Hotter than hot

Anyone who’s anyone knows that where I live it’s been hotter than hot. I believe the saying is “hotter than Hades.” Yes, that’s what it’s been like here. In fact yesterday, the official temperature in Everson, according to weather.com was 107 with a heat index of 118. Yep. So, this week has been all about staying cool.

Monday the girls & I headed to a local lake with some good friends and a bajillion other people.

Little B enjoyed some refreshing watermelon.

No one wanted to look at me to take a picture. M & Sarah have been friends since birth. They’re like cousins or brother & sister. We sure hope it stays that way. L & Becca have also been friends since birth. They have a similar relationship, though L is certainly in the running for Becca’s future beau.

L is so handsome!

These two cuties have also been friends since birth. E & Bethany get along so well. Actually, all the kids do. We never have to worry about that when we get our families together, which of course is not nearly often enough.

B played Hide & Seek with me behind his juice box. The cutest!

And Elise LOVED hanging out with baby B. After an afternoon of swimming, the dads came by and we had KFC for dinner before heading home to our hot houses.

On Tuesday our neighbors invited the girls & I out to a pool at a RV park near the bay. The place was practically deserted because most of the people in the RV park are older. It was such a nice reprieve from the heat!

Becca had on her water wings and said, “Hey Mom! I’m a tulip!” I couldn’t figure it out until she pointed out her shadow. Sure enough. A tulip shadow!

These flowers apparently like heat & humidity. They were tightly closed up a few days before the heat wave. Now – gorgeous!

I should have taken a picture of these in the front of my house when they were at their peak. I kind of forgot, but I do adore these bushes. I like them a little more purple, so I guess I have to give them less fertilizer next year. Last year, these were a bit pinker. But, oh, I love hydrangeas.

On Wednesday morning I went to run some errands in town while Sarah babysat the girls. I was only gone for a little bit and they had a couple chores to do and then they were instructed to play inside together. They came up with a “surprise” for me!

They made a little play to go with “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” by Dr. Seuss. It was hysterical! They made themselves card labels to show which fish they were. They had props like the ones you see in the picture, and they acted out everything in the book. The funniest part was that Elise was supposed to be the “Red Fish”, but she doesn’t like red, so she insisted that the girls call her “Pink Fish” instead. And of course, the girls gave in to her demands. She pretty much always gets her way. I’m counting on her preschool teacher to fix that next year. :)

Today was hot and we spent most of the day in my parents’ basement. Truly, all homes should have basements. If the house is in the flood plain, they should just build a huge levy around the house so you could still have a basement. So nice.

We spent part of the evening outside and discovered that the bees and wasps are not big fans of the heat either. They are buzzing mad. Literally. I merely leaned past one to turn on the water faucet and got stung on my wrist. Not 5 minutes later I stupidly leaned to turn off the water faucet and one came buzzing at me and stung my shoulder. Apparently Sarah didn’t get the message to stay away from the water faucet, turned it on, and got stung on the knee. She made me take a picture because it’s her first sting.

Thankfully, it appears she is not allergic. That tiny little welt was gone an hour later. Mine too. But now I have a pained toe. Becca was doing an “experiment” with putting a cup of water in the freezer. I know she knows what happens, but she was doing it. Again. I was getting something out of the freezer and that cup of frozen water came flying out of the freezer and landed on my toe. Can I just say, OUCH!!!! Literally. I was lying on the floor, crying, yelling, not saying too many bad words in case my children were in ear shot, and trying not to throw up, the pain was so bad. That was hours ago. It started throbbing a while ago. I think it might be broken. I took ibuprofen a while ago, so it’s a bit better, but really, it’s a good thing that pain didn’t last as long as childbirth. I would have had to go in for an epidural.

Last weekend of July

It’s been a very busy past few days! Sarah had her good friends from MV come to spend the night on Thursday evening. It was a “stuffed animal party” as you can see.

Eleven-year-olds. So sweet.

On Friday I took them all to the park for a picnic and playtime, then drove the friends home. Sarah just loves spending time with these friends. She’s known them since she was about a month old. I knew one mom because her husband had worked with Ed at Logos for a while. She had met the other mom on a walk in the neighborhood and introduced the other mom to me. For the first 5 years of Sarah’s life we had all kinds of playdates with these girls and moms in the neighborhood. We moved out of the neighborhood, but Sarah went to school with one and still had playdates with the other. It’s been harder to stay in touch since we moved an hour away, of course, but now that the girls have e-mail, they’re doing a good job corresponding. They’re the sweetest girls and we love their families, too.

Saturday was the Logos company picnic! (Actually, first I had breakfast with my girlfriends, but forgot to bring a camera. They lucked out this time!)

I have tons of pictures and will create a web album from the picnic eventually, I hope, but for now…

Uncooperative Becca. She did NOT want to smile.

And today we had a bbq with our small group from church which was wonderful. I also have tons of pictures of the kids on the slip-n-slide, but for now…

…the peaceful reflection of the sunset across the street from my house this evening.

The pity party is over

I've been having a bit of a pity party for myself these last few weeks. Summer's been too busy. I can't enjoy my kids. Then my kids are sick, so I can't enjoy time with my friends. I'm unmotivated, discontent. Everything I do feels pointless...like the laundry, and cleaning, and cooking. All things I must do but never seem to be "done". So, all in all, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself with my sorry little life.

Last night, I was late getting to bed because Sarah had a couple friends sleepover. About 11:30 I had to be "mean mom" and make them settle down and go to sleep. About 11:45 one got homesick, so I had to get out of bed - again - and go comfort her. I think they finally fell asleep about midnight. About 2:28 a.m. Becca came in our room, limping. Her ankle hurt. I thought, good grief, I am never gonna get any sleep. I went to get her some ibuprofen and she cried and cried and could hardly walk because it was so stiff. This doesn't happen often, since her JRA is in remission, but once in a while. So, I laid (or is it lied?) on her bed with her and stroked her hair and rubbed her ankle until she settled down and stopped crying. I got up to tell her that I was going to the bathroom and to bed and told her I would get her a stuffed animal to cuddle with. She said OK and was very calm and sweet-sounding. I gave her the teddy bear and a hug and she said "thanks". I said "You're welcome, Becca" and started to stand up. She grabbed my hand and pulled me back down for one more hug and whispered ever-so-sweetly "Mom, thanks for everything."

My heart melted and I realized that everything I do, I do because I love my family and God gave them to me to care for and that is the purpose and that was the end of my pity party.

Learn something new every day

Today was Elise's day. She is 3. Barely. And she can now swim. Honestly! This evening we went swimming (& met two of Sarah's MV friends and then took them home for a sleepover) and Ed went in with Becca & Elise. I was watching and suddenly realized that I was watching Elise swim underwater all by herself back and forth, under the rope. I'm still gonna be waaaaaaay overprotective of her near the water, but that child could have been born a fish.

Three times and counting

Today, for the third time, Sarah had 10+ inches of hair chopped off to donate to Locks of Love. I’m so proud of that girl, giving up her long hair that she really does love to be made into wigs for children who have lost their hair to chemo or to other diseases. She isn’t quite sure about this hair cut yet – it’s a little shorter than she had hoped and while she likes the “feel” of the short hair (especially in our hot weather) she isn’t sure she likes how it looks. Thankfully, she has six weeks before school starts to get used to it and to have it grow out just a little bit. She does say she is really thankful she could help out those kids and so it’s all OK just because of that. What a girl. I’m so thankful to God for the young woman that she is beginning to grow into.

Here she is yesterday with her long hair:

And ten inches shorter:

So cute.

Oh, and on Monday I dug up some of my homegrown potatoes.

If you have never grown potatoes and eaten them fresh, you are missing out. I have never in my life tasted a potato *that* wonderful. I had a roast in the crockpot (weird thing to eat in the summer, I know, but my freezer is full of roast) and so halfway through I tossed these potatoes in there (yes, I washed them first) and if that wasn’t the best crockpot roast meal I have ever made. Absolutely a delicious roast, thanks to my friend’s parents’ cow, and melt-in-your-mouth potatoes, thanks to my Aunt Adie’s seed potatoes that I ever-so-carefully planted. Remember that post?

Literally, Ed is *still* talking about that yummy roast and potatoes meal.

Reunion Weekend

This past weekend was the DeJong Reunion here in town. About 400 relatives (& outlaws) came out to celebrate the sharing of genetic material and God’s grace and faithfulness! These people are all descendants of Lieuwe Jorrits & Tjtske Lijkeles DeJong who came to America from the Netherlands in 1894 with their children…all but one. Baaye stayed behind with her husband and family in the Netherlands. Some 60 of her descendants came for this reunion, in addition to descendants of many of the other children of L&T DeJong. My great-grandfather was their son Peter, who was 15 at the time they immigrated. His son, Johannes (John) was my grandfather and his son, John, is my dad. There were 24 of us from the Peter DeJong family at the reunion.

Friday night began with a picnic out at the Birch Bay State Park.

It was an absolutely gorgeous evening and the girls had fun playing in the sand and the water and finding out that lots of other little girls they know from school are their 4th cousins!

Saturday evening was dinner and a program, during which two of my 3/4 Dutch girls did a little klompen.

Aren’t they cute? It seemed to be a big hit with the Dutch relatives, because they sang along in Dutch to one of the dances. Dad said one of them commented to him that they “don’t do that in Nederland anymore”, though. Ha!

This morning was an absolutely beautiful worship service and a nice lunch. The service was a celebration of God’s faithfulness and included readings from a book about these ancestors. The sister who stayed in Holland saved every letter that she received from her siblings and her parents and her grandson, Ulbe Bakker, who was at the reunion, compiled these letters into a book years ago. Many of the letters are testimonies of the faith and trust in God of these people who went through many trying times as immigrants. Ulbe now lives in the same homestead in Holland where his grandmother lived. It’s really an incredible heritage and this morning’s service was a wonderful way to praise and thank our Lord for that gift of grace and faithfulness.

Another unknown part of the reunion was what Dad’s 2nd cousin Carol did at the Lynden cemetery. She went and cleaned every gravestone of all the relatives before the reunion began. She also placed a Friesland flag by each one. On our way out of town this afternoon, we drove through and there were SO MANY Friesland flags! This is Grandpa’s.

Just a little update on my previous blogs: Sarah is finally better! PTL! It took until about Friday night before we really saw any improvement at all. She did come out to Birch Bay with us and felt much better out in the ocean air, but was exhausted when we came home. Saturday morning she felt OK, but very weak, so gradually we’ve been able to get her to eat small amounts of food and she is gaining back strength. And so far, no one else really has gotten the same bug, at least not to that extent…so we keep praying for health!

Lame

This is going to be a lame blog post, let me just say that right away. You can quit reading now if you want and I won’t blame you. Because life has not been exciting over here lately.

On Monday, I spent most of the day cleaning up the house, doing laundry, doing dishes, and generally trying to get things back in order around here. Hence, the Project 365 PotD for Monday is:

Technically, this was a load that Ed did. I had already done one and unloaded it and this was his turn later in the evening. Oh well.

I did get to have a friend over for a little while in the afternoon, which was a lovely distraction from an otherwise rather mundane Monday.

Monday night Sarah got sick, and so continued our very lame week. Bethany & Becca did go berry picking with my mom and I made some jam, but I neglected to take pictures of that. That might be because I pretty much made a huge mess out of the kitchen when I did it and didn’t really want to document that. So, Tuesday’s PotD is

That’s my new color scheme for the living room. The dark blue are the new curtains. The other two with yellow are someday going to be made into pillows. If I can just convince a sewing friend to do it. The walls will someday be yellow. I hope. If I can just convince Ed to help me move the piano and the corner cabinet away from the wall.

We also had a playdate with some old friends planned for Tuesday afternoon, but unfortunately we had to miss that since Sarah was sick. Ed did take the other girls to swimming and I did still get to go to my photography class, thanks to my mom helping out with Sarah.

Oh, and there was this strange business with the van that happened on Tuesday - some leaking fluid, strange electrical issues. Just another bit of chaos added to the mix.

Wednesday. Sarah’s still sick. No park. No eye doctor. No klompen. (More on that in a future post). Trip to the doctor. Yeah, nasty bug probably. So far, no one else is sick, thankfully, but I’m still feeling so bad for the poor girl.

As I’m writing this, it’s Friday morning, and she has barely gotten off the couch all week.

I did take the van in on Wednesday and the electrical issues appear to just be a blip in the van's computer and all seems fine now. The leaking fluid appears to be from the radiator, and is totally unrelated to all the work I recently had done on the van. But, it is something that needs fixing before we head out of town in a couple weeks...so...when Sarah is better I'll get something scheduled.

I dearly love Hollyhocks.

Hopefully my weekend photos will be more fun – we have some big family reunion stuff happening with lots of great photo ops…we just keep praying Sarah gets better!

Things I learned on our Camping Adventure

*When going camping, garbage bags should be packed and brought along.

*To properly roast a hotdog over a fire, one must place the hotdog perpendicular to the roasting stick.

*Threatening that “whoever cries in the tent goes in the motorhome to sleep” works!

*Foot-powered air pumps with cracks do not pump up air mattresses nearly as quickly as battery-powered pumps.

*You don’t have to go far from home to have a fun get-a-way.

*Crows like to march across the tops of motorhomes and screech at 4:30 in the morning.

*Camping + marshmallows + playgrounds + gatorade = very sticky dirty children

*Very sticky dirty children + one Grandpa + two parents + fresh air = Very Happy Children

This is one of the few pictures of me camping. My friend Melissa did this on her latest camping trip and I thought of it when I saw the reflection of the sky and trees in the back window of our van. Thanks for the idea!

All my happy girls and my guy in the tent in the morning. What a good dad to sleep in the tent all night with those turkeys!

Thanks, Grandpa/Erik for taking us camping! WE LOVED IT!!!!!

Why I am not spontaneous and other bits and pieces of the camping adventure

*I am not spontaneous. Not very often, anyway. I found out this weekend why that is the case. When I am being spontaneous, by definition, obviously, there is not time to properly plan for the spontaneous event. When there is not time to properly plan, (and make a proper and complete list), I am bound to forget something. And when I forget something, such as my contact lens case and contact solution, I get crabby. And when I get crabby, then no one wants me to be spontaneously camping anymore. Trust me.

*Overheard on the camping adventure: Ed: "Elise, what would you like to drink with your dinner?" Elise: "I would like beer." Hysterical giggling around campsite. Ed: "Elise, you wouldn't like beer, would you like a juice box?" Elise: "No, I like beer, I really, really do!" More hysterical giggling around campsite. Ed: "No, Elise, beer is only for grownups like Grandpa. Would you like a juice box?" Elise: "But I am a grownup. I'm 3!"

*Sitting around the campfire: Elise: "I want gatorade like Becca!" Ed: "Why don't you try some of Becca's to see if you like gatorade before I give you your own bottle?" Becca: "Here, Elise. Try my gatorade. Drink it slowly. It might have wine in it."

*Apparently our children need some instruction about alcoholic beverages...

Silver Lake and other stuff

My FIL Erik has been here the last few days and we’ve been having a lot of fun thus far. I hope this weekend goes well – we’re headed out to go camping with him at the local KOA on Saturday & Sunday. We’ve also had the pleasure of having Ed’s cousin and her daughter from California in and out over the past few days as the daughter is playing in an international softball tournament.

Wednesday’s PotD: dinner with Erik, Brenda, & Emily

Thursday’s PotD: the girls helped Erik assemble our new wheelbarrow and then had fun giving each other rides and dumping each other out.

Friday’s PotD: on the slide at Silver Lake today.

We had so much fun at Silver Lake! We almost had to forgo the trip since I left to run errands this morning and drove over a bolt and got a flat tire. Thankfully my dad wasn’t too busy at work at the moment and could come rescue me. I was in the middle of a country road and was so glad I didn’t have to call AAA and then wait 2 hours for them to find me. Dad to the rescue again! So, anyway…We knew we needed to get new tires soon, but were waiting until next week when the Costco coupons are valid. Unfortunately, we had to get the tires TODAY because the one with the bolt in it was…ah…not repairable. So we got new tires, finished some of the errands, had lunch, and headed up to Silver Lake only about 90 minutes behind schedule. Good job, Les Schwab in getting me new tires quickly!!!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

I really should be the Mariners’ Official Good Luck Charm. They should buy me season tickets, provide a limo for transportation, and treat me like royalty. The Mariners have won EVERY game at Safeco Field that I have ever attended. My record is now 12-0! I suppose occasionally they’d have to make me stay home so that other teams wouldn’t try to accuse them of cheating and so that no other teams found out about my status and try to steal me away, but really, isn’t that a pretty incredible record?

We went Monday evening to the M’s game against the Orioles. It was our Father’s Day gift to my dad and we had a great time. We left home in pouring down rain and were a bit concerned that we might get wet and cold but by the time we got to Seattle, it was sunny! It wasn’t warm, but we were never cold and it was a fabulous evening. We started by going to one of the Nintendo DS downloading stations where you can download an app to get stats and games and such on your Nintendo during the game. This proved to be very useful since none of the electrical boards in Safeco Field were working Monday night!

Then I wanted to take Becca into the Children’s Playfield, sponsored by Children’s Hospital. She had fun in there and then requested that I take this picture of her with Ichiro! I couldn’t be more proud.

The game, as I said before, was great. Washburn pitched what could quite possibly be the game of a lifetime – one hit, no walks, 100 pitches in a complete game – and the M’s won 5-0. We all had a lot of fun.

In fact, apparently we were having so much fun that we even provided entertainment for the folks sitting behind us! As we were leaving, the lady tapped Ed on the shoulder and thanked him for sitting in front of them. She said they loved watching our family and the girls were so entertaining! I thought, man, if we had brought Elise, then she REALLY would have been entertained!

I don’t have a PotD for Tuesday – the day just got away from me – but here’s one of my fireworks pictures from the 4th.

I didn’t do real great taking pictures – partly because I missed my class last week when he gave tips on taking fireworks pictures, partly because there was so much ambient lighting where we were standing, partly because I don’t have much of a zoom lens, and partly because I just plain didn’t know exactly what I was doing. But, I at least got something relatively decent to show for my efforts and I learned a few things along the way. I had my photo class last night and learned more stuff – I am so glad I am taking this class and am already anxious for next week!

Fourth of July weekend

That’s Friday’s PotD, even though it was taken on Thursday. It’s me taking pictures at Whatcom Falls for my motion blur assignment.

We spent the Fourth with all these lovely people. We like them even though they went to that other college. It was an absolutely wonderful day with the Boon’s and DeVries’…parade, candy, DQ, swimming, Wii, chatting, the beach, steaks, pie, fireworks…awesome! Did you notice how many of the things listed involve food? How often isn’t that the case when we get together with loved ones?

That’s Sarah and her friend Kylie – they’ve been best friends since Sarah was about 12 weeks gestation and we announced to the Boon’s that we were having a baby. Ky was 17 months old when Sarah was born and they’ve always gotten along great. We haven’t lived in the same town for many years now, but we’re so happy they’re back in Western Washington and that we can see them at least occasionally!

Yes, that’s Ed. He’s 16 in that picture! Goofy hair, right? ;) I think his bangs were as big as mine then! :) Anyway, the 4th of July is the anniversary of when Ed & I started dating…we spent the day with the youth group and my mission team at the beach and then went to see fireworks at Milesquare Park. I don’t think either of us even noticed the fireworks that night, we were so busy talking to each other. I knew I was falling for him then, but I knew I would marry him the moment I took that picture up there. I watched him with those kids at VBS and I knew that he would be a good daddy someday. I loved that about him then, and I love that about him now. There are other things, of course, but that was truly the moment. On the 4th, we celebrated 18 years of being together – our 15th wedding anniversary is coming up next month. I can’t believe we’ve known each other for over half our lives! Amazing. God is good.

Oh, and that’s today’s PotD.

Spontaneity!

Well…I’ll start with the boring stuff…

My mom picked more berries. I froze them. The strawberries were good this year, but the season got cut short by a few too many days of hard rain. We’ll enjoy these in smoothies someday:

And now for the update on Ed: he is now less wise than he was before. Finally, on Tuesday evening, the dentist was able to remove Ed’s cracked and very painful wisdom tooth. We had first gone on Monday evening and the dentist tried to clean it out and grind it down and such in order to lessen his pain and buy him some time until he could see the oral surgeon. That didn’t work. So, Tuesday I took him back to the dentist and we got it out. So nice to be on the road to recovery. We decided on the way home from the dentist, that it takes a very special sort of person to be a dentist. You have to be OK with seeing people in pain and you have to be OK with causing that person more pain that may stay with them for quite some time, even though it in the long run it’ll probably be good for them. Pulling teeth is a seriously violent task.

On Tuesday afternoon, before we went in to the dentist, Ed said, hey – what do you need me to do that I won’t be able to do for a few days once I have this done? I said MOW THE LAWN! I’m so mean. So, he did. He’s so nice. Sarah helped.

On Wednesday we mostly did stuff around the house and I ran a few errands. I took this picture in the evening. No photo editing. I promise. I think it’s cool.

Now we finally get to the spontaneity. I was sick and tired of not playing with my kids and only telling them what to do and all of us not enjoying our time together. I want so much to have fond memories of these days and I want them to have fond memories of these days. The stress of Ed’s tooth business and all finally kind of got to me and I have not been in a good mood. The kids have been disobedient. I couldn’t stand it. I read in Proverbs yesterday “A child left to himself disgraces his mother.” Okay. I was not going to leave my children to themselves anymore.

I decided we were going to Whatcom Falls Park. Ed was going to come and I was going to carry a lawn chair for him to sit on in the shade. It was a hot day, so playing in the creek sounded like fun. Plus, it was close to swimming lessons, so we could just go straight there. Everyone seemed skeptical when I first suggested such a stunt. How on earth could we just up and take off for the day? But we did! And it was fun! Here’s the story:

I have never in my life played in the creek or jumped from the falls at Whatcom Falls Park. Disgraceful, I know. I couldn’t have my children growing up with the same thing.

Oh, see there?! I first practiced motion blur with my camera on the falls by the stone bridge. Cool water, don’t ya think? Then we went wading.

Sarah said, “Look Bethany! Let’s swim to that rock!”

“Okay, Sarah!”

Now what?

“Let’s jump!” “You go first, Sarah!” “Okay!”

SPLASH!!!!!!!

Bethany’s turn!

Back on the rock: “Do you think we can swim to that rock, Sarah?”

Should we?

All right. “Sarah, you go first.”

 

And they’re off!

They’re swimming back?

Oh wait, now they swam back to the rock and climbed up.

Oh. Now they’re coming back down. Hm.

Did I mention Ed was taking all these pictures? Well, he was. Here’s proof!

So, now I can say I have gone wading in Whatcom Falls Creek. Technically, I haven’t jumped. But, I think the experience is close enough to cross it off the Bucket List.

Back to the story:

 

They’re back on the rock. Do you think she’ll jump? Will her mother let her? How is that possible? Has the mother lost all of her common sense? Was it she that had a wisdom tooth pulled?

Go, Sarah! She jumped! She really did! Kind of out and not up, but she jumped!

Did Bethany?

Jump, Bethany, jump!

She did jump! Ed took these pictures and didn’t know I had it on “continuous” and he could have just held down the shutter release to take picture after picture. But I promise, she jumped. And if he took this picture and then she didn’t jump, that’s be a mighty feat, I tell you, for her to go backwards from there.

Besides, look how proud she is!