Olympic Gold!

Just a shout out to the USA Woman's soccer team who just captured the gold medal at the Olympics!! The USA team has the great goal-tending talents of Hope Solo, who of course is a Richland girl. Hope and I were good friends back in the day and I could not be happier for her and her success. She has over come so much in the last year and it really goes to show you what can be accomplished when you go after you put your mind to it and work hard. I hope she dedicated her SHUT-OUT AGAINST BRAZIL today to the former US Coach Ryan... of course that is what I would have done :-)

Hope and I - 1995 (I left the oh so cool 90's frame on here. I know I rocked!)

The amazing athlete she is today (she was in high school too!)

New Camera!

Its no secret I love taking pictures. I am not some great photographer but I always have a camera with me to take pics of the kids and the family. Photography is definately something that interests me but I don't think I have the creative eye to do much with it. I still have wanted a camera that would allow me to pursue it a little more and I finally broke down and got one.

This is a camera I can grow into, it came with 2 lens' so I can add more as I need to and it has more features than I even have a clue to use. I can turn it on though and I figured out how to take pictures so I'm on the right track :-) I got the Digital SLR Cameras & Photography for Dummies so I'll have some reading while we are camping this weekend and hopefully will be able to figure out what all the adjustments do and how I can get great pictures. I'll have lots of practice this weekend!

Wrapping up summer..

Geesh, where did summer go? Where did the last few weeks go :-)

The kids had a great time in Portland with Kathie and Amee. Rick and I had a great weekend also. Amee brought the kids back Sunday afternoon and we had a nice (although too short) visit with her. The kids were exhausted but of course full of stories.

Last week we stayed busy, getting Kaitlyn getting ready for school, Kaity's end of the year soccer party. Rick has been working on his racecar and plans on racing a few times in September. The end of last week it got hot here... real hot! It was 103 on Friday, ugg. Rick had gotten Kaity's motor all together so we went out the track on Friday night and helped get all set up for Saturday's race. We got all the lights up and then the kids got the karts out and went out to practice. We didn't get home until almost mid-night.

I got up and headed to work Saturday morning and we were SLAMMED! Rick and the kids stayed home in the cool temps for as long as they could. They got to the track for 1 practice. Kaitlyn's motor just didn't seem to be running right so Tracy brought over Seth's back-up motor and told Rick, no questions just put it on. What a great group we race with! Kaitlyn had fast time and finished 2nd in the main to Seth. Trace qualified 4th and finished 5th in the heat race. When he rolled out for the main we have no idea what he was doing but he took off and passed everyone and just started racing...BEFORE THE GREEN. Rick got him slowed down and put back in his position but when they came around instead of giving them the green or just letting them go, they threw the yellow. Trace actually did what he was supposed to and slowed way down but one of the other kids came flying down the straight-away and slammed into him. It was right in front of me and it totally freaked me out. I got to him right away and he was crying. I got him out of the kart and he said that he hit his elbow on the motor. He told us he wanted to race still so they went to start his kart and it wouldn't even roll. It was bent really bad so he was done. Poor Trace was so sad. He has a nice bruise and gash on his elbow but he was fine.

Sunday we went back out to the track to let Kaity try her motor again. Rick changed some stuff on it and then he did some work on her kart and she went out and it ran great. She was very fast. Some other friends from the track rolled out their daughter's kart so Trace could practice to. He didn't even hesitate getting back in.

We have been getting the motorhome all ready to head to the mountains on Thursday for the weekend. Rick has the dirt bikes loaded and we worked on getting everything into the motorhome tonight. Tomorrow I'll get all the clothes ready so Wednesday we don't have to stress much about anything (yea right!). We are really looking forward to getting out of here for a few days and away from everything. Of course the heat is letting up and the storms are rolling in here tonight but we will still have fun.

We hope you are all having a great end of your summer. It is so hard to believe its time to go back to school...wow it has gone fast!

Lightning and Fire!

For the last several days a storm has been brewing. They had been predicting an electrical storm and even put us on a warning for fires. Well for once our weather people got it right (not that this was a good thing!). At about 10 I heard the sirens start... I looked out the window and saw the sky just illuminate over and over. I didn't pay much attention after that and fell asleep.

A little after 11 Rick came in and woke me up. He took me outside and this is what we could see!
It looks a lot closer than it actually was... but it was close enough! We stood outside for a long time watching and taking pics. Surprisingly it didn't burn that much and while the paper said it was a tough area for the firefighters to get to (on the side of a hill, steep with nothing but brush) the aftermath this morning was a lot better than what it could have been. Here are a few shots I got with my little camera... this is why I would LOVE a nice big camera :-)

Chillin Childfree..

Every summer Rick's mom and sister take the kids on a special Grammie/Auntie Amee weekend. This morning they left for Portland. They have a whole weekend of activities planned and then Sunday afternoon Amee will bring them back (Rick's mom has to head to Seattle for meetings).

They were so excited... Trace has been wanting to get "packed up" for 2 weeks. I saw an idea on THIS BLOG and thought it would be perfect for the kids for activity bags for the car ride (yes I do realize these are no where as cute as her's are! Not only does she have a fabulous creative mind she has great execution!). I bought books, coloring crayons, coloring books and snacks for each of the kids. So after some cutting, heat-and-bond, ironing (did I mention I get to buy a new ironing pad because I pretty much SUCK at these things) here is the finished product:

Kaitlyn's bag....

Meredith's bag...

Trace's bag...

The end of the soccer season...

The kids finished their soccer season last night. And can I add, thank goodness! We love watching them play but Trace's team was not real well coached (exact for last week when his daycare provider took over duties while the other 'coaches' were gone). We realize that they were volunteers but my thought is, if you are going to coach then COACH. Its not so easy for us to tell our 4 year old to sit down and cheer his teamates on and watch the game when the coach is allowing them to go play tag away from the field. It was painful for Rick and I to sit there with our mouths shut, lol.

Both kids had great seasons though. Trace, we believe, will be an athlete. He is strong and so competitive. Hopefully he will want to continue sports as he gets older! Kaitlyn is also very good, but needs to be motivated to run... just like how I was! She has a lot of skills though and if she wants to continue playing I think we will look into the next level and keep motivating her to run and condition.

just a Wii bit older...

The kids and I got Rick a Wii for his birthday. It has been hours of entertainment this week. I think he had a good birthday, as good as they get when we get to this age right :-) He took Tuesday night off from working on his racecar and we celebrated with ice cream cake and some Mario Kart.

this is how Trace ate his cake... apparently he didn't like the "cake" part of it, only the ice cream!

Rick demonstrating to the kids how to play...


We don't have Wii Fitness but there is a part on the game that you can test your fitness level. The first time Rick tried it said he was 52...whoops! The next time it said 33, perfect. I will not be testing this part of the game out :-)