Happy 40th Anniversary

My parents were married July 28th, 1968. (FYI our anniversary is July 27th, and Tennille and Nathan's is July 29th, fun huh?) So that means they have been married for 40 years! We had a party on Friday night at their house to celebrate. It was up on the roof, and it was so fun and beautiful. We made a fun little slide show, but I can't get it to load on YouTube, so your eyes are going to be spared the adventure of seeing some great family pictures from the 70's and 80's. (at least until I can get it to load.)

Here they are 40 years ago:


And here they are the night of the party up on the roof:

It was such a great setting for a party:

The kids loved the party. It was open house style, so they would freak out every time someone new came and they saw them from above. They would run around yelling, "We have a new customer!"

After about 45 minutes of their craziness, we put Camden to bed and the daddy's took Hudson, Zech, and Eleison swimming. This provided the people up on the roof more entertainment to look down and see. At a nice safe distance from splashes (three stories up is just far enough that Hudson can't get you wet.) Being the little party girl that she is, Ainsley stayed and didn't go downstairs to swim.

It was very fun. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. Thanks for being such a great example of wonderful marriage.

NOT a favorite moment.

There was major excitement in Milton-Freewater last night. Andrew looked our my parents kitchen window just in time to watch a guy in a big truck with a trailer back into our van. Not only did he hit it, he pushed it down the road three feet. He didn't even realize he had hit it. Turns out there was a reason why. I have never been totally on board with owning a mini-van, but I don't want it hit!

Andrew yells, "Some guy is hitting our van!!!" and goes running outside, quickly followed by all the rest of us (fortunately all the kids were in bed.) The guy had stopped up the road a little and I went running up to him yelling, "You just hit my car!" He says, "yeah, he's out looking." Meaning his passenger. So as everyone is looking at the damage, the passanger comes out of the car with an open container of beer in his hand. Good move buddy. My dad called the police. While we were waiting for the officer to come the driver never got out, but the passenger went back to the car, got a cooler out of the car and tried to dart down an alley way to stash the cooler somewhere. Tennille yells at him to stop, then my dad calmly says, "sir, your not going anywhere with the cooler." The guy sets it down and walks back over to us. The driver finally comes out of the car and had a pretty significant smell about him. The funniest moment of the night is when the officer came and gave the driver a sobriety test, he tells him to take three steps heel to toe, they guy takes two, almost falls and then slurs as he says, "did you say three?" Then as he can't really take the third step says, "you know, it is really windy up here."

When the officer was taking him away in handcuffs we felt really bad for him. However, we also were relieved that he got caught now, just hitting a parked car without anyone in it. The officer told us that they estimate that they save a life for every 7 drunk drivers that they site. He said he estimates based on that he has saved 7 lives already this year alone. Yikes. The good news is the guy was driving his company's vehicle, so we shouldn't have trouble with insurance. The company is a winery. :)

Favorite moment

Yesterday at breakfast (we are in Milton-Freewater with our family) we were eating blueberry muffins, and my 2 year old niece Eleison called them "birthday cake" over and over. I think birthday cake for breakfast is a great idea. Even when no one is having a birthday.

***No, I didn't abandon the blog, between fireworks, sick kids (are we not supposed to get a break from that during the summer?) and family fun there has been a serious lack of computer time around here.

I can see how that could ruin a movie for you.

This afternoon Ainsley and Hudson started watching a movie. Part way through Hudson got up and was wandering around. I asked him if he liked the movie. He said, "No, it has too many grown-ups in it."

Summer time, summer time, sum, sum, summer time...

Finally Summer arrived. Both in temperature and the ending of school. We rang it in well-

Lauren spent the night and we had our first bonfire in our newly created fire pit:

Smores were a great hit.


So were singing camp songs- which consisted of singing, "1 little, 2 little, 3 little campers, 1 little, 2 little, 3 little campers, 1 little, 2 little, 3... over and over again. They couldn't be convinced that they were supposed to move on to 4, 5, 6 etc. They were SURE that is how the song went. They also had no idea how to end the song. So we heard it over and over and over...

They also wanted to hear ghost stories. What sort of ghost stories do you tell two 7-year old girls and a 4 year old boy that YOU WANT TO GO TO SLEEP VERY SOON? They were some special stories we made up.

And yesterday morning they flew outside at 8:15, only to return at 8:16 because the sundresses Ainsley and Lauren had put on were too cold. So they put on hats, scarves, and gloves and went back outside (a sweatshirt was not an option- I have no idea why). By 10:00 it was "way too hot," outside (it must have been at least 67 degrees) so they decided it was time for water play.



Look at how wet Camden is...

We have high hopes for a fun summer!

Quick mood change.

Today was the last day of first grade. Ainsley hadn't expressed anything but excitement over summer, but when she got off the bus today there were lots of tears over the end of school. The teachers all lined up and bowed to the kids as the buses drove away, and evidently that sent her over the emotional edge. "I don't want school to end, I love school, I love first grade, I love Mr. Coburn." On and on it went. I talked her off the ledge, only to have her hop up there again (predictably- she shares her mother's ability to get over emotional as she gets tired) at bedtime. As we again processed how wonderful the year was and how sad she is that it is over, abruptly she stopped and said, "Hey, do I have to get my clothes on and get ready before breakfast or can I eat breakfast in my pajamas during the summer?" I told her she could eat in her pajamas if she wanted. The response? "Sweet! I'm glad school is over, I love summer." Complete attitude transformation, the red eyes behind the happy smile were all that was left of the emotional breakdown just minutes before. If you drop by mid-day and Ainsley is still in her pajamas this summer, now you will understand why.

If you have ever thought of putting up a wallpaper border, just don't.

Dear person who decided to put up a wallpaper border and affix it with super glue,

I do not appreciate your work.

Never do that again. Thanks.

Dear person who no longer liked the horrible floral border and so decided rather than scraping it off because it was stuck so bad, so then decided to do a really bad job of just putting another border over the top, again using super glue,

I don't like your work either.

Both of you should have your home decorating licenses revoked.

This represents hours of my life that I will never get back.

Tennis skills

Getting the strokes down, and melting daddy's heart.

The little budding artist

Medium: Pencil

Canvas: Anything

Company he is keeping in business: Mr. Clean Magic Erasers

So Stinkin' Funny

We LOVE our pastor. His ability to tell stories is amazing. He grew up in Alaska and then went back there as a missionary with his family. He still goes back mutiple times a year. Our church often has groups of people that go on mission trips there to Kokrin Hills Bible Camp. All this Alaska provides lots of stories about Alaska. Consequently, at our church retreat this weekend one of the "commercials" during a game show THIS. It is so worth clicking on it and watching it on youtube. I love the line regarding Steel Magnolias where he says, "Julia Roberts will be dead in no time." When I told him how funny I thought that line was Barry said he doesn't know who she is :) So if you are one of our friends/family that have visited our church you will appreciate this, if your a Cornerstone person you probably already saw it, and even if you haven't heard Barry before it will be funny.