Preschool graduation

I know I'm a little behind in posting this, but aren't they cute! Marie and I taught preschool this year and are going to do it again next year, we had a lot of fun and are looking forward to next year... but are ready for summer first. :)

the countdown is on to PA!

Where do I even start? The last few weeks have been crazy, so I will just randomly pick things and start posting.. sorry it might be a lot, but I want to get my blogging done before we have to start packing and getting ready for Pennsylvania! I can't believe we are leaving next Monday! We will be gone for a couple of weeks! Lots to do (mostly laundry- UGH!)

Some things We're looking forward to seeing/doing
*friends and family (check out Keagan's blog for the last cousin pic)
*hopefully there will be a good thunder/lightning storm!
*Hershey Park (although the kids are wayyyy more excited about this than I am!) Yes its true parts of the town smell like chocolate.
*good food!! they have the best Stromboli and the restaurant Friendlys, sweet Bologna, tasty cakes....
*Gettysburg
*WA DC temple/maybe WA DC, too.
*City Island
*fireflies

Me and my dad!

I have been scanning old pictures lately for my dad and my other relatives for my grandpa's memorial. I just had to post this one, it is one of my favorite pictures of my dad.. when he was sooo young and Innocent! :) He was 17 years old getting ready to go to Vietnam and then the whole world changed him.

Here are some pictures I found of my dad & me

This one is one of my favorites! My dad, Eric, and me.

Check out those pants! :)

Happy Father's Day!

First Happy Father's day to the best man I know, my husband! He is a great father! When I was growing up, I didn't have my dad around and it was always hard, I always hoped that I could have a husband that would be a wonderful father and I got my wish! See dreams come true! :) I've been scanning old pictures lately (again) and found this one of Ray & Melissa, love it! It's from 1999 when Melissa was on a soccer team.
Now I'm soo lucky, I have 3 special men in my life, my own husband, my new(er) step dad (my mom has been married 10 years now to Thom.) He is wonderful! He likes to play with my kids and is a wonderful grandpa! Here he is in the red car, we love to go on trips w/ him.

And my dad! Here is a picture of us yesterday. We went to a memorial for my grandpa's memorial

(I'll write about that more later) I don't know when I have got to spend time with my dad to celebrate Father's day since I was a little girl. He is a truck driver and out on the road a lot. My dad is very special to me, especially with every thing we have gone thru! I wrote about it here

Happy Father's Day!

Bomb shelter

One of the fun things about our house is that we have a bomb shelter. Our house was built in 1959 when they were concerned about that kind of thing. It is fun... but we don't really know what to do with a bomb shelter. You can't really put anything down there because it gets moldy fast, (I guess we could get a de-humidifier.) Also there are narrow windy stairs, so it would be hard to put anything down the stairs. In the warm weather it is nice because it is nice and cool down there. There is electricity and a bar and I think a little sink (I'll have to double check on that one) The kids like to take the little tv/dvd player down there when it is hot and watch movies. They also like to take games and go down there and play. Today Celeste and Aurora ate lunch down there... for a little while until it got too cold and Aurora was scared, it was too dark(one of the lights had burned out) and there were too many spiders/ webs.

When you come out of our back patio door you turn to the right and go down some steep stairs,
Then there is this door to the left you go in - the door to the right is the door to the basement.

Don't hold onto the handle, it falls off.. lots of spiders and spider webs!

Down the stairs and then it turns

Ahhh, cool air..and then turns again, all that white on the walls is mold growing... YUK!

The girls going back up to the back yard

The bar is to the left and the girls are in sitting on a foam puzzle,(the floor is cement) w/ the flashlight/lantern eating their lunch.

It was actually pretty dark.

I'll have to measure it sometime, it is actually pretty good size, maybe the size of a small bedroom.

Smores/swing

With the nice weather we have been having, we have really been enjoying our backyard. It stays pretty cool back there (w/ the 13 trees..) I told Ray a week or two ago, I would love to have a swing back there... just a couple of days later he calls me and said he got a surprise for me, someone had listed a swing on Craig's list for FREE! Yeah! It is not the prettiest thing, but it is comfortable! We have already enjoyed it ... A LOT! Thanks Hon! You're awesome!
Last year we got this little fire bowl/pit and haven't used it very much, so we got it out and had smores the other night! Fun! Fun!

Believe it or not we can all fit... kind of squishy, but cozy. :)

playing... or building a fire

Wynoochee Lake

Memorial Day Weekend we went to go visit my mom & Thom and went on a Sunday drive. We ended up at Wynoochee Lake - I'm not really sure how to get there, we went through Montesanto and some old logging roads, it is far away from EVERYTHING! But it is beautiful, they come out here a lot w/ their boat. We might come out camping this summer... if I'm near the RV, cause that is my kind of camping...

Mom/Thom

Keagan
Melissa

Ray & I

My camera has this cool panorama thing you can do, where you take 3 pics and it puts them all together, the thing is sometimes it is hard to match up really well...

The kids throwing rocks in

trying to push each other in...

dad trying to get into the action

got Melissa's feet wet..