A Busy Summer

Johanna did a great job directing her first session of Kids Camp at our house.  All the kids had a great time doing crafts, activities games and playing.

Logan turned 12 and wanted a party with his friends.  They had fun at the park, then came to our house for a BBQ, games and cake. 

Eddy worked really hard at learning to ride his bike...I think he's finally got it!  Way to go ED!

Our friends the Broesder's invited us to go out on their boat for the 4th of July.  It was a beautiful Lake and a beautiful day. Blake, Johanna and I all tried wakeboarding.  We all felt good about getting up, but our muscles didn't feel good the next day! 

I look happy now, but after zipping around the lake with the kids on the innertube, I got totally motion sick!  The fish got to eat my lunch and I also ralphed on the road (and almost on our new car) on the way home. 

The kids loved the innertube

Our yummy flag cake as we're on our way to a BBQ

We went to Salem for the weekend to take advantage of the amazing berries there.  The berries were just hanging off the vine, and they were HUGE! 

We got a ton and I spent Saturday canning 35 quarts of raspberries, made three pies and two batches of jam

 Enjoying our raspberry pie in Grandpa's gazebo

Cam enjoyed Grandpa's beebe gun.

Party Party Party...Crash

Cam posing in front of his classroom today-the last day of school! 

Eddy and Mrs. Juveland-everyone loves a pretty kindergarten teacher

Camden is all ready for summer reading now-lots of books from his favorite author-Rhoad Dahl and he LOVES Riply's Believe it or Not type books.  He also got a watch, which he loves too!

Remains of the pyramid cake-when we cut into it, it was fun to have the gold chocolate spill out.

Cam chows on his favorite birthday dinner-Salmon!

9 years old!  We had to have a hurried party squished between dinner and Young Womens

Those singing birthday cards are so fun!  Aunt Katy picked the perfect card that played the Chicken Dance, which cam himself performed with his class recently.  Grandma sent a fun dancing native card too.

Here's the crash to all our partys.  I was returning home after taking the kids to school and a motorcyclist hit me head on!  It was scary, but I was okay.  The motorcyclist flew over my car and landed sitting up.  He was taken away in an ambulance, and had some abrasions and a broken wrist, but seemingly no serious injuries.  The car is totalled however-what a pain!!!

Cam picked this project to make and give to his teacher.

Johanna and friend Sofi before the 8th grade dance.  They met friends for dinner first and had a great time at the dance.  Some little girls at the restaurant asked their party if she could say hi to the "Princesses"

 in their pretty dresses.

Kindergarten graduation was great-the kids sang some songs  for everyone.  I can't believe I don't have a kindergartner any more!

Johanna and Logan rockin' out after their last guitar/band concert.  It was so fun that they could take guitar class together this year.  I'm excited for Logan to have to more years of FREE GUITAR LESSONS!

the graduate

The busy month of May

I finally finished this dress for Johanna's 8th grade dance last week and discovered why nobody makes their own clothes anymore.  I'll put a pic of her wearing it on later...

Some friends from Idaho came to visit yesterday. They brought eclipse glasses with them and we all went to our neighborhood park to watch the annular eclipse...it was cool, as demonstrated by Johanna.

Johanna and Logan all spiffed up outside their school after Honor's Night. 

My last art project for Cam's class was paper mache balloons.  Everyone had fun and got messy.

Piano recital time!  Logan did great!

Johanna did great!

 Cam did great!

"Mother and Son"Bowling night was missed during opening night of Johanna's play, so I took Cam and Ed out myself later.  We had a great time!

 My version of soccer pictures...the cheapy way

Johanna's gang-we have this group, plus or minus some over to our house often on Friday's for "game night"  They're all top honors students and a great group of kids.  We'll be sad to see them go separate ways for high school-the highschool here is separted into three different schools, only one other of Johanna's friends is going to the one she chose.  Hopefully they can still see each other sometimes.

We're off to see the Wizard!

Johanna was a star as Dorothy last weekend in her middle school's production of "Wizard of Oz".  She has worked hard since January memorizing lines and going to Drama practice 3 times a week or more. Last week was so busy-she was at drama every night.  I would pick her up around 9:30, take her home, then head back to help with sets until midnight.  It was all worth it though.  The play was great!  Johanna had a wonderful time and did an awesome job.  She knew all her lines and her singing and acting were good.  We were so proud of her!My lovely cookie creation.  I became a little obsessed with it for a day, but it turned out cute.  It has ruby slipper, rainbow and OZ city cookies, plus Glinda's wand and a bunch of caramel apple suckers.  So fun...I could totally do that for a living.

Johanna after her first show.  She was pretty excited about how things had gone-it really was awsome.  Grandma and Grandpa brought flowers and of course I gave her my cookie bouquet. 

One of Johanna's solo's in the play was called "Evening Star"  She is sharing a love song from back home (Kansas, you know) with all the Ozian girls that are entertaining her while she waits to see the Great OZ.  She was worried about sining and playing the guitar at the same time, but she did great.

The famous four.  They were all so cute together.  The scarecrow's dance was incredible, except for that when he fell down, he was a little too authentic and broke his wrist!

Grandma and Johanna after the matinee Saturday.  Grandma came with me to see the show three times!  Good Grandma-actually...she had fun!

Mom, Dorothy, Dad= proud parents!

We had to take this picture to match the necklace I got Johanna with this exact pose from the movie.  I had to glitter these shoes, which were silver, which is actually the authentic book slipper color, which the movie changed so that it would show up in color....

The whole cast.  This is "cast #1, which did two shows and Johanna's cast did two.  Johahnna is in green standing next to the gaurd on the left.

This and that from our week

Johanna was fun to watch at our local

Pear Blossom Festival Parade.  She couldn't play her oboe in the marching band (eye-poking hazard, ya know), so she was the drum majob.  She did a great job!  Blake and I has fun running the Pear Blossom 10 miler-sorry, no sweaty pictures!

My only Easter pictures-Eddy had a great time at our Central Point Easter party.  He got tons of eggs in the hunt-it always helps to be top of your age group.  He loved the bean bag toss and we did it about a dozen times.  Blake had the other boys at soccer and Johanna was hanging out with Ed and I.

One of Cam's scout requirements was to plan meals for a day, and then prepare them.  This is the Orange Chicken that he chose....it was delicious!

We had fun watching the Pear Blossom Parade yesterday-it was so busy!  Blake and I left Logan with Ed and Cam before 8 to go run our race.  Johanna left shortly afterwards to catch the bus to the parade.  After the race, Blake drove home to get the boys and I saved us a place at the parade.  After watching the parade, we picked up Johanna and went straight to the boys soccer games-we didn't get home until 4:00~!  We all got sunburnt too-funny Spring weather-sunny, cloudy, cold, hot!

Who knew a two week Spring Break could go so fast?

Johanna spent a good portion of her Spring Break writing script for, planning, and then shooting a short movie for a contest she and her friends are entering.  They spent two days shooting in the rain covered in mud, fake blood and having such a great time!  I can't wait to see the finished product and we are thinking of having a premier night-parents invited!  Her other spring break project was making "Hunger Games" shirts for her Idaho friends, whom whe saw the midnight premier with.  They turned out great!

Eddy's 6th Birthday Party!!
He had a pirate party that I spent many hours planning-and it was all worth it-because all of two kids showed up!  FYI...do not have a birthday party during Spring Break and invite all the kids in your kids class, none of whom you have the phone number for.  Well, it was a good party and everyone, all 6 of us, had fun.

a Darth Vader/Pirate hybrid...scary

  Hands down favorite game-digging for treasure-everyone got a lot since I had enough for 13 kids!

Tug of war turned out to be very popular-we did it about 6 times.

I found these great mini-bar bottles on the side of the road, had Blake pick them up for me, Johanna wash them out-I slapped the pirate label on them and put a note in with the candy thanking guests for coming to Eddy's party.  So Cute!

Eddy's pirate cake-it turned out really cute!

Invitations for 22 kindergartners...so fun, don't you think?  I had fun burning the edges with the lighter

We all dressed up, and the kids old pirate room deco from our old house came in downright handy...ARGGGG!