Good news!

1. We did not float away! We did not even get wet!

2. We got an e-mail from the Canon Repair Site and they have received our broken camera and have "accepted" the opportunity to repair it for us. The e-mail also said it would be on its way back to us in 7 days! Woo-hoo!

Because these are the kind of lame pictures that our old camera takes:

I had to stand about 14 feet above her to get that shot without the wide angle lens of my good camera. And see how her pencil is all wiggling back & forth? Hate that.

She's working on a game board project for Social Studies; using her new art set that she got for Christmas. She's been using that art set a lot today (no school due to floods).

Anyway, I got bored and fiddled with some features on the old camera that I had never tried. What do you think of these?

That one is called "solarize."

And this:

is called "neg art." Wild, don't ya think?

I can't wait to have my good camera back. I hope it's soon! And I really can't wait for Ed to walk in the door some day with my new DSLR! ;)

3. The third bit of good news is that Sarah is going to have her basketball practice today! She hasn't had practice since...Dec. 11 because of inclement weather. No games, no practice, nothing. She hasn't even been able to play outside on our hoop because of the weather. Therefore...we are excited and happy to get started with basketball again!

January 7, 2009 flood

Today there has been major flooding of rivers and streets in Lynden, Bellingham and beyond. Some areas of Lynden are without power due to water getting into transformer boxes. Many streets in Lynden are closed due to water over the roadway. The girls' school closed at 12:45 so that all the kids could get home safely before the flooding got worse. It's been raining non-stop since it quit snowing and has gotten considerably warmer. I think it was 55 today. The warm temperatures of course caused a lot of snow melt, both here and up in the mountains, which is what is causing the river flooding. The street flooding is simply the rapid snow melt of the last two weeks combined with a lot of rainfall. I did make it home with the girls around 1:00 today, but I could not take either of our normal routes because there was water over the roads and I wasn't taking any chances. I was a little freaked out, too, because when I was at school picking the girls up, their bus driver caught me and told me she had heard that the road behind our home had flooded and that our neighborhood was flooded. I REALLY wanted to get home. Thankfully, I was able to work my way east and north and then south and made it home without having to drive over any water and our neighborhood was NOT flooded. The river is almost as high as it was in 2006, which set a record, and we didn't get water anywhere close to our home at that time. We did buy flood insurance after that, though. :) The picture above is of our neighbor's backyard - we are four houses down from them - farther away from the river. You can see how close the water has risen to their home and you can see the river behind the trees there. Usually you walk down two big hills to get to the river bank and then the river is down from there. In 2006 they had beavers swimming in their backyard, but I haven't heard that has happened yet this time! Anyway, Ed came home early and worked from home so that he wouldn't have to drive on flooded roads in the dark and so that he would be here if things did get worse and the neighbors began sandbagging garages or something. So far, the predictions on the river indicate that it will crest below the record flood of 2006, but only by about a half a foot...and it's still raining pretty hard. We'll keep watch and in the meantime, we'll continue to be thankful we have power, clean water, and flood insurance. :)

My First School Superstars!

Today I had the privilege of watching Becca's preschool class give their belated Christmas program. They sang lots of fun songs and rang their bells and put them away SO gently! My favorite song they sang was "If I were a little lamb" - very sweet. And just so my family knows I am nice, I really didn't laugh during "Come on, Ring those Bells!" :)

Sunday night snacks and back to school

Most every Sunday night, once the girls are in bed, Ed & I have some kind of yummy snack together. Most often it's some kind of chip & dip concoction and last night (Jan. 4) was no exception. Ed always makes us each our own bowl and his is always extra spicy.

This morning the girls went back to school after a long and wonderful Christmas break! Here they are in the van waiting at the bus stop. Notice how dark it is? I know the days are getting longer again, but it sure seemed early and extra dark this morning. The thick cloud cover didn't help that at all, either.

Enjoy your Monday and getting back to whatever your routine is!

January 3 - photo of the day

Today was about the laziest Saturday we have had in a year. We seriously did nothing. Except I made Sarah practice her flute because she had 2+ weeks to get 100 minutes of practice time and she still had 35 to go. It's no wonder her 5th grade band is so good if all the kids actually practice 100 minutes per week!

Happy Birthday, Michael!

Happy 31st Birthday (Jan. 2) to my best little brother! This is a picture of Mike with his little boy Josh - they're both such cuties!

Apparently when we were younger, I would tend to his every need. Probably that's why when my older brother & I left the house for college, our mother began tending to his every need...like letting him watch tv and eat ice cream in their bed every night and giving him grapes for dinner and all sorts of things like that. Typical baby of the family stuff.

I figure he got what he deserved at Heffley Lake.

He went out fishing in the morning by himself 'cause he was upset about the number of fish he (hadn't) caught. He ended up rowing back for about two hours. Poor Mikey. We were actually beginning to get worried about him. We went out looking and that's when we caught sight of him, far off, rowing towards the dock, all by himself. Oh, and I don't think he caught any fish during that outing, either.

But seriously, he's a great guy, a great teacher, a great husband and dad, a great uncle, and a great brother, and I know my mom & dad would say he's a great son. He's a lot of fun and he's caring. My girls love him, and we all hope you have a very Happy Birthday!

I don't have a "photo of the day" - the one I took is all blurry. So, this one of Mike will have to do for today. It's only about a week old. :)

January 1 photo of the day

Okay, so far I'm good on my resolution to take one photo every day. I took Sarah's camera with us shopping today, only unfortunately for me, only one more photo would fit on the memory stick. The screen on that camera is so small I couldn't see the pictures well enough to see any to delete, so...

...this is what I got during our lunch at Billy McHale's. That's a red tortilla chip hanging out of her mouth.

Won't it be great when my husband lets me buy an SLR and I can take GOOD pictures? :)

I did it.

I finally joined facebook. Yuck. Actually, it's very cool, but I have spent way too much time on it already and I've only been a member for about 13 hours. I had to do it because my brothers and sisters-in-law are on and they apparently chat to each other sometimes and I could not be left out of that! :) Anyway, come be my friend on facebook!

This week we are hanging out, playing with friends, catching up on stuff around the house, etc. Hopefully on New Year's Day we'll do some shopping and by Friday we'll take down the Christmas stuff and start to get ourselves geared up for going back to school. Much of the snow has turned to slush and it will be more typical winter weather for a while now...upper 30's and lower 40's, rain, wind, etc. I saw tulips at the store today, though, so the hope of spring is here!

Christmas is over...

And it was wonderful. Click on this link First Folder Christmas 2008 for the first installment of 128 Christmas photos from the last 10 days. My apologies to those of you reading who don't care to see 128 photos. My thanks to those of you who actually look at all 128 photos! Enjoy!

I forgot a few...

*Ha---llelujah!
*The Melted Lamp
*Key vs. King

Highlights thus far

My brothers and their families have been here for almost a week now. It's awesome. A couple bad things...my laptop AND my camera both are toast...the snow cancelled many of our planned activities...BUT! Here's a list of highlights (My family will understand them all immediately. The rest of you will have to ask if you want more explanation.)

*Snow
*Happy baby
*No, I want WINE!
*Two-year-olds
*Sleepovers
*A four-month-old giggle
*Tractor Tipping
*A very white Christmas
*Wii bowling
*Musical performances
*My mother throwing snowballs
*Eat your food, Josh
*Eat your food, Elise
*Walk-in fridge
*Less is more
*Chaos

There are more things and I'm sure that in our last two days together there will be more to come. I just wanted to get some thoughts posted before it all becomes a blur. I'm so thankful that my brothers and their families both came home this year for Christmas and that we had so much time together with Mom & Dad. It's awesome. Pictures to come in a few days....

Merry Christmas!

It is the morning of Christmas Eve and Ed & I are about to head back to Lynden for the day. The girls spent the night at my parents, which they have been doing every night for about 5 nights now. We "keep going home", as Elise says. We did stay two nights at my parents when the wintry weather prevented us from wanting to drive home.

And now this morning it's a winter wonderland out there again. Probably 3 inches of snow fell during the night and it's so beautiful. It is a beautiful snow fall. I just hope we can get to Lynden OK this morning. I packed enough stuff for everyone for 3 days...just in case! I have friends flying out to the midwest and to CA before the weekend and I will be praying for you and your travels! It's been a crazy holiday travel experience for many people already. I pray you get where you are going. My brothers and their families don't fly out until Sunday and by Saturday it's supposed to be raining again, so we're hopeful they'll make it home OK.

Anyway, I wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! May you enjoy these days and truly believe "Emmanuel" (God with us) came for you.

Snow Day!

No school for anyone in Whatcom County today. We've got drifts of snow! Click here for a web album of fun snow pictures!

Concerts and Snow: Another long post, sorry!

First off, it's snowing! It started in earnest this morning sometime after 10:00. I had to drive home from Coffee Break in it and it was a little scary because the snow was blowing around so much that it was hard to see. Now the kids are being dismissed from school 35 minutes early so that the buses can get everyone home before dark. It's supposed to keep snowing until morning, which means...probably either a delay or no school tomorrow. Not good. My brother & his family are flying in from CA tonight...yikes. And tomorrow is supposed to be Becca's preschool program. And Friday is Bethany's school program and I know they need to practice tomorrow. With the wind that has returned, it's not the prettiest snow, though Becca did notice this cool feature between our sliding glass door and the screen door:

Can you see the spider web covered in snow? Wild.

Here's more snow pictures:

That's the backyard. It's starting to drift pretty good, and you can't really see, but the snow is coming down basically sideways.

It's all fuzzy white because of all the blowing snow. So anyway, we ask for prayers for safety for the kids as they come home from school and for my parents driving to pick up M&S&J and for safety for their flight also!

Onto concerts: last night was the 5th - 8th grade instrumental Christmas concert at school. It was really quite good - for middle schoolers, they do a great job and they have a great director. It was just really long. I think if every group (of which there were 7) had done 3 songs instead of 4, it would have been much more tolerable in length. It was really close to two hours, which is pushing it  just a bit.

Sarah is in the 5th grade band and plays the flute and she is doing great. She loves it and we are proud of the progress she's made in 3 short months! I have very fond memories of various band experiences and good friends that I made through sharing a stand, so I hope she can experience the same thing. Here's a picture from her concert last night:

She's right there on the right, in the black and white. Her friend Hannah is in the red. I have some video too, so maybe if Ed is snowed in tomorrow he can figure out how to post it. :)

And today Becca's class sang to the women at Coffee Break. Aren't they all so cute?

Becca was really nervous last night, so we had to make up some signals to give each other when she came in, which she thought was very cool. She's been giving me the signals all day long. Pulling on the ear lobe means "I love you" and touching the nose means "hi" and twisting your necklace means "I wish you a Merry Christmas." She plans to do it again tomorrow at her preschool program...if we have school, anyway.

I have video of this too, so we'll see if we can shrink down and get it online. In the meantime, enjoy whatever winter weather you are having and I hope you're ready for Christmas because pretty much, it's here!