Bob Cratchit has a place in Jack's heart too. I have appeased Jack at night by giving him Bob Cratchit to sleep with (Our only Jacob Marley was pictured above. He's a stamp. Not something to sleep with...). Notice that Butter is on the floor and Bob Cratchit has the throne. Poor Butter.

So now you know what's up with Jack!

Where's Paige?

2010-03-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

We ask that question a LOT now all of the sudden. And the answer more often than not is "in her room reading". Paige went from reading a bit here and there, to reading chapter books! Right now, her obsession is with the Magic Tree House books. She'll read a book in a day! These books combine adventure with history, two of her loves, so these books are perfect. She also loves American Girl books, but prefers us to read those ones to her most of the time. I know every kid gets here (reading chapter books) at some point or other, but to me, this is super exciting. I love to read and I love that she has picked this up.

Here she is reading on her bed.

And in the car...

I also love that she is sharing her love of reading with her brothers, especially Jonah. She is the one who first found out that he could read so she sits down with him every day with their Magnadoodle. She writes words and then he reads them and erases them. Over and over and over. She is so proud of Jonah and comes to me and says "Mom, Jonah read ___! Isn't that great, Mom? Jonah's doing such a good job"! Yep, it is great!
Hope you all enjoyed READING this!

10th Anniversary

2010-03-24T19:50:00.000-07:00

That's right!!! Julie and I have been married for 10 whole years!!! Best 10 years of my life (or at least I assume this, I don't remember the first 5 of my life very well, maybe they were better...). We actually dated for 6 before we got married, so already 1/2 of our live's we have been together.

Anyway, we decided to spend the night out to celebrate. Our actual anniversary was last Thursday, but we went out on Friday night. We had dinner at our favorite special restaurant Palisade, located on the waterfront in a nice marina in Seattle. It is a great restaurant, nice atmosphere, they pull water in from the sea and have ponds and a small stream running through the restaurant. We were seated at the window though, which was really nice. The food was great too!!!

After dinner we headed to a different area of the waterfront where we had booked a night at a hotel. We had arranged for each kid to be with a friend at their house for the night. The plan almost worked perfect, but Jonah's friends sister (another of Paige's friends...) came down with a fever. Luckily the family Paige was staying with offered to take Jonah also. That was so nice of them. I am sure a grandparent would have taken Jonah if that didn't work out, but it was great that the kids got to stay with friends. Anyway, after we checked in we decided to walk around the city a little and find a nice spot for dessert. Well, this didn't work as good as we thought. The majority of places were closed, other than clubs and a few nicer restaurants, and we ended up in the Hard Rock Cafe which was not the ideal place we had in mind. But, the dessert was still good. When we woke up the next morning, this was the view from our hotel window, nice huh?

What a cute couple!!! Maybe a little tired still, no coffee yet.

We headed up to Pike Place Market to get something to eat, and stopped first at the 1st Starbucks.

After our coffee and some pastry's to eat we spent the next couple of hours walked around the market and downtown Seattle. It was really nice, just to be the two of us!!!

The Monkey is 5!

2010-03-24T18:52:00.000-07:00

Jonah had his 5th birthday last Sunday! I can't believe my Little Monkey would actually be going off to school in the fall if I let him! He really is growing up though, becoming more independent, being more helpful, obeying more, but he is still Jonah. He is continuously climbing, talking and pretending. But guess what!? He can read! Not huge words or anything, but I just have not been able to really "work" with him in this area, so it is an unexpected surprise. I have always told Mike that Jonah is smart, he just has no desire to show it.

We started off the day by giving Jonah his presents. He got a Spiderman bike and helmet from us and a cute robot card and a stretchy sticky hand from Paige. Both presents were super cool to Jonah!

I love how Jonah was so excited about the Robot card Paige made him!

We all got ready for church and then went to Starbucks for breakfast. Mike and Paige usually pick up donuts at Chuck's on Jonah's birthday, but they aren't open on Sundays! So, the next best thing was Starbucks. Hot chocolate and donuts sure start the day off right (sarcasm here). But, they sure taste good!

Jonah had a dinner time party with the theme of "Robots." We decorated with Lego and K'nex robots and lots of foil. Paige made a "Pin the button on the robot" game to play with the kids (There were two other kiddos besides our kids. The party (as usual) was mostly family.). It was all very fun! Oh, just so you know "Robots" is a generic term. Not characters in a movie or anything. Jonah just likes robots. I found a great book at the library on robots one day and Jonah has been loving them ever since. He has seen some movies and shows with robots though! He loves Number 5 from "Short Circuit"!

Here is the cake. It was pretty fun to make. And very easy and fast (if you're me anyway. I am always messy and always fast.).

Here's our birthday boy blowing out the candles.

I collected a ton of boxes, toilet paper rolls and just random stuff before the party. Then the kids made these adorable robots (on the hearth). They really had a fun time making them. And I am going to have to find a way for them to disappear one of these days (along with the foil chain garland...).

Happy 5th Birthday sweet Monkey Boy!

My "business trip" to Germany

2010-03-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

In fact, I did take a business trip to Germany last week. But, that would be a really boring subject for most people to read about. But, because I was in the area, I was able to extend my trip a few days at the end and flew down to Bulgaria to see Zac. He was there alone, as Fiona, Nuala, Bran, and new baby Maeve were in Texas where Maeve was just born a month earlier. So anyway, it really worked out pretty well. I arrived Friday afternoon, and we briefly stopped by their house to change, and headed to Rila mountain.

It was supposed to be sunny and clear, but the weather didn't cooperate. When we parked the car where we planned to start hiking it was starting to get cloudy.

The map I am holding is the wrong map. The correct one was still on a table at Zac's house. Oh well, someone from his work basically explained where we where going and we both had a GPS, so we couldn't get too lost...

The climb at the beginning was pretty tough. The snow was really deep and hill was pretty steep. We climbed about 3000 feet in only a couple miles.

We were having a great time though, both loving the outdoors a lot. However, when the sun started to go down the reward was big!

It was not too long after this that the wind started to pick up and it started to snow again. We were looking up to the top of the ridge line and had hoped to climb all the way to the top before stopping for the night, but with the snow starting to pick up and it getting dark pretty quickly we picked the last grouping of trees we saw and stopped there. Turned out that was really smart, as we didn't really find any other good places even the following day to pitch the tent.

We didn't really plan for such extreme weather, so the night in the tent wasn't the best. The tent itself was not a mountaineering one, so it didn't hold in the heat as well. Plus, as I had to either bring my gear from home or borrow from Zac, I ended up not having a sleeping pad, so basically was sleeping directly on the snow. The wind howled throughout the night, and was actually blowing fine snow dust into the tent through the air vents. Look at some of our gear that was outside the tent, but under the rain fly. When we woke up it was 19 degrees F outside.

So on our second day the snow was coming down pretty hard and we had a pretty constant wind blowing at us, gusting up to about 35 MPH. So whenever we stopped we got cold pretty quickly. Look at how the wind was blowing the snow onto one side of my hat.

We basically followed the ridge line up to a peak (not the top of the mountain) where we really needed to decide what to do next.

So we hiked over to the edge where there were some rock outcroppings that we thought we could get a little shelter from the wind (which was getting stronger) and have something to eat and drink. Our drinking tubes to our water bladders were frozen, so we didn't have water to drink since we left camp.

So the wind just kept picking up and by the time we had boiled water we decided instead of having hot chocolate and then oatmeal for lunch, we would just have chocolate oatmeal in order to get moving again soon. The temperature had dropped to 17 degrees F. Here are a couple of shots though looking out from where we were sitting. The big patch with no rocks in it is one of the seven Rila lakes. We were able to see five of them during our hike.

Because the weather was looking like it was going to stay bad and maybe get worse we made the decision to start back down. We had already decided not to spend another night, because it was so cold and there wasn't a lot of good sheltered areas up where we were. But of course as it would work out, when we where about half way down the sun started to come out again and we got a chance to see some great views while we hiked out.

So after we got back to the car we drove around to the other side of the mountain where a famous monastery (Rila Monastery) is located. You can see the top of Rila mountain (snow covered) to the left of the monastery in this picture.

The monastery itself was really cool. The entire inside was full of paintings (all done by the same artist) of either Bible stories, or of saints. You can kinda see a couple paintings, and the idea of the style from this picture.

After visiting the monastery, we headed back to Zac's house, had showers, went out for dinner, and then both slept really really well in real beds. The next day Zac took me around the area a little to show me Sofia (only a little though, because Julie, the kids and I are planning to go there next year), and then hung out at his house playing a couple video games (I am not good at video games) and watching a TV show about climbing Everest. Then on Monday I had a flight at 6 AM to head home.

It was a great weekend. The hike of course was the highlight as it was the plan. But just being able to hang out with Zac was pretty cool as I don't see him very often.

Blowing bubbles...and other tricks

2010-03-08T20:04:00.000-08:00

Paige had been trying for sooooooo long to blow bubbles with gum! She chewed a lot of gum when we were in Brazil this fall and became frustrated that she never got a real bubble. But this last Friday she blew her first bubbles! I have to say that I think it is partly (or maybe entirely) my fault that she hadn't made any progress in bubble blowing arena until now. I think I bought the wrong gum. Always Trident or something like that, but Mike bought Bubble Yum last Thursday night while he was out with the boys. Yep, Mike's the hero!
You will get to see Paige blow a bubble in this video. Jack too. He thinks he's blowing them! He LOVES bubble gum and usually starts asking for it after breakfast. Sometimes he gets some after lunch. Sometimes. I was surprised the first time I gave Jack gum (a little over a month ago). I thought he would swallow it, but I gave him the gum out of my mouth because he really wanted some and we were in the library (it was my last piece). He was sure happy after that! He chewed it for over an hour before he wanted to spit it out. No swallowing it for Jack! Paige is the one who still accidentally swallows her gum. Although she is the one who once swallowed a string of dental floss. Seriously. She was about 3 and wanted to floss her teeth so I gave her a piece of floss. A minute or two later, she asked me for another piece. I asked, "Where is your other piece"? She responded, "I ate it. It tasted like a Peppermint Pattie".

Blowing Bubbles from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

And here are some Monkey Girl tricks while bubble blowing. Paige spent hours last Friday blowing bubbles and climbing doorways.

ooh-ooh-ah-ah

The potty dance

2010-03-01T08:40:00.000-08:00

So, the other night (after Jack had been throwing up all day...), Mike and I hopped into bed. Right away I heard a noise coming from the boys' room. I thought it was probably vomit again, plus I was warm under the covers,so I asked Mike if he would check on Jack for me. Of course I would have gotten up to deal with the actual vomit... So, Mike went into their room and found, not Jack throwing up, but Jonah running in circles on his bed (the top bunk)! Apparently Jonah had to go potty and this is his "potty dance," but he wasn't awake enough to know what he was doing. Mike got him down from his bed and placed him on the floor so that he could walk to the bathroom but Jonah just ran circles on the floor. Mike then took him to the bathroom and he did the same potty dance until Mike held him at the toilet until he did his business.

Monkeying Around

2010-02-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

We have not been up to a lot lately. Julie and the kids go to the YMCA a few days a week, I am working a lot as I have a new position which takes time to adjust too. I haven't been traveling though which is nice, although it is about to come to an end.

We are still having fun though, as always. The kids are growing and playing with each other more and more. Now Jack is really trying to keep up, and doing a pretty good job. Paige and Jonah have become massive climbers...

Jonah really was a big tree climber last year also, but Paige really has started climbing this year. I think because she is so competitive, and Jonah could do it, she had to figure out how. We don't have a lot of good climbing trees (all smaller, with lots of branches) so it is actually harder for her because she is bigger and it is difficult to get around the branches at times. I know because I tried to climb one of these trees with them...

Jack doesn't climb trees yet, although he really wants too. He is busy now with his car. Last year for his birthday we got a new battery for a small power wheels four wheeler we had. Jack loved it. But the kids are all to big for it now; the little ones are not really designed for moving any weight at all. So I made a few minor electrical modifications and doubled the power output!!! Now even though Jack is too big for it, it really moves. I drove it too. When Jack first got on it after I made the modifications, he popped a wheelie!!!

We have been having a really mild winter, which has been great (I guess, I really like winter) because the kids have been able to play outside more than normal for this time of year. Jack has finally grown out of his baby swing, so now we have three normal swings attached to the play structure.

Paige likes pushing Jack. Although I think he only sits normal on the swing when Julie or I are pushing him. Probably safer that way.

Finally, Jonah and Paige have learned the coolest thing ever. Their friend Grace showed them how to climb doors. Paige is getting really good at it. It is a skill that needs to be mastered and had fun with only when they are little. As you get bigger it becomes harder and harder to do it, because the angle your ams and legs make to the door opening becomes so much less.

Here is a quick video of Paige climbing. She is really proud of this trick. I love it too. I tell her to show everyone who comes into our house how she does it. I tried to get her to do it at Church a couple of Sunday's ago to show a parent, but Julie didn't allow it. Paige is smart to listen to her mom over me.

Climbing Doors from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

So cute!

2010-01-21T07:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, as Jack was snuggled in my arms, we had this conversation:
Me: Who made you so cute?
Jack: Dad
Me: How did he do that?
Jack: um um um um um um um um um um um (There were a LOT of ums) um um.... Him colored me.

It smells like...

2010-01-20T19:06:00.000-08:00

I made a new soup for dinner tonight- Bacon and Kale Minestra. It has a few slices of cut up bacon in it, onions, garlic, potatoes, a whole pound of Kale and some white beans (and a few other things...) and Parmesan cheese on top. I was a little nervous about serving the kids and Mike this soup, so I made some homemade French bread to go with it. I need them to like something in their meals!
Well, Mike was running a little late tonight, so the kids and I sat down to eat before he got home. The soup was definitely not their favorite, but all three kids ate a bunch of soup. Paige and Jonah each ate a whole ladle-full -without complaining. I was so proud. I figured if the kids kind-of liked it, that Mike would sort-of like it. Soon after, Mike was sitting at the table by himself looking at his soup and making a changing-a-poopy-diaper kind of face. I said, "You don't like it, do you"? His response was "No! It smells like belly button".

Mama's Helper

2010-01-13T08:01:00.000-08:00

Jack does everything with me, but he especially loves cooking and baking. He loves to stir, add ingredients and push buttons. My meal planning has changed a bit to include things for Jack to do. Since he loves to stir, soups have been on the menu a lot. They (the soups) don't seem to mind his constant (and not necessarily thorough) stirring. Also, anything that uses the blender or mixer are really cool!

Oh, and I guess I should mention this. Jack does not like wearing clothes anymore. Yesterday (when this picture was taken), I dressed him once and Paige dressed him once but the clothes didn't stay on for more than 5 minutes each time. I don't really mind him running naked through the house (even though I am sometimes cold in here with a sweatshirt on!). For cooking though, I have him wear an apron to protect his exposed parts.

My Heroes!

2010-01-09T11:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I asked the kids to get dressed (We were going to the YMCA soon) and they came out looking like this!

Just in case you cannot tell who they are (L to R), they are Robin, Superwoman, and Superman.

I love the ballet tights on Jack (aka Superman). I had to talk him out of the tights and underwear (He did have another pair under the tights...) and into a pair of pants, but he insisted on wearing his "cape" for most of the day.
So, my kids have been SUPER (heroes) lately. They are happily enjoying life and their friends and family and of course their new toys from Christmas. I on the other hand have not been feeling so super. I guess I am giving you a little excuse for why I have been such a TERRIBLE blogger lately. My iron level is really low. I'm working on it (eating meat, green drinks, lentils, supplements...), but a lot of days I have to rest when I put Jack down for his nap (totally NOT normal for me!)- usually the time I would blog. In a few weeks I should be back to my more consistently busy (and bloggy) self.
Hope you are all SUPER!

Memorable things from our Christmas season

2009-12-29T07:20:00.000-08:00

In no particular order...

1. Rudolph hunting!

This picture was taken on our last official Rudolph hunt of the season, December 23rd. This was an extra special night. Mike surprised the kids by pulling into Starbuck's to get them hot chocolates! We found 25 Rudolph's that night!

2. Driving "yike Mater (as in Tow Mater from the movie "Cars")".
A new tradition at the end of our Rudolph hunts, only on pretty dry and not icy nights...

Drivin' yike Mater from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

3. Paige earning over $100 to send to children in Ecuador by selling her artwork and by doing extra chores. One day she spent 4 hours raking and picking up leaves.

Here she is with her owl, rainbow, and kiwi pictures she sold to Daddy.

4. Jonah's favorite Christmas gift was a Spiderman toothbrush that has a suction cup at the bottom.

He attaches it to just about any smooth surface he can find, uses it to open and close drawers- it's a pretty cool tool. Jonah has been marveling at how well the elves made and painted the toothbrush. Who would have thought a toothbrush would top his list?!

5. Nana's elf hats.

Everyone in the family got an elf hat (made by Nana) to wear for Christmas. The kids got their hats soon after Thanksgiving and Jack has worn his hat for almost every hour of every day since. We have even caught him sleeping in it!

6. Seeing the lights.

For the second year in a row, we went to the lighting of the Clam Lights at Gene Coulon Beach Park.

We also took a trip to downtown Bellevue for their "Snowflake Lane" with Aunt Barb and Grandma. Drummers drummed, music played, characters (including Rudolph!) walked about, and (man-made) snow fell!

7. Of course spending time with our family and friends is here! We didn't forget you! But, we just don't have many pictures... and there are some of you who don't want the world to see you. We love you all!

1999 Toyota Tacoma

2009-12-19T06:48:00.001-08:00

Well we did it. We finally caved and decided we couldn't continue to have only a five seat car (would be a tight back row as the kids get older too) and my truck. So, as the timing was right, and we had the opportunity to buy a very good maintained (mechanically speaking) mini van at auction price, we took the opportunity. So now Julie is driving a 2006 Chrysler Town and Country; 7 passenger. It is pretty nice, and we are already happy we bought it. But that is not this story, this story is about the other two vehicles we had and what we were going to do with them.

Julie and I are really not into having a lot of stuff. We are constantly talking about what we can get rid of next to simplify our life's further. So the idea of having three vehicles for only two drivers didn't fit. However, we were both fondly attached to our current vehicles. Julie had a 1998 Subaru Legacy Outback, and I a 1999 Toyota Tacoma. They were both in great condition, neither had ever been in any major accident, they both had 96,000-97,000 miles on them (remarkably low given the age), and both were running great and showing no signs of major problems in the short term future.

But in the end Julie won, and we decided the smart thing to do was keep the Subaru. The van does not have all wheel or four wheel drive, so we really wanted something that would be good for the family to take into the mountains or even just the snow. My truck won't cut it for five. Even for four it will be a little tight in another year or two; the back seats are pretty small. On top of that, the Subaru gets a little better gas mileage, and had a much lower residual value. So we sold my truck.

The truck was the first major purchase of my life. I took out a loan to buy it, but quickly paid it off within the first six months. When I bought it, I was so excited to have a nice new vehicle. About a month later, I felt like I had wasted money, and should have bought something a few years old. I then decided I would drive the truck until the day it totally died, and would proceed to walk home when it happened. I figured that would be around twenty years. I made it half way, but also now believe if I stuck to that commitment, I would realistically have driven it until I couldn't drive anymore, Toyota's really are that good.

So why a post about a truck. First, I wanted too; ha, maybe you should be asking why you are reading a post about a truck... Really though, this truck was a huge part of my life. We drove away from our wedding in it. I used it as the primary moving truck when I moved into the Hitchings basement apartment with Julie, and again when we moved to our first and then second (current) house. I don't have many Scuba diving or hiking trip memories that didn't include the truck at some point. Even the silly things that happened or didn't are great memories. When I first bought the truck (well really until the day I sold it) I didn't like people eating in it, I was a little freakish about keeping it clean on the inside (the outside not so much). Mason (Hitchings) who was probably around four or five at the time we lived in their house used to love to joke with Julie about everything they were going to eat in my truck; 'We'll have ice cream, and put lots of chocolate sauce on it, maybe marshmallow cream, it will be so sticky and good...' And then how much Paige and Jonah would love to ride in the back, just as I was moving stuff from the house to the back of our property. They found it so exciting to be in the open air, without any restrictions, moving. The last great memories though are with Jack. Jack is obsessed with vehicles. Jack wants to ride in or drive just about every different vehicle he sees; the reason he calls motorcycle's "Jack-do!" But Jack had a certain fondness for my truck. I think a little because he didn't get to ride in it much. The back seat is not big enough for a car seat, only a boaster, and he isn't really big enough for that yet. So imagine a kid obsessed with vehicles and having one in his garage that he can't even ride in. Every morning when I leave for work he stands at the window telling the others that "Daddy go bye-bye in his truck, daddy truck, daddy truck." I think it was sadder that the truck left, than me. So anyway, when I could give Jack a ride I would; moving in or out of the garage, or moving cars around when changing the oil, etc.

Once sold it though, I decided we all need to take a drive together. So we put Jonah and Jack in the back in booster seats, and then Paige in the front in a booster seat. This left the hump for Julie. She managed to get both legs into the passenger side, but shifting for me was difficult. We have been in tight cars before, primarily in South America, where the laws are not quite the same as in the states, but this was really the tightest drive we have ever had legally. We only went a few miles looking at Christmas lights, it was nice. Jack was excited to take a real ride in my truck, and Paige was excited to sit in the front for the first time ever (I was able to turn off the passenger airbags).

The next day I drove my truck to work, met the guy who was buying it in the afternoon, and Julie and the kids picked me up that night. I am already adjusting to the car though, not having to shift in traffic is nice, plus the heated seats have been nice with the cold weather we have been having. But, when summer rolls around, and I can't just go pickup a load of dirt, or we can't just throw our backpacks in the back when we leave for a hiking trip, it will be sad again.

The Sweater

2009-12-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

A short (but true) story about Paige's fashion sense.

This afternoon I received a phone call from Bubba (Julie's mom). Paige and Jack had spent the better part of the day over there yesterday. Anyway, she wanted to tell me a funny story about a conversation she had with Paige.

As you may or may not know, Bubba is pretty crafty, mostly when it involves a sewing machine. She has sewn quilts for all the kids and Julie, I have some favorite fleece shorts, we have wall hangings, this year we will all have matching elf hats, and apparently she made herself a sweater that she wore yesterday. The list of things she has made really goes on and on, but I think you get the idea.

So I don't have a recollection of the sweater Bubba was wearing yesterday, but as the story goes Paige asked Nana if she liked the sweater. Nana's response was something about it being comfortable and warm. Paige then asked if she made it. The answer was "yes". Then Paige told Bubba (Nana to her) that she should stick to making quilts...

But don't stop reading, the story isn't over yet.

When I was telling Julie this story at dinner tonight, she laughed a little at first, and then Paige turned to her and asked "Well do you like that sweater?" And before Julie even had a chance to answer Paige said "Me neither!"

It was quite a funny moment.

Funny little quotations from today

2009-12-04T16:43:00.000-08:00

As we pulled out of the driveway this morning, Jonah noticed the thick fog around us and said "It's blurry outside"!

And then tonight I told Jack that we were going to have burgers and fries for dinner. He then looked at me very seriously and said, "I have my bugger in my nose". Needless to say, he was not thrilled about our plans to have burgers.

Peter Pan

2009-11-19T07:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we had a bunch of feathers out (The kids were making these cute little turkeys.) and they (the feathers) caught Paige's imagination. She decided that a red feather looked like it belonged on Peter Pan's hat. She went to her room with the feather and in about 5 minutes came out with a colored, stapled and taped hat, followed by a sword and shield and ship. I don't have a picture of it, but she even made a flag to go on their ship. Jonah LOVED being Peter Pan and even insisted upon wearing his hat to QFC (where he got lots of compliments).

I love it when our children play like this. Happy, creative and together. I know I have said this before, but I am so thankful that we are all able to stay home and learn and have fun together. I can't imagine us missing out on all of this!

Weird tasting oranges

2009-11-18T20:54:00.000-08:00

My mom said that she was tired of looking at the mummy dogs... Here is some new material!

Peeling Oranges from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Halloween

2009-10-31T22:42:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!!!

We had a fun Halloween! We started the day trick-or-treating at Bubba's and Aunt Barbs before lunch, and then ate all the candy for lunch. I tried to get everyone to eat apples and baby carrots, but my efforts were mostly in vain. In the early afternoon Grandma came over while we were carving pumpkins and brought more candy for the kids. Then in the late afternoon, we went to a nearby park and did a little Geocaching to burn off some energy. When we got home, I made a special Halloween dinner; mummy dogs with monster blood to dip in, goblin fingers, and pumpkin pie milkshakes. It was mummy...

The pumpkin pie milkshakes were really good.

Here are the kiddos in their costumes. Jonah is a lion and Paige and Jack are both butterflies. Jack was supposed to be a clown, but he doesn't "yike" the clown costume (at least he doesn't like it today). He wanted to be a butterfly "yike Gigi." So Jack, if you are reading this as an older boy, just know that we did not make you wear a butterfly costume. You chose it!

And here are Mike and I in our costumes! Mike is a clown (wearing the wig and nose from Jack's costume) and I am a fairy godmother (Thanks Bubba for letting me borrow the costume!). It is so nice having a child who is old enough to take a decent picture!

Our Jack-o-lanterns!

We have very special Jack-o-lanterns this year because we grew the pumpkins! We only ended up with 3 good pumpkins after those silly deer and other animals who like to poop in our yard trampled and ate the rest... 3 is enough though!

Here is "Jonah's pumpkin." He helped Mike design the bat. He didn't like Mike's first drawing of a bat and said, "No Daddy! That's not how you draw a bat. It's like this"! He drew a picture and Mike recreated it on the pumpkin. It looks cool with the moon behind it.

Paige wanted a more "traditional" jack-o-lantern.

Here it is!

And this is "Jack's pumpkin." I designed it to look like a clown. You know, because he was supposed to be a clown. Mike did all of the carving though! You cannot see very well from this picture, but this pumpkin had a very curvy shape- a lot actually like Butter the peanut.

So, that was Halloween! I hope you all had a fun day too!

Butter

2009-10-31T22:03:00.000-07:00

This is Butter.

Butter is a stuffed peanut that Uncle Jason and his fiance, Michelle, got for Jack when they visited New York in July. His tummy says, "I went NUTS in New York". When Jack received Butter, we told him it was a peanut and he naturally thought of peanut butter which he simply called "butter". So, Jack started calling the stuffed peanut "Butter" and the name stuck.

Jack LOVES Butter. He sleeps with him at his naptimes and bedtimes. Of course, Butter accompanied him to South America!

Here are Jack and Butter sleeping on the overnight flight on the way to Brazil.

And here Jack and Butter taking a snooze on the way back home.

Butter doesn't need a lot of sleep, but he lets Jack snuggle him all night long. And he does this with a smile on his face. What a sweet peanut!

And this is Jack sleeping in his BIG BOY BED with Butter! Jack and Butter have been sleeping on the bottom bunk since last Saturday (and they've slept through the night for the last 5 nights! A miracle! Jack has now slept through the night 7 nights in his life! Woohoo!)

Goodnight Butter!