The Pemberton Post

Joel's Birthday

2008-04-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

So my wonderful hubby Joel turned 33 on Thursday. He had a good day, went golfing and then had dinner with family. Here are a few pics from his day. Jeiven got him some boxing gloves so they have been having a lot of fun hurting each other!
I attempted to make him a cake, but it was so hard to find enough concentrated time to do it. I think that is going to be a big problem with 3 rascals :)
I didn't have the right colors for my icing, so he had a dirt track with a street bike. Oh well, what can you do?

We ended up having dinner on Friday night with our friends James and Jaimee at the Adrift in Anacortes.. such a good place, then we came back and watched the newest LOST episode. All in all a good night.

Malea's birithday

2008-04-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that my girl is 3! I took the day off from spending time with Finley so hang with Malea. It was a difficult day. Malea has been having a very hard time with me being gone so much. I was hoping that having a day with me would help, but she was very trying. I took her down to see Finley and then we had lunch and went shopping for some summer clothes. She came home and went to the park with Joel and then we had Joel's parents, my parents, her cousin Harleigh and her auntie Kendra over for pizza and cake. Here are a few pics.

Finley's blog

2008-04-02T18:52:00.000-07:00

I have started a blog to keep you all informed about Finley. You can read all about what happened and get all the details.

http://finleyfacts.blogspot.com

update...

2008-03-29T09:45:00.000-07:00

I had my doctor's appointment yesterday and thankfully there hasn't been much change since last week's appointment. I am still 3cm dilated and now 60% effaced. So I am still on strict bedrest for another 9 days, then we will switch to modified bedrest for 7 days.. then back to some freedom. After 36 weeks they will just let me go so we may still have this rascal early.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts and prayers! They obviously worked.
I will continue to keep you posted if anything changes.

love to all!

bumps in the road....

2008-03-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

Well I guess it's time for an update. Things have been going great around here. The kids are doing great. Life has thrown us a little bump in the road...I have been placed on bedest for at least the next two weeks. I had been having contractions pretty regularly and when I went to the doctor this last Friday, I was dilated to 3cm already. I am only 33 weeks now so we have to try and hold her in until at least 35 weeks.

I would have to say that being on bedrest has always been a lingering nightmare and it sucks!

I know that this is what is best for our little munchkin but man it is hard. I have never been a big TV watcher so daytime televsion doesn't really appeal to me and you can only do so many crosswords and word searches in a day. I have already polished off one book and just started another.

Joel has been incredible. He is still trying to work as much as he can, plus do all the cleaning and cooking. He really is amazing. We have had some help from friends too, which has been nice.

I am pretty much trying to go day by day. I promise I will keep you posted. I have another appointment on Friday. If I have dilated any more, there is a chance I will be sent to Seattle as our small hospital doesn't have the neo-natal care that she would need. Pray, if you are a praying type!

The kids are getting excited for the new baby sister. They have been so much fun lately and seem to be adjusting ok to this all.

I will post a few pics of them from the last little while. Jeiven has lost his two front teeth, he is growing WAY too fast!

updates

2008-01-28T13:11:00.000-08:00

Ok, so much for doing this on a regular basis!

I just don't seem to have enough energy! Lame excuse, I know.

Life is moving at what feels like the speed of light. I can't believe that it is almost February already. We are doing great. Christmas flew by, we hosted our first Christmas here at the house and it was great. I realized how unprepared I am for hosting that many people and will have to get some things figured out before my family comes out in August. There will be 19 of us here at the house so it will be busy but I am very much looking forward to it.

I thought I had blogged about this.. but it must have just been good intentions. :)
We are having another girl. We had an ultrasound on January 2nd and everything is looking fine. I have another ultrasound on Wednesday to get a better look at the heart, as she was laying funny. The kids are excited but scared. Jeiven cried when he found out it was a girl.. he really wanted a brother. He says he is over it now but admits he is nervous that I won't have any time for him once the new baby is born.. I told him if he "helps" me with stuff it will make it easier. Who knows how that will all play out. Thankfully we have 3 more months to figure it out.

I am still adjusting to life at home. I have great days where I love being here with the kids and other days when I long to go back to work. I am sure all stay at home moms have good and bad days so I am taking it as it is.

Starting tomorrow I will get the feeling of what it is like to have a baby around again. My dear friend Jaimee is returning to her nursing job two days a week and I am going to take care of little Noah for her. Malea is thrilled, as she can't get enough of him. It should be good, he is a great baby.

We have a snow day today as it snowed about a inch and a half and that is enough to shut down the world in Washington :) The kids and I had fun out in the snow this morning.

Well, I would say that I will try to keep this updated better, but we all know it probably is unlikely. :)
Hope you are all well. Here are some pictures from the last while.

Settling, birthday and Christmas..

2007-12-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

Well we are getting settled. Still can't park in the garage and we don't have pictures on the wall.. but it is coming together. It has been so nice to have some extra space and see my belongings again. ( the last place we stayed in was fully furnished so I haven't seen my stuff in a while)

We have internet and phone again so that is nice. No more standing out in the rain to talk on the phone.

So a little updating. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Joel's sister was able to join us and it was great to see her back as herself again after all this time.

I celebrated another birthday.. they seem to come a little too quickly. :)

Joel and I were able to get away for a few nights thanks to Joel's parents taking the kids for a while. We went up to Birch Bay and just relaxed, did some christmas shopping, went to see a movie ( I can't remember when the last time was that we did that), had some nice dinners out and were accompanied by our dear friends James and Jaimee for one evening.

Since then we have put up the tree and decorated the house all nice and festive. We had our first snow fall on Sunday so the kids had fun. Not enough to make a snow man, but still fun.

Ok, well I will post a few house pictures, some treefarm pics and such.

love you all.

Keys..

2007-11-16T10:54:00.000-08:00

I have in my hand a set of keys for the house! We are starting to move tomorrow so I will probably be offline for a while until I can figure out the whole internet thing.

I am so excited, I could burst.

:)

I will make sure to post pictures once everything is done and in.

Jeiven

2007-11-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

So I am labeling this post Jeiven because mostly I want to brag. That is what blogging is for right :)

So we had Jeiven's first parent/teacher conference today. I admit I was nervous. It is easy to have a skewed opinion about your child and I think it's hard to have someone else weigh in on how you are raising them. I survived. It actually went pretty good. The big thing that I was nervous about was that his potential would have been missed or that he is bored and acting out with misbehavior. I am happy to report that his teacher has noticed that he is very bright and that he is doing very well with his behavior ( for the most part) and he is following the rules too.

Let me give you an idea of what this kid is like ( and how dumb is mother is... :)
Last week we were having a conversation and he was telling me that he NEVER kills insects. I respond with "Yes you do! You kill spiders all the time"! He looks at me with disgust and says" Mom, spiders are not insects, they are arachnids. There is a big difference between the two. Insects have three body parts and 6 legs, and spiders have two body parts and 8 legs. If you don't believe me, you can look online". Well he was right. Am I in for trouble or what?

Things are going well otherwise. We have our niece here this week so that has been a bit of a challenge.. three kids.. I don't know how some of you have your kids SO close together.. I think I would go insane.
Nothing new on the house.. we are still set to move in the week of the 19th.

That's it :)

anyone left?

2007-10-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

Ok.. I admit it. This is a bit ridiculous. My last post was September 7th? I am sorry.. Is there anyone left that actually checks this thing?

So life has been good. I honestly haven't had an extra ounce of energy left in my day to update this thing. There is a reason for that ( so cut me some slack..) I am pregnant again with number 3. I have been feeling very miserable with morning, day and night sickness and NO energy at all. I think I am close to turning a corner. I am 12 weeks now so I should only have a few more until things get better. I am crossing my fingers. We had an ultrasound a few weeks ago and severly dissapointed Jeiven, who was convinced that God told him we were having twins.

Last time I posted about Jeiven's school experiences. I am happy to report that he is doing very well and actually enjoying himself. He seems to have made a lot of little friends too which is fun for him.

House.. is almost done. They gave us a move in week of the 19th of November. That is our thanksgiving week so it would be so nice to be in by then! They don't really have that much left to do so I think it is really possible! We have had the joy of furniture and appliance shopping, which is hard. We had to buy a fridge and we have all these extra rooms to fill now. We haven't bought any furniture yet but spent the entire day yesterday in Seattle looking around. The kids were such troopers :)

Jeiven has his Halloween carnival at school on Friday. It was just a fun little thing for him as well as Malea.
Ok I will post some pictures of the house and the kids in their costumes.

anxiety

2007-09-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

So Jeiven is now fully immersed into the world of Kindergarten and fabulous education :)
My job as a parent is to help him understand the importance of it and calm his fears. What I want to do is protect him. He had his second day yesterday and he didn't really like it. Can't say that I blame him . I took him into the school and was told that from this point forward, parents are not allowed to bring their children inside. Instead they are suppose to be dropped off at the door, walk through the school to the outside playground and put their backpacks in a special line and wait out there until the bell rings. So I took him out to the back playground and he couldn't find anyone that he had met the day before and it was just lots of old kids everywhere. But I had to leave him there. It just feels like I am releasing him to the wolves! They had 3 drills ( earthquake, fire, lockdown) I would be scared too. I never thought of myself as an over protective mother but man..
My biggest fear with him is that he will begin to stop excelling. Jeiven can read at a third grade level already and I just don't want him to blend in. Is that bad?

Ok enough about that.. Our house is coming along nicely. The sheetrock is pretty much done. I met with my friend Alexis, who is an interior designer and we picked out colors for the house. Very fun! Here are some sheetrock pictures.

first day of school....

2007-09-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

Well we made it (or should I say I made it) through Jeiven's first day of Kindergarten. He had a half day today. He attends on Monday all day, Wed half day and Thursday all day. He says that he had a lot of fun, but of course doesn't remember anyone that he met. Here are some pictures of his first day.

blogger issues...and more

2007-09-01T10:20:00.000-07:00

Ok so first of all, that last post hasn't been posting.. and I was VERY irritated so I haven't tried to fix it until today. I messed up the html somehow and it wouldn't post.

Let's see. Life is beginning to get back to normal. Some stuff has happened since I last blogged. Joel went back to work last week after his sabattical, Jeiven went to his kindergarten orientation, Joel and I had our 9th anniversary on the 22nd, and our house is making some crazy progress. They have the sheet rock up and are taping and mudding right now.

That is about it. Nothing terribly exciting. For those of you that have been nagging me to blog..sorry to dissapoint :)

Here are some pics of things.

vacation, reunion and house..

2007-08-13T12:48:00.000-07:00

Summer is flying by at an alarming speed! Joel and I and the kids just got back from a very long vacation.. three weeks in total. We had a great time reconnecting with some old friends in Montana, visiting with Joel's parents in Canmore, seeing an old friend from elementary school, and then seeeing my parents and brother, sister in law and my neices as well as many cousins and aunts and uncles.

We came back to a house that made a lot of progress while we were gone, and arrived home so we could attend our 10 year reunion from CBC. I got to reconnect with 5 of my roomies from my second year and it was so nice to see them.

Here are some photographs of the vacation, reunion and the house :)

update

2007-07-09T08:52:00.000-07:00

Ok.. first I must apologize to those of you that are faithful with checking this blog.. I can't believe how long it has been! We have moved. We are living in the most enjoyable place for the summer. It is RIGHT on the beach! Weather in washington for the last week has been wonderful so it has been very pleasant. We have been catching crab ( yum-yum), our kids legs and knees show evidence of hours of beach barnicale play, and Joel and I have enjoyed many evenings outside with the outdoor fireplace. God has truly blessed us with an incredible place to hang our hats until our construction is done. I don't have the great pictures of this house on this computer and Joel has the camera with him this week (he is on a solo backpack trip) so this one will have to do.

Construction on our house is moving very quickly. They are almost done framing. They haven't given us an estimated time for completion but we are hoping to be in by Christmas. Here is a picture that I took on Friday.

Things are great with the kids too. I am officially at full time stay at home mom. Things have been good so far. I have been trying to do playdates and such to keep myself busy. I have noticed a big change in my kids since I have been home. Especially Malea. They are the ones that will benefit the most from me being home. We went to the parade with them on the 4th and they had a blast. Who doesn't love candy? We also just took a camping trip with Joel's parents and our neice Harleigh to Eastern Washington. I feel like the summer has been busy already!

Ok. I get real internet hooked up here at the house this afternoon so I will make sure to update more often. Thanks for being so patient with me :)

moving and such

2007-06-04T13:33:00.000-07:00

We started the daunting task of moving this last weekend. We rented a storage unit as the place we are renting for the next 6 or so months is furnished, and so we started hauling the contents of our house there. The kids were very excited to see the place where our things will be "staying". As they were running in circles on the concrete, it donned on me that they have never had a garage to run around in. They were hilarious.. they could have spent hours just running circles. They will have plenty of room to do laps in our new house as it comes standard with a three car garage.. not sure who ever has three cars but not us. Here is a picture of them running circles.

As far as the moving goes, I will finish packing up stuff in the house this week and we will officially be out this next weekend.

The kids have been alot of fun lately. Malea has been much happier and more lovely. I really think that the lack of sleep from her move to the bed was having a major impact on her daytime behavior. (we have since switched her back to the crib). Now that is not to say that she isn't still her wild self, but she is happier than she was before. Yesterday she decided that she needed a new place to hide so she took all the clothes out of the dryer and threw them on the floor and got inside.. I hear this "help" coming from the laundry room and there she is.. she couldn't get out. yeah.. that's Malea for you.

It was really nice here the last week too, of course until today, so we have been outside in the yard alot, which is her element. Jeiven has two weeks left of preschool and then he is off for the summer. Lots happening in the next two weeks, but all good :)

long weekend

2007-05-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

So another long weekend has come and gone :( As I sit here and type this and think about going to work tomorrow I am not very happy that it is all over.... We had a good weekend. On Friday night we had dinner at the committee chair of Anacortes YD ( Dave and Sharon's) and they happen to have a full size pool in their backyard which was heated to 89 degrees. The kids, Joel and Dave spent a good portion of the early evening in it and had a great time.

Saturday Joel started moving stuff to the storage unit and I started packing.. yippee and then in the evening we had our friends James and Jaimee over for dinner.

Sunday we were over at Joel's parents for dinner in the evening and today we got up early and took the kids to the beach and walked the loop out at Washington park. The loop walk is pretty uphill for a good portion so we take the stroller and Jeiven tries to walk/run part of it and then he gets pushed for the rest of it. When he was getting in today him and Malea banged into each other somehow and it was just so sweet to watch her nurture him. She was like "buddy are you ok?" and then she proceeded to put her arm around him and rub his back. For all the times that they try to kill each other it is nice to see that they do care for each other when it counts.

When we got home from our walk Joel cleaned the gutters( one of the contingencies of our house closing) and I packed some more.. Then we headed over to James and Jaimee's for a BBQ. They make the most incredible shrimp that you have ever had.. as I sit here and type I am craving them.. ohh they are so good. The kids love it at their house as they have a dog and the kids just go crazy for him.

Well that is it in a nutshell :) We are planning on moving this next weekend so life will be busy but things are great

Birthday boy and other stuff

2007-05-23T08:11:00.001-07:00

So my little baby turned 5 on Monday. Man did that go fast! My parents promised Jeiven that they would come for this 5th birthday ( and he didn't forget that promise) so even with their very busy schedules, they made the trip to his party on Saturday. We had it at this very cool place called the Children's Museum in Mount Vernon which is about a 30 minute drive from us here in a Anacortes. It has all sorts of educational stuff for kids as well as an indoor sandbox, thomas the train set, art station., and an actual big rig truck. Jeiven was in heaven. There were 13 kids at the party so it was busy but he loved it. He keeps talking about it over and over again and he is a very thankful kid so he says" thanks mom for my party.. it was SO fun".

Nascar was the car of choice this year so I caked again... It was fun :) Here are some pictures from the party

In other news... we found a place to live! YAY. Our friends the Gentry's parents have a beach house that is unoccupied currently so they are going to let us rent it until the house is ready. It is furnished too so we can put our stuff in storage and not have to move it in and out twice. The place is great. It is right on the beach with an outdoor fireplace and crabpots and everything so we will have a good time this summer with the kids as Joel is on his sabbatical. It has three bedrooms so the kids will have their own space..which is much needed! We are suppose to be out of our current place on the 15th of June so we have a few more weeks to pack.

Nothing new on the house project yet. Getting a little frustrated but I just have to let it go.. it will happen when it happens :) Here are a few more pictures of the kids with my parents and some of Malea.

Permits :)

2007-05-12T18:21:00.000-07:00

So those of you that know me pretty well know that I am pretty obsessive about things. Like when I am waiting for something.. like an email let's say, I will check my inbox 100 times an hour. Well let's just say I have been a little anal about checking on our permits :) Our county has a handy little website where you can check the status of your permits. They check off the required things as they do them and then they say "approved" or waiting for review". Well.. let's just say that I have been just a tad bit obsessed with the website and check it a few too many times a day. Well last night before we went to bed.. it changed. We now have PERMITS!!!!! Our full building permit has been approved which I think means that we can start building here as soon as the builder is ready. We met with them on Monday and picked out lots of fun stuff so after the long wait it is finally starting to feel real!

Our house in very close to closing. We have an anticipated closing date of June 1st-June 15th depending on their financing. We are not sure where we are going to go yet, but we have a couple of options on the table.

It was a gorgeous day in Washington today so Joel and I took the kids for a walk on the loop and then let them play on the beach . They just love being outdoors!!

Daughter.....

2007-05-09T20:59:00.000-07:00

I should start this by saying that I LOVE my daughter. She is a hoot. She has the most hilarious personality and she is so kind and gentle ( when she chooses to be). With that being said.. she has been SO difficult lately. Our pediatrician labeled her as "Strong willed" when he saw her a few weeks ago and he pretty much has it right. Examples: I took her to the grocery store the other day and she wanted to walk.. well I have only so much time in my day to spend at the store... ( she would take forever looking at all the stuff and removing it from the shelves). So we compromise. I park as far away from the door as possible so she can walk to the store and then she gets in the coolest carts ever ( they are shaped like cars for kids.. I am sure almost everyone has seen these). Ok so last week it just wasn't going to happen. We get out of the car and she says like always" I want to walk". So she walks to the door and when I go to put her in the cart she freaks out, throws herself down on the ground and screams bloody hell for a long time.... Oh the joys.

Well it gets better. As I said she has been moved to the big girl bed and it isn't going so well. Last night was terrible. It was 10:30 and she was still awake. She climbed up into Jeiven's bed and was tickling him trying to wake him up... She doesn't really care if you spank her or whatever. She just keeps getting out.

Today Jeiven had a play date with his friend from preschool. I brought along her pack-n-play to put her down for a nap. Didn't work. She got out and was playing with toys and eating kitty litter. She didn't sleep at all and so by 6:00 she was a nightmare. I had company for dinner which of course makes it so enjoyable when you have a cranky 2 year old. Her other new thing is playing in the potty. She won't sit on it but she will play in it. It used to be fine because she couldn't open the doors or the lids but now it's all fair game.

Ok I am done venting :)

Crazy life

2007-05-02T14:26:00.000-07:00

So for those of you that actually check this thing on a regular basis.. (thanks Carmen), please forgive me for being so terrible and not adding anything for so long. I have been waiting for my mother-in-law to send me pictures from Joel's birthday( as I forgot the camera.. something about chasing two kids out the door)and I felt so bad about not posting on here about his birthday ( sorry honey) that I have just been putting it off now for too long.. so It was Joel's 32nd birthday on April 24th, and I don't have any pictures for you so you are going to have just imagine that we had a good time. We had dinner over at the Pemberton's and that was about it this year. Over the last 9 years Joel and I have made it a tradition to "go-away" for birthdays, anniversaries and so forth but somehow in the last few years it just hasn't happened. It's sad really.... :( We will do it again, I am determined..

so on to other things. Jeiven had registration for Kindergarten last Friday and that was interesting. The made him take all of these tests and such and he was of course brilliant at the cognitive stuff, reading readiness, ( he is already reading) and fine motor skills, but he didn't fair so well at the gross motor skills. I come to find out that he can't skip or hop on one foot! In all of my working with him to be smart, I forgot to teach him to be a boy! shame on me :) Most of you know that Joel is blessed with being able to take a mini working sabbatical this summer so you can only imagine what we will be working on this summer :)These two pictures were taken on round-up day.. we had a good day just me and him.

Malea is as crazy as ever. We decided it was time to move her to a "big girl bed". Bad idea. She ends up not falling asleep until 10:00 at night because she will not stay in her bed. It's not suppose to be funny but when you see your daughter with a book two inches from her face trying to read in the dark.. it's pretty hilarious. It makes evenings not so fun for Joel and I, but she will get through it.. and we will too.

One more thing to this never ending post... We have an offer on the house! YIPEEE I will make a visit to the title company tomorrow to do the official purchase agreement form, but we are going to need to find a new place to live here in the next little while as our house won't be ready for a long while. Our adventures never end but they couldn't get more exciting ;)

update

2007-04-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

The sickness has finally left us. After Malea's party Jeiven got sick and then Joel started to feel yucky too. Thankfully I never got the bug.. I don't think I could have dealt with it too well.
Some of you have been asking for an update on the house. We are finally in permit stage. Our water samples came back fine so our building permits are in process ( at least that is what our builder is suppose to be doing). This is now where we get to step back and watch. YEAH! I am so excited for this part. I just got an email from one of the gals at the building company to go and set up a meeting to pick exterior paint colors, roof color, counter tops and that kind of fun stuff. So I will keep you all posted with pictures when things actually happen.

That's all for now.

2007-04-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

So after not being able to have the party on Saturday, we had it on Sunday. We had great weather so we were able to have it outside with a BBQ and all.

Having 10 children at a party is always a bit crazy, but the kids seemed to have fun. Thanks to everyone that came!

sad day.....

2007-04-14T11:02:00.000-07:00

So today was suppose to be the day that we celebrated Malea's birthday....When she woke up this morning we sang Happy Birthday to her, gave her the present that she got from her Nana and Papa, a Dora doll and some beads( which she loves by the way)

and then she proceeded to throw up.. which she has been doing all day every 30 minutes! So that means no party today! I am so sad about it. Which I guess when I think about it, seems really silly, but I have been planning for weeks for this party. I don't want my daugther to miss out on her second birthday! My hope is that she will be feeling better by tommorow afternoon and we can throw something together but I'm not holding by breath.

Most of you may not know that I love to make birthday cakes! If it would actually make me money I would do it as a career ( but it seems to take me way too many hours because I seem to have his anal side of perfection to me) Well this year Malea has this insane fascination with Dora so I collected the necessary supplies to make her the Dora cake. I made the cake last night and for some reason decided not to frost it... so here it is.

Ok well that is all for now.. If you are the praying type, please pray for our monkey. She hasn't thrown up for a few hours now so maybe we are in the clear but it is so hard to see your baby sick like that!If we end upi having the party tommorow I will post some pictures of it as well as the finished cake :)
Sick Malea.....

Family shot

2007-04-11T21:15:00.001-07:00

Ok, so you are all going to have to bear with me as I figure out all this blogging stuff. I am trying to post some good pictures on here but it is just not working that well... I see that some of you that blog can post pictures and then talk about the pictures but on my last post it just posted all three in a row and wouldn't let me type until the end.. AHHH.. can anyone help me?

This picture is taken at the beach very near to where our new house is going to be. We will actually see the lake and probably spend more time in those waters then here, but our very good friends James and Jaimee, live right across from the beautiful beach and have their very own access.. so we will be here alot too :)

Easter and Birthday gal...

2007-04-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

Well Easter has come and gone again.. Malea enjoyed the egg hunting a lot more this year as she seemed to understand the concept, especially when the catch was Dora eggs :) We spent the weekend house sitting for our friends James and Jaimee at their beach mansion and the kids had a blast at the beach. Malea loves to throw rocks in the water, something she indeeed inhereted from watching her brother, and she has this sense of accomplishment from hitting the water.. She screams " I did it" everytime. It's really quite silly.

We did the easter hunting at Joel's uncle and aunts again this year. We had a wonderful easter dinner as usual and ate way too much. The weekend flew by way too fast and we are back to monday again and today is my babies 2nd birthday.. I can't believe that she is 2 already! We are waiting until the weekend to celebrate as she is having a Dora party on Saturday. I will be sure to post pictures then. OK, well that is all for now.. :)

Water...

2007-04-04T15:48:00.000-07:00

We have water! Joel just got a call from the well drillers and they reached water at 60 feet.. This is great and very exciting and will end up costing us less money as they quoted us reaching it at 75 or something.. anyways.. just a little bit of celebrating at the Pemberton's today.

2007-04-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

I thought I would post some silly photos of the kids... We were taking pictures for a birthday card for grandpa and I couldn't resist.. :)

sunshine, sickness and selling a house...

2007-04-03T10:25:00.000-07:00

well the sun has finally started to shine in Washington :) For those of you that live in the sun most of the year, even though it may be 3o below, you may not be able to understand how miserable it is when it is cloudy and rainy all the time.. when the sun comes out again it feels like you have your life back. With that being said, the change in weather ALWAYS brings sickness upon my house so Malea is sick with a terrible cold, as well as Joel, and now I am starting to feel it too. Jeiven seems to have an incredible immune system or something as he seems to slide by unscathed. So here I sit looking at the beauiful sun through my window.. at least for today.

Sunshine seems to bring out potential home buyers too. We have had our house on the market since early February and we have shown in twice in that time period. In the last two days we have shown in 4 times! We are trying to sell it on our own. We like real estate agents and all, but we are greedy and would like to keep our equity to ourselves :) Our construction on our new house have been about as slow as a snail, but I guess I should have expected that. With the wonderful Washington weather and some property line issues we are just now getting the well in. Hopefully we should get the permits applied for in the next few weeks and depending on how the county is feeling they make take anywhere between 6-8 weeks to get that processed and then we can finally start. HORAAY!

Things on the job front for me have changed too. I gave my notice at the Ophthalmology clinic where I have been working for the last 7 years. I am planning on being done at the end of May. Joel and I both felt that it was time that I spent time at home with the kids from this point forward. I have some mixed feelings as I know that some people, like my friend Jen, just seem to be cut out to being home with their kids and they just love it, I am not sure that I am that person, but I think I can be that.. I just need to find plenty of things to do or I will go crazy.

Joel has had some changes in his job with Youth Dynamics. He has been working as the Director of Youth ministies here in Anacortes, but recently has accepted the postition of Northwest Washington Regional Director which is right up his alley. He will be responsible for overseeing the local directors as well as starting new YD's across Washington. The biggest excitement for him is the ability to be on the leadership developement team for YD. Big changes :)

Ok so I promise my posts won't be this long again.. I just wanted to update everyone on what's new...

Everyone else is doing it.....

2007-03-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

Ok fine... we will do it too. I Guess it is time for us to join the world of blogging. With all of our family spread so far across the countries this seems like the only way to keep everyone up to date with what is going on with us.. so here it is.. our blog. I will try to keep it up to date :)