Camping in paradise?

Here is David's antelope camp. A strong windstorm came through and destroyed our shade tents!

Todd came along as a guide, Will got hid antelope opening morning. Richard got a bunch of rocks and was able to shoot his 22 a little bit. These three headed home Sunday while David is still hunting. When the three left David was hunkered down in his truck waiting out a little storm (it lasted seven hours). He is 1 1/2 hours away from cell range so we don't hear from him much. We should be getting an update Wednesday.

Illinois

We enjoyed our busy visit to Quincy. We had lunch with Gramma Zimmerman, bbq'd at Jenny's, went to Six Flags in St Louis, fished at Aunt Terri's, shopped, looked at the mansions, fished at Aunt Terri's, played at Fun City in Burlington, Iowa, and fished at Aunt Terri's!

Susannah's getting braces

The day before our trip to Illinois Susannah got her braces put on. The doctor said she will ware them for about two years.

Love you Kevin

Today my sister-in-law, Kris, and I took Kevin to the airport. This was no ordinary trip though. Kevin is leaving for the Middle Ease this week. When I offered to take them I didn't think much of it. But, when I woke up at four this morning it hit me, I'm sending my nephew off to war. Please pray for all our soldiers both at home and abroad.

Susannah's Stirring up Dirt

Last weekend Susannah hit an in the park homerun. A reporter caught these photos and sent them to me. WHAT A SLIDE!

Softball weekend

Susannah's team played their last tournament of the spring season this weekend. They played a couple very lackluster games then they got it together and played pretty well. Susannah's highlights were a three run homer and tagging out a steal attempt at home. The team ended up winning second.

Bye bye puppies

Yesterday was a bit sad for us, we said bye to four of our puppies. One went home the previous week and one is staying with us for an extra week while her new family is on vacation. On the other hand, we saw four very excited families as they picked up their new "babies." Henry's getting some love bites from Maggie and Deb's getting kisses from Jake. Ida and Kiki are napping, I think Ida was glad to see the pups move on. She likes to be the ONLY dog.

Michelle's 10th birthday

We went to Malibu Raceway to celebrate Michelle turning 10. The kids did not have school the Friday before her birthday and we had the place to ourselves. What fun! We raced five laps around the track, played arcade games then hit the batting cages next door.

Puppies at four weeks

The puppies like lapping up milk. They are doing a good job of staying out of the pans and not in them! Ida enjoyed the leftovers.

These guys are now playing with each other quite a bit. They like to bite each others' tails and ears and basically any part of the body! I laugh each time they growl or bark, they are sooo mean!

They are not protected from Ida's tail. Just yesterday she was wagging while one puppy was in the way. Se stood there squinting his eyes until she walked away. Poor boy...

It's not a game, it's SOFTBALL

The Lions' 10U girls played some hard ball this weekend. It was the inaugural tournament for the new field in Clackamas. What a day! The rain fell and the games continued, it became pretty muddy but the girls loved it. The girl's all hit well and fielded great! The have great coaching staff and all play well together. Michelle hit the ball well and did some good sliding as you can see from the dirty uniform. She also played a mean first base! One of the girls hit two grand slams yesterday and a triple today, she is a power hitter! We had two different girls pitch today and both did a good job. Our infield also made many good plays. When the ball was hit, most girl's were out at first. It was excellent entertainment!

Puppies at three weeks

The puppies are walking, sitting and barking now. They scare themselves when the bark! One of them even growled at Michelle tonight. We sat around and watched them for about ten minutes. Whenever Ida would walk into the box they quickly approach her begging for food. She was not too interested to feed at this time.

Eyes wide open...almost

The puppies are opening their eyes now. I wonder what they think of this crazy world!! The kids are modeling some of the puppies. Richard has James Blonde, Susannah's with

Captain Jack and Michelle is with Maggie.

look at me!

Here's one of the puppies smiling for the camera. I'm not sure which one it is although they all have names now. Their names are James Blonde, Maggie Mae, Honey Biscuit, Jake, KiKi and Jack Black. They are getting fat!

Good bye little bear

One of the puppies died today. "Bear" was born without a tail. She seemed healthy enough, fat and in the mix with the others but she must have had some internal problems. Richard checked on Ida and the puppies and found her. David helped Richard bury her. What a hard lesson to learn, I'm very proud of Rick.

The birds and the bees?

Ida had seven puppies today. She had three black and four yellow, three males and four females. The males are one black and two yellow. She is doing great and we're excited about watching these guys grow!

Richard was able to watch the last puppy's birth. I don't think he learned much about childbirth though. He ran in the house yelling we have seven pups now! Ida just had a black one, it fell out of her butt like a cannon ball!

Buddies

Even though her books are out, Susannah is not doing homework! She did say all of her work was done before she played on the computer :)

Susannah's 12th Birthday

Here it is almost two weeks after Susannah's birthday and I have not posted any pictures from her party. What a crazy night! Some of the girls had ball practice and Susannah and Brooke had an impromptu tournament Saturday. It was a nice, mostly quiet evening (I LOVE having a "kid's wing" FAR away from my bedroom). The girls watched movies and went to bed before midnight! We got up early Saturday morning and headed to the tournament, which was ultimately rained out.

First Tournament of 2007

The girls each played in their first tournament of the season. Susannah is on the 12u team and Michelle the 10u. They were each playing in the same tournament but at different high schools. I dropped Michelle off at her game and went to Susannah's game which was in progress. In route I noticed a "short cut" and decided to take that on the way back to avoid some traffic and many lights. Susannah's team won and I headed back for the end of Michelle's. I was so busy looking for Avery Rd that I forgot it was off Tualatin-Sherwood Rd NOT Hwy 99, which I was on. I missed my first turn and ended up five miles down the road in Tigard!
I got back in time to see the end of the 10u's first game which they lost. They immediately began the game for third place which they also lost. Michelle pitched a couple of innings and did well until she got tired. She also had a nice hit to the outfield which was caught, darn it anyway!
Susannah's pitched in her first game but the other team was hitting off almost every pitch so she was relieved. She advanced a runner two different times and, while pinch running, made a nice slide into home where the catcher lost the ball and it remained under her bottom. Susannah's team lost their second game of the day, taking third for the tournament.
We're all pretty tired and, surprisingly, sunburned. It was a cool and cloudy day so the rays tricked us.
Deb held an open house today and said it went really well. Hopefully we'll get an offer soon.

Spring Break 2007

Well, spring break has sped past. We spent much of the week unpacking and weeding at the old house. We did get to ride the horses one day, hopefully we'll get more riding time soon. Richard's birthday was celebrated with a Mad Science party. Dr Pumpkin captured the kid's attention and respect while he taught the kids about electricity and polymers. They even got to make slime! We enjoyed a nice dinner with Linda Schuck tonight. She brought a couple bottles of wine she made. The red was delicious, we did not get to the white. As I was walking outside with her, a bird caught our eyes. It was a bald eagle! It landed in the pine trees next to the house then it flew away and we were treated again with it's majestic beauty. By the way, her room at school is named "The Eagle's Nest."

Cici and her ball

Cici found this ball in Susannah's room and had a great time rolling it around. During this play time we were awake. Usually, she chooses to play ball at 4 am. Too early for a wake up call!