Trip to Seattle Day Two 12/06/08

My Aunt and Uncle have a house over on Bainbridge Island. It sits on a few acres of property and it is just beautiful! (it's also for sale if anyone is interested in moving to Washington!)

So, on Saturday we headed over to the Island to visit with them.

WOW.... can't even describe how beautiful it is! I'ts early December and it's still so green.

There are trees everywhere. And not just little trees, but some huge trees!

(more to come on the trees)
The upstairs of my Aunt and Uncles house.


My Auntie Kay and their dog Bailey.

The backyard, with a gazebo that my Uncle hand made and a fire pit for salmon bakes!

Mmmm....yummy!

Walking through the trees.

Giant ferns.

More cool scenery.

The meadow.

Josh was trying to capture just how big the trees were. But, no luck. They are just to tall!

Amy with her Aunt and Uncle.

A leaf that Josh found. Look how big it is!

The fireplace in the living room. My Aunt and Uncle and my two cousins found all these river rocks and had them made into their fireplace. How cool is that!

Josh and I at my Aunt and Uncles house on Bainbridge Island.

The driveway.

Some more BIG trees.

A picture of our rental car.

Dallin wanted us to make sure that we took a picture of it.

So, here you go Dallin.

After visiting for a few hours, we went down to another town called Poulsbo.

The boats that were docked were all decorated for Christmas. Some had lights and some even has some of those blow-up decorations. It was way cool.

We walked around the downtown area and checked out some of the shops. We stopped at the bakery and bought some delicious treats and at the chocolate shop for some little sweets.

(I won't rant about the photos putting them selves in random order!)

As we were leaving my Aunt and Uncles, we looked up and there was a Bald Eagle sitting in the tree top.

The Port of Poulsbo.

When we got here, there was some festivities going on.

(not to sure what it was, but it was neat)

Barnacles!

After wondering around the downtown area we headed back into town to have dinner with my Aunt and Uncle.

(Thanks again for dinner, and we sure did enjoy visiting with you both!)

After dinner we headed over to the hotel for a good nights sleep.

Trip to Seattle Day One 12/05/08

Josh and I took a trip to Seattle for 5 days. Josh was scheduled to take a training class for work on December 8 & 9, so we decided to make a weekend of it.
WOW, was it ever great! We had a blast. A HUGE thanks to Wendy and Steve for keeping the 4 younger kids wrangled and thanks to Dad Kilpack and Travis for checking in on the teenager, who by the way was trusted to stay at home for those 5 days!

Getting ready to take the kids to Wendy's.

Josh at the hotel. Notice the flat panel t.v. in the background.
The hotel that we stayed in the first night was brand spanking new. It still smelled like fresh paint and new carpet.
(It was our favorite hotel on this trip)

Getting our bags packed for the trip. Can you guess who's is which bag?

After our flight landed at 9 p.m. we picked up the rental car, headed to Sumner where our hotel was for the night, checked in to the hotel, we both needed to eat.

There wasn't much around, but we managed to find a Jack -n- the Box. It was one of the best hamburger's we had had in awhile. MMMM...they were tasty.

Getting our grub on!

Well that sums up our first "day", well night really.

This is the first big trip that just Josh and I have gone on. Maybe taking a few trips like this when Josh has to go do training classes will make up for not ever having a honeymoon!

More to come...... stay tuned!

Thanksgiving 2008

So, I was already to post about Thanksgiving, I figured a week long break would be good, yet here I am ready to post, and the "Blogger" just inserts my photos in some random order. It's not even the order I uploaded them in! So, how am I supposed to tell the story when the photos aren't even lined up correctly! UGHHHHH!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all 2008

For dinner this year we had a fried turkey and a rubbed roast turkey. They were both wonderfully yummy!

Getting the frying area all set up.

And just like that the turkey was done!

(This is what a fries turkey looks like just in case you were wondering)

Josh figured that since we were frying stuff up, we might as well do some homemade fries!

See photo at the end of this blog.

I believe in this picture they were getting ready to "drop' the turkey in.

Colton looking on as the turkey is being carved.

Some of the fam.

Josh getting ready to carve the roasted turkey.

Travis carving the fried turkey.

Ding fries are done!

They were yummy, even though it wasn't a traditional dish for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Thanks to all who came, and for those who didn't, know that you all were thought of on this special day. We hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well.

Music with pizza

So along with pizza we had some music.

Shawna' is learning to play the violin and wanted to play me a song.

She enlisted the help of Will to be the "music stand".

So, I've been blogging for the last hour (Josh went to bed about an hour ago he had an early start this morning) and he pops out "are you coming to bed yet?" So I guess that should be my hint.

Goodnight, I'll be right there honey.

But, I'm not ready for bed yet. There is so much more that I can do. Like argue with the teenager about his curfew and how its not fair that he got to stay out till 10:15 tonight (Yes on a school night!) and how every one makes fun of him for having a curfew of 9:30 (only on school nights mind you!)
And I quote" So I guess that I'm not allowed to have any fun then."And my reply was "Hmmm, I guess not!" and my thoughts were you stinking shit! ARRGGGHHH!!!! Teen Drama you gotta love it! Oh and for curfews sake it still remains 9:30 on school nights, 10:30 on Friday nights and 11:00 on Saturday nights. If that's not fair enough...along with the many other privileges he has then I guess he should go and cry about it!

Ok, so I've vented about that, now I can go to bed. But then I 'll just lay there thinking of what needs to be done still, and how I'm not even packed for our trip to Washington tomorrow! AGHHH! Time, I need more time!

Pizza Night 12-1-08

So every other Monday night is Pizza Night at our house. We make homemade pizza. Sometimes the kids get to make their own "personal" pizzas and sometimes I make family size pizzas. Tonight I was making family size pizzas, and as I was trying to cook/clean up I find Will helping with the clean up.

"Mom it's ok, I like to do this. It's yummy!"

mmm...pepperoni...my favorite
(not the pic that was supposed to come next!)

finishing the clean up

This is what he looked like in between licks. He wanted me to make sure that I got a picture of him licking his lips all the way around.

How can you not enjoy pizza night when you come away looking like this!!

I LOVE IT! It doesn't get any better than this.

Except maybe eating the pizza, as there were no leftovers!

Putting up the Christmas Lights 2008

So it's that time again, time to put up the Christmas Lights. I love when Josh puts up the Christmas lights. It means Christmas is close. I just wish that we had some snow to go along with the lights now that they are up.

Josh let Will get up and help him this year. The other boys were gone, so they missed out.
" Hi Mom, look where I'm at!"

Two of my favorite guys.

Like two peas in a pod.

The squirrel that haunts the dog! 11-16-08

So, for those of you who know our dog, you know that she is a bit of a "nut case" to say the least. She loves chasing things like deer, squirrels, cats, raccoons. On any given moment she "sees" things and gets all freaked out. So, in the fall, about the time that the walnuts are falling the squirrel comes around. He taunts Chili, jumping from limb to limb, sometimes sitting right out on the curb. Staring at her with his little squirrel eyes all the while saying to himself...nananana you can't get me.

The squirrel in the walnut tree in the front yard.
Sometimes he moves to the back yard, or maybe it's a cousin. But, he likes to taunt Chili back there to. He runs along the fence post, sometimes hiding on the other side, peeking his little squirrel head over the fence to see where Chili is. On some days he's full of squirrel "chatter" and I swear he's screaming obscenities at her.
It's quite comical!

Reflections Program Awards 2008

Ok, so am I the only one whose photos wind up in some random order? The pics here are not in the order I placed them in! Frustrating!!! I was starting to work on my Thanksgiving Blog, but the 1st batch of photos I uploaded were in a funky order, so I bagged it, thinking I would work on a "simpler post", only to have these pics wind up in a funky order as well. At least it "doesn't really matter" with these.

So enough of my venting lets get to the post:

So the kids entered the Reflections Program this year at school.

(For those who don't know it's an art program)

All of the kids won and their projects will now go on to the District Program.

Dallin and Camryn each made their own videos and Shawna' did a visual art project. They did a great job! Way to go guys, Dad and I are so proud of you!

(I have to mention that Will did his own video as well and didn't understand why he didn't get a prize that night)

Camryn and her ribbon and prize
Shawna' and her ribbon and prize

Shawna's project

Dallin and his ribbon and prize.

Can you see the look in his eyes...mmmm giant candy bar....drooooool

Dallin and Camryn being recognized.