A New Year, A New Beginning

It's the day after Christmas, and I have a million things to do.  There are still gifts in opened and unopened boxes all over the house.  The kids are currently enjoying our brand new flat screen amongst blocks of Styrofoam and ripped open clear plastic bags.  Adam is off running errands and spending gift cards from last Christmas. And I'm just sitting here overwhelmed, so overwhelmed that I don't know where to start. 

In the last month or so, I've been trying to get the downstairs organized and sorted.  It's gone nowhere.  Well, not completely nowhere...just almost nowhere.  As usual, life has gotten in the way.  Mostly, our joyous holiday season was interrupted by a most unfortunate event; my cousin Bryan's suicide.  I've contemplated blogging on that...and maybe I will someday, but not today.  Anyway, after a good two weeks of grief and brain fog I had to find the time to find 26 thoughtful gifts for Christmas. This number doesn't include my husband, or the gifts that Santa brings...so I had my work cut out for me! Normally, I don't wait until after Thanksgiving to get my shopping done.  So, finding the time to organize amongst shopping, taking care of my family (2 bouts of strep, 3 colds, and a tummy bug), school, work, and whatever else I do as a virtually single parent was near impossible.  I say "virtually single parent" because Adam has been traveling about 80% of the time in the last 3-4 months.  With all that said, I found myself asking "why?"  Why, as a stay-at-home mom, can I not find the time to get anything done?

I've said it before...I enjoy being busy.  I like doing things for people, working on projects, being involved with school and church activities, etc.  It was my hope that my life would slow down once both kids were in school full time.  Quite the contrary has happened.  Sure, I may have a few slower mornings where I get to enjoy some "me" time, but once the clock strikes 2:40 life begins.  That's about the time I get in the car (if I'm not in it already) and head to pick up the kids from school.  The kids are in school for 7 hours, and they have no desire to think about school when they get home, let alone do their homework.  This is a touchy subject for me.  I hate homework.  As a kid, I always tried my best to make sure I managed my time well enough at school to not have to do any of it.  Usually, I succeeded, and it was like a reward.  School has changed in the last several years and now homework is part of every child's day.  Assigned homework.  Daily assigned homework.  And when you have a kindergartner and a 2nd grader, it might as well be called "daily assigned parent homework."  I, along with my kids, do this homework every night.  And despite the fact that it shouldn't take that long...it does.  Add that to bath time, dinner time, and play time...you are left with no. more. time.  Forget extra activities, going to town, etc.  Believe me, I do actually understand why kids have assigned homework these days.  And it's not just homework that wears me down.  Really, that's just the tip of the iceberg!

There is a point to this rambling...and I'm getting to it.

So why have I been trying to clear and organize my downstairs? Because I'm taking the plunge.  I'm going to do what I said I would NEVER do. I'm going to home school my kids.  I'm going to start out with a public online charter, and maybe do 100% home school in the future.

I still have mixed feelings about this decision.  I love the school my kids attend.  I think, as far as public schools go, it's pretty awesome.  My kids have great friends there, and fantastic teachers. I guess I just want something more for my family.  I want to give my kids more time to be kids...more time to enjoy the home that they love.  I want to teach them how to be successful, responsible, contributing members of this world that God created.  I also want to build better relationships with them.  As it sits now, the time I spend with them is short, strained, and often on-the-go. 

Yes, this is a commitment...a very big time commitment on my part.  I say I don't have enough time.  Well, my days will look very different with two school-age kids in tow all the time.  And I can't fully predict the future, but I have a strong hunch that the stress in my life is going to start to diminish. Sounds crazy, but I have high hopes.

Bottom line: The Lord has blessed me with the ability to stay home with my kids.  He has also blessed me with a good education...a degree in elementary education, to be exact! So why not try out this home school thing?  I'm hoping for the best, but if I find it doesn't work out, I have a great school to send them back to.

Brownsmead Campout

(From Mid-August 2012)

 

For those that don't live in the area, Brownsmead is a small farming community that is basically on a Columbia River flood plain.  It's quite beautiful when it isn't covered in water...haha!  Brownsmead is a part of the Knappa/Svensen community and we all share Astoria's zip code.  My dear friend Andrea Weaver lives in Brownsmead where her and her husband Craig raise beef cattle.  Craig's family owns and operates Aldrich Point Dairy (also in Brownsmead) which wholesales milk to the famous "Tillamook" brand factories. Craig all but runs the dairy, and I'm sure one day soon he will take over completely. 

 

Anyway, at around mid-summer Andrea's parents graciously gave her their old travel trailer figuring her family would use it more than they. Andrea was stoked and immediately began devising plans to go on a trip.  It's "maiden voyage" was to the Clatsop County Fair and shortly after that...her "back 40."  Yep, we towed our trailers to her back yard.  Their cattle farm is on Blind Slough.  Country kids can find endless things to do when you provide them with a giant field, some dirt, a campfire, and a slough. 

 

We camped three nights total...mainly just our two trailers.  Our friend Sarah Rogers and her kids stayed one night in a tent as well.  While we were there, we had several visitors (Jasper's, Nicholson's, Jacobson's, Kinder's, and Adams') and overall, it was a great time.

 

Raelynn showing off her catch to Brayden, Katelynn, Emily...Cody is staring off the other way.

We had well-planned meals.  This was BBQ chicken night.

Andrea and I 

Soren was CONSTANTLY in the fire...Cody joined the fun

The Nicholson's brought their bean-bag game.  It was pretty competitive! This is Andrea and Daniel Jasper...not sure who their partners were in this round.

Andrea's brother Nick is a fishing fool! He was constantly baiting hooks and here he caught at least two catfish on one cast.  I filleted those slimy fish the next day and we ate them.  They were quite tasty!!

All the kids are impressed with the catfish

The kids caught quite a handful of frogs.

 

Synnove and Kate on the mini

Even the girls got their hands dirty :)

Card games in the trailer. I actually have a better picture of the kids with a flash, but I thought this picture captured the moment much better.  Fun memories :)

Fruit

I think it was the perfect summer on the coast.  We even had enough sun to grow some fruit! Over the last couple of years, Adam has planted several trees.  I admit, I haven't been as "on board" with this investment as I could have, especially since many of the trees we purchased were already starting to mature.  I think we have somewhere between 13 and 15 trees...and they are all different. We've got plums, pears, cherries, nectarines, apricots, and various apples.  I know that a few have died, but not sure which ones.  This year we were able to harvest a few from about 1/2 of the trees.  I think the most exciting harvest was the nectarines! I would have never thought we could grow them in this climate!

 

 



Golden Apple

 

Yummy Nectarines!

 

The next 3 photos are from picking the old apple tree in front of our house.  It was LOADED this year!!

 

 

Here's a view of 1/2 our mini orchard/grove.  The kids are watering in their undies.  Guess they were hot that day...   :)

The Parts of my Summer that didn't Involve Photos

I know it's been a long time.  Truth is, I'm so overwhelmed with photos and stories of the rest of our eventful summer, that I don't even want to begin catching up.  Maybe I won't catch up.  Honestly, I could count on one hand the amount of hours I have spent sitting in front of my computer in the last several months.  Every day holds a new adventure and the sunshine has been a non-stop reminder of how sitting at my computer desk should be last on my to-do list.  This has been the sunniest coastal summer I can remember.  Growing up here made me appreciate sunny days...as we don't often get too many.  I think it's rained twice since the 4th of July...unreal.

Anyway, besides all the fun I had with my family, my summer was filled with change, sorrow, excitement, calamity, pain, and work.

Change:
Well, to make a long story short, Adam was finally rewarded with a promotion of sorts.  After 10 grueling months of double- and triple-duty, he was offered two different jobs within GP.  After a lot of prayer and weighing the pros and cons, he decided on taking a job for the pulp and paper division (North American Consumer Products) of Georgia Pacific.  He's now the leader of Chemical Process Safety for the division.  Yeah, he's kind of a big deal.  I'm super proud of him and glad to see that his under-appreciated hard work and success is being recognized and rewarded.

Since beginning his transition in July, he's been traveling a lot.  This will be a new "normal" for us as his new job requires 40-50% travel.  However, when he's not traveling, he gets to work from home! That's right folks, he no longer works at Wauna Mill!  As much as he will miss many of the people he worked with there, he's excited to be in a much more low-stress environment For now...and maybe even permanently...he has made himself an office down in his shop.  So far it's working out nicely.

Sorrow:
I've been on a mini roller coaster of heartache and hope with a dear relative of mine.  He's drug-addicted and beat down.  Satan has gripped his soul and my heart breaks for him.  By a series of God-ordained "coincidences" I was able to spend several moments with him on a handful of occasions...loving him and encouraging him the best way I know how.  Currently, he's in jail...and sadly, I feel relieved.  I continue to have hope and pray God's blessing over him.

Excitement:
For over a year I've been praying for a pastor to come to our area...someone to help us (me with other folks in the community) start a church.  And through a long and detailed and amazing series of events, God has answered my prayer. Oh my goodness gracious...God has answered my prayer!

Calamity:
My dad had a big health scare!  It's a long story that many already know.  To sum it up, he grew a huge lump on his neck over the course of a few days and had an extreme headache.  Our local hospital didn't know what it was so they sent him in an ambulance to OHSU.  After some tests and a lot of waiting they thought he might even have cancer!  In the end, doctors removed a very large thyroid cyst and half of his thyroid with it.  It took a bit to recover and he's still plugging away.  We are so thankful that God has restored him and his health!

Pain:
I hurt my foot!!  About a week before Labor Day my dog barreled into me and my poor foot got the brunt of it.  Basically, I lost a big chunk of skin and the rehab has been ridiculous!  Initially, I let it scab over and hobbled around for a good week wearing one shoe.  The bruising along with the road rash was painful.  Anyway, when I got home from our Labor Day camp trip, the pain seemed to get worse daily.  Every step I took made the scab pull away from my healthy skin and I could hardly walk.  I tried passing the time by enjoying the sun, but the sun made it hurt sooo bad...even covered and wet!  Long story short, I've had to keep the scab wet and the healing has been long.  I can only wear special sandals...even flip-flops are painful.  It's been nearly 4 weeks.  It's looking WAY better...but I still have a bit before I can wear real shoes. 

Other than that, Synnove badly bruised her tail bone when she fell out of a tree.  And Soren was bit in the face by a dog (in the dog's defense...she was provoked...but still unfortunate).  I'm glad we made it through another summer with no broken bones or hospital visits!

Work:
Andrea and I worked through the summer cleaning houses.  We took a few weeks off in August, but I managed to find other things to occupy my days.  Unfortunately, I didn't do one ounce of painting on our house (my intent)...but I did help a friend paint hers.  Adam has been working during his "free" time on the fence for our field.  He's also been tinkering around with his "new" car (ugh!).

Tsunami Treasure Hunt

A couple of Sundays ago my family planned at little beach picnic for after church since the weather was staying so warm every day.  Unfortunately, the clouds didn't roll away and the wind was rather chilly, so we had lunch at my parent's house and then headed for the beach anyway to kill some time before going to the movies to see "Brave."

The kids mostly looked for shells and dodged waves.  The wind was outrageous!

Adam thought it would be fun to go treasure hunting for debris that has washed up from the tsunami in Tokyo last year.  Quite honestly, I didn't think we would find anything, but we did! Among several washed up 2x4s and random pieces of siding, we found a large handful of drink bottles with Japanese writing on them and Adam found a fluorescent light bulb...it said "made in Japan" on it...ha ha.

Henry and Adam being "Japanese" dorks.

Our bottle caps.  Adam found the one that has "2011" printed on it...pretty neat that it has the year of the Tsunami on it!

Softball Season

When it came time for Synnove to sign up for softball again this year, she was hot and cold.  I was really hoping that I wasn't going to have to beg her to sign up again.  Fortunately, her friends got her excited about it and it wasn't a fight.  This is only our 2nd year in being involved with Knappa Summer Recreation, and I'm not too impressed.  Parents and coaches spend a good 3-4 months trying to trace the rabbit trail of poor communication.  The weather is a big factor for any sport played on the coast.  And, as usual, we spent the first two months playing the cancel/reschedule game.  We were only able to have a small handful of practices before games started, and because of the weather, sometimes the girls didn't play for a week or more.  There were only 9 girls on our team, so there were times when we only had 5 or 6 girls on the field!  

There were 2 Knappa girls teams, so we tried to scrimmage once a week in the first month.

Synnove started the season fairly strong and was able to get on base at virtually every game.  Her no-hit streak started in her last two weeks of playing.  3 games and no hits.  She doesn't like playing in games, as she gets pretty nervous.  She always had a big crowd of her own fans :)



Little Miss Evelyn was by far Synnove's biggest fan.  My sweet sister made it to all but two games (one because I didn't tell her about it)!

The last game was last Thursday and the coach bought each of the girls an engraved trophy.  Synnove was sooo excited for that.  I really enjoy watching Synnove play and I hope she will want to play again next year. Even Soren will be able to play! 

Our Crazy 4th of July

We had a crazy 4th!  We started the day still camping.  There were only a few of us left at camp, but we made the most of it and even cooked up a feast for "cowboy breakfast" before starting the packing up process.  Of course, the sun was out while we loaded up to go home...always bittersweet, especially when the 5 camping days were mostly overcast and rainy here and there.  We had to move kinda fast because we needed to get home and clean up before heading into Warrenton for the annual 4th of July parade.  Adam took the kids down to the creek for a little bit while I started loading up the trailer to make the 50 minute drive home.  Once home, we put the trailer away and I unloaded as fast as I could.  Of course, everyone had to have a bath/shower and we raced out of the house later than planned.  We arrived in Warrenton only 10-15 minutes before the parade was supposed to start and all the streets were blocked off.  We parked far away and made the long trek to where are "parade party" was camped.  The parade lasted 45 minutes and the kids got lots of candy.  Because we rushed out of the house to get there, I didn't take the time to get our stuff together to watch the fireworks in Astoria that evening, so the kids walked with Grandpa back to his house after the parade, while Adam and I planned to head home.  After a little "lost child" scare (dad couldn't find Soren) Adam and I grabbed some fish and chips before going home.  Adam worked outside while I cleaned up and did laundry from camping.  Then, we all met at Elise's coffee shop on the dock at around 9:00 to wait for the big fireworks show.  The kids were in bed at around 11:00.

The kids sat in front to get all the good candy at the Parade.

Those fire trucks are loud!

Grandma Barb was this years Grand Marshall.  She passed out candy with Michael and Halle.

Sleepy Avyrie

My Dad heckled virtually every float/car that went by...saying "where's all the candy?!?!" (among other things)

This year's Regatta float is pretty awesome! We love our FiFi (the hot blonde towards the rear)!!

Camping Pics

Poor Heidi was in and our of the ER twice for kidney stones.  She eventually finished off her camping trip at home.

The Bigelows borrowed our tent and created an awesome tarp shelter for the forecasted rain.

Dad has lots of experience with tarp shelters.  Northwest Coastal camping requires lots of "tarpage"

2nd annual shooting competition.  Uncle Don won again!

"Mema" Lori playing some baseball with the kids.

The kids spent LOTS of time playing "house" under the trees with the play doh pasta maker Elise bought for them.

We had our traditional potluck on Sunday...lots of yummy food!

Avyrie was going to be turning 1 on the 5th.  We celebrated with cupcakes and gifts at the potluck.

Avyrie didn't like the whole cupcake eating experience so much.  She's good at the "stinkface"

I make blueberry pancakes at every camping trip on one of the mornings.

We camped for 5 days starting the weekend before the 4th, but several still had to work on Monday and Tuesday.  There were only a few of us at camp Monday and it was a dreary/rainy day.  So, the kids camped out in Chris and Tonya's trailer to watch "The Muppets" and dry out for a while.

On the eve of the 3rd, Chris Wilson and Elise set off all the fireworks Chris Bigelow had bought. From left to right: Synnove, Soren, Lori, Tyler, and Faith.

Father's Day Bowling

We didn't have anything planned for Father's Day this year.  My parents were in Massachusetts for my Dad's pilot simulator training, so celebrating with them wasn't an option.  At the last minute we got a call from my Bro-in-law asking if we wanted to go bowling after church.  So, we made a day of it and invited Chris and Tonya too!  The kids were pretty excited to see Faith (Chris and Tonya had JUST gotten back from the long drive to California to pick her up the night before!) and Forrest.  Us moms played with the babies and the dads bowled with the kids.  After a couple of games, Elise, Synnove, Evie, and I headed to Astoria High School to watch Heidi's dance recital.

I love this picture.  I asked the kids to say "cheese"...and Faith put her arms up...lol!

Forrest wasn't happy he had to smile for the camera...so he didn't :)

The kids played in their own lane, while the guys played in another.  Of course, Chris Bigelow won.

We had pizza delivered to the alley...I made the Dads pose :)

Daisy Troop Bridging Ceremony



I was pretty excited when at the start of the school year Synnove decided that she wanted to be in Daisy Girl Scouts.  Synnove is pretty shy and doesn't really like to try new things. Two of her best friends, Brooke O'Connor and Grace Olson were joining, and their influence spurred Synnove's interest.  The girls meet after school every other Tuesday and do a myriad of lessons and activities.  Their leader, Sue Krusick, is fantastically organized and plans lots of fun things for the girls to do.  When it came time to sell cookies, us parents were less than thrilled.  Daisy scouts don't have to participate if they choose not to, but Sue decided it would be good experience for the girls.  Again, I was excited to see how pumped Synnove was about selling cookies.  I think she thought she was going to get to keep all the money...lol!  Though a bit timid, she made phone calls to the usual family members and friends and ended up selling around 100 boxes!  The girls also set up a little booth and the local Country Market in Svensen.  Some of the other activities the girls did during their year were singing Christmas carols at the senior center and participating in the school talent show.  In the spring, Sue, along with co-leader Alyson O'Connor, planned an all-day pajama party at the Girl Scout cabin in Seaside.  The girls played games, ate smores (from the microwave), painted nails, and did other fun girly things.

On June 2nd, all of the Daisy troop "bridged" to become Brownies.  Daisy girls are k-1st grade, but the girls only had 1st graders in their troop.  The ceremony was conducted at the Gnat Creek Fish Hatchery, and though the weather was dreary, the rain remained a light mist if it rained at all.  After doing a few ceremonial things, all of us hiked the trail to a small bridge on Gnat Creek where the girls bridged over to receive their new vests and say their Girl Scout pledge.  We then returned to the picnic area and watched the girls sing a few songs and have some cake.

Before the bridging.  The 4 girls on the left are in Synnove's Daisy troop. Katie Krusick, Grace Olson, Synnove, and Grace Adams (we were missing Brooke O'Connor).  The two girls on the right are brownies bridging to Junior Girl Scouts.

The girls actually crossed a little bridge to go from being a Daisy to being a Brownie.

Brownies! Afterwards, each girl got a box of brownie mix and a certificate.