When I was Young...

When I was in second grade my family moved to Pullman. We lived there until the end of my freshman year of high school. Most of my childhood memories are from Pullman. I remember trick-r-treating in the snow, trying to keep up with the neighborhood boys through the wheat fields, riding my horses in those same fields, building the corral behind our house with my dad, and walking to Fonks to get penny candy with my sisters when we'd go visit my dad at work. Too many memories to put in one blog!

I used to sit on this sign with my sisters when I was a kid. We would sit here and watch for my grandparents car to drive down the hill when they would come for a visit. Before the bus stop shed was built I used to hide behind this sign to wait for the bus and it would block the wind and the snow. Everytime I drive into Pullman it's the first thing I see and it always brings back so many memories.

This is the bus stop shed we built when I was in 4th grade. I was so excited when it was done...no more hiding behind the brick sign! That is until the retarded boys in our neighborhood wouldn't let me inside the shed unless I'd let them whitewash me...

This is our house...114 Lancer Lane. We moved into it when I was in 3rd grade. I remember I was so excited because it was a "brand new house" and it was the first house my parents ever bought instead of rented (which meant it was permanent...except that it came in on wheels....). The lady who bought it recently was so excited to hear about the original family and learn some of the history of the house. I told her about how my mom and I used to mow the lawn with a push mower and when we built the extra room in the garage so I could have my own room.

This is the green house (although it's not really green anymore). I loved this house! First, it had a pasture in the backyard where we could keep our horses right on our property. Second, it was HUGE (in my memory). I remember ice skating on the pond in the park right behind this house, chasing our horses through town after they were spooked by the city fireworks, playing in the hot tub, chopping wood by the chicken coop, my first crush, and my first stitches after I stepped through the window...

The owner of this house was so nice; he wanted me to come inside and see what they had done to the house. It looked a lot like how I remembered it but different too. They had removed the swimming pool, and the hot tub. I had just finished telling Jim and Stefani the stories about this house (which I'm sure they doubted because they are so crazy). When I asked the owner if the hot tub was still there he said "no, we removed it because we didn't want that associated with the house now." You should have seen the look on Stefani's face when he confirmed the crazy history of this house. I can't believe after 20 years they still tell that story.

Mom, did you know?

Today Bella went to go to the bathroom and after a few minutes I hear her saying "hi, how are you?" "fine, how are you?" Here is our conversation.
Sarah: "Bella, who are you talking to?"
Bella: "No one"
S: "Well who is saying hi, how are you?"
B: "Oh that's my poopoo and peepee. Did you know that they are friends?"
S: "Really? How did that happen?"
B: "Well the poopoo came out first and then the peepee came and met the poopoo. Now they are friends which is good because they are both in the swimming pool together."
S: "Wow. Okay let's flush the toilet now."
B: "Bye friends, have fun down there together!"

Hmmm....in all my years of using a toilet I never knew that those two specimens were friends. Did you? :)

Blog of shame

I was talking to my sister-in-law this morning about our blogs. I said "I haven't posted in forever." She said "I know, I check it all the time." Dang it. This is why I didn't want to blog in the first place. I knew I'd forget to update it and then I'd have to do the blog of shame...you know...the one where you sit down and post 20 blogs to make up for 3 weeks worth of not doing anything.
Or maybe you're one of those bloggers - like my awesome sister-in-law who told me she impatiently waits a few days to post again so people can read her blog before she bumps it for new stuff.
So that leads me to ask...What kind of blogger are you?

Camping at Soda Springs

The weekend before school started we took the kids camping at Soda Springs. Dean had spotted it on the way up to scout camp in July and said it looked like a beautiful place to go. We had a rough start - we didn't get there until 9 pm Fri night and had to set up camp in the dark, I backed our car into a huge boulder and cracked the muffler, and then had to stalk this really nice family living in a town nearby to pump up the air mattresses. The next day was worth it all though! Our camping spot was right on the river, we had the most incredible weather, we had the camp mostly to ourselves...even the very interesting neighbors next to us couldn't dampen the experience!



We went hiking along the river to find the actual soda springs. It wasn't hard to find but it was kind of cool to see!













When we were hiking we came across a tree that hung out over the river. Someone had tied a rope swing to it so that you could swing out over the river. The branch looked a little flimsy so Dean let me try it first....

I'm so cool!





When I didn't fall into the river, Dean and Myanna took a turn...

We couldn't convince Alissa that it was safe, but Bella was just begging to go. I was not about to send my three year old out across a swiftly moving river with only her arm strength to keep her from death but I was overruled. When Alissa saw that Bella could do it...she finally agreed to try it. Then the trick was convincing her to get off...

We had so much fun!! After the rope swing we went back to our camp spot and got into our swim suits. All along the river there were salmon pools built up (rocks placed to pool the water so the salmon could spawn) and we had 3 of them at our camp spot. The kids had so much fun playing in the river despite the freezing water temp!


Extra pictures that just had to be included...

Feeding Grandpa

On Aug. 28th my dad was admitted to the ER. He had gone into a hepatic coma (a coma induced by too much ammonia in his system) and needed immediate interventions to keep him alive. He spent 19 days in the hospital, 8 of those in critical care on a ventilator. It has been an extremely stressful and worry filled time for everyone in my family.
When he came out of critical care Bella and I went to visit him...it was so neat to finally be able to talk to him and see him respond to us. The best part of the day was watching Bella want to take care of grandpa. He couldn't feed himself yet (he needed rehab to re-teach him how) and Bella was so excited to feed grandpa! She fed him peaches, mashed potatoes, and crushed ice cubes. After awhile both my mom and I kept asking Bella if she was ready for us to take over and she would demand that she was perfectly capable of feeding him all by herself. I think she was the only one who was upset when grandpa finally learned to feed himself...


Funny things Bella learned from grandpa:
one day we were in the car and Bella started doing something that resembled a cat hacking up a hair ball. When I asked her what she was doing she informed me she was "clearing her throat just like grandpa does." (He had to clear his throat a lot when the ventilator first came out to clear up the fluid that had built up).
Another day I put her food out on the table and turned around to do the dishes. After a few minutes I turned around just to see that Bella hadn't touched her food. "Bella, why aren't you eating?" "Mom, I can't lift my arm, it had a coma."

Dancer Dancer Pants on Fire...

This year Alissa asked me if she could drop ballet. As a 3rd year student she would be required to wear tights and have her hair in a bun every day, so it didn't take me long to agree. I only had to picture what I'd have to do to get her into tights and a bun if she was having a bad day.
Instead we opted for something genetically inherent to my children (if you doubt this just ask Myanna to crump for you) and signed her up for hip hop. Her class starts right after school so I had to pick them up and head straight to the studio. When she came out of her classroom she was adamant that we had to go home first to change. To say I was miffed would be an understatement, since we'd spent 20 min picking out an outfit that morning that would work for both p.e. and hip hop...and since I knew we wouldn't have time to go home. Finally she showed me why.
During p.e. she'd done some sort of drill that required her to slide on her bum across the pavement. I wonder if the Mr. Sinclair gives refunds on pants that he ruins? Anyway...this was the result of that drill:

We didn't have time to go home so I told her to just borrow Myanna's sweater and wrap it around her waist...no one would be the wiser. Little did I know that Darlene would have them doing upside down freeze poses during class that day. I wish you could have seen the look on Alissa's face when she realized what they were going to be doing. She sat that one out, but loved the rest of her class and told me that even with ripped pants hip hop was way more fun than ballet. Duh.

Bella's First Day!!

Poor Bella has waited so long to go to preschool. This last year I've been telling her that when Alissa started first grade she would get to start preschool. After we dropped off the kids for their first day of school, we got into the car and Bella said "Okay, time to drop me off at preschool!" When I had to explain that preschool didn't start for another week and a half she was extremely put out. Luckily she was easily bribed with a trip to McDonalds and a pink pedicure at the "mommy pedicure store." Finally the big day came and she was so excited. We had gone shopping earlier in the week to get her first day of school outfit. She told everyone we saw that she was shopping for school clothes. I tried (to NO avail) to convince her to let me buy her capri's or shorts but as you can see, we ended up with a dress. I even told her she wouldn't be able to go down the slide at preschool in a dress, which did make her stop and think for a few seconds, but in the end she told me she'd rather wear a dress than do "anything fun." Really...where do my kids come from???




This is Bella and Mrs. Long. Mrs. Long is the only teacher that has been there since Myanna went to preschool at Young Years.











The teachers had put together goodie bags for mommies who were having a hard time leaving their kids. Bella let me stay for about 2 minutes and then said "Good luck mom, I know you can't have much fun without me!" I think the kleenex in the bags was supposed to be used for something else, but I made mine into a freedom flag and hung it out my window.


Bella was so ready for me to leave that she wouldn't even come down from the play house to give me a hug. When I asked for a kiss goodbye she stuck her lips between the bars and said "this will work."

Boulder Caves

Labor Day weekend Dean took the kids to boulder caves just north of Yakima. He was going to go to ape caves but one of his friends told him boulder caves was sweet so he opted to go there. I think his friend has never been to ape caves. Don't get me wrong, boulder caves looks beautiful but come on...it's nothing compared to ape caves!!!

Myanna took this picture of Dean:

Ready to go!

Alissa is ready to hike the caves...check out her awesome flashlight!


Myanna and Bella loved climbing on the rocks!