Longview Champions

We had a baseball tournament in Longview one weekend.  The first game of the weekend was supposed to be played Saturday at 8am.  That means you are at the field at 7am.  We awakened nice and early to a gray rainy sky.  If it was a soccer tournament it wouldn't matter what the weather was like. But not for baseball. We spent about 4 hours hanging out downstairs in the breakfast room to find out when we would play.  Delay, delay, delay.  I felt bad for the people who worked at the hotel.  It was filled with baseball teams with no place to go.  Finally we all went to pizza and bowling.  At 8pm we finally played our first game which ended with a win.  The next morning we had even more delays.  We didn't end up playing our first game until 4pm.  The day finally came to an end  a little after 11pm with winning the championship.

Summers Almost Over

I can't believe that the summer is almost over.  I haven't written anything all summer on this blog.  Well since I'm about to be the parent of a (gasp) 7th grader I guess I'll write about Brother Bears last days of 6th grade.   Brother participated in a Math Relay with other 6th graders in the district.  He was a peer buddy helper with the special education track meet.  A student favorite is always field day where he plays capture the flag and flag football all day.  There was a student assembly for 4th thru 6th graders.  Brother received the Presidential Gold Academic Award which only abou 10 kids recieved.  He also received the Presidential Citizenship Award that he was nominated for by the teachers and principal.  Then there was a 6th grade only assembly and parent reception. On the last Friday of school they had a 6th grade party after school with a dj and pizza and games.  I always pick brother  up on the last day of school, per his request.  We go out for a special lunch, just the two of us.

Sister Bear Turned 5!!!!!!!

She wanted an ice cream cake

Sister Bear turned 5 this spring.  She celebrated at school with all of her friends. On her actual birthday we went to McDonald's with a friend and then had a birthday dinner that night with Gramma and Granddad.

This year Sister didn't have a party.  Her gift from us was an American Girl Doll. We went up to the store in Seattle to pick it out and then we had tea in their restaurant.  If you didn't have a doll to use the restaurant let you borrow one to sit at the table with you.  They had little chairs that hooked to the table and little doll size cups and saucers. Sister Bear had a great time and told me thank you over and over in the car on the way home.

Waiting for our treats

Giving Kate some tea

Yummy treats.  I had tea and Sister had pink lemonade

Snow-maggedon and Ice-maggedon 2012

Morning snowman by Granddad

It started snowing on January 14th.  Just flurries and depending on where you lived nothing was sticking.  I remember we had a light dusting and I went down to the store and there wasn't anything. Still snowed off and on the next day.  Dusting and then turning to rain and melting away.  It snowed enough over night that the snow and ice caused a late start for school due to bus safety.  Some areas get really icy.  By Wednesday we were now on to no school.  The Thursday everything had turned to solid ice. Power was now out.  Thankful to have a wood burning stove.  Unfortunately our propane was empty on the BBQ and our camping stove.  So PB&J sandwiches and cereal it was.  My parents didn't lose power so on Friday Papa Bear took us over to their house.  That was quite a slip and slide on side streets.  All day long on Friday you could hear limbs cracking and falling off of the big evergreen trees.  At about 9pm our neighbor (who has a generator) called to tell me the power was back on.  We were lucky.  Many people were without power for 5 days.  Ive gotten plenty of firewood from the area behind my parents house.  Tree service companies were busy for weeks.  When it finally got nice, the line at the yard waste section of the dump was outrageous.  Our neighbor waited 2hrs!  We lost a whole row of trees that separated us from our neighbors. A high school boy cut everything down and took it way and then Papa Bear dug out 17 stumps.  The trees were at least 20 years old.

Watching it snow

Snowing

And more snowing

Now its turning to ice

Covered in ice.  Currently this tree is now bent over sideways to the left.  

these were sharp icicles

Ice. These trees bent down and almost touched the ground.  Luckily they bounced back up

Solid ice

Bent over from snow and ice.  See the after picture

About two weeks later.  Poor trees are no longer with us.  

12 Years Old

Brother Bear turned 12 this year.  A few months ago but I should still write about it.  He wanted to have the party over at the university like years past.  Which that is fine by me.  No mess in my house and there were 10 or 12 boys total who ran around for about 4 hours.  They played floor hockey, flag football, whiffle ball and basketball.  It started snowing that day and snowed for about 5 days.  So by the time Brothers actual birthday rolled around school was cancelled due to the snow and very icy roads.

cupcakes and ice cream and presents oh my

Floor Hockey

Getting his spanking from Sister

blowing out the candles

Snow day for the actual birthday

Baseball

Wow two posts on one morning.  Woohoo!

Opening Day

Brother and Coach aka Papa Bear

Brother Bear has been busy playing baseball this year. He's been playing Cal Ripken Baseball since he was 8 years old.  In the rookies he was the Blue Jays for two years, the minors he was the Angels (much to my happiness) and the majors he was the Phillies for two years.  The week after the regular season is over with they have a tournament for their league.  This year Brothers team finished first for the regular season and then they also won the tournament.  The Phillies went 16-2 this year (13-2 for the regular season and 3-0 in the tournament). His last year on the Blue Jays they also won the tournament.

Catching the first pitch from the mayor

We won this game 2-1 and Brother scored both runs!

Getting his trophies

He's played baseball with most of these kids the entire time whether it be on the regular season team or All-Stars.  So he has some pretty good friends out of this experience.

These four have been the core for years

Pre-K Graduation

 Sister Bear was in Pre-K at a church hear in town.  Every M,W,F it was quiet in the house.  I think she talked more those days when she came home because she didn't talk very much in class.  She loved school and her teacher.  On the last day of school she was eating breakfast and while she was sitting at the table she said "I think that I'm going to cry because I feel sad."  We drive by her preschool all the time and she comments every time we go by.

There were 3 Pre-K classes on the days Sister went to school.  They have a little graduation ceremony for parents and family at the end of the year.  The kids wore white graduation hats and walked in to the sanctuary while pomp and circumstance was playing.  All three classes gathered and sang two of their favorite songs from chapel and then they did two songs about going to kindergarten.  Then their names were called and they walked through a cute balloon arch and got their "diploma" and a pin from the pastor.  Afterwards there was cake a punch.

Sister was so excited leading up to the graduation.  She would talk about the songs that they were singing.  We let Brother Bear go into school late that day so he could go with us to the ceremony.  She was so excited to have her big brother along watching her do something.

Format

Why can't websites just leave things alone. I cant do the blog on Internet explorer anymore.  It said my browser no longer supports blogger.  So I had to install some google program. Yesterday I thought I would change the template and give the blog a new look.  Today I thought I would try to add some more posts.  I spent about 30 minutes trying to get to where I could sign in.  Whatever I changed yesterday wasn't showing my sign in. The dashboard wasn't showing up on my computer.  Finally I managed to get in. Ive changed the template back to something else for now. It doesn't look good but oh well it lets me sign in.  And now I'm going to step away.  So much for updating.  Maybe later when I'm not irritated with the computer.

Lets see if I can get going

I have so many things Ive forgotten to write about.  I'll go back and do a little blurb about the things I think I would have wanted to write about.

Oh and my pictures are all screwed up and it is really annoying me.  I guess there is a new format.  They aren't sideways on my computer but when I put them on here they are.
Christmastime

The kids always love having the house decorated for Christmas.  They love when Papa Bear puts the lights on the house. Sister was really into the holidays this year.  I think being in preschool and doing activities to celebrate there helped kick her holiday spirit way up.  We went to the Nutcracker Ballet with my parents during the holiday season.

Granny and Grandpa came to visit us this year.  We had some surprise visitors too.  Well surprise for Granny and Grandpa. Chase and Carly came up to visit too.  One night we said we were going to the movies so Granny and Grandpa were babysitting the kids.  What we really did was go to the airport to pick up our visitors.