Jadon was able to join our church choir this year with Esther. They sang the week before Thanksgiving. Jadon and Esther worked hard to learn the songs and did a great job! Rahab can’t wait to join them! I love seeing my children praise the Lord through song!
Naturally, we had to build a volcano! I love watching Jadon work his little heart out this year. I especially enjoy his creativity! My favorite on this project was the pine trees he had to add to the mountain. That way the lava would knock them down. I love his logic! Keep learning my son! I’ll try not to get in your way.
-Chris
Saturday night we took our kids out for a family surprise! We met Daddy in Tumwater at Infernos for pizza. After pizza we headed over to the Rutledge Corn Maze! It was an awesome fall night, not raining or too cold!
There were two mazes intertwined together. Each with six checkpoints. Each checkpoint had a unique hole punch to punch your card. We found all 12 checkpoints in the corn maze. Esther and Jadon did a great job leading us through the maze. It was a lot of fun going through the maze at night! The kids really enjoyed using their flashlights!
I truly treasure these families moments!
-Chris
BUT it was still fun and educational!
First, I thought of this grand idea for Esther to create a world map. A world map made out of dyed rice crispy treats. I imagined making the shapes of the continents and laying them on blue background. One major flaw, I forgot rice crispy treats are extremely sticky. Making the continental shapes turned into blobs of green. The educational side is that Esther had to use her imagination and showed all her family where each continent was on her map! She now knows her continents.
Second, since I have moved here I have always wanted to see the salmon run. I have heard to go in October. I surprised the kids with a trip into Tumwater Falls to see them. I imagined lots of salmon jumping the waterfall or swimming up the locks. Instead I found out we were about two weeks late. There is always next year right? It was still a fun experience! We played in the leaves, saw quite a few dead salmon, saw a few salmon trying to run up the river, and enjoyed the waterfalls on a gorgeous fall day!
Some of the best educational moments are not what I quite imagined. But I wouldn’t trade them for anything!
-Chris
Rahab has been attending BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) since she was born. This year she is in the three year old classroom. I love how excited she gets about attending and learning about Jesus every week.
This past week was a treasured moment for me. They end their class by playing with play dough. Rahab was excited to show me her creation she made. There were three balls, a large one with a smaller one on top of it and another ball beside the larger one. I asked her what she had created. With confidence in her voice she responded, “It is Jesus riding on the clouds. He is coming back on a cloud, Mom.” Her BSF leader and I just looked at each other in amazement. My little 3 year old girl’s eyes are being open to his WORD. Praise the LORD!
“Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all peoples on earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen.” Revelation 1:7
Thank you Lord for revealing yourself to your child, Rahab. May your WORD always be in her heart!
-Chris
Week 2 started off with a tour of Main Street Cookies in Rainier, WA. Awesome to hear how a local business is doing in our area! They are YUMMY cookies! 
After our tour and before piano lessons, we headed out for a picnic lunch! It was such a beautiful day in October. Making the most of these fall day!
Feeling so blessed to spend days like these with my children!
-Chris
My sister and I were walking earlier today by the Red River in Fargo, ND. The path we took was the one my siblings and I rode our bikes on to the ball fields every summer growing up. Fun to see how that path has changed and yet stayed the same.
But this spot,
Has a special memory. It’s a spot that changed my life over 13 years ago! May 31st 2002, at the dusk, Greg got down on one knee and asked if I would be his wife! It all started here!
-Chris
Guess what we did? We drove to Jamestown, ND. Why would we do that? To see the World’s Largest Buffalo of course!!!
It was a really cool place, with a lot more to do there then we had planned. We saw….
There is a herd of buffalo there too, but they were too far away to see! We could see them better when we were on the highway.
Here is where the kids spent their first day in school! At the one room school room!
Such a fun day with Grandma! So glad we took the trip out to Jamestown, ND! It’s the best classroom!
-Chris
I had the opportunity to go with Greg on one of his trips recently! In order for that to happen we needed seats on the airplane and a place for our kids to go. Thank you Grandma Ferol and Grandpa Don for watching our kids so I could go with Greg! Praise the Lord I had a seat on each leg for 4 days! Pretty amazing!
Where did we go on our no kids 4-day long work trip!?!
PDX SAN LIH SJC PDX (8/31 to 9/3/15)
We started in PDX, Portland, and had supper at Bdubs (aka Buffalo Wild Wings). This was a college favorite spot for us.
We had breakfast together, then he went to work and I went to visit friends in the Portland area! Love that I know people in a lot of different cities 🙂
I met Greg in SEA, Seattle. Then we headed to SAN, San Diego, for the night. Greg took me took me to his favorite overnight meal spot The Kebab Shop. It was really yummy!
From SAN we headed to LIH, Lihue Hawaii. I was really excited to explore another Hawaiian island. Even more excited because Greg has done little exploring there. It does not happen too often that we can explore together!
It was hard to leave LIH, but our next stop was SJC, San Jose, CA. It was a beautiful sunset across the ocean.
We had a quick visit with the Vawter’s. Love taking these opportunities to see them! We had a great breakfast with them. Sorry no pic 🙁
Day 4 was finally here, now to head back to PDX. I miss my kiddos 🙂
I love traveling with my husband. Very thankful for the opportunity!
-Chris
Today I was asked several times if I work. I always hesitate when they ask that question. For some reason it always feels like a let down when you say no. I usually have the urge to say I’m a Mom who stays at home with three kids: teacher, taxi driver, cook, cleaner, you know stay-at-home mom stuff!
Honestly I have the best job ever! It is not easy, especially when you are not quite yourself, and/or kids are driving you crazy, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Because I would miss many nights like these, watching my kids put on a show. I love watching them learn how to play lots of different instruments: drums, recorder, & a shofar. You should see my 3 year blow the shofar!
