Christmas at Sea World

Since we were in So Cal already we decided to make the most of our visit and take the kids over to Sea World. They like it a lot and there's lot's of educational opportunities so we gave it a go. Of course the kids had to drag me on to the Atlantis roller coaster ride. They keep hoping that I'm going to scream like a little girl. Anyway, there was lot's to see and everyone had a great time. Here are some of the pictures from that day.

Kristmas Visit with Kunzes!

Finally! We're actually close enough to visit California more than once a year! We took the opportunity to visit So Cal. for the dual purpose of seeing our Kunz family and also to celebrate Leslie's mom's 85th birthday. We had a great time and I'll let the pictures say the 1,000 words.

1st Christmas Back in AZ

I'm jumping from "moving in" to Christmas because the time just blew by! We've been frantically unpacking boxes as quickly as we can and of course we're still not done! And what do we do about it? That's right... we go out and get more stuff to put in our house! Oh, well! I can't fight it, but I look forward to finding discarded toys in the months ahead! Bwa ha ha haaa!!!

I see you looking at my toys!
"Ain't I cute!"
Just what I need in AZ, snow boots!
I hope no one notices my red eyes!

Back to Arizona (Aug & Sep)

The family spent all of July in California while our new house in AZ was being built. I flew down from Seattle and drove them all to Mesa to get them ready to start school. As part of our relocation package, my company included up to 60 days of temporary housing. We spent the first two weeks in a Hampton Inn Hotel until there was an opening at a Corporate Housing condo in Mesa.

I had to go back and forth from Arizona to Washington because I was moving my company's Data Center down to Scottsdale and I was managing it from the Washington end. I also had to handle the sale of our house up there. After I got it all moved I was finally able to get back to Mesa for good.

We were able to watch our house being finished and that was fun. I have included some pictures for you to see. I'll write more later.

Moving (How to get your house clean!)

Here's the latest in my installments to move this blog forward in time instead of simply "jumping" to the present!

Leslie and I packed everyone up in the van and headed off to California. We worked our tails off and got the house ready to be sold. We were exhausted! For those of you that actually visited, the place was probably cleaner than you remember. We decided to get everyone out and stay out so that we could keep the place clean and ready to be shown. For those of you that didn't know, we sold the house after it being on the market for 18 days! We also, thank you Lord!, got our full asking price. The house is just a memory now, but we enjoyed it while we were there. For those of you who never saw it, here's what it looked like!

Here's our bedroom.

Here's our kitchen/dining room.

Here's our family room.

Here's the music room.

Mikey's 1st Album

Mikey has grown so much during our years in Washington. He's become quite the musician and he really wanted to record some songs with his friends from the Life Teen Band, Truthful Reign. Mikey got together with them all on a Saturday in the church and recorded a number of his favorite Christian songs as well as some of his own original material. He had a great time doing it and is looking forward to the next time he gets the chance to record some music! If you want to here some of his work, send me an email and I'll work out how to get the music to you.

Pomp and Circumstance

It's hard to imagine, but Rebekah's preschool time is over and she is graduating on to Kindergarten! She went to a great little school called Sunshine Mountain and she had a great time there. She learned a lot of neat things there and made a lot of friends. She will miss them when we move to Arizona over the summer.

Mikey's B-Day

Once again we had a nice birthday party for Mike and a bunch of his buddies from the Life Teen program at St. John's came on over. It's been a hectic time with his confirmation and all the other activities, but we all had a great time as you can see from the pictures.

Public Service Announcement

For those of you who have come back here looking at this poor abandoned Blog, your patience will be rewarded. Anyone familiar with this blog is aware that we are no longer in Washington, but have moved to Arizona. I will keep the name of the blog the same but will continue to post our family info here to share with our large, extended family. Thank You for your patience. You will see some entries here to document the transition of where I left off with this blog and bring you forward to today. Bye!

Johnny

Mikey's Confirmation (5/9/2007)

Mike worked long and hard and finally made it to his confirmation day. We are so proud of him! The Bishop really put a lot of the kids "on the spot" asking them some hard questions. Mikey did just fine. He showed us all that he was ready for this day. Here are some more pictures of his confirmation. His sponsor is Jim Battles. Jim was the man that walked up,greeted and welcomed Leslie and I when we were looking for a church to settle into in Washington. He is very invloved in the Life Teen program and the teens love him. Mikey was very happy to have him as his sponsor. I know that Mikey chose well.

Like Father, Like Daughter (I wish!)

I don't want everyone to get the idea that this Blog is just about Christopher. All Christopher, all the time. I just seem to wind up doing things with him. After our Canada trip, Sarah had a Track Meet the following weekend.

Now I'd like to think that she got her speed from me, but I was more of a distance runner. Nevertheless, she is quite the sprinter. Her team was competing with several different Catholic schools in the Catholic Youth Oranization(CYO). Sarah competed in the long jump, softball throw, and several sprinting events. Sarah competed in the 100 and 200 meter races. She also participated in the 400 meter relay race with older 4th graders because of her speed. She did really well and got 1st place in the 100 meter race. I tried to get her picture, but she was just going by too fast! This was the best I could do. The blur in the center of the lower picture is Sarah blazing by me. You can see her in the middle of the upper picture as well, but you can't tell that she is pulling away from people at that angle. I'm looking forward to watching her continue.

We're here to hike Aay! (Canada Here We Come) April 21-22

Christopher and I had a nice trip to Canda with the Boy Scouts over the weekend. We meet the other boys and carpooled up from Kent, WA to Vancouver,BC for a weekend, overnight hiking trip. What a joy it was riding up with a carload of boys for the 5 hour drive. NOT! Well, ok it wasn't too bad. Our only complaint was the owner of the van's precious little boy was a raving lunatic that picked on several of the boys riding in the van including Christopher. I intervened when I just couldn't take it anymore, but the kid's Dad let a whole lot of craziness go on without a word.

We all had to setup tents as soon as we arrived and then setup the kitchen and the Troop "station" as well. This event had a large number of "stations" that were all manned by individual troops and they all had different games, tests, and scenarios for the scouts to do. Our troop had an obstacle cource where they visiting scouts were given several items and told that one of their group had been injured and that the remaining scouts had to create a litter or stretcher and carry the injured scout through the obstacle course with hitting any barriers. They had to place a raw egg behind the injured scout's neck as they were transporting him through the course to make it a bit more difficult.

The new scouts had to make dinner for the rest of the us, so Chris and the other new scouts got busy and learned how to make spagetti for everyone. Once everyone got their dinner we all got ready to hike. We broke into small groups, got our trail maps and headed out.

He got to our first station and they weren't even ready for us! We helped them out by stringing some twine for them and helping put together spider webs of twine as well. They gave us "full points" for helping and we were on our way to the next station. We managed to get to a few stations and then it got dark. We got to one station that had an obstacle course that was crazy! That just meant that the scouts loved it. The station clipped a padlock onto a climbing line and told the scouts that they had to get the lock all the way to the other end. The line wound around trees, up a rope ladder and all around the area! They all had to work together to get through the course and they all had a great time doing it.

They did another station where they needed to pick a "victim" to transport them through some obstacles. Of course, they picked Christopher since he was the smallest scout in our group. They put him in their makeshift stretcher and carried him over some obstacles. They had to carry him while walking on milk crates to simulate walking across rocks. As you can see, he enjoyed the trek. He made it through the test in one piece and didn't get dropped.

There were enough stations setup so that the scouts could be up all night hiking to all the stations. We hiked through about half the stations when we got back to our home station. We checked in and decided to call it a night at around 11:45 pm. We had to get up early the next morning and we were the last ones up and packed to leave. We had an uneventful drive back and of course all the scouts in the van conked out and slept. It was a really fun trip and I'm sure we won't forget it!

Permission to come aboard Sir! (March 24)

Christopher had another nice outing with Boy Scouts! In later March he had the opportunity to visit the Coast Guard base in Seattle and spend the night. He was very excited and had a great time. They had a great turn out with almost 30 boys attending. The base commander is the dad of one of the scouts in Chris's troop and he arranged the whole thing.

We started over early Saturday morning and got right down to work. They split the scouts into two groups to make them manageable and then Chris went off and learned about finger printing. The scouts all seemed to enjoy it and after they had practiced their techniques they went and had a safety talk with a Coast Guard "Chief".

Chris and the rest of the scouts all really enjoyed eating at the Coast Guard commisary. He and the rest of the Scouts "chowed down". You should have seen the grins on the Coast Guard personnel!

After they all stuffed themselves we all had an opportunity to check out some of the smaller craft that they use for patroling the coastal waters in Puget Sound. Afterwards we all got to go aboard one of their larger vessels for a guided tour. The young officer who gave us the tour was the chief technician on board and was a former Boy Scout who had grown up in the area. He was very nice and took us all around the ship to see the various areas. It was neat to see the kitchen, crews quarters, laundry area, and the bridge. There were lots of good questions being asked and all the Scouts seemed quite interested in everything. Grandpa Kunz, being a former Navy man, would have been proud!