Elizabeth's first temple trip

On Thursday, I took the teenagers to the Seattle Temple to do baptisms.  It was Elizabeth's first time going and she was so excited.

Anastaya, Isaac and Elizabeth

When we were finished, we walked around the grounds.  Elizabeth enjoyed taking lots of photos.  Her older siblings were hungry and just wanted us to get in the car and go.  Elizabeth says she looks forward to going back to the temple when it's just the two of us so she can spend as  much time as she wants wandering around.  I'd better plan to be there a while!  All the photos below are hers.

There are several statues on the grounds.  This one was her favorite.

Kittens!

On Saturday the 16th, Dode, Miriam and myself made a trip over to Haggen in the evening to buy milk for Sunday.  It was around 9 pm and I was beat but I forced myself to get over there and get the milk.  As we were walking home, I saw two little faces peeking out of the bushes at us, kittens.  they hardly seemed big enough to be walking.  I picked them up and showed them to Miriam.  We sat with them while Dode went back to the store for kitten food.  I looked around for a momma cat but didn't see one anywhere.


We carried them home and showed the other children.  There were lots of "Ooh!  So cute!".  Isaac was leaving the next day for a boy scout high adventure and he said, "If these kittens aren't here when I get back, I'm going to be really upset!"  We kept them in a box overnight in Jacob's room.

The next day, I don't think the kittens' feet touched the ground very often.  They might had started out wild and afraid but it didn't take long before they were totally comfortable with the children.  It's now been two weeks and the children are as in love with them as they were when we brought them home.


I felt badly for the momma cat who must be missing her babies.  I tried trapping her in our live animal trap over where we found the kittens but did not succeed.  There is a new stray cat hanging around I thought maybe she was the mom.  One night when she came to eat, I put one of the kittens into the trap and placed it next to the food to see how she would react.  When we trapped kittens last year, the mom was very upset and spent a lot of time trying to break them out of their trap.  We sat in the dark in the kitchen and waited to see what would happen.  The kitten started crying piteously and several of the stray cats came to investigate, including the one we thought might be the mom.  She didn't show too much interest and soon took off so I don't think she was mom.  Wherever the mom of the kittens is, I'm sorry I stole your babies.

I love to listen to them run around and chase each other.  They can't weigh more than 8 ounces each but you can really hear those paws thumping down the hall as they give chase.

The children named the kittens.  They are both girls.

This one originally was Sean, from the TV show Psych.  She's the shy one.

I wasn't too impressed with the name so they came up with Katniss.

This is Jules (also from the show Psych).  She's much more adventurous.

The box they slept in until we got a better cage.

The extension cord plug gives you an idea of how small they are.

Does this look like animal abuse?

Kittens love small spaces.  She crawls in here by herself often.

Anastaya is in heaven to have cats.  I often find her sitting on the couch petting them for long stretches of time.  Dode is willing to endure for the sake of his children.  His biggest complaint is that he has a litter box in his house.  I'm hoping that now that they're litter box trained, we can transition them into going to the bathroom outside.

Mongolian BBQ- Our last party of the summer

Saturday the 24th was our last party of the summer.  The party was for our church congregation.  We were "just" responsible for hosting.  Others were responsible for the food.  The week leading up to the event was not the most relaxing we've ever had.

The Saturday before the party, the person in charge of the meal showed up to get an idea of where he wanted to put everything.  While he was here, he asked us if there was anything we needed help with.  I joked that unless he had a tractor to help us move a dump truck full of drain rock for our septic drain field, we didn't need anything.  He knew someone at church who had a tractor that he could loan out.  He called about the tractor and we were told that someone else was borrowing it but when he was done with it, we could have it next.  We've been moving the rocks a shovel full at a time so having a tractor would be a huge improvement.

Sunday while Dode was showering, I noticed that water was percolating up in the lawn around the septic tank access cover.  We realized that our septic pump had failed and all our sewage was poring out onto our lawn.  The place they planned to have the food for the party was directly over the septic tank.   Even  if we moved the food area, we had to get the septic pump fixed, and quick!  What would we do? We were sure that calling someone out to replace the pump would be over $1,000.  As Dode lay in bed worrying about the problem and contemplating letting people know we'd have to cancel the party, he brainstormed what he could do.  He figured out a way to get the broken pump out himself.  He found a replacement pump on amazon.com and we paid for overnight shipping, hoping it would be here on Tuesday when we'd also receive the tractor.

He took the day off from work on Tuesday and worked on our septic system.  He started off by moving rocks over to our drain field.

Once the rocks were gone, he ordered a bunch of topsoil to be delivered.  While he was waiting for the topsoil, he was able to replace the broken pump with the new one that had just been delivered that morning by UPS.  By 6:30 pm, the new pump was working and our drain field improvements were finished.  We're hoping the improvements will allow the drain field area to dry out.  It's been pretty soggy for years.  In fact, Dode has been working on the drain field for the seven years we've lived here.  I just think he would have preferred to not be working on it on an emergency basis less than a week before a party!

He started by laying down a piece of filter fabric It's the kind of thing that goes under roads.  He hadn't purchased quite enough so he used the bouncing surface of our old trampoline for just a little bit more.  Other parts of our old trampoline has been put to more fun uses, the slip and slide and as support bases for our fourth of July float.  He put another piece of filter fabric over the rocks, then added the topsoil on top of the top layer of fabric.

Dode and Isaac standing with the old sewage pump (by Dode) and the new pump (by Isaac).

Isaac looks like he's really enjoying himself!  The amazon box is still laying in the yard.  It looks like he really tore into it to get the pump out.  

With our septic woes behind us, it should be smooth sailing to the party, right?  Wrong!  Wednesday we lost the transmission on our riding lawn mower.  It would have been a much bigger problem if we weren't at 35 days without rain.  Our lawn has gone mostly dormant so we were able to skip mowing before the party.  Loosing the transmission on Wednesday made me even more thankful that we'd been able to use the tractor.  We'd been dumping rocks into our lawn mower trailer and using the lawn mower to move the trailer between the rock pile and the drain field.  It would have been a big setback to loose the lawn mower in the middle of all that work.  So, although it wasn't a crisis to loose the transmission, it was a big disappointment.  When we'd just bled out a lot of money for the septic and drain field repairs, we didn't have the money to buy another lawn mower.  Even old warn out lawnmowers were out of our buget after the septic crisis.  Dode tore into the transmission, wondering if it'd be a waste of his time.  He found a couple of worn out bearings allowing the gears to slip and ordered new parts.  He THINKS he can repair it for the tune of $18.

The Saturday of the party began at 4:45 am when the produce driver called to say he was at the end of the driveway.  It was fully dark without even a moon to light the night as we moved produce from the pallets to our trailer.  It would have been nice to spend our Saturday working on the yard but we both ended up pulled in different directions throughout the day.  I had produce to do.  Dode had to help someone unload a trailer full of things.  Then I had to go to a baptism and Dode had to take a trailer full of our junk to the dump (we missed garbage pick up last week and had a bunch of odds and ends to get rid of before the party).  It was after 1:00 pm by the time we could turn our attention to the lawn and the party started at 4:00.

One thing we've learned when getting ready for a party is that no part of our home or lawn is off limits to children, teenagers, and the parents who are looking for them.  Upstairs, downstairs, in the garage, up in the office, out behind the garage, all around the boat, to the far reaches of the tall grass all around our house, we've found people everywhere.  When you lead a busy life, live on almost two acres in a forty year old house with a garage the size of a barn, how do you prepare for a party?  You just do the best you can and realize, it's real life that we're showing off!

One stress I'd had all week was our port-a-potty.  We'd rented it for five weeks.  We had a party right in the beginning, a couple in the middle, and then one at four weeks.  We'd had some really hot weather during that time and the port-a-potty had never been serviced.  I called on Monday and left a message saying it needed servicing because we were having a party on Saturday.  I never got a call back.  I called again on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, leaving messages each time and never hearing back from them.  I was irritated because when we'd rented it, they told us they'd be providing weekly service.  Well, in the middle of co-op chaos, the servicing truck pulled up to clean the port-a-potty.  I was quite relieved.  I don't know if the people picking up their produce right behind the port-a-potty were as thrilled.  When they pump it out, it really smells!

Our party started at 4:00 pm and it wasn't long after that that people starting arriving.  I loved seeing the excitement on the faces of children as they were let loose on our lawn.  Huge smiles, running fast ahead with a look of, "Yes!"  Soon the swimming pool, slip and slide, zip line and spinny thing were loaded up with children.

How many children can you fit in our pool?  There's another on the ladder waiting to get in.

Ready to go down the zip line.  Notice how warm the little girl in the back of the line looks!

It makes my heart happy to see a teenager on the spinny thing.

Off she goes down the zip line.  I love the tummy sticking out.

Splash down on the water slide.

Weeee!

Creating a laundry basket fortress.

cage ball soccer

Thanks Jacob for the graffiti in the background.  Real life, remember?

Trampolining.  At least we had one thing Nathan (with the cast) could do!

We brought out the little pools and slide for the little people.

The line up in the tree waiting for the big zip line.

Miriam and June enjoying snow cones in the tree house.

Teenagers playing tether ball.

Our refurbished drain field is in the middle of the lawn between the area where the children were playing and the area where the parents were sitting and eating.

Doesn't everyone have part of a football field to lay in their dirt patch?

We didn't want dirt tracked everywhere so we laid our piece of AstroTurf football field down across the middle of the dirt to act as a walk way.  I got a lot of questions about what it was that we had in our lawn!  I explained that we'd filled in a low spot in the lawn but were waiting for fall to plant grass.

We had a great turn out at the party.  Well over 100 people.  They ranged in ages from small babies to a few people in their 80's.  The next day at church, I looked around the chapel and I only counted five families who were in church that day who hadn't made it to our party.  (We also had five families who came to the party but didn't make it to church).  That's a pretty good attendance! One family drove all night Friday night to get home from California and still made it to the party.  I heard another mom say her daughter has been waiting for a year to get back over to our house and go down our zip line.

The food area.  The line extended all down the side of the car port.

Different people brought the fixings for the meal.  You got to customize your meal, choosing just what you wanted them to stir fry for you.

A view of the grills they used for the food.

Elise is ready to have her meal cooked.  See the guy in the green T-shirt?  That patch of dirt in front of him is the septic tank access.

We brought out the popcorn popper and snow cone machine for treats at the party.  We went through 9 bags of ice.  That's a LOT of snow cones!  It was fun to see so many children running around with snow cone syrup dripped down their tummies.  I make my own syrup by using kool-aid packets and sugar to make a thick syrup.  By the time the party was over, almost all of the four different flavors I made were empty.  The ironic thing is that so many kids were having such a good time playing that several went home with empty tummies, they were too busy to eat.

The party was a success.  I don't think anyone at the party got hurt, although one family was in a car accident on the way to the way to the party and didn't make it.

Sometime between 8:00-8:30 pm, the party was over and we began cleaning up.  We finally put away the folding chairs that have been sitting under the carport for five weeks.  Hooray for that!  By 9:30, the yard was clean, the house was straightened up (It was an outside party but remember what I said about people everywhere?) and I could finally turn my attention to making the sacrament bread for Sunday's service.

It's our 2nd year holding the Mongolian Grill and our third year having a party for our congregation.  I hope it will be an annual tradition.  It's a lot of work to get ready for a party but we love to host things here.  We've been blessed with such a great place to live, we love to share it with others.  Dode and I are both already scheming what we'll add to the party next year.  Soft serve ice cream for him, a dunk tank for me.  We'll see if our dreams come to fruition.

A pile of tubes blown up and ready for playing.  Want to join us next year?

Tulalip Days 2012

After getting pounds of candy last year at the Tulalip Days parade (details here), there was no way we were going to miss the festivities this year.  In fact, we brought a crowd with us!  "The crowd" had read about it in the blog or heard stories of it from us last year and decided to join in the fun this year.  "The crowd" was some of our family, Sheri with her kids Seth and Ellie, Janice, Sharon and Lynn, Dave and Viv, Dode's cousin Erin with her husband and three kids, and Melody (a family friend).  Since we've only been once, we weren't 100% sure what to expect.  We were a bit nervous that our family would be disappointed by the small parade and would consider it a waste of their Saturday morning.

Our crowd arriving and staking out our spots.

See all the empty sidewalk beyond us?  That was all the more crowded it ever got.  There was no one on either end of us.  I can't believe people in the community aren't attending the parade.  It's a great family event!  

One thing you have to be careful of is the street is not closed down before or during the parade.  As we were waiting for the parade to begin, cars kept coming whizzing by within a foot or two of the kids who were sitting on the edge of the sidewalk.  Dode has years of experience standing in streets with cars going by so he stood in the road in front of our group and gave cars a lot of eye contact to get them to slow down and move over.  Maybe we should bring a few orange cones to set up next year?  It's kind of humorous to watch the parade go by and see a car that isn't part of the parade but somehow got mixed up in it.

Elizabeth was worried that with all of our family sitting together, she wouldn't get enough candy.  She planted herself far removed from us, all by herself. (Yes, this is how crowded it was during the parade.)  Did it work?  I think all the kids received about the same amount of candy.  There were times when the children would hold open their bag and people would just dump candy right in.

Miriam and Erin's daughter Gabbie passed the time until the parade started gathering wildflowers.

Uncle Dave sat in the shade on the opposite side of the road from us with the girls.  Miriam is pretty free with the "grandpa" title and thinks of Dave as another of her grandpas.

The parade doesn't have many floats but it has a lot of different kinds of decorated vehicles, 

especially golf carts.  

I sure wish I could get my hands of one of these for during day camp when I walk over 5 miles a day around and around checking on camp!

The best part of all the vehicles?  

Candy! Tons of Candy!

After the parade, Lynn asked Erin if her children had enough candy to last them all the way home to Utah.  Her reply, "They have enough candy, they could run to Utah!"

This "dragon" terrorized both sides of the road teasing Miriam and Gabbie, then Seth and Ellie.

Dode was pretty surprised to see this box coming down the road.

The trailer he tows his ground penetrating radar in is disguised inside it!

Better view of the complete float.  TDS stands for "Tulalip Data Services", the department at the tribes Dode works in.

This is what it usually looks like.  It's tiny.

Chained to the light post so no one takes it.

As soon as the parade was over, Erin loaded her family into the car and started heading back to Utah.  Dode said he didn't care how much fun an event was, if he had that kind of drive to make he would have just wanted to be on the road!  I'm glad Erin's children got to experience what a Tulalip event is like.

After the parade, they had a free carnival for the kids.  The bouncy houses were a big hit and it reminded Miriam that she wished we had one in our yard.  We just have to find the right bounce house at the right price.

William liked to lie flat to get extra speed.

Good thing she was wearing leggings under her dress!

The spin art Frisbees were fun to do.  William's looks like a big green eye.

  We'd told our family that everything at the event was free.  We didn't know that this year they had added a few vendors.  The first booth Sharon walked up to was one of the vendors so she left empty handed.  She made up for it at the Frisbee booth!

Janice getting a bat girl mask.

Anastaya gets a butterfly.

Elizabeth with a rainbow swirl.

Ellie sat there so quietly for the face painting.  I could picture her in 15 years, relaxing while getting a facial.

a bunch of face painted peoples

In addition to face painting, Frisbees, crafts and bouncy houses, they had free food.

They offered all you can eat hot dogs, chips, donuts, cotton candy, snow cones, popcorn, and a bunch of candy they didn't hand out at the parade.  As the event was winding down, Isaac grabbed about five bags of chips for the ride home.    I just needed hand dipped corn dogs, kettle corn and elephant ears to complete the feast!

Miriam making a necklace.

The things we didn't participate in were traditional rawhide drum making and shawl making.  It would be nice to have a drum for cub scout day camp.   Maybe next year!