Saturday Sendoff

Why was Hailey trying to take a nap yesterday on these hard, wooden bleachers?

Because yesterday, we got up at 5:00am to drive to Ephrata to see the farewell ceremony for her Uncle Jay.

He's the one right here on the right. He's commanding his batallion on their next deployment to the middle east for 15 months. This is their second deployment there.

I must say, I've never been prouder of my Brother-in-law!
(I didn't realize he was "The Commander". Wow. That's alot of responsibility...)

They had a small parade in honor of the soldiers.

Some men came around and handed us some flags to wave as they went by. The town had yellow ribbons up on the poles down main street.

Please remember to keep them, and all our troops, in your prayers!

We love you Uncle Jay!

Some pics from our trip

Hailey promptly got sleepy and took a nap once we hit the road.

We took a potty break somewhere on Snoqualmie pass. These were the gnomes across the street from the potty. Someday I'll own a gnome and park him next to my front door.

The Seattle skyline at sunset.

Safeco Field. Home of the Seattle Mariners. I couldn't get a good enough shot of Qwest Field home of the Seahawks. Hubby will be bummed.

A Pond.

Must throw rocks into it.

It's the law of childhood.

Mom. Will you quit taking pictures already....

P.S. No, I will not.....

Oh how I love thee.....

Today, we are heading West of the mountains for Michael's brother's father's funeral tomorrow morning. After the funeral, we are heading up to stay at Dad's house for the weekend.
Saturday is also our 11th anniversary so we are celebrating tomorrow night by going out to dinner. I just wanted to write a quick post to publicly acknowledge my husband and how much I love him.
Aside from God, he has been my provider, my rock, and my best friend through quite alot in our little 11-year marriage. We've been through the death of a parent, a miscarriage, parents divorcing, depression and other mental illnesses in the family, a brother deployed in Iraq, the birth of our 5 children, and 9 moves. He has been there with me through it all. And he has handled what has been thrown at us with bravery, dignity, and strength. I would not have survived it all without him.
Tomorrow he'll be the "chaplain" at his step-father's funeral. He was asked to do so last night. The VA chaplain fell through. He has no time to prepare or study since he's working and traveling today and has college schoolwork to do tonight in the hotel. He's never even done anything like this before....but he's accepted the challenge anyways. That's just him. He's there when you need him. It will ease his brother's burden of not having to look any further and his brother is free to attend to long list of other things that he has to deal with during this time.
So, Happy Anniversary Michael.
I love you and cherish you more than you could ever imagine.

Christmas 2008

Christmas Eve Grammashell made sugar cookies with the kiddos.

Hailey of course had to be in the middle of everyone's turn.

So we gave her a turn.

Hannah strategically placing her cookies to get the most out of a roll.

Shell helping Jay.
(Notice our c'mas eve jammies this year were Seahawks themed.)

Brandon being careful not to burn himself.

All the cool decorations shell had for them to use.

Jay, icing his cookies very carefully.

Matty's snowman.

We distracted the toddle-err with sprinkles. It took alot of concentration to try and pick them up, it was funny watching her.

Our masterpieces:)

My Christmas Angel with sprinkles.

Grampa handing out gifts on Christmas morning.

Brandon, stoked that he got G.I. Joes this year.

Jay, stoked that he got some more Transformers.

My Granny.

Hannah, my sweet girl.

Dad and Shell surprised me with a Kitchenaid mixer. I've wanted one for at least 8 years. It was a nice surprise!

Matthew my pirate.

My lil sis.

(She actually let me take a picture of her which never happens.)

Matthew, enjoying his plunder.

Hannah's snowman. It was only about a foot tall. It was tiny.

Hailey's six-roll open sleigh....

Our trip over to Dad's was a very interesting trip. We had just gotten 3' of snow in Spokane and there was supposed to be more coming, so we high-tailed it out of town earlier than we had originally planned.

We left town in the afternoon on Saturday. So, that meant that we'd be crossing over the mountain pass at around 8 pm. We stopped in Ellensberg to eat dinner and check the weather reports. They were reporting snow on the pass, but no snow chains required, so we decided to head over instead of stay the night.

Well. Let's just say that we are still thanking the Lord that he kept us safe that night. There was more than just "snow" there were blizzard conditions. And when we got to the summit, we literally could not see in front of us and had to come to a stop with some semi's and other cars. The semi in front of us decided to go ahead and keep driving, so I told Michael to follow him and we were off. (I reasoned that if he went over the edge we'd have enough time to stop and not follow him over....snort)

We literally followed that semi's tailights for 40 miles until we were over the pass. If he had not been there, we would have slept on the side of the road at the top of the mountain. I had packed our van in case that happened, so we were prepared, but still, who wants to sleep on the side of the highway? In a blizzard?

Anyways, we had a....

We had an hour delay going back over because they were doing avalanche clearing but no other big events. And it was a beautiful trip:)

Blessings,

Goodbye...

This has been the week of "goodbyes". I'm slowly saying goodbye to our belongings, we said goodbye to Opie, now we're saying goodbye to family....

Wednesday, my Mom drove over from Phx. We then headed down to my Grandma and Grandpa's house to pick up the boys that have been there the last 2 weeks.

We spent time with Gram, Gramps, and my Aunt Sheree.

And we said a final "Goodbye" to my Gramps. For those of you who don't know already, he's got terminal lung cancer. He tried some low doses of chemo. but he's just not strong enough to handle it. We probably won't see him again in person....

De'Etta recently posted on her blog about God sending her a "hug" just when she needed it. Here's was my "hug" from God in the midst of so many "goodbyes".

Blessings!