Monday, July 30, 2007

Clamming and Fishing

We were invited to go clamming and fishing by our friends Angee and Chris. We got up at 3 in the morning to get everything ready and headed for the coast around 4. We got to the coast around 5:30 and found out that clamming was closed for 16 days. Needless to say Chris was embarrassed, but hey we weren't there to waste time so off we went to go see if we could find some salmon, we saw some big ones but they weren't having anything to do with us, so we decided to go eat breakfast and then we went to the beach, and hung around for the Elders Quorum party, it made for a long day. Lots of fun though. We really had a good time, we look forward to another trip sometime.




Saturday at the coast

This is Rocky, getting a little R and R
Tayler and Bryson playing in the sand





Saturday we had an Elder's Quorum family beach party. They brought their BBQ's and we had a lot of fun in the water and on the sand. We learned that we needed to re-apply sunscreen more than we did. Tayler and Emma came home a little on the red side :o( I felt bad, if you notice in the picture I had lots of clothes on so I didn't get burned, what kind of mom does that :( Live and learn.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Good Friends



My friend Stacey came to visit!!! It made my day, maybe my week......................... you get the picture.

What are friends for?
To laugh with,
To giggle with,
To share your little corner
Of the world with.
The joy to visit
Over lunch, over sodas,
To share little secrets
Discuss life’s problems.
The freedom, the closeness,
The bond of friendship,
Open hearts, open minds,
Just kind sharing.
That’s what friends are for!

Cute Bags

For one of the Young Women activities, we made these cute bags for their scriptures. They are made out of placemats that we bought at Ross. Then they sewed on some handles that we bought at a craft store. They were fast and easy to make, and they look cute!

Thursday, July 19, 2007

The whole truth

I feel like I have told a lie. The trip on the 4th was fun but a few unfortunate things happened and I didn't tell about them because I wanted to have a fun blog, not a sad one. My sister had let me know that I need to blog it so here it goes.

First of all my sister Judy and her family were going to come and stay with us on the 1st and then on the 2nd we were going to drive to Birch Bay together, well her car broke down in central Oregon and she ended up staying at Bend with our parents. It set a bad stage for the rest of the trip.

On the 2nd we packed out car and van (George was going to come home on the 5th) and we headed out. We made it through all the cities with out hitting all of the rush hour traffic so I was happy about that, we were around Lacey Washington, when this bullet bike went screaming past us. We had two way radio's and George was talking to me about how fast the guy must have been going, we figure he was going 120 or more. Well in the next breath George let me know the guy had wrecked, by the time we had slowed down we were at the scene of the accident, it was sad the guy was for sure gone, we couldn't help but feel a little shook up about it. So sad, he couldn't have been very old and my heart went out to the Mom and Dad of this young man. I think my son will not have a motorcycle, not while he lives with me. It was just a tragedy. Needless to say that accident made it so that Mom and Dad and Judy and Marc were slowed way down, they were behind us by a couple of hours so you know it was a bad accident if it slows traffic for that long.

So on the Third we just enjoyed each other and went to canada and played at the bay. When we went to Canada we went in two vehicles. Mom, Dad,Judy and Marc in the car and then we had all of the kids with us. Since we had never left the country with our kids, we were a little nervous and then we had Judy and Marc's girls so we were a little nervous. Nothing happened until we were coming back home, the guard put a sticker on my Dad's car and they had to go be checked. We were told we would have to leave in case there was any problems with anything, so we pulled across the street and waited. We were probably there for 30 minutes and the problem ended up being that my sisters Passport was not printed right, it was just a bunch of gibberish. Lucky for us she doesn't look like a criminal so they let her come back to the good ole USA!!!

On the fourth we went to Blaine for it's parade, the kids enjoyed it, they got candy and all the fun stuff from parades. Then we went back to Birch Bay to relax and have fun. We had a yummy barbque and then when it started getting dark we went down by the bay and saved ourselves some spots so we could set off some fireworks (George's favorite thing to do, or one of them). We had some chairs set up and a blanket down in front of the chairs for the kids to sit on. When it got dark people were setting fireworks off like crazy, they were everywhere and in Washington you can send off the ones that have mortars and go up high and explode, so we were doing this for some time and this is where I am not sure what happened because I was looking up watching some fireworks and when I look down at George he is running toward us, the kids are jumping up and running and so I naturally jumped up and out of the way, there were fireworks shooting at us, total chaos. This all happened in about 2 seconds. George had seen the guy next to us light his firework and he noticed it was tipping over so he was running to save the kids and had his arms stretched out to hopefully get hit first. But what really happened was it skimmed the inside of his thigh we are not sure if it hit Emma and Cortnee or if they just got hit with flying debree but they got hit and then it hit my Mom!!!! After all the Chaos and we had a second to look around, my mom was tipped over in her chair and my Dad had a look of major concern on his face and so here is the scary part, I thought my mom was dead. I know I shouldn't write that but I would be lying if I said anything else. The string from her jacket was on her face and it was dark and I thought it was blood. She finally opened her eyes and said she was ok and that it hadn't hit her, so we were all glad she hadn't gotten hit. We walked her to her room and that is when she pulled up the sleeve of her shirt and looked at her arm, she had a bruise the size of a softball on her upper arm and then when she got in the shower she had a bruise and a sore on her thigh.

So my Mom got hit by the mortar, she didn't notice at first she was just trying to get out of her chair to get out of the way and that is when she tipped over, knocking her head on the rocks and so that was what she noticed first. Then she noticed the other things. We think that the mortar hit her in the arm, landed in her lap and exploded and that is why she has the sore on her thigh.
That was not a fun way to end the fourth of July, we are soooo thankful that it wasn't worse.

The next day my Mom said she was feeling ok and that she had finally slept well, her head hurt her pretty good, but we gave her advil and she had some frozen peas to put on her head. Good ole frozen peas, awesome ice pack if you need it.

The next day, George decided to stay with me and Grandpa, Marc, Ashlee, Cortnee, Hope and Emma went deep sea fishing and Grandma, Judy, George,Lora,Jackie and Tayler went to a cute little town called Lynden and walked around, bought some yummy fudge and pies and then we went home.

Friday we went to whideby island, Saturday we just stayed at the resort, Judy and Marc went to Seattle and Sunday we found a church and went to the first ward by Bellingham, but I can't remember the name of the town. Monday we packed and headed for home and on the way home that is when I got a flat tire and we already know that story, but now you know the rest of the story (love Paul Harvey).

Friday, July 13, 2007

4th of July Trip 2007

We went to Birch Bay for the Fourth of July.


We drove to Birch Bay on the 2nd and so the third was really the beginning of our vacation. Some of us went for a walk and the rest went out in the bay and tried to catch clams. I guess I should say who "us" is, Grandpa and Grandma Kinsman, Marc, Judy, Ashlee, Cortnee, George, Lora, Hope, Jackie, Tayler and Emma.

George and Tayler had a good time, so did Ashlee.



I think this bird is a crane, they were everywhere.







After we dug for clams and walked along the bay we decided to drive into Canada and go to the Capilano suspension bridge, it was really cool. George got a little bit of motion sickness on it and Tayler looked like he was going to die but we made it across it two times!! The bridge was I think 270 feet tall and 430 feet across, so it was kind of cool. The first time across there were a bunch of teenagers swinging it and stuff so it did move alot.







On the one side of the bridge there was the walk in the treetops, called treetop adventures, it was very interesting and kind of cool, brought back memories of when we tried to build a rope bridge in our apple trees.






If this posts right the picture up above is of Marc getting a picture of us on the suspension bridge.

Tayler is in the red jacket with the backpack, George is in the white shirt, Ashlee in red, Jackie in green stripes.



Grandpa is in the hat with the brim and Ashlee is in the red,




This is all the kids setting off fireworks on the fourth over the bay, the sun was setting and it was amazing to see how many fireworks were going off at the same time, I think Marc kept saying it was "insane".









On thursday Grandpa Kinsman, Marc, Ashlee, Cortnee, Hope and Emma went deep sea fishing. I think they were fishing for king salmon. Sadly they didn't catch any, but they had a good time any way. Some of the islands that you see are the San juan islands, very beautiful.














On Friday we went to Whideby island and before we went there we went to a town called La Conner, the kids standing by the metal man and the one inside the metal fish are at that town, we had a yummy lunch and then we went to the ocean , across deception pass and since the kids thought the ocean was to cold(and it is) we played in a lake that was right there. Tayler and Cortnee were in the yellow pedal boat, Jackie and Ashlee and Lora are in the canoe and Tayler and Lora are in one of the pictures of the canoe. It was beautiful and very peaceful on the water.
























So I know the tire pictures are out of place but I am going to type this by the tire pictures any way (still learning all of this stuff). On our way home on the 9th we were by Toledo Washington, when my car started making this really loud noise, so I radioed to George (thank heavens he stayed on vacation longer so we were in separate cars) and we exited, by the time I had changed lanes to exit the tire blew and was flipping rubber as we were driving up the off ramp. All I can say is every thing that happened after the tire blew was a blessing, we were in a very small town (pop. 1347) and the automotive store just happened to have two tires that fit our car, they had been there for a long time so we got a really good deal on them and the owner of the store had no idea why they even had them. So after the blow, we found out our lug wrench wouldn't work on our wheels, that our spare tire was flat and the town wasn't within walking distance (well only if you wanted to walk a half marathon) so all in all I am very thankful, George was there, it wouldn't have been pretty if it had been just me and four kids. So that about sums up our trip to Birch Bay, it was wonderful, and I am looking forward to our next adventure.