Hawaiian Update

 Wow the day almost got away from me before I got a chance to post.  So though I am just catching it, I am still on a streak--3 days :)

Erinn and Michael's turn for an update.

They have been in Hawaii since the end of November.  They lived in a hotel for over a month--it might sound fun, but not really for that long in that expensive of a place.

They have now been in their own place for 5 months.  The longest they have been together in one place since they were married almost 2 years ago!

Here is their newest addition, Marley.  A cross of cute and adorable.  He is trouble on the move and Erinn's constant companion when Michael is on maneuvers.

Michael has recently passed his boards and is now promotable, which hopefully will be within the next year.  Congratulations on all the hard work!

Erinn is working with developmentally disabled children and young people through Hawaii Behavioral Health.  She is enjoying the challenge.

They have been enjoying exploring the island hiking and learning to paddle board, with sea turtles no less!

Oh and if life was not exciting enough, they just ran a 1/2 marathon together last weekend, and finished in just over 2 hours with lots of blisters to prove it!  Ha, my non-runner is running by choice!  I guess your running partner makes all the difference!

Drew's Turn

On to the second update.  As you can see I am going in no particular order.

Drew has finished his sophomore year at Washington State University. 

He has worked very hard to keep his grades up while being a scholarship division 1 athlete and working some.  So his academic scholarship has remained active!! Yeah!

He is planning on declaring the beginning of next year and as of now it will probably be kineseolgy, the study of how the body moves, with the desire to do athletic training or physical therapy.

This picture is from the NCAA Division 1 regional meet in Austin, Texas last weekend (notice the spike injury on his shin--yes that is blood running down his shin).  He placed 12th in his heat and 18th overall in the entire Western Region--that is half the US.

Congrats Drew on an amazing season.  With PR's in both the 5000M at 13:59 and in the 1500M at  3:47.

Sadly he did not compete at the PAC 12 meet in Eugene because of some scoring reasons and limitations on number of athletes able to participate.  Since he already had a qualifying time for the regional meet the coaches made a choice to keep him out and let others have a chance to shoot for a qualifying time.  I will say it was very hard on him and his father, but I know they both learned a lot from the experience, and I was very proud of Drew for the way he carried himself through that disappointment.

There is a great group of guys returning next year and he is excited to be a part of a nationally ranked team in cross country.

Sadly he will be staying in Pullman most of the summer working and training for next year, especially since he had to stay a month after school got out to train for regionals and has to be back before school for cross country training.  So goes the life of a scholarship athlete.

Drew has found a nice church that he enjoys and attends as he is able with his crazy schedule.  We are praying for some strong Bible Study opportunities for him in the next year.

He is praying for some sporadic work to keep him occupied.  He has opportunities with a turn over crew at some apartment buildings and a set up crew with an event planning group to set up tents and tables and such.  He will also be working as a counselor at Steens High Mountain Camp again for two weeks.  I am sure he would appreciate your prayers on the job front.

And there you go on up date #2.

Hannah Update

Since it has been so long since I have regularly posted, I thought I would do a catch up on each of the treasures.

Starting with the youngest---just because she is so cute :)

Hannah was 9 in February.  This is her sporting our first dive into yarn braids!  She loves them.  The first day she came down with 7, yes that is right, 7 different hair styles!  She is loving playing with her new long "hair".

She technically should be finishing the 3rd grade, but due to her learning challenges she is anywhere from 1st to 2nd depending on the subject.

Some of our challenges of late have been for all of us to learn what living with 'invisible special needs' looks like.

Hannah has various challenges including, but not limited to; Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Motor Planning Disorder (MPD) and various learning disabilities, including lower IQ.  Add to these that she is 9 years old, but as tall as most 12 year olds, has Precocious Puberty, and the maturity of a 7 year old.  We can find ourselves in situations that are unsafe or that cause her issues to flare due to lack of supports for her emotional needs.

Example:  trying to explain to a teacher or a coach that she has special needs and needs extra support, they politely nod and mostly seem to ignore you because she looks "typical".  Then she becomes scared (PTSD) and shuts down when they are moving too fast for her (MPD) and she can not understand directions (APD).  Then we end up trying for a few days or weeks to encourage her to process with her limited language skills and bring her back to a point of felt safety.

We have chosen to keep her home a lot and sheltered, but we are going to need to expand to allow her to grow and be challenged.  It is just a learning curve for all of us.  So this summer she wants to try swim lessons and maybe some dance.  We will see how one goes first.  And VBS is always a plus.

Hannah loves to play with stuffed animals and dolls, for hours by herself.

She has really expanded her ability to play with others in the last year and this mamma's heart is thrilled to hear her playing and speaking in a "normal" manner with other kids!!  Yahoo!!!

Hannah has become my number one coupon shopping helper.  She helps sort coupons and find items on the shelf.  She thinks it is fun, unless Caleb is along, then she slips into his mood of 'bored out of your mind' and it is no fun for any of us :/

I thought I would end with a story she told me this morning.

Hannah's life as a grown up. She is going to marry a handsome man that she can kiss.  The will have one 'dotted' (Dalmatian) dog, because all married people get dogs!!   He will work at Walma*t and drive a motorcycle, because all newly married guys drive them.  She will be a stay at home mom and drive a van.  She is going to have 3 kids, 2 'borned' of her tummy and one 'dopted' from China!

Guess she has it all planned out:)

Gotta love the minds of kids.

A cold day of fishing

 David's dad, Darryl, has been home visiting from the Philippines for 3 weeks.  He left early this morning. 

 They were able to get in one day of fishing before he left.

 David has just purchased a boat from our good friend Ron, so he went up for the fishing and to make sure that David could maneuver the boat OK.

And yes, Caleb is wearing his new life jacket on the way up to the lake, in the car and everything :)

 Lest you start to be fooled and think that David is not so crazy as you have seen in some of the recent posts---this is from the drive up to the lake :/

 And this is the lake---I think!

 Looks like the fish did not mind the bad weather too much.

 Don't look too closely at Darryl's face here!

From the Philippines to fishing for hours in the snow.

Father and son.

Jumping Back In...

 ....to blogging that is.

I needed a break for a bit.

So prepare for lots of catch up posts.

First is the almost, finishing of our kitchen ceiling lift!!!

Yeah!

 This ceiling used to be dropped the the level of the cabinets!

I gained about 12 inches of head room.

And this is looking the other way---there used to be a bank of cabinets where the pendant lights are, so it really gave the kitchen a cave like feeling. 

Now I can see all through the living room!

I love it!

Just in case.....

...you missed the first announcement!

Can you tell we are excited around here?

It's a........

What a Mess

A few months back we had water coming into our kitchen from the kids bathroom upstairs.

We finally had to tear apart some of the ceiling to try to find the leak.

Low and behold there was really no leak...

just kids not being overly careful and some missed caulking when we redid the floor up there.

Interestingly, the worst leaking we had was when the young men from the African choir were here...I guess they have a hard time with shower curtains too :)

We had a lowered ceiling which I was not too fond of anyways, so we used this as an excuse to raise the ceiling to the height of the rest of the house and take out the fluorescent lighting.

We also removed a whole bank of cabinets from right there where the silver venting is.

Now it is open from my kitchen right into my front room.

That makes one happy lady :)

The only real bummer was when I was pulling down one of the last pieces of sheet rock I was showered with mouse poop!

I had found the dehydrated mouse earlier---Yuck!

I took one heavy duty shower and covered myself with vinegar!

I am very glad not to be housing any mice (that I know of) now and we got all the black mold out :)

How do mice get in between floors anyways?

More pics in the days to come.

Science Overload

This last weekend on the way to Stanford to watch Drew's race we decided to stop at a few science museums.

Stop one was Turtle Bay Museum in Redding.

Caleb loved the feeling of being behind the wheel as you can see!

Caleb ever the guy to try to figure out how things work.

Oh and notice the football I had to carry through the rest of the museum in my purse because Mr. Fidget could not keep it in his hands!

They were doing a Dr. Seuss special show while we were there.

I took a picture of the kids by their favorites.

Hannah and Horton :)

Caleb with Green Eggs and Ham

Just try them Sam I Am!

Goofy eyed Caleb with some goofy eyed Seuss critters.

Watch it buddy!

Notice Caleb's charming personality with this hawk.

The pose was his idea.

Then the next day we went to another, which I can not remember the name of in Sacramento.

Hannah learning how to make a dinosaur rubbing.

This museum had worksheets to do on all the exhibits.

One of mine was NOT happy that we asked him to do this.

Then we MADE him do it.

It is good character training.

Being silly...

I just love it when I see my kids initiating contact with us.

It has been a real long time coming.

I feel so blessed to have this amazing man in my life!!

Remember When....

Do you remember when you were little and some other kid would have something you thought was SO cool?

Well as embarrassing as it sounds this is the first memory I have of another kid having something I thought was SO cool, and I never got!

UNDERWEAR WITH THE DAYS OF THE WEEK ON THEM!

Well I obviously survived with out them and learned my days of the week despite this HUGE hole in my life!!  LOL!!

My little treasure, though, is now the proud owner of some pretty special panties!

First words out of her mouth---  "Now I can learn my days of the week!"

We can only hope!

Actually that would be a great side benefit...

The original plan was just to get some underpants that would stay of when she pulled her pants down to change in a changing room.

I have had too many 'shots' of her little chocolate behind in those small dressing rooms.

And she just giggles.

Just please don't ask her what day of the week is!!!!!!

Seriously she might just sneak a peek to tell you!!!!

So goes the life with the odd thought process with our youngest treasure.

What a Race!!

 Warning: absolute, total picture overload coming

 So if you thought there were a lot of laps in a 3000m, just wait till you see a 5000m!

 Did you find Drew?

 Pictures from the front are red and white uniform with WSU.

 From the back it is gray and red.

 Drew ran the first mile mixed in with the last four in his heat of 32 men.

 I knew he was running with lots of guys with amazingly fast times and he had not run this race on the track since his junior year of high school, so I was not too surprised to see him there.

 There were 5 heats of 32 guys though out the day.

 Drew was in the second fastest.

 Many of the guys in the first heat were not college athletes, but professionals.

 At the beginning of mile two Drew made a sudden move that moved him up to 16th place.

 He sat there for the next mile comfortably.

 I say comfortably, but he does have an assortment of spike holes in his legs from this race!

 So I started to wonder if there was more of a plan to his positioning.

 I also noticed his coach standing on the corner where Drew made his move.

 So was there more to his racing tonight then met the eye.

 Then with about a mile to go--at the same place.....

 ....another surge to about 12th.

 OK---I will admit that I was getting pretty loud at this point.

 And with 800m to go he surged again.

 See the pain as he surges to 7th!

 He closed with a 61 second final lap!

Drew ran over a minute PR!

He broke 14 minutes!

He ran 13:59!

That puts him in with the big boys legitimately!

Congratulations Son, we are so proud of you.

You can watch it here if you are so inclined!