Wild life..

So we haven't seen any bears or mountain lions yet (except for Klave who found a bear with her cub just 20 ft from him! Scary!) but on the way to the post office the other day Naomi did get attacked by a yellow lab. These two huge dogs squirmed out of the gate as their owner was coming out and just barreled into Naomi and clenched their teeth on either side of her forhead, then scraped them all the way across. Now that was really scary, the poor girl was terrified! The thing that baffels me is that the next day she wanted to walk past the same house! It doesn't look pretty but luckily she's ok. Pics later... maybe?

Unwilling conversion

Just to let everyone know what's up, we have converted to the Amish lifestyle, no, not by choice.  We absolutely love it here in California, the weather (which actually isn't that different from other places we've lived), our ward (totally rocks, maybe even more than Ferndale 1st ward, maybe), Klave's job.  It's all going really well.  Only we haven't sold our home in Moses Lake so we've had to sacrifice many former necessities the hardest being the internet.  And since we got kicked out of the library, I'm kind of nervous to go back.  Also we don't have cable or satellite, which we can do without but then the wires on our car radio melted out when we charged the battery so we have no contact with the rest of the world besides our cellphones.  Luckily we've made some good friends here so once in a while I can get online and touch base with the rest of the world.  We're living in a really small town right now, that's really close to Klave's work.  Everyday we take a walk to the post office to get our mail and then walk around almost the entire town and stop at the school playground for a while.  There is tons of hiking and outdoors stuff to do around here, so especially when it gets warmer we'll be taking advantage of that.  I've been running with a friend and her four dogs, up on a mountain trail and as you go into the park there is a sign that says, "Beware of mountain lions"  I don't think I would go without her dogs.  Once when she was running alone with her dogs, a bear came pummeling down the mountain and across the trail right in front of her.  There is so much wildlife out here, it's pretty cool to see it all.  Well I'll have to post some pictures next time, or just come and visit!  

Just kickin' it

The girls and I are having fun on our way to California. We haven't quite gotten there yet. It's been about five weeks since we left Moses Lake, we spent 3 weeks in Seattle with my brother and his family but they were leaving for Hawaii so we moved on down to Weiser for Thanksgiving. We had so much fun there. Klave got to take four days off to come visit us. He totally surprised us and got there four hours earlier than we expected him. All of the girls missed him so much, but not as much as I did. Nora just clung to his leg the whole night and just kept saying Daddy, Daddy! She is definitley a daddy's girl. We went to Klave's cousins' wedding at the Courtyard Marriot. It was a pretty wedding but after the ceremony as we went into the reception Naomi was totally confused. "Why didn't they get married? They just kissed, they didn't even go to the temple." She was very disappointed. But not for long, those girls didn't leave the dance floor all night long. They are party animals! We had such a blast dancing all night with all of Klave's family.
Klave went home on sunday and then a couple days later Klave's parents left for a conference over in Boise. We were left with Kassee and Maycee Klave's teenage sisters. It was a blast because we got to do all the chores on the ranch. Feed the chickens, the dogs, the horses and the calves. Let the sheep out and bring them in at night. These girls are hardworkers, well that's what I was trying to teach them anyway. After 15 minutes of crying because Naomi got dirt in her flip flops we got down to business and they really loved it. They are kind of sissies like their mom, they don't like to get dirty. Here's Lucy taking a bath in the mudroom sink at Grammee and Papa's.

So now we are down in Utah with my family for a little while and I'm praying we'll be in California by Christmas!

And she's off....

Ok, so here's Lucy at seven months! Does that seem soon for crawling to anyone else? It's probably normal but I can't believe how fast she is growing up! She climbs like a monkey too. It's so much fun watching all that she can do. Sometimes Nora will play with her a little and it's so cute. Usually she wants to sit on her or step on her but the other night I heard all this squealing in the other room, so I peaked around the corner. Nora was sitting in front of Lucy fake laughing the best she could until Lucy would laugh enough that her pacifier would fall out. Then Nora would quickly put it back in Lucy's mouth and start all over again. When Lucy stopped laughing Nora would just take the pacifier out for her and then plug it back in. So sweet!

We're Movin' On!

...and hopefully up! About two weeks ago Klave accepted a job as Assistant Livestock Manager on a ranch in California! Oh yeah! Well I always thought it would be cool to live in Cali, it's just that I was imagining more like San Diego or Sacramento. Instead we are headed to the Mt. Shasta Valley. I believe that is the place. I haven't really been there yet, which seems kind of crazy. The other thing that is more crazy is that I just got off the phone with Klave and he is sleeping in his car tonight down near the ranch, but he is loving life! He has been itching to get back to working with livestock so this was our chance and here we go. We packed up all our stuff and left our home praying that it sells really soon! I'm staying with Dan and Grace in Sammamish, WA with the girls until a)we sell our house, b) the ranch gives us a house to live in on the ranch, c)we get a raise. We are having fun so far but you can only go so long without your own space.

So I know I have been away from the blogosphere for a really long time, there are about a trillion things I want to post about but I thought at least I should let my friends know where we are....and if they are moving to Moses Lake, there is a really great house for sale right now.

Happy Birthday Nadine and Naomi!!

I can't believe we've had these girls for four years now!!! They are really growing fast and they are so much fun.

We were talking about which friends they would invite to their party and they said, Lanie, Rachel, Ashlynn, Brynlee and Melissa. I'm like, "Who's Melissa?" They were talking about their Aunt Melissa in Utah. Well it worked out really great because David and Melissa had vouchers for Delta that they had to use before December so they flew up for their birthday. David and Melissa are such fun visitors to have. If you want to laugh and have an awesome party, invite David and Melissa. Friday they woke up to all their cousins and David and Melissa to play with. Melissa and I decorated the cakes. We made a princess and a castle one made of cupcakes.
They got a bunch of princess "action figures" and a witch and princes. (They were actually Anakin Skywalker and Obi One Konobi because, Where in the world do you find Prince action figures?) Then they also got a new bike helmet and a ton of princess dress up stuff. Here's Nadine admiring herself in her new heels and jewelry.
Nora also really loved the cakes, here is a video of my little snitch.



We went to the water park on friday with David and Melissa and Dan and Grace and their family. Dan and Adelaide
Uncle David, can you read the secret message in his chest hair?
Aunt Melissa and Lucy

These video's are Klave on the flow rider, he makes it look so easy!
David and Lucy taking a nap

The day after the water park we went fishing at the hatchery. Actually the kids are the only ones aloud to fish but we all had a good time. Last year we caught about 13 fish but realized once we got home that that is way too many fish to eat. This year we left with just 3.

Nadine with the worms

David and Naomi

Dad and Nadine

Nora and "the big one"

Do you think this post is long enough?

Adventures in Sammammish

We are so lucky to have family in Seattle. We love to go over there each month and hang out with our family and go to the temple. This last time Klave went on to Bellingham for training while the girls and I stayed in Sammammish with the Stevenson's. The coolest thing that happened while we were there is that at the temple I sat next to a friend of mine from girls camp, like 12 or 15 years ago. It was so crazy to see her. Julie Pack was her name then now it's Bown. Her and her husband and 2 kids moved there about a month ago. Jen and Amy, do you guys remember her? She is so funny and energetic. Hopefully we can meet up again or maybe she'll start a blog?
Another cool thing we did was go to the Pacific Science Center. There is so much to do there we could have spent a few days but only had a few hours. The kids really loved the bugs!! Here are a few pics of them with the gargantuan cockroach! Nadine is not afraid of anything!

Naomi was trying to be brave but she must have too much of her mom in her to allow her to touch something that nasty.

I totally saw that coming!

We went through the butterfly pavillion, which was really cool if you like butterfly's. They are so pretty but I just don't like anything crawling on me. I did it for the kids though and prayed that one wouldn't land on me because I really didn't want to freak out in front of all those people. On the other hand Nadine couldn't keep her hands off of them.

There were some really bright ones and ones that were just huge! It was hard to get a real good picture of them though. But here are some cute kids and a fairy.
Outside we had a picnic and they had all sorts of high powered water sprayers you could play with.
Here's Lucy on her second day with pig tails. I love it! Since then I trimmed her hair because it was all bald on the sides and uneven on top. I cut about an inch off. Her hair is pretty thick now, just too short for pig tails.

The next day we decided to take all the kids on a hike. I love hiking and I forgot how much I love it. In Moses Lake there really isn't anywhere to hike, so this was really exciting. I guess I expected that the kids would think it was really cool too. Here's the group, Nora 2, Nadine and Naomi 4, Jacob 5, Sam 3, David 7 and then Grace is holding Adelaide who's 1 and I'm holding Lucy 5 mo. I think we do some crazy things sometimes but we always have a lot of fun.

This hike was so beautiful, it felt like we were walking through the rainforest. Trees everywhere and about halfway through it really started to rain. The hike was about a mile and parts of it were pretty steep but the kids did really well. They haven't really been hiking before so some of them complained but we'll definitly do it again.
We hiked down to the bottom of Snoqualmie Falls, amazing isn't it? I was so glad that crazy guy was out there fishing so you can see how huge the falls are.

Here are the falls again from the top. It kind of terrifies me to look over the railing. I always stand back a few feet. Can you imagine the terror I felt seeing my kids hanging on the railing and swinging their feet over the edge? There are bars close enough they can't fall through but I just about had a cardiac. And Naomi kicked Jake's flip flop over the edge, I think she was disappointed it landed in the grass on the side instead of in the water.