Monster Truck Jam

When Lauren came to visit we went to the Monster Truck Jam at the Tacoma Dome. (It was a bday present for Ray and me) It was a little scary because the night before was the time that the little boy was killed..
BUT, we have been before and LOVE going! The drivers played it really safe that night.

Grave Digger - the winner and favorite of the night!

This car broke down and it was amazing as big as it was to see it pulled with the tractor!

Its hard to get a shot of the trucks mid air w/ the digital camera and the delay...

One of Keagan's favorites in Donkey Kong and Blue Thunder... sadly we are in to it enough to know some of the trucks.

Mom and Thom love going, too! It is a January tradition we like to do, we don't always get to go when they come in Jan. but try to go as often as possible.

Keagan before it started, it was COLD!!

Melissa & Lauren










I tried to get some video, it is hard to keep up w/ the trucks and keep the camera focused, also there was someone's head in front of me... of all the nerve... :)

Our first Page - Maddison

During session at the capitol they hire "pages" - kids 14 to 16 years old to come help and learn about the legislative process. They pay them and need houses for them to stay. This year we signed up to house them if they needed housing for the week.(We get paid a little, too) What happens is we have some girl come and stay w/ us starting on Sunday night and leaving Friday. We (I) have to take her to the capitol every morning by 7:45 and pick her up at 5. We're in charge of feeding them breakfast and dinner. This is Madison, our first page. We really enjoyed her this week. She fit right in... being silly and she can touch her tongue to her elbow!! Which in our family is hilarious because we have this family joke about trying to get tape off our elbow... thats all I'll say about that (you had to be there to see it as soo funny) We're hoping she can come again.

Melissa's dance teacher, Michelle, recently opened up a new studio and has some different classes. Melissa tried the hip-hop classes. She likes them, but they practice from 8 to 9 on Wed. nights and I told her that was too late. Maybe when she is fully recovered from her mono she can do it, but not now. She got to do one performance at a South Puget sound women's basketball game half time show. Not bad for only a few weeks of lessons. She wouldn't let me take a pic of her, I had to sneak one. I thought she looked soo cute in the pigtails, but of course it made her look younger.....

She's the tall one in the middle w/ the white sweat shirt vest and striped socks.

I guess the people at the end accidently played more music, the girls weren't sure what they were suppose to do. :)

Happy Birthday Hon!

Happy Birthday Hon! Hope you have a great day! I am soo lucky/blessed to have the greatest husband! He is kind, thoughtful, handsome, and a hard worker! It is fun having our bdays close together, then we get to do bday activities. Last night we went to the monster truck jam for our bdays. I'll post that later. Sadly, I don't have as many pics of Ray... and they are not scanned, maybe I'll get some more when we visit PA this summer.

One of our first "formal" dances at Ricks College - 1991

What a cutie!

mid 1980s, the 2nd one getting ready for his prom date.

Birthday

Monday was my bday and it was a great day for an adult bday! I got to go out to lunch, dinner, and breakfast the week before. I have wonderful friends and family and got lots of well wishes! The dishes waited for me, too, until Tuesday (how nice of them) So I thought I would share some of my cuter years in pictures. (You can tell I am the oldest child, I actually got quite a few pictures taken of me when I was young)

Here I am 3 months old.

Here is Eric and me (I'm prob. 3 or 4)
Another one of Eric and me

me, 20 months

Here I am at 2 yrs old- look at how red my hair was!

2.5?

3 years old

4 years old

Kindergarten - I loved my fancy dress!

Kindergarten or 1st grade, my mom wanted a picture of us in our play clothes. I'm glad she got this one, it is one of my favorites. I'm wearing my CTR ring! And I loved those pants, I cried when they didn't fit anymore. Bell bottoms and patch work... all in one! lol! Don't you love Eric's, too!!

2009 calendar pictures

Here are the "picture" pages of my 2009 calendar that made for the family. This year I used smilebox.com (Thanks Pam) Smilebox was so fun and easy to use. (I didn't even have to pay for it, I got it done before the 2 week trial period ended.) This year since I have started blogging I had waaayy to many pictures to chose from, it was hard to narrow it down... and then we had 300+ disney pictures, so most of pages are from that... they were just too cute.

Here is our cover

Some of the group pics at Disney - our Jan. page
Feb. page

March page

April page- I had to give Keagan his own page w/ all of the Melissa pictures! He is pretty adorable! I know I'm a little biased!

May page

June page, Melissa was appalled that I would put the picture of Ray with the dirt on his bum, I thought it was too funny to not put it on there. He got soo dirty whenever he worked on the yard. It was pretty funny!

July page - our trip to Moses Lake

August page - We have been blessed w/ Melissa having soo many good friends. We miss you Lauren!

Sept. page- I had Melissa & Keagan & Jadyn & Aurora for the first day of school. Fun!

October page - These pictures crack me up of Melissa w/ the witch. This is one of our "photo spots" every Halloween. This year Melissa said, I have tights that match the witch, so we had her pose w/ the witch. Too cute!

November page- soo many pictures to choose from when I did this. I love Fall pictures at the Pumpkin Patch. I like this one because it shows the kids heights. My neice, Aurora (age 5) came w/ us and she took our family picture.

December page - Family that we saw this year -(Next year we should have lots of PA pages!)Ray & I, Melissa, Keagan, Aurora, my mom, Thom, my siblings - Eric, Adam, Cindy, & me, my dad, and Judy.

The back cover- Melissa's dance group at Disneyland!