Tubing at Snoqualmie Pass

Since we had no school today due to midwinter break, we spent a fun filled morning as a family tubing up at Snoqualmie Pass.  This is something that we have never done before, but I thought of it last month as a gift that we could give to Logan for his birthday instead of a friend party.  I thought that all of the kids would really appreciate it this year since the sledding was so disappointing at Priest Lake in December due to the little amount of snow that was on the ground.  We got up to the tubing park early to be ready for our 10:30 time slot to begin.  We then spent the next 1 hour and 45 minutes tubing our hearts out on the huge hill.  We had such a great time and couldn't get over how fast the tubes went on the first part of the run.  Everyone did great with having to walk up the massive hill over and over again.  Emmett especially was a trooper and only Logan could keep up with him.  We had such a great time and I am so happy that this birthday gift turned out to be such a fun experience for Logan and the rest of our family!

 

A family picture that we had taken of us while waiting for our time slot to begin.

Ella (on the left), Logan (in the middle), and Lia (on the right) going down at the same time together.

A close-up of the three of them finishing their run.

A shot of Lia walking to the end of her lane after finishing another run.

Emmett running out of his lane.

Ella walking out of her lane.

A group shot I was able to snap of the kids before they walked up the hill again.

Ron pushing Emmett down from the top of the hill.  I was amazed how he never was afraid to go down this massive hill alone at such a fast speed.

Lia pulling a worn out Emmett, Logan, and Ella back to the parking lot at the end of our tubing session.

Ella Competes at the Charity Choice Invitational

Ella just competed in the Charity Choice Invitational in Tacoma for the third year in a row.  Although she has enjoyed this meet in the past, it ended up being her most disappointing meet to date.  She started out strong, earning a score of 8.85 on floor and an 8.5 on vault.  However, she slipped at the beginning of her bars routine and only earned an 8.3.  Due to her frustration with this slip, Ella totally let it get the best of her on beam.  She fell once and forgot a part of her routine and earned a 7.1 which is the lowest score of her gymnastics career.  As disappointing as this meet was, I think that it was a valuable learning experience for Ella and, hopefully, she will not let it affect her for the three remaining meets of the season.  

Ella's team walked in for the opening ceremonies wearing St. Patrick's Day sunglasses and headbands.  She got to be at the front of her team and carry the sign which was such a fun surprise for me to see.

A close up of my girl.

Although Ella didn't earn any medals at the meet, she was able to go up on the stand at the end when they won first place for the team award.

A cute shot I was able to get of Ella on our way out.

Rise and Shout Lia!

 

After years of working hard in school to earn straight As, participating in many extra curricular activities and service, and attending seminary, Lia found out yesterday that her lifelong dream came true with the arrival of her acceptance email from BYU Provo!  Although the acceptance emails were not supposed to go out until Monday, they arrived early at 4 pm yesterday.  And although I found out about this from my friend, Kerry, at 4:10 pm, I had to wait until Lia got home from play practice at 5:30.  I was hoping to surprise her by telling her to check her email after she walked in the door, but, sadly, she had already discovered the email on her phone and had read it in her high school bathroom after her rehearsal was over.  In addition, Lia texted a few friends and called one of her school friends AND Ron and the kids on her drive home, so I technically was not the first one to hear.  Although I was sad to not be with Lia when she read the happy news, I started screaming the second she casually mentioned it to me a minute or two after she got home.  Needless to say, we are all so excited, happy, and thrilled about this news!  A day later, I am still pinching myself to make sure it is true.  I just can't wait for Lia to become a Cougar and to have the experience of a lifetime at my beloved alma mater.  Way to go, Lia!  We are so dang proud of you!

A proud Lia holding up her acceptance letter.

A screenshot of what Lia posted on the Senior Sunday following her acceptance into BYU.

Celebrating Logan's 14th Birthday!

We wrapped up Logan's 14th Birthday celebrations tonight after a few events the past few days.  We hosted his family birthday party on Saturday, February 7th.  Chris, Natalee, Trenton, and the grandparents all joined us for the party.  We enjoyed eating French Dip sandwiches with all of the fixings before opening up gifts in the family room.  Afterwards, we came back to the kitchen to sing to Logan and eat homemade chocolate cake and ice cream.  Since Logan had to go to school bright and early this morning on his actual birthday, I made him our traditional waffle breakfast and sang "Happy Birthday" to him at 6:30 in the morning while the other three children were still in bed.  We then celebrated again tonight as a family with a steak dinner and a chocolate creme pie.  Luckily, Lola's birthday card had arrived in the mail, so Logan had one gift to open up after dinner.  We are also going to Snoqualmie Pass next week as a family to go tubing over midwinter break as one of the gifts that we gave to Logan.  So we still have a little more celebrating to do!  Logan is such a wonderful teenager who is helpful, thoughtful, hard working, and the funniest kid around.  I honestly don't know what I would do without him and am so grateful that he joined our family fourteen years ago!  Happy Birthday, Logan!  We sure love you!

All of the kids (minus Lia) eating dinner together at the children's table on February 7th.  Since Lia had another birthday party to go to, she arrived back at our house just as we were finishing dinner to join us for the rest of the evening.

The adult table.

Logan ready to open his gifts!

Opening up his first present.

Logan holding up the note that announced that we are going tubing as a family.

Modeling his new jacket that he got for the rainy track season.

I found funny "Bruh I'm 14" decorations online and ordered them for Logan's party.  Here is the funny cake topper that was on Logan's cake with his 14 candles.

Emmett and Trenton with Logan before we sang to him.

Blowing out his candles.

The pig pile that ended up on top of Uncle Chris at the end of the party.

Logan sitting alone at the table at 6:30 in the morning with his breakfast waffles.

Blowing out his candles.

The kids and I smiling for a picture before enjoying Logan's steak birthday dinner.

Logan blowing out candles for the third time this birthday.

The birthday boy and his siblings posing before Logan open up his last card that had arrived in the mail from Lola.

Seahawks Win Super Bowl LX

Since I really haven't followed the Seahawks closely the past few years, I didn't start to realize how good they were this year until the end of the season after they had won the majority of their games.  As a result, I suggested to Ron that we watch the first playoff game together, which is something that we haven't done together in years.  After they won the first game, I started to really get into again and started to look forward to the second playoff game.  When they won the second game and secured a spot in the Super Bowl, I realized that they really could win it again this year!  So, we broke out our old Seahawk shirts, bought a ton of game-day snack food items to eat for dinner, and settled in for the entire Super Bowl game today.  Although Lia stayed up in her room to work on homework and script memorization for her musical, the rest of us enjoyed watching the entire game from our family room.  It was a relatively drama-free game and we were able to just sit back, relax, and enjoy it.  When the end of the game finally came and the Seahawks were announced as the winners, the kids and I ended up on our back porch yelling and screaming and celebrating while our entire neighborhood turned into the 4th of July for the next several minutes.  It was so fun to watch and hear all of the fireworks go off and to celebrate our winning team!  Way to go, Hawks!

The three kids standing in front of the TV right after the game had finished and the players were celebrating on the field.

A shot I managed to get of the players drenching the head coach in Gatorade.

Ella ran upstairs and grabbed Logan's megaphone out of his bedroom to scream into while all of the fireworks were going off in our neighborhood.

Emmett's Lego Birthday Party

After waiting three weeks, we hosted Emmett's birthday party today with ten of his friends.  Emmett agreed to go with a Lego theme for his party which I was so grateful for as this meant that I could use all of the decor and ideas that I had left over from Logan's party seven years ago.  We spent a fun-filled two hours hosting Emmett and his friends this morning.  We played several games, opened gifts, and finished off with cake and ice cream.  Emmett received a giant stuffed shark which he LOVES and several Lego sets that he has already started building.  I am so glad that we were able to find a Saturday during this busy month to celebrate Emmett's birthday with several of his friends.

Emmett posing for me on the front porch next to the Welcome sign and balloons.

A close-up of my cutie and the sign that he and Ella drew.

The kitchen table all decked out.

Emmett's Lego-themed cake.

Emmett and his friends coloring at the beginning of the party.

William, Emmett, and Raylan coloring their Lego pictures.

The first game we played was drop the Lego in the jar.

The second game we played was "Hot Lego."

We then divided the children into two groups to have them build the highest, standing Lego structure in five minutes.

We then played Lego Twister before finishing off the games with several rounds of "Hide the Lego."

Emmett holding up the massive gift bag that Cameron gave him with the stuffed shark inside.

Emmett and his dear friend. Clara.

Emmett holding up Raylan's Lego sets.

Emmett waiting to blow out his candles.

A group picture of the all of the kids enjoying cake and ice cream at the end of the party.

Ella Competes at the PDX Invitational

Ron and I drove to Portland on Friday afternoon with the three youngest children so that Ella could compete in the PDX Invitational in Portland on Saturday.  We were able to get there in a little over two hours which was lucky considering the fact that we were driving there during rush hour.  We checked into our hotel in downtown Portland and then walked to Smash Burgers for dinner.  We then had enough time to enjoy an hour at the hotel pool before heading to bed.  After a slow morning that included breakfast at the hotel and a little more time at the pool, we checked out around 10:30 and headed to Ella's gymnastics meet at the Oregon Convention Center.  We spent the next four hours watching Ella compete in her four events.  The judges were tougher at this meet than normal, so Ella did not score as high as she usually does.  She earned an 8.95 on bars, an 8.425 on beam, an 9.175 on floor, and an 8.35 on vault with an all around score of 34.9.  She earned a medal for her performance on floor and did a great job overall.  As always, we are so proud of Ella's hard work and effort she puts into every meet that she competes at.

Ella and Emmett standing behind the Oregon sign inside the entrance of the convention center.

Ella posing with the balloons before heading into the meet.

Ella's first event was vault.  Here she is doing a squat on.

Ella on the top bar.

Ella doing a tap swing.

Ella looking directly at us after finishing up with the bars.

Ella's second event was the beam.  Here she is getting onto the beam.

Jumping in the air.

Doing one of her two cartwheels on the beam.

Ella's third event was floor.  Here she is starting her routine.

An awesome action shot of Ella doing her front pike.

A cute shot of Ella doing a shimmy in her routine.

Doing her tuck jump.

Doing a handstand.

Ella's final pose in her floor routine.

Ella's fourth and final event was the vault.  Here she is jumping on the springboard after running down the runway.

Going over the vault.

And landing it!

Ella smiling at us after finishing vault.