Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

The weather is finally looking like summer and so we took advantage of the beauty and headed to Vancouver lake for some fun in the sun. It is one of the many local lakes that I used to go to growing up. And check out the views of Mt. St. Helens & Mt. Hood-does it get any better than this?? There are plenty of great places to play in the water here and the kids said it was almost as fun as the German Schwimbads-if only it had a waterslide!!

Savannah & Caitlyn

David making friends

The girls are digging all day

Benj chillin in the shade

Monday I was making cookies for family night with Bella's help. We had gotten all the ingriedients in and were getting ready to do a final mix, I turned my back for one second and when I turned around the bowl was full of pink lemonade. Bella says, ''mom the cookies were thirsty"-this girl has an excuse for everything. I mixed them up anyway, they were a little flatter than normal but tasted grrreat!

Hooah

Monday marked 6 years that Dave has been in the Army and a promotion from Captain to Major, and then Monday night at 11:59 he was officially honorably discharged from the Army. Cheers and Hooah's were said and the end of a wonderful/frustrating adventure was celebrated with a lot of food and visiting. Dave also gave us a great family home evening lesson on the military and his experiences in it.

The military has been frustrating and hard but it has also given us the chance to see the world, grow up a bit and meet some of the most wonderful people in the world. So for that we are thankful.

Dave put together a slide show to show the family and here are some pictures from it...unfortunately we didn't get a digital camera until we got to Germany so I don't have many pics from NC and few pictures from 07-08 since they are in storage...oh well.

Home Sweet Home

So we have been stressing about finding a home, not that we don't love mooching off my parents-but frankly a family of 6 needs their own space and so do the angels who have taken us in...so we made an offer last week and it was accepted and we are SO EXCITED to have a place of our own. We move in July 18th! Here are some pictures of the lovely domicile

It is on the same street as my aunt Kim who has kids the same ages as mine & a wonderful babysitter I am sure we will be taking advantage of (thanks Talia...)

I think this is what drew us the most...the yard isn't huge but the wetland behind us is govt owned so there won't be any houses on it ever. YEAH! So the kids have their own private wilderness and there are some planned trails and a new park going in on one side of the wetland.

Welcome Welcome Sabbath Morning

I love Sundays, especially when we have 9:00 church. The sun is shining, which is rare since instead of June it is Junuary here in the Pacific Northwest. So the kids are enjoying a rare chance to play outside and I am enjoying a quiet house. What better way to feel the spirit, reflect on your day than to listen to music while the sun shines in your window on a Sunday morning.

Things are progressing slowly with the purchase of the practice -I had no idea all the detail that went into buying & starting your own business. So complicated. We have found a few homes we like So we need to buckle down and make decisions. Oh the pressure. This will be our first home-Dave & I have been married 12 years, and since we won't be moving again for a long time...I am feeling so much pressure to get it JUST RIGHT! It has been really fun looking though, so maybe I will look for another week or so before making a decision.


Benj is growing too fast, he got his first taste of solids a few weeks ago and LOVED IT. He can't get enough of food, and always begs for more when the little dish is empty. He is really a good natured baby, except when he is teething. He got his first tooth last week and has been working on his second. SO FUN!

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks:

Benjamin enjoying his first meal!

Bowling on a rainy memorial day

Bella gets a strike!

Bella & Gabby fighting over balls-soon they will be fighting over boys!

My Grandpa Teuscher turned 80 so we had a surprise birthday party for him!

Bella taking Kroll for a walk at the party
David & Rick enjoying the sunshine & warm weather

My gorgous grandma

The lovely magicians assistant Savannah

Hazzah!!

Although the contract has yet to be signed (we are hoping Monday) it is pretty much official that Dave is the proud owner of a dental practice. Can I BE any happier?? I think not. So tonight he is celebrating by taking his #1 son on a much anticipated father & son campout at Beacon Rock state park...no, not Rooster Rock, Beacon Rock. They headed out with much fanfare after dinner was packed and tents and sleeping bags gathered along with Douglas & Hyrum for a little male bonding time among brothers from other mothers....(not my language theirs). So Rebecca (my awesome sister) and I had a tea party with the girlies at her house. Cupcakes to decorate, chocolate milk tea and a my little pony movie made the night so fun that screaming & crying ensued when we had to leave to go to bed. But I am surprisingly stress free, which probably has something to do with the fact that Dave has a dental practice (YEAH YEAH YEAH). All we need now is a new house...

My friend Kailey who still lives in our old neck of the woods went to a midevil festival in one of my favorite cities Rothenburg...and being the awesome photographer she is took beautiful pictures...it made me miss Germany so much, especially this time of year when things are starting to grow. I can just imagine the flowers blooming in windowboxes and fields of gold. Check it out!!

This n That

Benj is starting to scoot a little, he worked so hard to get this toy that he fell asleep-I promise this was not posed!!

What a crazy two weeks...I never knew that being on vacation was so complicated. Actually I did but this is a different kind of vacation-one with school for the kids & entertaining a husband who is bored of trying to work out a practice purchase and helping my mom keep her sanity with 6 extra people in the house. So a brief synopsis of the fun things we have done the last little while:

PASCO PASCO-we love you!

We visited Dave's twin brother in Pasco, WA and we all had a great time. We hadn't seen Aaron & Hollie since 2006, and then it was only for a few days so this was a long-overdue get together. We thoroughly enjoyed staying in their cute house, enjoying the tri-cities sunshine and letting the kids play and play while we visited. We ate at Zip's burgers which Dave loved in high school and had a get together of about 4 other high school friends & their wives. Had to do that at the park since 16 kids makes for crazy loudness.

The girls played so hard that they crashed the entire 4 hour drive home... yeah for us!!

PARK FUN-

The weather was beautiful for a little while and so we had to have some park days & days playing in my parents beautiful backyard. I hope to have my mom's talent with plants...and energy to work in the yard-whew she is a machine!

Enjoying the beautiful weather & mom's backyard

BIRTHDAY COUSINS-

We just can't get enough of the cousin get togethers. I think Dave might be tired of having people over every day but I LOVE IT! And even though there is fighting & bickering at the end of the day there is always "I Love you, don't go, you're my best friend" and that makes the whole event worthwhile.

Jackson's Birthday cake with Tabitha singing!

BI-ZI FARMLAND

A quick trip with my niece Sidney's pre-school to the farm, bella was in her element running from place to place and petting animals. Fun Fun Day!

Bella & the baby chicks...... Do those Lachers look alike or what??

RUNNERS WANTED

I am getting ready to run with my fab cousins/aunties/sisters/mom for TEAM RAQUEL in the Sound to Narrows race, now don't get excited. Running for me is a misnomer-I really jog, very very slowly...flabby flabbiness is a little hard to get in gear but I do what I can. But still it will be fun to run in memory of our beautiful grandmother who we all love & miss so much and that has been great motivation to get up early and enjoy the fresh air.

BUSINESS UPDATES

We are still in the negotiation/finding out details stage of the practice purchase which is frustrating...it is taking a long time because this was a sudden decision on the part of the selling dentist so he was very unprepared to sell. But we are hoping that in the next 2-3 weeks to have all the kinks worked out and for Dave to start working again...although in his spare time he has managed to clean my parents yard of debris from the winter, clean out the gutters, check the roof to spray with moss, volunteer 3 days a week mentoring dental students at OHSU, fix broken chairs, work on another class for his MBA and help me with the kids every day so he has kept pretty busy. That's my Dave, he isn't happy unless he is busy busy. Love him!!

Miss Avery of the messy faces!

Jobs, Homes, Stress, etc.

Benjiroo 4 months old!!

I know I haven't posted in near to forever...that is what happens when you are "on vacation". Although there are a few bloggers I read who are die hards and do post when they are out & about-which I love so I can still get my blogging fix even though my blog remains silent. Not me though. I am a routine person...and that not only goes for what I do during the day but also what I eat, I like to eat the same things for breakfast every morning, have the same things at my favorite restaurants...etc. So when my routine is thrown off I am pretty much a complete mess.

Catching up, we are still here mooching off my parents. I have stayed here longer though, when I came home to visit from Germany in 06 we stayed for over 8 weeks...that was because we couldn't catch a military flight back (which are free) and had to suck it up and buy commercial tickets so our trip lasted longer than planned. But anyway, it has been fun being here, I love that my brothers & sisters are close and we can party every day, that is totally new for me. And I love being with my mom all day, we share the housework and we both love to cook so we have been having fun planning meals. We have been looking at houses and found a few that we like and a practice that we are just waiting on numbers & etc. so we can decide if it is the one we want to buy. The whole thing is such a process and it is difficult to wait sometimes. We do have faith that everything will work out, it just isn't always clear how it will work out or HOW LONG it is going to take. But we are both grateful we saved all this vacation time the last 4 years so we can have a 3 month vacation while we finalize the rest of our life.

We have gotten up to Seattle to see Dave's parents and visited with all the grandparents. We hadn't seen Dave's grandparents since 2006 so that was nice to visit with them and visit with my grandparents too.

Last week David had a rocket derby at cub scouts, he is in a great cub scout pack and is having fun with that. One of the other boys in the pack is the son of a guy I grew up in the same ward with-surreal.

David & JR Scukanic (John's son) doing a skit

The rockets...
The girls coloring at the rocket derby-big surprise

Savannah is loving school and has made a little neighborhood friend that she loves to play with. She love love loves her teacher and fits right in with a group of girls in her class.

Bella is loving life at home being spoiled by grandma. She is learning to share toys with cousins and play nice with others since she has been the solo one at home for so long this is kind of a new concept and she is loving having all the kids around to play with.

This week the littlest man turned 4 months. He is rolling over, and loves to stand up and play in his exersaucer, until he hits his nose on a toy since he still is wobbly bobbly.

As for me I have discovered how comforting 5 little m & m's are when you are stressed...the downside being that 5 m & m's over the course of the day can if you are not careful turn into 50 m & m's...

Now that this has been way too long, I promise to keep the blog updated more frequently.

A-dios