Planting Garden at Folk's

Student of Month Breakfast

Haley, Annie and I attended the breakfast honoring Haley and other students for being "Student of the Month". They had muffins, coffee, juice, fruit and tiny donut holes (yum). A guest speaker gave a motivational talk. The school choir sang some songs. Certificates and an official pen were handed out. It took a little long so all the students had to take a moment to sign a paper to be turned into the office. Kind of ironic that the students of the month were tardy for class!

Haley Makes Summer Junior Varsity Basketball Team

A special day for Haley. It seems she is always playing basketball, or getting ready to play basketball, so today all the work is paying off. She was named with one other girl, Michelle Bromagen, to Junior Varsity.


SUMMER SCHEDULE

Haley's 14th Birthday

Haley's birthday has been spread out a lot this year. Beginning last Sunday, Perlie let Haley have a party at her house. And then last night the official birthday began when her mom and I gave her presents (Annie has to work today so last night was a good time to give Haley her presents).

For her birthday Haley received a cool mp3 player (Sansa 1GB Express). It has really good reviews, has an FM receiver, can record voice, and has a micro sd slot that allows an additional 1 GB of storage. Also, it has a usb rechargeable battery and files can easily be transferred.

Also she received a "memory foam" mattress topper. Jury still out on whether she likes it or not.

And today, she received a nice card and gift from Grandma and Grandpa. They also rewarded her for her good grades. Then we were off to "Izzy's" for lunch. It was great! Stopped on the way back and got some Umpqua icecream (Wild Mountain Blackberry Ripple) because it was on sale at Hank's Thriftway in Hillsboro. Back at the folk's place we were given a big bowl of beautiful strawberries and also two big containers of strawberry plants (now residing on the side of our house). Dad showed me the peas he and mom planted and the new garden is ready to be planted (look toward the top right of the picture, a grand row of blue squash will be planted there this week!). The folks have been sharing their rhubarb with us but you can tell from the picture that it is the end of the season for them. Look forward to next year enjoying them again.

Haley Pre-Birthday Party at Perlie's

Annie got Haley's party combined with Perlie's Diane's 1st Communion party.
Here are some pictures:





Haley received several gift certificates and also a cute "American Eagle" purse.
We arrived at the party at about 2pm and left about 4:15pm. Haley and I went to Mom and Dad's, dropped off some food, said hello, and then got Haley to her point guard meeting at the high school at 5:30pm. After all the nice weather lately it was hard to adjust to the cold, rainy weather we have had this weekend.

Haley: Named Student of the Month at Neil Armstrong Middle School

Got this letter in the mail today. From the envelope, thought maybe Haley was in trouble for something. Guess not!

Mothers Day: Annie and Haley, and Haley and Grandma Picture

Annie had to work today. But that didn't stop Haley from getting up early to wish her mom a happy day. Haley made her breakfast, squeezed orange juice and a ham/cheese omlette. She also gave Annie her present (Self magazine subscription, chocolate almond bars, and glass wind chimes). Finally they posed for the camera!
















After church, Haley and I headed over to Mom and Dad's place. Haley gave Mom a little pewter angel pin and I gave her a card (Annie, Haley and I were over last Sunday and gave Mom a cool flower as a gift). Then we spent time working with the new DVD camera that Dad bought Mom.


















And here you can see the Mother's Day cards set up on Annie's favorite drawers in the living room.

Haley: Last Track Meet Stayton, Oregon

Witty quotes

Witty quotes

Making Paper Pots for this Year's Plants

Time to start the squash and bitter melon seeds! An easy and inexpensive way to start seeds is to use paper pots. But unlike the linked instructions I find using a right-sized soup can instead of a jar works just fine. And instead of just bunching the left over paper into the end, just make four cuts and fold each section in, taping the final section down.

You can also see we have little starter pots. These we got from Fred Meyers, called "Jiffy Discs" (I think). These are for the special seeds we got from "Pepper Bob" (Mom and Dad's neighbor). Pepper Bob is most protective of his special tomatoes but because Annie is so cute, this last summer PB gave Annie "one" tomato. Well, we already knew these tomatoes were special so instead of savoring that one tomato I found how to extract seeds (a fun project, really) and dried them. Fingers crossed, we hope that unless the tomatoes are hybrids, we will have our own special tomatoes from now on. (Don't tell Pepper Bob!)

Tomato Seed Starting
Tomato Seed Extracting Pictorial

Newberg Track Meet, Haley Wins 100 and 200

Just got an email text from Haley.



She took the camera with her so maybe I'll have some more pictures to add!



Haley took along the camera and as you can see she is more comfortable behind the lens than in front of it. This of course is the look Haley's mother and I have trained her to give all boys. (That should work for a while.)











Thankfully, for the foreseeable future, boys will be working hard to keep Haley single too.