Sunday was a good day. After Aaron left for meetings we got ready for church. I started a meal in the crock pot. We were having another pot luck after church. I made enchilada corn chowder. I brought everything to go with it. We went a little early to practice the song the youth were singing in Sacrament meeting. The program that day was done by the youth. There were 5 youth speakers. They talked about the theme for the year, "Ask of God". All of the youth and leaders sang an arrangement of Joseph Smith's First Prayer. I was the closing speaker. I talked about how the youth program can help strengthen families, and also talked about the youth theme for the year.
We had our teacher's council during Sunday School, and then I taught a lesson on treating our bodies like a temple. We had a large turnout for the pot luck again. We had some delicious food. David stayed afterward to go home teaching with Aaron.
We had a light dinner, and then Aaron and I went back to the church for the New Beginnings program. This is where we introduce the program to incoming Young Women. Marian had just turned 12. Jenna will be 12 later this year. The program was beautiful! We had a few special "guests" to tell us about their experiences with getting answered to their prayers. First Br. L* from the stake portrayed Enos, then Michael K* portrayed Joseph Smith, then Teri P* and Betsy D* both portrayed pioneer women. Then our Stake YW president told a very personal story about praying for the health of her son.
Shannon said a few words, and then Aaron said a few words. Then we closed with a song and prayer, and then had some delicious refreshments.
I took a few pictures.
We got home around 8:00 or so. David had the kids ready for bed.
Monday it was back to school. It had snowed just a little, and I saw a few single snow flakes on the banister outside the front door. I tried to capture them, but my camera is not that great.
After taking kids to school, it was time for shopping again.
That afternoon Michelle took a box of crackers and sat on Amy's caterpillar and had lunch. Haha!
As I went outside I noticed green emerging from the ground! I was so happy.
You can see there was still snow on the ground, but there was also green!
It was a good day, and that evening we had FHE lesson and activity.
Tuesday was good as well. Shannon invited Melanie to come over and play with Brynn, so after Michelle's morning nap I dropped her off. then Michelle and I had time to play, and it was quiet during nap time. Melanie had lots of fun, however she didn't get a nap, so later that afternoon she crashed on the stairs. She didn't sleep long, but she was exhausted! I had to get her up for dinner.
After dinner we had home teachers over. Aaron went to visit someone, but was back by 8:30.
Wednesday I helped in Amy's class. Afterwards I ran over to the clinic to bring some cups that Aaron had left at home. Then it was a pretty normal day. After lunch Michelle found the block of cheese and decided to eat it.
It was so great to see the temperatures rising! The snow was melting more and more.
David missed part of school to play in the pep band for the girls' state tournament game. It was a loser out game, so when the girls lost, their season was over. It was hard to compete with a team that has twin sisters that were 6' 3" and 6' 4". It also meant there was only one Z* game the next day. That night was mutual for the boys. While they were gone the girsl were playing, and I took a video of Michelle's new skill of falling down when anyone tells her to.
Thursday Aaron went up to the city for work. He was able to get away for a little bit to attend the G* girls' state tournament game. They won 54-35. Aaron went back to work, but stayed up there for the Z* boys' game that night.
That afternoon David told me I should come out and look at the pool. It had been frozen over for most of the winter. However, now that everything was melting we found out that the pool didn't fair so well.
After seeing how thick the ice was it didn't surprise me that there were still ponds that hadn't melted completely. Apparently there were some holes in the pool liner, so even though the top had frozen it was slowly leaking out of the bottom. Once the ice on top started melting there was nothing underneath for it to float on, so it crashed through the cover, and made several more holes in the liner.
So now we are going to have to replace the liner before we get any swimming done this summer.
Michelle's favorite thing now is climbing on everything. She will now take this stool and use it to reach things and climb on things.
She is very pleased with herself!
I dropped David off at the high school to catch the bus for pep band. The game that night started at 7:00. Aaron kept me updated. We led pretty much the whole way, and ended up winning 81-54. Aaron brought David home after the game.
Friday was pretty normal. I was working on the monthly newsletter when I went downstairs to get Melanie's show started. When I came back up Michelle was playing around on the keyboard. I put her down for a nap, and then noticed she had set a new alarm on my phone.
Why is that something she can access without a password? Then I noticed she also tried to save my document on the computer! Haha!
Aaron was on call over the weekend, so we had to make a choice about the game. It didn't make sense to drive two cars up to the city, but he had to be ready to go at any moment, and didn't have time to drop anyone off at home. I decided that he should get to enjoy the games, so after work, he went up to the city to watch the G* girls' game at 5:00. Unfortunately they didn't win. They played the team the Z* girl's lost to on Wednesday, with the really tall girls.
Aaron stayed for the Z* boys' game. I dropped off David at the high school that afternoon for pep band. They went out to dinner first, and then played at the state tournament. The game didn't start until 9:00 pm! Luckily Aaron wasn't called in, although he did have to take a few calls. He got to enjoy the game. It was a rough start, but they fought hard. They ended up winning 72-57. It was a late night for David and Aaron. I was in bed by the time they got back.
Tuesday it was back to school, Aaron was on call so he had to head to the hospital in the morning, and I made a trip to the city for grocery shopping. After going to Fred Meyer I finally went to the garage door place and ordered our new garage doors. While I was in Costco, the girls were being silly, so I took a picture.
On the way home I was noticing that the snow was almost melted in most places. Except on the river I could see that there were places where I could still see piles of snow that were two feet thick. There were still some ponds that still had frozen places on them. But it was definitely warming up.
After I got home Aaron texted to ask if I got any Halo mandarin oranges. They were doing the Halo challenge at work to see which department could collect all of the state stickers. I had just bought some at Costco, so I collected the stickers. The contest was on!
Later that afternoon I took a picture of the drawing Amy made on the art easel. Michelle was sitting up and trying to draw on it.
That night Aaron had a hospital meeting, other than that it was pretty normal.
Wednesday was pretty busy. I helped in Amy's class, then I went visiting teaching. We just went to Becky's and then Shannon's. Chelle was on her way to Hawaii. I had talked to her on Sunday, and we counted that. We had fun visiting with them and then came home for lunch. Liana came over later in the afternoon to pick up her check since I forgot to give it to her on Sunday.
That afternoon David had a Knowledge Bowl event so he wasn't home in the afternoon. He used a friend's phone to let me know he was back at the high school. Aaron was on his way to the church with Timothy and Amy, so he picked him up on the way. Unfortunately that afternoon I'd found out something David had done that got him into trouble. I don't want to air his dirty laundry, so that's all I have to say about that.We did find out that the Knowledge Bowl team made it to the state tournament, that was exciting!
He was feeling guilty about what had happened, and was in a foul mood, so Aaron asked if I could come pick him up. I had just gotten the girls out of the bath. Luckily I'd decided to do baths early. So I just had to wait for Melanie to get dressed and then we picked up David. We talked a little before Aaron and the other two kids came home. The three of us talked a while before he finally went to bed.
Thursday was pretty normal. It was a long day for Aaron, but overall the call week was pretty quiet. That afternoon Michelle fell asleep again in my arms after she woke up from her nap. I don't often get to hold her sleeping any more.
Michelle was having fun dancing to the music on the leap pad. Aaron took a time lapse video of her bouncing up and down.
Friday was another busy day. I was going to go over to Safeway to see if they had any different Halo stickers, but I decided to try the grocery store in town first. I looked through every bag, and only found one bag that had one more sticker. I didn't feel like driving to another store to do the same thing, so I just bought the Halos and went home.
That evening there were more basketball games. Aaron went alone this time. The G* boys lost, but the G* girls won, that means they go on to state. Aaron got home rather late.
Saturday was another Merit Badge Round Up, so Timothy was gone for the morning. Aaron and David ran some errands and talked about the terms of his consequences. Timothy got dropped off at home, so I didn't have to pick him up.
Michelle turned 16 months old!
The roof was finally safe enough for Aaron to take the Christmas lights down. Two months after Christmas, I think that its a record!
Michelle loved being outside
The trees need pruning, but it has been so cold and wet!
She loves the car
That afternoon Aaron went to the Regional basketball games. I think he took Amy with him. They left around 3:30. First up was the girls' game and they won the game 79 - 38. On to State!
Then the boys played. It was a little closer than I had hoped at first. Aaron was texting me updates. The boys ended up winning by 20.At home Timothy and I played some games and then it was time for bed. Aaron, David and the girls came home in time for bed. Aaron and I listened to the BYU v Gonzaga game as we went to bed. It was awesome to hear the end of the game. I couldn't believe we won.
Sunday it was hard to get up. I just wanted to keep sleeping. But we had meetings and church, and the kids were excited to see us. Aaron went to his meetings, and the rest of us got ready for church. I was teaching two lessons that day. After sacrament meeting I taught my Marriage class, and then I taught the young women about why the choices we make matter. We had the Bishopric come in to set apart Marian as secretary in the Beehive class.
I don't remember exactly what happened after church, but I know we had a simple meal, and made cookies and got the house ready for some of the youth to come over for a Bishop's Youth Council. The presidencies of each class and quorum met together to plan activities for the rest of the year. I corralled the girls in their room while they talked. We had cookies and ice cream after it was over, and then it was off to bed for the kids.
Monday was President's Day. We decided to go to the trampoline park as a family activity. So we did breakfast, and a little clean up, and then we headed to the city. Our favorite thrift store had a 50% off sale, so we headed there first. I went with the older kids, and Aaron took the younger two to Lowe's. We found a few items there. I thought Michelle would fall asleep on the way, but she didn't. We got the trampoline park just after it opened. David decided he didn't want to participate. He had wanted to go see a movie, but I wasn't about to take a 15 month old to a movie theater. His iPod was at home, so he brought books to read. I was disappointed, but I wasn't going to pay to had him sit, so he sat out. The rest of us had fun.
We saw a few people we knew. We paid for an hour, but we must had come at the beginning of the next time, or they forgot, because we jumped for almost 90 minutes. David saw his friend Caitlyn as we left. Even though it was almost lunch time we decided to get some frozen yogurt. Michelle made quite a mess. It was fun, and then we headed home. We had a quick lunch -Michelle fell asleep so she ate lunch later.
For snack we brought out the things we bought while in Portland. I
forgot to mention that on the way to the temple we stopped by Moonstruck
Chocolate, and bought some clearance ladybug truffles, and a chocolate
bar. We had heard about the drinking chocolate, and asked if there was a
mix we could bring home. She said there wasn't but she told us how they
basically chop up a chocolate bar and mix it with cream. So we bought a
cup to share and brought home a bar to make some later. She we used
their idea to make some drinking chocolate of our own. We were a little
short on cream, but used whole milk to make up for it. Most everyone
liked it. Especially Michelle.
That afternoon we had time to play some games, eat some food and have an FHE lesson, since the previous evening was too busy. It was a good day, and we all had fun at some point.
By 5:00 Aaron and I were on our way. We headed out and Aaron surprised me by bringing along our old CDs. Songs I hadn't listened to in years! That was fun! Unfortunately within a few minutes Aaron got an alert that a new laptop had accessed our wifi. I had given Tayller the wifi password, but she didn't have a laptop that I knew of, and was certain she wouldn't logon just after we left. Then I remembered that David had gotten out our old laptop to see if could still work for an online course he wants to take. So I texted him to see if he was using the computer and how he got the wifi password. He didn't answer at first, so we remotely blocked the laptop from the wifi. I knew David would check his iPod to see if the wifi was working. He did and saw my text. He claimed he was just just going to write a paper, however he wouldn't need wifi for that. He knew he was in trouble, but that's not what I wanted to deal with at the start of our weekend getaway. So I told him to put the computer in our room and we would deal with it when we got back. He really wanted to know what was going to happen, but I told him he would have to wait, that I just wanted him to focus on helping with the kids. Plus we were starting to lose cell signal, and I couldn't keep texting. Not the start I was hoping for, but the rest of the evening was fine.
It started raining along the way, and for a while it was really coming down. We started seeing standing water in places. We knew we would be getting to Portland after 8:00, so we started looking for a place to eat dinner along the way. Aaron had down his research and got several recommendations. One was a sushi place. It wasn't too far off our route, so we called and found out they had take out. So we ordered a few different plates of sushi, and stopped by to pick them up. We thought I might have to jump out and get them while Aaron drove around, but we found a parking spot not too far away. One of the plates was warm, so we ate that on the way to the hotel, we saved the other two for when we got there.
The hotel was in Forest Grove, so we drove through Portland and found ourselves on some little backwoods roads that were very wet. We even had a little detour. We got there around 9:00 and checked in. Aaron told me a little about the place we were staying. It was a historic hotel that has been renovated. The recently added rooms upstairs in the former attic. That's where we were staying. Most of the rooms on the lower floor had shared bathrooms, but the upstairs room had bathrooms included. They had literally been open less than a week. It still smelled of paint. We found our room and finished our sushi. Then we explored a bit.
The rooms downstairs were named after famous people, mostly musicians, authors and artists.
The upstairs room were decorated based on a book - mostly ones I hadn't heard about. They commissioned local artists to paint the walls and pictures. The hotel had several bars, two restaurants, a theater, a spa, and a few lounging rooms, one with a pool table.
It was a little too dark for the panoramic picture
This was in the bathroom. You might be able to see the pipes that were painted had faces on the pipe joints. The pipe joints all over the hotel had faces painted on them!
This was the book our room was based on.
The lighting in the hallway was interesting
We walked around upstairs as we head there was a hidden door and passageway. Aaron found it.
Friday we got to sleep in a little. I checked in with Tayller, and she said Michelle slept until 5:45 and then went back to sleep until 6:30 I was glad for her. She never sleeps that well for me. We read the paper and found out the rain the previous day was a record rainfall for that day. It rained well over an inch. Then we drove over to Hilsboro. We saw several low lying areas under water. We found a Panaderia for breakfast. We got some yummy pastries and then got a tres leches cake for later. We stopped by the dollar store, and Winco before heading back to he hotel.
The view from our room was beautiful
We changed into our swim suits and went to the soaking pool. It was like a hot tub, but larger. It was relaxing. We even got to see a couple of squirrels running around burying nuts. We had an 11:15 appointment at the spa, so we went straight there from the soaking pool. We thought it was at 11, so we were a bit early. We chatted with a lady there who had a 4 months old baby - so cute. It was her first, and we talked a little about our 5 kids. She went to find her husband, and we checked in. It turned out she was my massage therapist. Aaron and I had very relaxing hour at our couples massage. First time I've ever done that. I tried really hard not to think about anything stressful. It was wonderful! Afterward we went back to our room and changed into our regular clothes and headed downtown.
I took pictures of the front of the hotel
Aaron had found a restaurant that served Argentine food. We found a place to park and enjoyed a late lunch. Afterward we walked along the river, and took pictures on a sunny day in Portland.
We parked again and visited Powell's books. We found all sorts of things, but got distracted a bit as Lincoln had come to pick up Timothy, but couldn't get the gate to open on the way out. The call box worked on the way in, but was no longer working now that they needed to leave. Tayller had taken the gate remote from the Yukon so she could get back in after work. We had to send David into our room to find the truck keys to get out the other gate opener. It was a tense few minutes. We found a stack of books to buy, and then headed back to the car. The restaurant we wanted eat dinner at was about 20 minutes away. Aaron had eaten there once before. It was an Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurant. We enjoyed the food, and then wanted dessert, but we were too full. So we decided to go for a walk. We found a market and decided to look for teff flour. We had wanted to try making injera, but couldn't find teff flour.
We had dicussed during dinner that during our trip we had eaten food from 4 different continents: dinner: sushi - Asia; breakfast: Mexican pastries - North American; lunch: Argentine food - South America; Dinner: Ethiopian - Africa. So we decided to round it out with something European. Dessert: gelato - Europe! We found a gelato place a mile away and thoroughly enjoyed it.
We drove back to the hotel and used the soaking pool again before heading to bed.
In the morning we ate breakfast in one of the restaurants. The romance package came with the massage and a $20 credit for the restaurant. After breakfast we made sure everything was packed up and we checked out. Then we headed over to the Portland temple. We didn't have a specific timeline, sand since the sessions are every 30 minutes, we weren't in a hurry. We took a picture before we went inside.
We made it to the 10:00 session, and it ended up being very full with a couple who were getting married and a missionary going through for the first time. It was such a beautiful and peaceful place. It was getting a little late and we still wanted to go to Multanomah Falls and get some donuts and lunch. However the doughnut place took so long (and wasn't worth the price in my opinion), that we didn't stop for lunch. We were trying to make it back in time for the basketball district games, but there wasn't time to stop at Multonomah Falls. It was a very cloudy and foggy day, so it wouldn't have been a great day to go anyway. Beside the fact that the parking lot was full, and there was an overturned trailer at the exit, so we couldn't have gotten off anyway. I got a few pictures of other small waterfalls on the drive.
The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. We drove straight through and arrived at the games just a few minutes late. We called the kids before to check in with them as we came in. There were 3 games. The first one was the G* boys. Jake S* was playing in that game. We sat with his grandparents.
It was for 3rd or 4th place. They weren't expected to get this far, and they ended up winning. That meant they had a chance to make it to state. In between games we went out and moved the car a little closer. We also saw David and the rest of the pep band as they filed in.
The second game was the girls District Championship game. It was between the Z* girls and the G* girls. The G* is typically the superior team. The G* girls won both games during the regular season. This game was really close like the last one. But I couldn't believe how close it was. It was really hard to contain my emotions. I know girls on both teams (Sophie B* and Maci F*), and I want them both to do well. I was sitting on the G* side, so it was hard to cheer for Z*, but I was so proud of them for keeping up with G*. Then it came down to the last 2 seconds of the game.
I couldn't contain my excitement. You can see the other side of the arena cheering, and I screamed, while everyone around me was disappointed. Sam got that shot off perfectly! Z* won!
Both teams would go on to the state tournament, but for that night Z* girls were the District Champions!
Next up was the boys' championship game. Z* boys were playing in that game and Brock E* is on the team. We switched sides and sat with Carol P*, Tish, and Carol C*. Now, we hadn't had a whole lot of competition throughout the season. We only had one loss, and that was to a team from a bigger district. But this team usually gives us a run for our money. However not that night. It wasn't much a game, but it was fun anyway.
This was during halftime.
Beginning of the 4th quarter
And the final score
District Champions once again!
Afterward we waited outside for David to finish putting stuff away. He wasn't happy about coming home with us instead of going on the bus. But it was already late, we were itching to get home after our weekend away. So he came home with us. We talked along the way about consequences of what happened right after we left. He handed over his iPod after we got home and then it was off to bed while we talked with Tayller, wrote her a check and sent her home. We were glad the snow had melted enough for us to get up the driveway. Tayller had traded in her car to borrow her dad's truck to make sure she could get up the driveway. I had to peek in on all of the kids before I went to bed. It was certainly late when we got to bed, but it was so nice to be home again.
