Poor Jessi!

Jessi was officially diagnosed with TMJ today. She has been having trouble with her jaw ever since she got her braces. It clicks all of the time and will lock occasionally. Sometimes it will even stay locked for days. It was about this time last year she was having problems, it finally subsided some, and now is back again. The ortho is in the process of making her gear for her bite to keep her from grinding or clenching her teeth. We all hope that will help! It is really painful for her.

Goodbye Jordan

(Derek, Jeff, Jordan, Jessi, Amy and Nelson)

Jordan left this morning for his mission to Brazil. Jeffery got to spend a whole week with him last week at the ocean before he left. They had a lot of fun, and actually a lot of sunshine!! Jeff is loosing half of his back right now from being sunburned.

This whole weekend has been centered around seeing Jordan off. We went to church on Sunday (yes, we went to church:o) to listen to his talk. Wow! He did a wonderful job speaking on living Christlike lives, and centered his talk on following Christs "unspoken" teachings. Having charity and love for all of those around us. We then spent the evening at his house hanging out before he had to go and be set apart. Monday evening our family went out with theirs to dinner, and again, just hanging out.

Jordan has been a part of our family since the boys were in about 5th grade. It just seems like he has always been there, and we love him like one of our own kids. We are very proud of him, the decisions he has made, and the great young man he has turned out to be. He is going to make a wonderful missionary! Good luck to Jordan in Brazil!!! We will miss you, but are very proud of you and look forward to the letters on your progress.

Graduation Celebration With Friends

We got together with Alison and Paul last night to celebrate Aaron's Graduation. It was a great night, with great friends. We ate at a yummy Mexican restaurant on Green Lake and really enjoyed the evening. The weather was great (at least for here!) and we sat outside to eat and lingered for as long as we could.

It was then off to watch the "Jet City Improv", a kind of real "Who's line is it anyway" type show. It was very clean and fun, and a great place for a date. I tried to get a picture of all of us, but the guys I guess just couldn't squish in far enough. I got a better picture of the guy sitting behind us. Look at him - he is actually smiling and looking at the camera. Funny! But, again, at least Alison and I look good - that's what matters :o)

Thanks Alison and Paul for celebrating with us!! It was way fun, and it's great to have good friends to share our accomplishments with.

Aaron Graduates

Aaron has officially graduated from the Graphics Design Program from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online. (Whew, that's a mouthful!) He has worked super hard over the last 13 months to work full time and do classes, and has finally finished.

He was feeling kind of bummed because graduation ceremonies were today, but since we don't even live in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, no go for us. It was seeming a little anti-climatic to do all that work and not be a part of anything. So, we threw him a little at home party with just the four of us. We got him balloons and a present (not a cheap one either!!) and had pizza. We got him a drawing tablet, which is something you can draw on free hand with a stylis and then it downloads it directly onto your computer. A must have for any Graphic Designer.

CONGRATULATIONS AARON!!!!

Last Day of School

Today was Jessi's last day of school. She is officially a Sophomore in High School. My oh my, where does the time go?! We have had a tradition since Jeff was in Kindergarten (so many years ago!) to go out to lunch together on the last day of school. So, Jess got to pick the place and off we went. She chose a new Mongolian Grill and it was great. I'm sad, we only have three more last day of school lunches to go.

Jeff really didn't want his picture taken I guess. There were a couple of cute girls sitting close by, and I think wacko mom was just too embarrassing. Oh well, this is as good as I could get. At least I look good! :o)

New Niece!!!

Weldon and Julie's baby, Jade Elizabeth, was born at around 2:30 this morning!! She was 7lbs 11oz and 20 inches! Pretty good sized. Everything went well, and all are healthy. The birth mother wanted the time in the hospital to herself, so they should get to see their new little girl tomorrow. We are so excited for them, and can't wait for pictures. It's going to be so fun to be there in a week and see everyone.

Congratulations Weldon and Julie!!! You're going to be GREAT parents!

New Book Review

Kindness, Clarity and Insight by The Dali Lama.

This book is a pretty deep read. It's a collection of talks given by The Dali Lama here in the United States. Some of this book I just loved and really spoke to me. I agree with SO much he has to say! The rest of the book was way over my head. I have not studied Buddhism in the past, so a lot of their "doctrine" is foreign to me. However, it does intrigue me. A great book if you want to understand another culture and belief. Some very great points and an inspiring book. You will want to start doing more service and have a kinder heart to those around you!

WASL Wiz

Jessica just got her scores for the WASL this weekend. That is the standard testing here in Washington "Washington Assessment of Student Learning". They just passed a law two years ago that you have to pass this test to be able to graduate. It consists of four parts - Reading, Writing, Math and Science. You are not suppose to start taking the WASL until your Sophomore year, but they give Freshman the option to take the Reading, Writing and Math portions if they would like. Jess wanted to get it out of the way, and since she is in advanced Math and Honors English she figured she would be fine.

Well, fine she was! In order to pass reading you have to have a score of 400 - 427. Jess got 442, exceeds expectations. Math is suppose to be between 400 - 434. She got a 408, meets standard (as a freshman! Most freshman aren't even in that level of math yet, the reason most don't take it). But the best was writing. In order to pass you need between 17 and 21. Jess got a 24 - the highest marks you can get!! Way to go Jess!

Jessica's biggest goal and dream in life is to be able to be a published writer. Well, she's definitely on the right track. Good job Jessica!

Father's Day Breakfast

We took Aaron out this morning for a Father's Day Breakfast, since breakfast is his favorite meal of the day. We went to downtown Kent to a great little bakery called Wild Wheat Bakery. The food was great!! We all loved it.


The weather is also AWESOME today!!! Jeff was going to go straight to work from breakfast, but had about 30 minutes to spare. Since it was such a nice morning, we walked across the street to the rose garden park, and just soaked up the sun. While we all sat in the sunshine Jess spent a bunch of time taking pictures. I guess she's got to have a great photography skill so she can take great photos to go with all her great articles. Below are my favorites.

The Dualing Piano Bar

Last night we went out with Teresa and Mike to try out a new place in Tacoma. It's called Chopstix, and it's a dueling piano bar. It was pretty fun! Two guys just sitting behind the piano, taking requests, cracking jokes, and just having a good time. They played anything from "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" to Kiss's "Rock And Roll All Night Long". They had a synth drum that they were using as well.

Teresa and Mike ordered mondo plates of Nachos so we just sat and munched on food, drinking soda and enjoying the night.

Picture of the Day!

I decided to blog this anyway Amy. It was too cute of a picture to not share! (check your email)

I'm really into Scrap Booking Shutterfly style these days. I LOVE it. If you haven't heard of Shutterfly, check them out at - http://www.shutterfly.com/. You can take your pictures, and make them into books. It's way cool.

Anyway......At the moment I am working on a baby book for Jeff, so I have been spending a lot of time scanning and restoring a lot of Jeff's baby pictures for his book. I was working on this particular picture, and decided to crop out his face to be silly. It made me laugh so hard I was crying he was soooo cute!! I think I'm just way tired, Jeff just thinks I'm psycho. Either way, it brightened my day, so I wanted to share with everyone.

Have a laugh on Jeff!

Masked Visitor

Caught this guy wandering around the yard this morning. I think he was up a little late today. We usually see them wandering around at dusk, but not this late in the morning. I guess he had a hard night. I just had to get a pic of him, he was so cute. Of course, they look cute at a distance. He was looking at me like if I came any closer he was going to tear my eyes out. At least he wasn't in our garbage.

What a poser!

It was funny watching him try to climb through the barbed wire at the top of the fence, while simultaneously watching me to make sure I stayed where I was. He looked a little nervous up there. But he finally got over and wandered off into the woods.

We're not being babies

I know we have been complaining about our weather a lot lately. It probably makes us sound like a bunch of winy babies. But, we just heard on the news that this June is the coldest in recorded history since 1898!!! That's over a hundred years ago! Our next record is we are verging on the most consecutive days under 60 degrees in June. That's cold. Our heater is still kicking on in the middle of the day. Crazy stuff. It seriously is like November around here. We even had a wind storm yesterday with mild power outages. Hopefully the end is coming, and this isn't a trend for the most of our summer!! We may go and live with Amy and Scott or something if that's the case. They're already running through the sprinklers! I guess we could just put on our suits and run through the rain. It's almost the same.

Our budding journalist.

Jess has been in Journalism this past semester, since she has been thinking about it as a possible career. A good way to test the waters. She's enjoyed it, and has had several great articles in the paper "Fleet Street News"

In the last paper of the year she actually got a full page spread. There has only been one other student who can claim this privilege for the whole year.

She wrote an article on video games, the creation of them, peoples views on them and everything. She called and interview David Candland to ask him about creating Halo for Bungie, and that was the main body of the article. Then there were two insert articles as well. One asking some of the teachers who are parents what their views on video games are and another interviewing some of the students. Dave sent her a few pictures for the article and it was a huge success.

She may become an awesome journalist some day, and we have some of her earliest works. Her very first article is framed and on her wall. She sure does love to write. Way to go Jess!

It was nice.....

.....while it lasted. It's raining again! At least we had one awesome day to get some great work done outside. It was soooooo nice. Dang, should have mowed the lawn too. Oh well.

Oh, Sunny Day!

We actually had a non-raining, semi-sunny day today. It was so wonderful to not wake up to rain. Aaron and I got a lot done outside, and it felt great. Here's what we did.................

The Deck!!!

WE GOT THE DECK FINISHED!!!!!

It's going to be so awesome this summer. Now all we need is some good furniture. Jessi did a lot of work on the railings with Aaron yesterday while I worked. Thanks for the help Jess!

We moved the stairs over from where they were before, so we could put our BBQ on the other side of the deck, away from the house. The heat from it was warping our siding. Not good. Plus, it opens up the yard way more!

Don't you just love our feng shui stairs? Again, it really opens things up!

Finishing up the water proofing on the finished parts. Now, if it can just refrain from raining until tomorrow afternoon. One can only hope!

The Yard:

Aaron and I spent the afternoon working in the yard. It was so therapeutic being outside in the sunshine, and getting some work done. There is something very meditative about trimming and shaping bushes. I think we were both really enjoying it very much.

After I got done with the trimming, de-heading of the flowers, and cleaning up, I was having a bunch of fun taking pictures of all our great flowers we have this year. We may be hating the weather, but the flowers are loving it.

The Garden;

I was able to get out and get some work done on the garden today as well! (See the sunshine!) Unfortunately, the veggies aren't doing super well, because it has been too cold, and we have had WAY too much rain. We got over an inch of rain last week alone. The broccoli, peas and strawberries and doing OK though, since they are a little colder weather crops, but if we don't get some warmth soon, I may loose the corn, green beans and tomatoes. The leaves are already looking a little yellow and peakish.

I did add a whole new section on the end this year though that I'm super excited about. I built a small brick retaining wall with all the loose bricks we have laying around. Then I planted my strawberries and got 5 blueberry bushes. We LOVE blueberries, and they are so expensive. Hopefully in a couple of years we will have a great return on our investments.

June Showers Bring................?

Frustration! We keep wanting to finish our deck, but it has pretty much been raining non stop, with no end in sight. We are SO close! All that's left is the railing. I think we may just have to buck up and garb the rain gear and just finish it anyway. We are in Seattle after all.

At least we got the waterproofing on in between rains! It was quite a funny experience (for me anyway, not so much for Aaron :o) We spent all evening waterproofing, since we were suppose to have two nice days w/o rain. Well, we all know how reliable the weather forecasters can be. Waterproofing is suppose to set for 24 hours. The morning after all of our work, while I was in the Salon working, guess what? Yup - rain. Ugh!!! Aaron spent the next hour gathering all he could find to cover all our hard work and money spent. Cushions to our lawn furniture, floor mats from the exercise shed, garbage bags, tarps...everything. But, it looks like things worked out well, because the deck is beading up rather nicely. Good work Aaron!!

But, from my perspective in the salon, it was kinda funny watching him out in the rain just grabbing stuff and throwing it on the deck. It entertained me and my clients.

Will summer come to those of us living in Seattle? Well, there was that one week in May.....................

Iron Maiden Concert!

Last night was the Power Slave reunion tour. Aaron went back in the 80's to the original, and was totally stoked for this one. Both kids are also into Iron Maiden, so we all went together. I tell you, I don't think my parents would have ever taken me to a concert. Nor, do I think, I would be caught dead at one with them! Times have changed. It's kind of nice all liking the same kind of music!

They sure don't make concerts like they used to! The sets were amazing, and there were several. Along with the pyrotechnics, and the huge mummified Eddie that shoots sparks out of his eyes at the end, it was quite a spectacle. The kids have never been to such a huge production, and may never again. It was especially great for Aaron since it was a reunion concert for him. We all had a blast!

Attic Treasures

Well, Saturday we spent our day cleaning out my mom's attic for her to help her get ready to move. What a job!! It took a few hours, but we were happy to help her out, and hey, we got a free meal to Red Robin afterwards - Thanks mom!!

But, the best part was for Jess, our budding writer. Jessi loves writing, and really wants it to be her carrier some day. As with any passion, she loves everything that goes along with writing, including old typewriters. She has been wanting an "old style" typewriter for some time now, and has been watching ebay for a while. (you know, the kind of typewriters that most of us learned to type on in High School? Well, maybe not you Amy:o)

Well, guess what we found up in moms attic! An old 1936 Royal Deluxe typewriter. Mom said that it belonged to her grandmother, and has been kicking around the family for years. Who knows, maybe some day it will really be worth something. It's almost an antique, only about 30 more years to go! I don't think Jess really cares about how much it is worth though. She's just super excited to have it. Thanks again mom!

Jeff's First Car!!

Jeff finally got his car! He bought it last week, but it had some body work that needed to be done, so we had to wait for it to come out of the shop. It took us a while to find a good deal, but I think we did pretty well for the money he had.

He got himself a 2002 Pontiac Sunfire Coupe, with 99K miles, for $4,000.00. It had been in a wreck, hence the body work needing to be done, but so has the car he's been driving for the last couple of years (no thanks to him!).

Now the Nissan will be handed down for Jess to learn on. She had her first driving/stick lesson Saturday. Actually, she did really well for her first time out, in the Kentridge High School Parking lot. Oh my gosh!!! Our baby is starting to drive. Time flies too fast!