Williams - Mt Hood Railroad Train

Over Memorial Weekend we went with some of Herb's family and went camping in the Columbia Gorge and then on Saturday we all went on the Mt. Hood Railroad Train. It was a Wild West Robbery theme. The train ride was two hours at 10 mph and then we stopped in a city called Parkdale and ate lunch, then we boarded the train again and headed back down the mountain. Herbie was frightened of the robbers and once we reached the city and got off the train and he found that there was a Sheriff waiting there, he would not leave his side until he caught the robbers and put them in jail. In the pictures below you can see Herbie standing by the Sheriff and even has the same stance.

The wild west robbery gang hanging

out and eating some of our lunch.

The family minus me. One of the robbers taking all our fake money.

Williams - Just Some Pictures

We had a BBQ at Grandma and Grandpa Williams' house a couple weeks ago. Grandpa fired up the BBQ on the right and then Sage decided to open up the other side and come to find out there was a bird nest inside the BBQ grill. It was huge. Check it out.

Herb's new favorite toy/hobby - Maybe this will last longer than his fishing hobby. He will be bow hunting this coming fall with this new toy.

It is very hard to pull back and I have to admit I have to have assitance pulling it back but then I can hold and aim all by myself.

My silly Nora. She loves chips. I have to hide them from her.

Williams - sitting in a jury assembly room right now -doing my duty

Williams - Sage's 7th Birthday

Sage turned 7 this week and we celebrated by taking the family ice skating.

In lieu of a friend birthday party, Sage chose ice skating.

Sage loves to decorate so she frosted her own cake. Continuing with the ice skating theme.

It is hard to believe that she is already 7. Sage is a wonderful daughter and is so willing to help me out. I love her sweet, happy spirit, and I am so lucky to have her in my life. Happy Birthday Sage.

Williams - Paintball

Paintball Supergame. I went with Herb and some of the Elders Quorum for an entire day of paintball. It was a never ending game and 1,000 people there. You could walk in and out of the game as you pleased. So I would play until I ran out of paint or air, take a break, read a book, eat a snack, play some more, watch from the sidelines. It was a blast and I got one giant bruise on my inner thigh to prove how much fun I had.

Photo tour requested-

Meg's graduation from Dixie College:

I know I know- I seriously feel like my life is out of control! I've struggled to keep up with everything this year and May is always insane. Plus- I've been working on a secret blog project since January that I have to pour a ton of time into each night so I don't get here as often as I wish. Add to everything the house... oh the house. I am absolutely in love with it and amazed by all measure that we actually got it and did this for ourselves... but it is taking forever! Just today though I discovered that our warranty we made the bank pay for IS going to cover a brand spankin' new central vac!!! Yipee. Anyhow, you are all absolutely invited to hang out at my house any time so consider this a wide open invitation.

Speaking of that, I feel guilty I've never been to Oregon. Ci- did you know that I study your pictures, every corner, to find details of your home. How about a photo tour? I've been missing you lately and thinking how grateful I am that we had each other in high school.

Add to the photo tour: Alana- pictures of Ben... stat! I'm feeling even more guilty that I haven't called you and checked in. Everything okay? I was positively floored by how luminous and energetic you were when I came to see the little thing. He is so dang cute.

For now I have to run. I work every day this week and am preparing my cloggers for our performance in Disneyland in a couple weeks. At least the recital is done and only 5 more days of school!!!! I've almost made it!!! Praise the Lord!!!!

Easter Sunday:

Williams - One Lucky Day of Warmth

Where is everyone? I feel like I am the only one posting here.

We had another warm day. We actually hit 70 which means bathing suits and swim suits in our house. Nora especially loved the water fun.

Williams - Easter & Birthday Celebrations

Ward Easter Egg Hunt - The event was well attended and there were 1100 eggs scattered around the church. The kids scored.
Nora found two eggs and was happy as can be especially when she discovered what was inside.

Herbie's new Tonka truck that he got for his birthday is Nora's new favorite toy (I think she likes it more than Herbie).

Herbie is into rockets and astronauts right now. I was going to make him a Ligtening McQueen car cake for his birthday because Kelli gave me her old Cars pan. I started to make it yesterday and asked Herbie if he wanted to help me, when he saw the Cars cake pan he said, "I don't want that kind of cake, I want a rocket ship cake." I was crushed because for once I was going to do something cool for a cake since I had a cake pan mold. Needless to say, I scraped the Cars theme and went with a rocket cake. It turned out okay after I got over my panic attack and hot flashes because icing the cake was stressful. The problem was that Herbie loves the color red so I wanted to make red icing for the cake but I couldn't get red only pink and I didn't want to put pink on his cake, after blood, sweat and tears, I discarded the precious frosting and started over and chose to go with green and blue. Good news, Herbie loved it!!! I used chocolate cake for Grandma and the rocket was for Herbie because I don't want to make or eat two cakes. Herbie turned 4 and Grandma McClean turned 59.

I made this amazing Happy Birthday banner about a month ago. I have no wall space so we hung it from the ceiling.

Darth Vader is in our presence. Herbie is obsessed with anything Star Wars.

He got this costume as a birthday gift. Check out this hilarious commercial for VW on you tube.

Williams - Hiking Silver Falls

Since I am in charge of 3rd year certification at Girl's Camp this year, I have to take them on a hike before camp and an orienteering activity. I decided that I wanted to go on the hike and try the orienteering before I actually take them so today we set out for Silver Falls and tried out Geocaching. Our friends the Melanson's came along on our little adventure and they got a taste of just how "fly by the seat of the pants we are". The weather was amazing and we really enjoyed seeing/feeling the big ball of burning gas in the sky for a change.

Williams - It's Official - Church Business

As of Sunday, I am callingless. I was officially released from the RS Presidency on Sunday. I served as the 2nd Counselor for about 3 years in my current ward and 1 year in my previous ward. You look forward to being released the entire time you are in the calling and then when the time comes to actually leave, it isn't all it is cracked up to be. It is much harder to leave than anticipated and now I have to figure out what to do with my spare time that was spent going to a million meetings. I am really going to miss it. I loved the women that I worked with and I think I enjoy the stress of it all. Herb and I pretty much traded places. All those years that I served in RS and went to school, Herb served in the nursery. Now he goes to school and serves in the EQ Presidency. The Bishop said that he doesn't have a new calling for me and then told me that my calling was to care for my family and especially my mom at this time.

I am not completely free though, because I actually get to go to girl's camp as a leader again this year. This is my 3rd year serving at camp and I love it. I get to take all the 3rd years on a hike in a couple weeks and then I will spend 4 days at camp in June as the 3rd year certification leader. The only difference between this year and the previous times I have gone to camp is the fact that I was also still in RS Presidency the last two times.

Williams - From Harley to Honda

Herb claims that a part of him died because he traded in his Harley for a Honda. Apparently, "real men" don't drive Honda's. Beware: Don't call the color of the car charcoal because it is "Gun Metal Gray". We compromised, I let Herb get a coupe if he bought a Honda. He didn't even want a car in the first place, he wanted a Ford F150 (for a commuter car). He needed a commuter car for his new job. Yep, new job, 4th one in fours years. He now works for IVOXY Consulting. They are based out of Seattle. He works from home (his office is in the garage) and he travels to client sites in the Portland area. It is very unpredictable and we are still adjusting to his crazy schedule. More money but a big thumbs down on the hours.

Sage told one of my friends that Herb got a new car and it only cost $2 after he traded in his motorcycle (I wish). Then she preceeded to tell her that she was mad. She said, "My dad promised me that he would buy a kids motorcycle helmet and take me for a ride on it. He broke his promise because he never bought a helmet and he never took me for a ride and now he doesn't even have it anymore."

Williams - Watch out for Herbie

We were stopping to pick up a pizza for dinner the other day and Herbie said, "Can we get rootbeer with it?" Herb said, "I don't know." and Herbie said, "If you don't, I will get mean at you and punch you in the face." Then at church the next day, Herb and I were speaking and Herb's talk was on a talk called "Slow to Anger". He started out by telling this funny story and then told the Bishopric that they asked the wrong Herb to speak since Herbie apparently has anger issues. One day, we were talking about the Bishop coming over to put in our new front door. Herbie said he would need his help because he was strong. Grandma asked him who made him strong and he said, "My spirit. Jesus made me strong so I can help everybody."

Williams - One Nice Day

Once upon a time, there was a nice day in our neck of the woods.

Translation: No rain, sun, 54 degrees.

You have to take advantage of the beautiful ones so I decided to let the kids play in the front yard while I messed with my camera and tried to take pictures while using my manual settings. I know that when I use manual settings the pictures are much more glorious but I am lazy and just flip it to auto all the time.

This is the result:

Nora loves to tease Dakota (dog) and grab her legs and nose under the fence.

She is also our child who is the least scared of the dog. Go figure!

Herbie and Sage think they are mowing the lawn with these pruning shears.

Nora loved this chair she just kept coming back to it and climbing in and sitting and staring at the street.

Today

^Ballet day. She gets so excited and starts screaming with joy when I tell her it's ballet day. I watch her in class and she doesn't stop smiling the entire time. Pure, pure joy.

Ben loves watching her. She said, "Look, Mom, at how far he can turn his head." because he wouldn't take his eyes off her and tracked her wherever she walked.
See...

Awww, I wuv him. He's such a snuggler and it's the darndest thing but I can totally tell he likes me back. :)

Aaaaand... if I ever get my hands on the son of a gun that invented Moon Dough...
Ima gonna kill him.

It has made its merry way practically everywhere, even my bra.