Merciless

Learning to extend grace and show mercy to one another is a daily goal in our house. We fail often, with the main offender being me, but we keep at it, never giving up. Except when it comes to Settlers of Catan, the one time we have a license to be merciless.

Christian had played before, but the two other boys were initiated a couple of days ago. They caught on really fast, beginning slowly and kindly until the trading began and the longest roads were built! Oh boy, watch out! At the end though, Christian was kind enough to aid Ethan(assisted by Shawn) to score the winning point. Maybe all that "Golden Rule" talk was absorbed after all.

Time with Friends

It was time to get away from the ordinary, (and from my testosterone driven home), and spend some time with the girlfriends! It was long overdue for all of us, so we made the most of it. Lots of good talking, lots of good shopping. We managed to acquire 7 pair of new shoes between the 4 of us. That should have meant that I would have come home with 2 1/4 pairs, but somehow, three of us only brought home one pair; one girl really scored!! The manis and pedis were very much appreciated and enjoyed by all, even if the pretty nails only lasted a while. Washing dishes, double knotting soccer shoes laces and opening those silly Costco milk jugs will ruin any nails, which makes having them done once in a while even more special. We finished a perfect day with dinner and returned to our homes quite tired but absolutely refreshed.How precious to have these friends!

Of course this was only made possible by my dear husband, who took the boys to two different soccer games, a belt ceremony, art class and a ski swap. I think I know who is up next for some time out.

Adorned with Gold

Nolan has been truly enjoying learning and practicing Taekwondo. This past Saturday he was able to put his skills to the test in the13th Washington Open Championship. He worked hard and broke quite a sweat, but it was all worth it. He earned two gold medals, 1st place on poomse and sparring. Way to go Nolan!

Boys at Camp

Last week, Christian headed on his first backpacking trip with with a group of scouts. He packed his bag, weighing in at 23#, and lugged it for 4 miles along Baker Lake to get to his destination. The weather was clear and beautiful, which also meant that the temps got quite low at night, in the mid 30's. Brrr! Not a problem to Christian, he was just fine wearing shorts and a light long sleeve shirt way into the evening. He must have figured that it was better to brave the cold then to rummage through the big pack in the dark to find warmer clothes. Just another reason why boy scouts is great. It keeps mom away and let's the boy figure some things out on his own. He had a great time and the only thing that he will do different next time he says, is to bring more food along. No surprise there.

Talking about boys scouts, Christian just made it through his first rank, he is now a Tenderfoot. He also earned his first Merit Badges; aviation, sailing and water sports.

Congratulations my son!

Zoo & Others

We had been talking about going to the zoo for ages now, and I means ages, like years! I couldn't put it off any longer, not that I had done it intentionally, the right day just never came along. Until now. The zoo was offering a few days of super discounted prices for home schoolers. Being that the cub scouts theme for the month was Jungle Safari., the pack planned a field trip to the zoo for one of those days. It just happened that we are studying carnivores at the moment, so again, the zoo was the place to go for some safe "hands on" studies. It turned out to be a very entertaining, educative and exhausting day. The boys made it a mission to see every single animal on that place! We did not quite make it, but suffice to say we saw (and walked) enough to satisfy everyone.

I just have to warn you in case you are heading to the zoo anytime soon. It's fall, which in the animal kingdom means mating season. Oh yeah, Mister King of the Animal Kingdom, the mighty lion himself, got up from his mid morning nap and made sure his kingdom would have an heir. Christian just looked at me and snickered, Nolan piped up "they are having a wedding" and then our other little friend said "I think the lion is giving her a massage". "OK!! Time to go see the wild dogs, let's go!" Fortunately, the wild dogs did not live up to their name, they were quite content to be lazy.

One More Hike Before Snowshoes

When I heard that the road up to Artist Point had been closed due to snow, I was a little concerned we would miss our annual fall trek to see the marvelous fall colors. It is hard for me to accept that the hiking season in higher elevation is almost over, especially when you didn't get to hike as much as you had hoped for. So I needed to get up there one more time for "closure". Our week was quite hectic with a few more commitments than usual, but we had one "free" day and since the weather was clear and gorgeous, it was a "no brainer". The boys worked hard and efficiently through their school, so by late morning we met up with the Davis gang and hit the road. It was exactly what we needed; it recharged our energies and it was such a nice break.

Grace spotted some fish in this shallow creek, and the boys set out on a mission to catch one, Bear Grylls style.

Being concerned that her kids would get wet feet in case there was too much snow on the ground, Ann had stopped to get some decent hiking boots for Grace. I reminded my boys to pack an extra pair of socks, just in case. Well, in their pursuit of the fish, two of them tried to jump on the same rock. As the laws of physic will tell you, they could not occupy the same space at the same time and Nolan ended up in the creek. He figured he might as well stay in, better chances to catch the fish.

Just as I was telling Ann that there was no way they would ever catch one, they proved me wrong. We knew we would not be able to feed 5000 with that fish, or even 5 kids for that matter, so we stopped at the North Fork Brewery for pizza and home made root beer.

I could not end the post without adding one more picture .

Hey Grace, even though you might sometimes get annoyed with having to hike with your "four brothers", we love having you with us. Who else would give me such nice smile and actually enjoy having a picture taken? I look forward to many more hikes with you.

Server Down

Yep, no updates for a while because the server, ME, was down. I got hit by what is believed to be the famed H1N1 flu! It was pretty bad, actually, it was miserable, but I'm not going to dwell on it, my brain is already working to erase that period of time out of my memory bank. Of course, once I recovered, the daily tasks had accumulated and I have been busy at tackling them all. So know I'm about two steps behind all my chores, in other words, we are back to normal.

I was able to celebrate my recovery by taking the kids to the Wolf Lodge along with our good friends the Davis'. It had been scheduled a while back and I'm very glad I was well enough to go. Imagine the kid's disappointment if we had to forgo all the fun.

We all enjoyed the slides and the "Howling Tornado" was our favorite, especially at night in the dark, awesome!

And life slowly returned to normal, with school, cub scouts meeting and soccer! Ethan was finally cleared (from his broken arm) to resume sports.

One of the best things of recovering from the flu is that my appetite came back and I was able to enjoy one of my favorite breakfast, four grain flapjacks with wild blueberries. So yummy!