The slide of doom!

On the way home from Utah we took a stop in the town of Burns. 

Where we found this..... as i call it the slide of doom. 

This slide looks a lot worse than it is.... The kids actually had a slow steady speed all the way down.

Little keisha even enjoyed climbing to the top and sliding down.

They finally got tired of climbing all the way to the top and headed for the smaller slide.

They enjoy trying to make a train and going down all together. Keisha usually breaks it because she does not understand she needs to hold on to the person in front.

I actually got a picture of them all together.

Keisha sliding......

She was laughing all the way down!

4th of July

We had a great fourth of July this year. ....of course i can never get a good picture of all three of them.  

We started our festivities off by going to the parade, since main street is only a few block from home, we loaded the little ones in the stroller and walked over. (if we would have drove we probably would have had to park almost as far away).

...waiting for the parade to come, they could hear it but still waiting to see it.

They all sat on the little curb throughout the entire parade, only getting up to grab a piece of candy or to get a better look at what was passing by.

Keisha's favorite part was of course all the animals that would pass.

The parade was not very big, really didn't have any cool decorated floats, but it was just the right length to keep the little ones attention. They also had a mini carnival set up with a couple of rides for the little ones, but everyone was getting tired and adahleigh was really the only one big enough to go on them.

After the parade we stopped by the store to grab some more fireworks. (better late than never right?) I had recently only bought the kids poppers and sparklers. Adam thought we needed a few more different ones. The temperature that day was pushing close to 90, one of the warmest days we had since moving there. After walking  home from the parade the kids all decided they had had enough of the heat and wanted to go swimming. Well we didn't have a swimming pool, let alone a yard to actually play in one. So we grabbed a couple of our empty tubs and put some water in the bottom so they could at least splash around and cool off a bit.

The kids all enjoyed throwing the poppers, adahleigh and charles did pretty good and making them pop, keisha got lucky a couple times and got one or two to pop when she threw it.

The kids played pretty hard all day long and were completely exhausted by the time 6 rolled around that we were having a hard time trying to keep them awake so it could get dark enough to do sparklers. Keisha off course zonked, which was probably good because all she like to do is try to grab the lighted end of the sparkler.  The other two enjoyed holding them and moving them around. 

Adahleigh has been waiting for months to be able to watch fireworks again. Since the fireworks were only 4 blocks away from our house we thought we would be able to sit on our upstairs porch and watch them from home. But to our disadvantage the trees for just a little to tall to see them. So we all hoped in the van and drove down the street to watch them. In this town people just line the side of the local highway and watch the fireworks. It was definitely a new experience! The kids of course had got there second wind by the time we got back home that we finished lighting off the sparklers and the rest of the fireworks.

We only managed to get pictures of the kids with there sparklers and not the bigger fireworks. Adam would light them and i was holding the hose to water down all the sparks. The kids enjoyed watching our own little firework show but thought we needed to do it every night for the follow week.

Wickiup Reservoir

    Since our move we haven't made it out much to see what there is around here. Everyone that we talks to always mentions how great all the lakes are around here, and the kids love to play in the water, we decide to give the lake shore a try around the first part of July. We went over to Wickiup Reservoir, since it's not too far from home. It was a nice warm summer day so we figured that water would be warm enough for the kids to get in and enjoy it like they enjoyed playing in the river in Reno.

   At first the kids didn't want to get in the water because of the yellow band around the edge of the lake. Keisha flipped out the most about getting in it, so after a little coaxing the all decided it was all right. The yellow band around the reservoir is actually pollen and not pollution. We had to deal with the pine tree pollen covering everything for a couple weeks, unlike most other plants pine trees don't depend on bugs or birds for pollination they just produce mass amounts of pollen and let the wind do the rest.

   The water was plenty warm for wading purposes and once they started looking around at what there was to find in the water they had a blast.

   We did see a couple of tadpoles but weren't able to catch any, but everyone looked good and hard.

   Charles' now loves to make his scary face for the camera anytime we take a picture.

   The highlight of the water was throwing rocks. Everyone had to throw as many as possible. Adahleigh almost hit us a few times with her impeccable aim. Keisha on the other hand had to find the biggest rock she could pick up and throw it in the water. She's lucky she came out with all her toes since some of the time the rock didn't make it too far past them. She chased that rock into waist deep water and almost went under a couple times trying to recover it, that's why she is wet all up her front side but the back is dry.

   One of the other great finds in the water was this snake. He came swimming up by just for the sake of scaring Ashley to death. He took off swimming once we tried to catch him, which caused the a little disappointment since the kids wanted to touch it. Probably better for the snake though, he probably wouldn't have survived Keisha's kung fu grip.

   While out at the reservoir we also saw a bald eagle flying around and a hawk snatch a fish out of the water and carry it off. There are definitely some benefits to living out in the woods.

Graduation May 2011

He Finally Did It!

8 years....

.... a wife

....and 3 kids later

He did it! Adam graduated in May 2011 with his Doctorate of Pharmacy!

Easter 2011

    The kids really enjoyed easter this year. Ever since they started watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates,  they've wanted to go on treasure hunts. Adam made a map of the apartment so we could just print it off and do treasure hunts. We thought the kids would really enjoy doing a treasure hunt for their easter goodies. 

   We started them out in their bedroom so they could change their clothes after church, since we didn't want the kids all hyped up on sugar for church. We had some things hidden before they had woken up that morning, and the other stuff ready to be stashed. Adahleigh and Charles were the ones to use the map and Keisha kinda trailed along.

   They were all very excited to get started finding their treasures. Adahleigh was already studying the map from the time she realized what it was.

   Everytime we went to the grocery store Adahleigh would always notice the chocolate bunnies and kept telling me she would love to have one of them, since she in now really good at letting everyone know what her every want and demand is. We got all three of them one to enjoy though.

    Needless to say we spent most of the time trying to explain to them how to read the map or reminding them what things were, we had to look at the map every two mins. This is even after them using the same exact map for a couple of their previous treasure hunts.

You can never have too many bubbles so the older two got regular blow bubbles and keisha got a jug of bath time bubbles.

....break time again...... charles wanted his turn to try to tell us where we needed to go nexy.....

The bubbles made the basket just a little to heavy for them to carry so they resorted to leaving there baskets in the front room while they finished there treasure hunt.

We tried to find things they knew what they were, like the lizards' cage, we had some things by the frog tank, in Keisha's crib, under the kitchen table, and in the bathroom.

....map time again....

   Adahleigh deciding the best way to get her treat out of the crib.

   It ended up being Charles showing her how to get everything out of the crib, probably since he had the most experience from stealing stuff from Keisha while she's in bed (especially her pacifier, since we took his away from him over a year ago).

We ended up taking a few things out, like the bubbles, so they could carry there baskets again.

Our treasure hunt ended in our bathroom closet where we hid keishas easter basket full of all her gifts!

Finally finished. Adahleigh was so excited that she got to do a treasure hunt, Keisha was just waiting to be able to dig in and eat her treats, and of course Charles couldn't wait and decided he needed to start eating his easter basket. (We are working on this he loves to chew on anything and everything).

   The kids really enjoyed their treasure hunt and asks to do one all the time now. The rest of our easter was spent just hanging out and enjoying time together as a family! We were leaving the following week to go visit family so we waited to do our easter egg hunt then. I forgot to take pictures of the one we did do. We also opted out of dying easter eggs at our own place but we didn't end up dying any with family so the kids didn't get a chance to make a giant mess this year. I know easter was a long time ago but we are slowly catching up on previous posts. 

Keishas 1st Birthday!

Keisha turned 1 back in march. We had a little celebration with just our little family. 

Opening the presents Grandma and Grandpa W sent her in the mail! 

 She of course only enjoyed opening one or two then she had to play with those instead of open anymore

 For first birthdays in our house we always try to make them a fun little cake. For keishas cake we decided to go with eeyore, we thought he turned out fairly cute!

 and of course she enjoyed every bite of cake. We placed the cake in front of her and she wasted no time digging in. Her daddy decided she was not dirty enough and help her put her face in the cake.

 She did a pretty good job of eating up all the cake and not making too big of a mess.

We have a video of her eating the cake but its almost five minutes long so i will have adam to shorten in up. Sorry so brief but we just want to get caught up on pots.

Bath Time

  Getting back to some long past due posts. For a while now the kids have all been big enough to all bath together (since Keisha has been about 9 months and able to sit up on her own in the tub) and enjoy each others company for the most part. A lot of the time Keisha ends up at the end of the pecking order, which for the most part Charles is the one doing the pecking. She's pretty tolerant of the activities he chooses, even when they're not fun for her in the least bit, so things can go a little far some times especially in the tub when he decides to dump gallons of water on her at a time.

   This is one of the times that they both enjoy the bath time activities.