A little creativity and a whole lotta fun!

THE RIDDLE OF THE DAY: What do you get when you cross a hot day, with a mommy who has morning sickness and refuses to roll off the couch?

THE ANSWER: A little creativity and a whole lotta FUN!

Almost the entire time we were up at Cedar Springs Camp, I was so unbearably sick, I could hardly get to a standing up position without feeling like I was going to pass out or throw up. It was awful. During this time the kids learned how to make their own lunches, watched quite a few movies (horrible, I know), and well, learned how to be creative...


We didn't have a sprinkler, so the kids made one! They had a blast! Pretty creative I thought! Below are some great shots of how we spent most days at Cedar Springs Camp... eating popsicles, and playing outside.

Cedar Springs Camp... a blessing in disguise.

Towards the end of April, I was planning on heading back to Coeur d' Alene until our house sold. Although the kids and I were having fun, we were ready for our own space. A good friend of ours Peter Blue, mentioned to our Pastor what was about to take place, and our Pastor said, "Why didn't anybody tell me. I had no idea! We own Cedar Springs Camp, and we have 3 empty cabins just sitting empty!" We weren't quite sure what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised! I was expecting to stay in a cabin for campers. Literally a cement slab floor with 8 rows of bunkbeds, and a bathroom we had to walk to. But instead they showed us 3 little "homes" of retired missionaries that were vacant. We picked the smallest of the three options, because they usually rent out the cabins during the summer. Here is our fun little place.

It had a good sized kitchen, living room, dining room, laundry room, bathroom and a downstairs bedroom where Brad and I slept, and also a large upstairs loft with a queen-sized bed on one side, and two sets of bunk-beds on the other. The best part of the whole situation is that it was FREE! With acres and acres of trails to hike, a park, a miniature golf course, horses, a pool, basketball courts, and free meals if we wanted them at the cafeteria. The drawbacks were Brad had to commute sometimes an hour and 15 minutes, and I think the house had mold, because our entire 3 month stay we never had a solid two weeks where somebody didn't throw up. Or we very well could have had the flu 8 times...who knows! All I know as soon as we moved, the throwing up stopped. All in all, our cabin was a major blessing for that season in our lives. It allowed Brad and I to be together as a family, gave the kids a deeper sense of security (which they were needing...we had some major melt downs!), and it allowed us to save up money, and do fun things that we normally didn't have the money to do. I'm amazed at all the miracles, blessings and gifts that God has given us this past year.

Moving

Tom Noble, a friend at Cda Assembly, gave us a killer deal on a moving truck. I'm laughing looking back at the pictures... this is the original truck we picked up. We thought it was HUGE, and would fit all of our stuff no problem! Hmmm... I think our garage filled it up!

So we called him and asked him what the chances were of us possibly picking up one more truck. He was surprised, but said it wouldn't be a problem. So we picked another one up, shaking our heads that we actually had to get two moving trucks! The day went on, and we were so blessed as group after group of people stopped by at random intervals to lend a helping hand.As evening neared and loads of furniture remained, it became obvious that we would need ANOTHER moving truck! Unfortunately we had close to 20 people by nightfall that were ready to work and no truck to move things into! So we took a break and enjoyed the opportunity to say one last good-bye to so many dear friends - a nice way to end an exhausting 16hr day!

In the morning we picked up the THIRD moving truck and talked Dustin and Eric Hermenet (brothers that were on our youth staff) into pulling an all-nighter driving the moving trucks over to Seattle, unloading them, and driving them BACK that night! Talk about servants! The guys headed over mid-morning, and I stayed behind to clean.

I thought it would only take me a few hours...and I would catch up to them in no time...boy was I wrong! It took forever. Thankfully Amanda had a few minutes and just popped by to see if I needed any help. A huge blessing. After I had finished cleaning everything, I crawled into our 4-runner that was bursting at the seams and looked back at the house only to realize we had forgotten our bench that was on the porch, a fake tree, and our office chair! Ugh. How could we possibly have that much stuff?! We ended up leaving it and telling our friends who were moving in that if they didn't want it to just dump it. Phew! Glad the season of "moving stuff" is over for awhile! It's so much work!

The Nicholsons

Jeremy and Amanda came to visit in May! So fun! We spent one day driving all over the place... downtown Seattle (where I almost ran a group of pedestrians over! Woops!), Ballard, Kirkland, and back to Lake Stevens. Needless to say, the next day we stayed close to home, and did a little shopping at the outlet malls in Marysville. Much safer! =0)

Gaston's Birthday!

May 2009
We celebrated Gaston's fifth birthday at a fun park in Seattle. The kids ran around like crazy, played on the toys, and took great naps when they got home! We had so much fun hanging out with my sister and her family while they lived here. Unfortunately our dream of being next door neighbors with no fence in between our yards has yet to come to pass! We lived in Lake Stevens while they lived on Queen Anne, (about 45 minutes away from each other). And when we finally found a place closer to them, Ebb was laid off, and he decided to go back to school. It was either move to Inchelium or back to Alabama, thankfully they chose to stay close by! We're happy that they're not across the country, and thankful that every time we go see my parents we get to pop in and see them too! They only live a mile or two away! I'm still holding out hope that someday we'll at least live in the same city if we can't be neighbors!

Easter

Easter was super fun! During the day we had the church egg hunt, then that night we went to some of our friends house for dinner and dying Easter eggs. The kids had a blast, and Madelyn kept trying to eat hers shell and all! And on Easter Sunday we drove to Kent after church and had a BBQ with some friends and an egg hunt in the rain! So fun! I was slightly obsessed with Adrian and Amanda's little boy Mason, and took a million pictures of him. He's so stinkin' cute!

Rewinding Time... April 2009

Two weeks after we moved to Seattle Josiah turned 4! We were still bouncing around staying at different friends houses, so things were a little crazy. The day of the party we were still trying to figure out where we were going to go and what we were going to do. We originally planned to go to the Pacific Science Center, but by the time Brad got off work, and fought his way through traffic it would have been closed. So we opted for something close to home, and kid-friendly. Chuck E. Cheese! Truthfully, we all (grown-ups included) had a good time! Here are some pics to prove it!