Happy New Year!

We said goodbye to 2007 with some blowers and some loud celebrating in our living room. Our tradition the last couple of years has been to celebrate the New Year on Boston's timezone. That way we don't have to keep the kids up to midnight, although it turns out to be a late night anyway. We played Dutch Blitz which was a gift to Becky for Christmas. Loads of fun! We have been enjoying it and several other new games while the kids have been on Christmas vacation.

Christmas Day

What a wonderful Christmas 2007! We really enjoyed all of the ornaments on our tree this year. Both Sarah and Ben made new ornaments at school, and we had plenty of ornaments with memories from earlier Christmas days. We sort of had a red theme going today.

Cache #100

We had a goal to find 100 geocaches by the end of the year, and we made it on Christmas Eve! This was site of the original geocache placed in 2000 by Dave Ulmer, which started this whole crazy adventure of geocaching. His original 5-gallon tub is no longer there, but "concerned geocachers" have put a tribute plaque at the location. It is in the Portland, OR vicinity, but we did do a lot of driving on backroads to find it in a wooded area. Now that we've found 100 geocaches, what will we do now?

Grammie's Christmas

We drove to see Clint's mom at her home for the weekend before Christmas. This is her first Christmas in this home, and we could all feel the Christmas spirit in the air. Outside was frequently raining though. We felt like we had some good family time. You may notice Sarah is trying to grow as tall as her Grammie! Merry Christmas a couple of days early!

SkipBo with Grandma

On a visit to Clint's Grandma's home, we enjoyed taking her out to lunch. She surprised us with a few Christmas gifts. Sarah was tickled pink with her ballerina Barbie, and Ben enjoyed a new game - SkipBo. We asked Grandma to show us how to play. We had a great time and she won! Ben wanted it to be clear he didn't let her win because he really wanted to win. Honestly, Grandma is a pro at this game, so we had to stay on our toes to play with her. We'll practice at home, and try to get ready for a rematch the next time we visit her.

Sledding Day

We took a weekend to visit our friends, Zachary & Samantha. They have a great hill so the kids couldn't pass up the chance for sledding in their backyard.

Fall Trail

A lovely fall afternoon pulled us outside to go geocaching. We found a new trail and stopped to try to catch leaves falling off of the trees. Along the way we saw horses, dogs, cattle and even a beaver dam near the trail parking area.

Leaves are for Jumping

We took our rake with us to the park today to make a GIANT leaf pile! We were not disappointed. The kids would have stayed all afternoon if we had the time.

Lake Louise & Moraine Lake

Today we wanted to see some of the beautiful lakes we'd been hearing about for years. The first stop was Lake Louise. The water is really quite captivating. It seems to be saying, "Look at me, look at me..." The photo of Sarah is at Lake Louise. Her cat, Patches, and doll, Baby, joined us on most of the outings for this vacation riding in a small backpack. We didn't walk all the way around, but we spent time walking and taking in the view. Of course we didn't miss the opportunity to find two geocaches! Then we headed over to Moraine Lake. If we thought Lake Louise was something special, we were blown away by Moraine Lake. There is a giant rock pile which happened when the lake was formed. Clint and kids went hiking and took this photo of Sarah and Ben from the top. There is also a photo of the rock pile, and if you squint you may be able to see Clint near the center. We're loving the mountains and lakes, and were very pleased with the perfect weather.

Project Fair

Ben & Sarah's homeschool group holds a project fair at the end of each school year. This year they each had a large display of some of the artwork from their art class. The art teacher selects some projects from the beginning and end of the year to show how the children improved. There was a lot of art not displayed, including their pottery. Both kids performed with their classes too. Ben's class sang and recited a poem about wishes. The photo of Ben looking through a painting was part of the poem. Sarah's class sang several songs too. Then all the kids had a sports jamboree when kids from the different classes played soccer in a competition. It was a great afternoon. It is fun to see all they accomplished with their classes.