A spot of Snow

This has not been a winter for snowmen and sledding.... not without visiting a mountain. Yes, the rest of the entire United States including Florida has gotten more snow than Portland, OR. It's nearly pathetic if the storms weren't so bad in much of the country it's just Wrong to Complain. I can't withhold the smallest of slightly sarcastic blog posts, tho, celebrating a Spot of Snow on February 16th before school. Shad and Trinity made this Snow Mouse with be-be eyes. It melted immediately.

McTeacher Night

It is our pleasure to support Deep Creek school for McTeacher night. We have purchased McD's for dinner when the teachers are working every year, visiting with friends and saying "hi" to every teacher at least twice.

Valentine's

Valentine's is so fun... starting with cards in the mail! Grandpa and Grandma in Billing's Montana always remember to send a card to each of the kids and they love receiving mail! G'ma cuts out lots of stickers for each of them, too. We used some of them to decorate all the Valentine's for school class parties - and decorating LIFE, etc. :-) Nana sent a big package full of candy, which arrived just in time to slow down the snackers enough to finish their class Valentine's. Aidan, Camten and Trinity each had 20 - 30 Valentine's to sign their names to and attach some sweet extra. Trinity chose lollipops, her favorite. Aidan was the fastest, being the most experienced, and he flew thru the Butterfinger heart chocolates, his favorite. Camten is an interesting combination.... he drags his feet 'til the last minute on projects that require such tediousness as writing, but then he can focus better than any Armstrong and finishes first. It happens all the time. I announce "Bedtime!" and the little guy's in his jammies with teeth brushed before anyone else has put down their light saber. "Time to come in!" has his head bobbing down the hillside leaving us with the echo of his challenge to be the fastest. So it was that I was left at the table with his Valentine's counting to make sure he hadn't forgotten anyone while he zipped off to play - and he was right on the number, 22. Aidan and Trinity lingered half an hour longer. I should have gotten a picture of the mess.... it was monumental. Valentine's and candy everywhere and Sugared Kids bouncing off the walls. The class parties were fun - Dad and Mom dropped in all three parties before taking the partiers home. And where was Shad in all this? He's in 6th grade, now. They're too big for handing out Valentine's like that. There was some grown-up distributions of bags of candy, but no "Be Mine"s. It's too close to gettin' serious at 11 years of age!! (Yikes!!) The siblings were generous with their big brother. He got all the sour sweets.

Go Aidan!!

Aidan's music concert at Deep Creek. He dressed up in black - he's on the highest riser, farthest left on stage. He did some dancing, too. Camten and Trinity insisted on coming along to see, although concert behavior is tricky to maintain a whole hour. :-) Trinity found a friend from class. Camten did, too. There was a "gang" of boys from his class, but they looked like kindred spirits and due to the Good Behavior rule, he sat with Mom. :-)

Papa & Monique

Happy Birthday to Papa & Monique!! Both born on January 31st!! :-)

Dad & Mom returned from Mexico on the 31st - they visited Dwight & Kristi near Mexico City, helping them set up their new home and shop. We had fun talking and hanging out together at Jon and Angie's house. Family is a blessing.

Trinity & Hannah

Trinity was invited to Hannah's birthday party at JJ Jump. Hannah's been Trinity's friend since way back and she had fun playing with her friend in such a fun place.

French Drain

Winter in Damascus brings an abundance of underground water. We have underground springs all the way up the hill. Our neighbors all have ponds and the water is directed into one pond after another with long-standing, very old "water rights" to the flow. There's enough "old" neighbors to remember such things. So, one neighbor complained to another how the water flow was being restricted somewhere. To be "nice" our neighbor across the bush fence dug up his drain and put in a new one to release the water flow for the complaining neighbors. This re-directed some water into his new drain and some other water to randomly find it's own way down. It made it's own new drain down our front yard and tried to run into the street. The street automatically drains into yet another neighbor's driveway, which is a funnel into his basement. I'm not sure how many neighbors are involved at this point, but the hullaballoo finally resulted in a very deep rocky fancy HUGE French Drain being installed down the side of our yard. A "small" track ho was brought in for the job and our side yard has been re-arranged for the.... 3rd? time since we've moved in 6 years ago. The pipe overhanging the runoff ditch flows steadily. Every time I see it I feel good about telling water where to go... and I wonder about all the neighbors. What are the chances everyone's happy now? I don't think contentment is based on where the water runs.

Salmon release

Aidan was part of the team that raised salmon from eggs in Mr. Chamber's class this year. We have released salmon a few times with Mr. Chambers already.... Shad was in his class and they have both attended Wildlife Stewards with a second batch every year. I suppose we should figure out how to keep it up as a family thing after Camten and Trinity get through Deep Creek!! :-)

The whole class bussed down to the Clackamas River. Trinity and I met them down there in the rain and cold. We had to wait a while for the white buckets to adjust to the cold river temperatures before letting the tiny fish swim out into the wild. The kids all filled out their science sheets with temperature readings and water acidity. It was tricky keeping the paper dry enough to write on... and tricky finding a team member who remembered to bring a pencil!!

Happy 2011!!

I think we were more eager to welcome 2011 than we've ever been for any year ever. It was a relief to leave 2010 behind... the Maaco closed on 12/10/10 and that'll always wrap up the year in our memories. The kids stayed up to celebrate with us - well, almost all of them stayed up!! :-)

They made so much noise and ran around in circles, it was a year Well - Comed.