July 2011

JULIA TURNS 6 !!!
Here Julia watches Rachel decorate her Candyland Cake

now all the sisters want to help!!!

Our version of The Candyland Cake

Julia was excited to have two of her friends spend the night before they moved to a new city

On her actual birthday morning!

present time!

Finally a picture with mom and dad!

MEET BUDDY, OUR TURTLE

he is actually very small

And my feet are actually very FAT!

picture taken at 39 weeks 2 days gestation!

"and this little piggy went to market...."

Explosion near the Wheel Chair Factory

Here is the front of the wheel chair factory. You can see that the windows are all broken and that the front door was blown in. Pickles that were blown across the street from the blast. It was a very cold night from the looks of the frosty pickles.
The windows are broken but the boxes look in pretty good condition.

Air conditioner blown from the wall.

Top floor of factory. Due to most of the roof being blown off the ceiling came crashing down on desk, chairs and computers.

More pictures from the top floor office, ceiling fallen down.

One of the chairs modeled in the office.

Amazingly these chairs are in pretty good condition!!!

Checking out the damage. If you look closely you can see the mess across the street.

Another angle of the top floor office.

Across the street where the explosion occured.

More pictures from across the street. I think the guys in orange are HazMat Crew (Hazardous Materials) like Russ.

Two of the four cars that were torched.

Christmas Season 2010

The four oldest girls got all dressed up for a Homeschoolers Christmas Party! Christmas Eve Dinner. Mike made a delicious roast. Can you see the "painted" snow on our windows?
Carsten was facinated by this Globe oranament that Grandpa and Grandma Christensen sent.
We thought he might pull the tree down to get it, so we attached it to the lighbulb on the ceiling. He still wants to get his hands on it....
He can't even take his eyes off of it....

We've just opened the BIG box from Uncle Jack and Aunt Amy - oh what fun surprises were in there!!! Thank you!!!

Julia and Megan both asked for Barbies this Christmas, and they were very happy to get the New Rapunzel doll from the movie "Tangled" which we still have not seen.

Jack is so excited about his new interactive Dinosaur book! Awesome!!!

Kids with all the fun new games that Grandpa and Grandma Epp sent!!!

Carsten and his new "Ball" game, his car mat, and xylophone. Can you tell I'm not feeling well?

Julia all dressed up and with her new Rapunzel doll.

Rachel, Heather and friend Judith playing Christmas songs for Christmas party for their families.

Thanksgiving

Sure was a busy day of cooking, baking, and doing crafts! But we all enjoyed all that we did. Hope you had a delicious Thanksgiving too! Oh and we continued to eat leftovers for many more meals - what fun!

Birthday Girl - 11 years old

Rest and Fun in the Mountains!

Just a 2.5 hour drive from home are the cutest little cabins where we enjoyed 3 nights/4 days of rest and relaxation, and lots of outdoors and sunshine! We went up with Mark and Beth P, our teammates, and had so much fun together. The cabins have 2 bedrooms and a loft. The kitchenette was small, but worked great for our time there. The kids loved going into the forest to find twigs and branches to feed the fire pit. Bri and Jack kept it going all day long so we could enjoy a nice warm fire and s'mores in the evenings.

Montana the dog, loved playing with our kids, and vice versa!

Don't you just the "permant outdoor sofas!"?

The dining room table sat only 6, so we made adjustments...