Been a long time!!

It has been a very long time since updating our blog. Quite a few things have gone on since then. Mark and I flew to Denver, Co to do a deposition for his law suit. Mark was grilled for nearly 6 hours. It was so exhausting for him. He has now had 2 shoulder surgeries and is flying back this Thursday to Colorado to see a doctor there that will testify if this goes to court. He just had an appointment with his Orthopedic and he is sending Mark to a Neurological Surgeon. Is there no end?!

Angel is doing well. She has been seen by a new neurologist at childrens hospital with hopes that she may be seizure free and taken off her meds. She goes for an EEG on April 30th. I have to keep her awake for 24+ hours. Now if I can stay awake that long!! But it is for hoefully, a good outcome. She started the WASL testing today. I don't think this is anything that the kids look forward to. The only good thing that can come from this is...no homework for 2 weeks!

I am still substitute teaching at the Small World Preschool and for the Edmonds School District Food service driving truck. I really enjoy both jobs.

We had a wonderful Easter. All of my kids and grandkids were here along with my parents. We hid over 200 plastic eggs. Due to the weather again this year it had to be done once again in the house. Not too many places you can hide them in here. But, I think the kids had a good time. They played the Wii and ran around. We celebrated Emma's 5th birthday too. She turned 5 during spring break and they were in Florida at the time. She requested that I bake a cake instead of buying one. Here it is!!

And the cute 5 year old!!She hates to have her picture taken.

Other than that, my parents made it home safely from Wellton, AZ. They left 90 degree weather to come home to rain, snow, hail and just plain cold and nasty weather. WHY??!! I tell them every year that they need to stay a month or two longer. Although I am not sure with our weather lately that that will make a difference. We are glad they are home and were able to join us for Emma's birthday celebration and Easter.

ARMY CAMP 2009!!!

Angel and I were fortunate enough to be able to go to ARMY CAMP with Edgewood Baptist Church. It was a group of 4th, 5th and 6th graders. This year it was held at Fort Flagler. What a wonderful location.

Our car was one of the first to arrive. There were beautiful blue skies and not a cloud in sight. We were biding our time at a picnic table and looked up. There above us was the most perfect majestic thing we could have seen all weekend. Just above the tree line and directly over our heads was a beautiful bald eagle. It soared directly above us for about 5 minutes before it disappeared. What a perfect start to a blessed weekend.

Angel was in the purple panther troop. It was made of all 4th graders. Major Karen Keller was their troop leader. She did a great job with the girls. They did crafts, went on hikes, learned about space and Gods word. This weekend reaffirmed Angels love and dedication to our Lord.

This is a picture of the PURPLE PANTHERS. Major Karen Keller (R), Privates Jennie, Angel, Meagan and Laura. Major Tina Jurich (L) helped when not in the kitchen. Not pictured is SGT. Elizabeth Staatz. The girls barracks is pictured in the background.

I helped out with the PINK troop made up of 6th grade girls when not working in the kitchen. Maybe I should just say that I slept in the same barrack location as them. The kitchen work seemed to take all my time. It was so much fun.

This is the view that we had out the back window of the kitchen. This is Mount Rainier just prior to the sun setting. I was not in charge of the kitchen. Just a helper. There were 5 of us and thankful that we had that many hands available. It seemed that once we arrived that we were lucky to make our way out of the kitchen except to go to sleep at night. The troops on KP duty would just get everything cleaned and put away and we would start in on the next meal. The hard part about the entire weekend was lights out time. That happened to be 9PM. For those of you that know Me, know that that is a huge deal for me. Since my normal bedtime is around 2AM. But, believe it or not I did it!! I went to bed to girls whispers and giggles and squeaking bed springs. I would not have changed a thing. It was all perfect.

To those that organized everything I say thank you for the most amazing weekend. Not only for myself but for all the troops that attended. I am sure that they all look forward to ARMY CAMP 2010. I know I do!! PRAISE THE LORD!

Rain, rain go away...

We went to Birch Bay with the Halsen family yesterday right after school. We had a wonderful prime rib dinner and then went clam digging in the dark. Yes, in the dark! The clams were very hard, no almost impossible to see. We all had head lamps on and had a great time. Angel and Tristan walked way out to the waters edge and could reach down to pick up the big clams laying on top. This was while the adults were laughing and digging in the dirt. It was so much fun. We did get about a 1/2 bucket full.
We woke up this morning to rain and more rain. With no break in sight. We had hopes of maybe doing some more digging this morning but that ended up not happening. I must say that the rain may have dampened the ground but it did not dampen our spirits.
Jerry, Laureen and Tristan, we want to thank you for the good times we spend together. We love you very much.

Merry Christmas!!

This morning Angel was up somewhere around , oh 6AM!!! When I heard her going down the hall I glanced at the clock on the dresser. I thought it said 8:06AM. I thought how wonderful she slept in this year. I then rolled over and went back to sleep. She came rushing in and woke me up. I glanced at the clock and it said 7:15AM. How could that be? Time went backwards! Then it dawned on me thru my sleepy eyes I had miss read the clock. She didn't sleep in at all. Santa really spoiled her this year. I think he brought her everything on her list and then some. It was lucky for her that she sent that letter to him nice and early. This is a picture of her stocking and gifts from just Santa. The big purple blob is a huge bean bag chair. There are roller blades, DS games, CD's, DVD's and many other things. Of course Santa brings the essentials like underwear!! That's a given. We took turns opening gifts. It was one for Mark, one for me, and two for Angel. She was thrilled with everything. I got what I asked Santa for, that was a Mario Cart for the Wii. What a fun game. I know I am hooked!

After we completed our Christmas at home we ventured over to Shannon and Andres' to have Christmas with them. Lilliana was so excited to see us come in. She thought that every gift was for her. She said to me, "I love presents Gramma!" How cute is that. I think the thing she was most excited about opening; wasn't any of the clothes of course, but the gift from Auntie Deanne, Uncle Chris and the kids. It was some sort of Dora and Diego toy and she lit up when she saw it and was so excited. She played with that all afternoon. Isatou got some real nice things too. She got quite a bit of clothing and put on a fashion show for us.

After we opened gifts the kids played and Shannon made a wonderful ham dinner. After dinner we played some games and had a fun time. Angel was wanting to get home to all of her treasures so we went on our way. It was an enjoyable and fun day with family. We love you Shannon, Andres, Isatou and Lilliana. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Christmas Eve 2008 with THE MERWIN'S

After all the snow was cleared from our driveway we were able to head to Deanne and Chris' for our Christmas with them. Deanne had called earlier in the day and said that Chris didn't go to work and wondered if we could come earlier then planned. We originally were going to get together after our church service which would have put us at their house about 8:30PM. She said that the kids were driving them crazy!! So we agreed to change the time to 2PM. I don't even think we were in their driveway yet and the front door was open with Emma and Taylor standing there waiting. It was very cute. Needless to say it wasn't long and the kids were ready to start. We decided to go youngest to oldest. Well we know who was first and who brought up the rear. Yes, Emma was first and I was last!
A sweet sweater for a sweet girl. This was from GGma and Papa.Great Grandma and Papa gave him this Huskie clock for his bedroom wall. How appropriate is that!! It will blend in well with that purple and gold room.Taylor really wanted this XBox 360 NCAA 09 Basketball game. He asked Santa for it, but got it from Mark and I. I wonder what Santa will bring him now?!

Devon's turn!! He got this nice zip up sweatshirt from Great Gramma and Papa. From what they tell us he lives in these things. So it was appropriate.It was Devon's year to get the "BIG" gift. You see every year Mark rotates which one of the Merwin kids will get a bigger, meaning more expensive gift then the other two. This was Devon's year. The older he gets the harder it is to buy for that kid! This year, thanks to a hint from Chris, Mark knew what to purchase. His gift this year was a itouch. He squealed when he opened it and you can tell from the smile it was perfect. I don't think he put it down the rest of the time we were there. It was wonderful to see the excitement and joy that it gave him.After opening presents we had dessert and some wonderful conversation. The greatest gift that God has bestowed upon me is my kids and grandkids. We had a wonderful Christmas with Deanne, Chris, Devon, Taylor and Miss Em. We love you all very much!! Merry Christmas!!

SNOW!!! and more S N O W !!!

It was fun to see snow for the first few days. Then it got a little out of control.

Our little snowman lights that line the front walkway got covered.
But it is very beautiful to look at.

Bella absolutely loves to play in the snow.

This is our friend and neighbor Ron North. He and son in law Andres came over and shoveled the snow off the roof of the house, mom and dads fifth wheel, our trailer cover, which was so loaded with snow that it was sitting right on the roof of our trailer, and also the roof on the lower barn. Mark was unable to do anything but supervise from the inside of the house due to his recent shoulder surgery. The snow was almost at Ron's knee. That was too much weight for everything to handle so we thought it would be best to have it removed. We really appreciated all their hard work. It took them nearly 10 hours to get it all completed. Then we had another friend come over with his back hoe to dig out the driveway so we could get the rigs out of the garage. All the snow from the garage roof was about 4 feet of compacted snow. There was no way we could shovel all of it by hand. Thank you Denny Olsen for doing that for us.

Christmas Lights at Warm Beach

This evening we went with our good friends, the Halsen's to see the Christmas Lights of Warm Beach. This is just after we arrived, Mark, arm in sling, Jerry and son Tristan staying warm by one of many bon fires. We were all waiting for Laureen to take care of some important business. She would kill me if she knew I was posting this. But she wasn't the only one that needed to see this house when we finally arrived. It was a long slow snowy drive.
Angel and Tristan chillin' with Frosty. Frosty seemed very excited to see the snow coming down.
These are just some of the fantastic displays that they have. This is a cascade of lights streaming down from the top of a tree with balls of lights at the ends. It was quite a sight to see. This was just one of many trees like this.

Poinsettias made of lights. They were displayed in several scenes.

This is all in lights!! How beautiful is this mountain scene!?! These beautiful displays were throughout the entire site. This is held at Warm Beach Christian Camp in Stanwood. What a fantastic place. How perfect was it that it snowed on the night that we decided to go see the lights. We couldn't have planned it any better. He had a fantastic time. And indeed there had to have been at least 1 million lights on display. It was a wonderful night full of new memories.