Track

Hailey is doing softball AND track this year. Luckily her softball coach encouraged her to do both!  She's realized she really enjoys it and she is placing well in the 100m and 200m and doing pretty decent at the triple jump and long jump.  Her goal is to make it to state this year in the 200m.

FFA Convention

The older three kids performed at the Idaho state FFA convention last week held at the College of Southern Idaho and they did an awesome job!  I was very proud of them.  :) Taylor and Hailey did an acapella clogging duet and Torsten accompanied a singing duet.  They were the entertainment before the beginning of the Thursday session.  It was so fun to be back in CSI's performing arts auditorium watching the kids on stage!  It made me nostalgic for our days of living in Twin Falls, when we spent lots of time in that building.

Oregon! (Part 1)

 Spring break we went to Oregon.  We've only traveled to the coast in autumn so it was fun to do this trip in the spring.  The scenery was amazing. On the way, we passed daffodil farms in full bloom that looked like they could be postcard pictures. Wow!!

Of course, we stopped at Multonomah Falls on the way.

Georgeous as always!!!  By the way, the top bridge was broken and closed to tourists because a large chunk of the cliff broke off a few weeks previous and hit the bridge.  That would have been scary. You can't really tell in my picture though. 

Reagan posing in the hollow tree with Tessa and Zane.  Did I mention we went on this trip with friends from Bruneau who also have 6 kids?  Between us we had 13 kids because Lily our exchange student came too.  :) You won't believe how much we had to stop for bathroom breaks! But we finally, finally made it to the coast.

I realized I rarely have Joel's picture on my blog!  So here he is, in case you wondered about his existence.  :)

We found a hurt bird our first morning and Leif was worried about it. We told him,"It will be okay.  It will just stay here and die a slow and agonizing death because it can't fly to get food OR it'll might get eaten by dog. But that's how life is sometimes for birds.  Kinda sad."  I actually did say something pretty similar to that and I realize in some ways I am much more open with my youngest child than I was with my oldest. Which is strange because in other ways I baby Leif much more.  But when it comes to some of the harsher realities, like, there is NO Santa Claus, Leif, even if your preschool teacher told you that, and no tooth fairy but here's a dollar because your Mama knows losing teeth and birthdays are the main source of income for small children, and yes, we are going to eat our 4-H pig you pampered all summer, it will be delicious, well, it's just all out in the open.   Oh boy, it is after midnight and I am beginning to digress to strange ramblings......

So back to the lovely Oregon scenery.

This rock, or haystack as they call it, was so pretty!!! We stayed in Pacific City by Cape  Kiwanda and the beach was a block away from the house.  Perfect!

Cape kiwanda had some fun tide pools,

And a climbing wall.  Somebody carved it out of the soft cliff- how nice of them!  Reagan and others tried to climb as high as they could.

I'll finish this post up soon.  Better get to bed. I get strange when it's late at night.   Zzzzzzzz.......