A weekend visit!

Oma and Opa came down for a quick weekend visit. This usually involves a trip to tricities for a little bit of shopping and a stop at cousins for dinner. They don't usually stay very long but it is always nice to have them pop by! Ashley and Oma snap-chatted Ashleys friends for awhile...that was interesting:) And Kendra talked Opa into a game of checkers!

Meeting of the minds....

Stopped by Mom and dads while up for Canadian thanksgiving day. Tyler jumped at the chance to play a game of checkers against Grandpa!  I have many memories of dad teaching me how to play checkers. It was pretty cool to see that continue as he played against Tyler. Tyler does pretty good at checkers...he held his own for quite awhile (or maybe Grandpa was just being nice;) but in the end grandpa took him! Tyler is extremely competitive but I was glad to see he shook grandpas hand and said 'good game' even though his head was hanging a little!  The beautiful checkers set was made by my talented brother Rod as a gift to dad.





Dad's been planting a huge garden in the spring and selling the produce at road side fruit stands along with cherries and other fruit that he picks up down here in Eastern Washington. He thought he would try to get a head start on some of his plants and turned his old camper into the perfect green house. It's quite the 'grow op' he's got going on in there!!

Dustins wedding!

Dustin and Kit got married in Alberta on October 19th. Bob still had a parts trailer to pick up from Taber to bring back to Pasco so we were able to do that at the same time. It was a very short quick trip. We left Thursday night after school and headed to Couer d'Alene resort. The next morning we finished our trip. It was a great way to break it up a little bit.
We pulled into lethbridge late Friday afternoon and stopped by Jake and Mina for dinner. All the kids were there too so that was awesome to be able to see them all again. Saturday morning Bob headed up to Taber to get the parts trailer. I took the younger kids swimming for awhile, then we decided to walk to the mall down the block. Just as we were stepping out of the hotel John and Audrey pulled up! So we hitched a ride to the mall with them. I had forgotten my tripod and I was supposed to video at the wedding so I had to go buy another one at London Drugs.
That afternoon we headed to the wedding, then went to John and Audreys hotel for cocktails while we waited for the reception to start.
The next morning we headed for home. We made quite a few stops which is very unusual for Bob but it was the only way to make the looooong drive still somewhat fun~!

On the way up we travelled through glacier national park...stopped alongside the road on the way to play for a few minutes.

 

Enjoying some pool time at the hotel!

Congratulations Dustin and Kit!

 

On the way home we made a few stops...one of those was in Sparwood BC to look at the worlds largest truck.

 

Was a lot of miles in a small amount of hours but so worth it!

 

 

 

 

Oma Muffy

Ashley has been asking for a long time to be able to visit with Oma Muffy. She just really wanted to get to know her! So when we were up in Canada for canadian thanksgiving Bob took her to go visit Oma Muffy. I am so glad they had that opportunity! Oma is getting pretty forgetful...not always knowing who everybody is but she remains the same goofy funny lady. It's very easy to see where Bob and his dad get their sense of humor!

Oma was pretending to fall asleep and snore....Ashley found her pretty hilarious!

Momma goes to work!

After 14 years of staying at home doing daycare life suddenly changed in a pretty big way! I had been talking/thinking about going out and getting a real job as soon as Tyler went to school full time. I finally worked up the courage to tell my daycare parents that I was going to start looking for a job. I told them it could be a few weeks or it could be 6 months! I had no idea what I would find and when. The Thursday before school started I was at Housel Middle school for registration day. I was sitting at a table in the cafeteria filling out paperwork sitting by my friend Lolli who works at the school. The school principal came and sat by Lolli and commented that she had two positions she needed to full yet before school started. Lolli said, "well Julaine, there ya go!' The principal looked at me and sai "are you looking for a job?" and well, long story short after a brief discussion and I check on my paperwork and background, 15 minutes later she offered me a full time job at the school starting Monday morning! Yikes! It was exciting but terrifying all at the same time. I had 4 days to get a wardrobe, organize my house, get my kids ready for school, break the news to my daycare parents and start work!
I was hired as a one on one aid for a very developmentally handicapped child. Unfortunately she declined so quickly that she never did end up coming to school. Because I did not have an AA degree I was only able to be hired as a full time sub. This meant I had to take every 19th day off because subs can only work 18 days in a row. The first month I really just floated around to wherever they needed me. Which meant some days were good and some were not. My biggest frustration was boredom. Sitting in a class 'monitoring' a problem student was just not enough to do! Eventually everything got ironed out. I ended up applying for the position I was kind of already doing. I took the para assessment test to challenge the AA requirement and passed with flying colors:) They offered me a full time contracted position in the life skills room as a special ed para. Suddenly I had benefits! It took some adjusting, Kendra did a lot of whining and complaining but overall its been a good thing. I really enjoy getting out of my house and getting to be around some adult company.

My official staff picture:)

Another parade

Prosser FFA has started looking to Bob for their annual parade entries. Last year the big spreader truck for the Prosser States day parade and a grape harvester for the lighted implement Parade in Sunnyside. This year for the Prosser States Day parade he decided to use a large sprayer...very large...too high up for kids to stand on so it was followed by a flatbed pulled by an FFA truck for the kids to ride on. Some of the best times were when the kids all stood up and started singing!! They all had a lot of fun. Except for poor Ashley, who decided to jump off a moving trailer and landed on her tush;)

Putting on the finishing touches

The three amigos

most of the kids had already jumped off....just waiting in line

Tyler & his buddy Wyatt Wentz

Another school year begins

It seems that each season of life we're in we look forward to the next one. When it's winter we can't wait for summer. When it's summer we are anxiously excited for school to start and when we are in school we can NOT wait for summer! More and more we are beginning to realize we need to slow down and enjoy every single season of life! Summer was fast and furious again this year and the first day of school was here before we knew it.

Ashley - a junior!! Yikes....it makes me kind of teary even thinking about how soon it will be senior year and all of a sudden there will be a lot of lasts....but followed by that will be a lot of firsts..

Brandi - 8th grade. Last year of middle school already. I remember the summer before Ashley started middle school. I was so torn and uncertain. Tempted to home school...heard so many horror stories about middle school and now look. Ashley flew through it and Brandi's wrapping it up too! Apparently, neither one's the worse for wear at this point. They seemed to have come through it relatively unscathed and not completely demented!

 

 

 

 

 



Kendra - Starting 3rd grade, she's come a loooong way since that first few months of kindergarten when she cried every day. She loves school now. Would never admit it though. She doesn't want to admit she loves school but she comes home pretty excited every day and does pretty good. She loves math and spelling and seems to just be enjoying herself! Was ready for another year!

Tyler - 1st grade. Wow, kinda crazy how that happened so quickly. He was very excited to go to Mrs. Stienbock and Mrs. Stienmetz classroom this year. He is kind of a nerd...but a very loveable nerd. Was excited to go back and finally learn how to read and do some cool math stuff!

I still absolutely love the uniforms that Paterson kids wear. They are so simple, easy and affordable! About 2 weeks before school starts I call the school and tell them how many shirts and what colors and sizes and that's it. Get a few pairs of jeans from childrens place and between the computer and my phone I can have all their back to school shopping done in 15 minutes:)Praying for a great year for each of them with minimal drama, minimal illness and maximum efforts:)