First Day of School

Carrin's first day of First grade! Clarissa's first day of Fourth grade! With both the girls at school all day, Chase and I are going to miss them like crazy. When is the next holiday??

Stitches

Yesterday was the first time we took Chase to the Emergency Room. We were walking out the back door to go to the bank when he tripped and fell head first onto the girls metal scooter. He split his head open and being a head wound there was a large amount of blood! After a couple quick phone calls, to Joe, and then to Niki who took the girls, we were off to the ER. The PA observed Chase and told us the cut was almost to the bone and stitches were required...the fun begins... strapping a little boy down, screaming, tears, mom getting light headed, three stitches, and 3 hours later we were on our way home. Little man was trooper through it all!

Cali Vacation

Story time with Grandma Storrs, how I wish we could have that every night. Thanks for taking the time to read to the kids mom, they loved it! My baby sister Briette, not so afraid of the camera. :) We spent some time with our friend the Estrada's and had a few minutes to see my B.F.F Afton (long funny story behind that one) She taught us a few new dog tricks to try on dad! We stayed at my sister Tiffani's house swam in her cool rock pool, played with Flappy, and had story time with Uncle Brent. We also stayed with the Dyer's and the Peterson's gotta love having so much family in So. Cal there is always a place to stay, and the kids love the time with the cousins. We were able to spend a few hours with the Woolf's, yummy pizza and fun swimming. We had a great time visiting Grandpa Nelson, we ate a Lucille's our favorite southern style BBQ restaurant, we also ate at Jim's a staple restaurant in the Nelson family, and a BBQ at grandpa nelsons. Our friends the Goldsberry's,and the Bishops and also my sisters Cherisse and Briette came over and we played "corn hole" and broke a couple of grandpa pots....sorry! All in all it was a great time.

TILLY

After much debate on getting a new dog, the kids finally won and we have a new dog. She seems to be fitting right in with the kids and they are enjoying every minute they get to play with her. I found her listed on craigs list, her previous owner was not home during the day and her homeowners association would not let her keep Tilly. It was a hard separation for the previous owner, but we a glad that she is a part of the family now. She is an eight month old Chinese Crested dog with apricot coloring and white feet. She is full grown at 7lbs. She not been house trained so I have some work to do there. Other than that she is very calm and quiet as long as other dogs are not around :) Going on walks should be a joy.

Happy Birthday to you

Yesterday was Clarissa's 9th birthday! I thought I would update the blog with some random picture of Rissa. We had her party at "The Bouncy Place" with friends...pictures of that will have to come later... When I have a chance to download the pictures. Happy Birthday Rissa, We love YOU!

Brian Regan

For my birthday this year, Shalyn and I went over to see Brian Regan perform over at the Marymoor Park in Redmond. We absolutley loved it. Some friends of ours back in So Cal turned us on to him last year. He's great because his humor is clean, and freakin' hilarious!!! I think part of what makes him so funny is the way he is so animated. For the So Cal friends, he is going to be in Temecula on August 7th!

Check out some of these links:

Doctor Visit , Brian Regan on Flying , Emergency Room This is just a small sample...go to You Tube and search for Brian Regan. Those of you that have Netflix, add one of his DVD's to your queue. Fun Stuff!!!

A Visit from Grandma!

We were all lucky to have Grandma Storrs visit us this past weekend! She left sunny San Diego and fortunately came up to a sunny Seattle. As soon as she got off of the plane the activities started: we went to the Seattle Center where we went to the EMP (Paul Allen's Experience Music Project ) and the Science Museum. After that, we had a late lunch at the Sky City restaurant - at the top of the Space Needle. The kids have been begging to go up to the top of the Space Needle since we moved up to Washington - we finally did it! And they LOVED it! On Saturday, we got up and went to our favorite breakfast at The Testy Chef Cafe in Maple Valley. We all had a great time eating in the patio overlooking the Cedar River. After breakfast it was time to get the girls home to prepare for their dance recital. That was certainly the highlight of the weekend. Both Clarissa and Carrin did an outstanding job. That night, after the recital, we enjoyed pizza at The Rock over in Covington. After dinner, the kids and dad got on the bikes while mom & grandma walked after them up to the various parks within our community. As obvious from the pictures and the video, they had a great time! Finally, after going to Church on Sunday morning, we enjoyed a visit to the Snoqualmie Falls. As the weather was nice all weekend, it was a another perfect day to be outside!

Needless to say, the timing of the visit was brilliant - arriving the day after we lost Roxie. We did a LOT in just 2 1/2 days!!! It was the perfect distraction to get the family to move forward. Thanks Mom!

Remembering Lil' Roxie Dog

Just over five years ago, we were fortunate to gain a new family member - our dog Roxie. The only reason we considered getting a dog was because of all of the overseas traveling that I was doing at the time. Shalyn wanted an extra companion at home to keep her company. Clarissa's 4th birthday was the perfect excuse to invite the dog into the home. Shalyn found the toy poodle in the PennySaver (So Cal weekly mailer) for a nominal fee. There was a lot of hesitation on my part about having a dog in the house (I'm a clean freak - so the idea of a dog in the house didn't seem like a hot idea at the time). With training, however, she seemed to become like another family member to us - in the house. For the first year, we kept her in her kennel ever night. After that first year, and for the last four years in a row, Roxie has slept with Clarissa in her bed - EVERY NIGHT! These pictures here only give a glimpse of the bond that was created with this silly little dog. Those of you out there that know us well can appreciate how close she was to us. Sadly, she was struck by a car this afternoon while running across the street to get to Clarissa. Shalyn said that she (and the girls) watched as she looked up before resting her head for the last time. Needless to say, this is an extraordinary dramatic event for our little family - especially for the girls. Tonight, it is difficult for them to understand that Roxie won't be running to greet us at the door anymore. And poor lil' Rissa, not having Roxie at her feet during the night will be tough to get used to. How lucky we were to have created such a fun and rewarding relationship with that little dog. As I told the girls tonight, we were truly blessed to have such a great friend for so long.

Little Ones

Chase looks really big today, so I

had too remind myself that he was once really little! Why can't they stay small for

just a little bit longer???

Carbon River

We took a trip in the Jeep this Memorial Day together with a friend from work, Will Bockelman and his wife Adel (Will coincidentally also worked with me in Southern California while I was at Schlosser Forge). We took the two CJ's PLUS OUR FAMILIES on a trip to the Carbon River Ranger Station - just outside the Mt. Rainier National Park. Our original destination was to Evan's Creek ORV park, where off-road trails are a plenty. However, we got to a point where the abundance of snow in the trail prevented us from getting all the way. So we have an excuse to go back again soon. That is when we changed plans and made it over to the Carbon River Ranger Station. There, we had our picnic lunch and then did a nature walk. The girls got to satisfy the requirements from the Park Ranger to qualify to become Junior Rangers...needless to say, they were ecstatic about that. It was a memorable trip to yet another one of the many Northwest adventures...