Portland Air National Guard Tour

For our joint activity Wednesday night we took the youth to The Portland Air National Guard. Thanks to Bro. Haner having connections and hooking us up. What an experience to get to go inside the hangars and see where they work on the engines that power the F-15's. We learned that each of the engines are valued at an estimated $1.2 million dollars. And there are 2 engines on each F-15. Oh my!!!Our tour was guided by Master Sergeant Brockman. He went into detail of the genetics of the engines and the power each one has.
Our Young Women and Young Men were very intuitive and asked alot of questions.
We were going to be going out on the Tarmac and the temperature outside was about 44 degrees so we had the youth bring jackets to stay warm. Well we were in the hangars for awhile first so they began to shed their layers and of course when they do this they want someone else to hold their stuff. Being that Myself and Jo-Lynn, my 1st councilor had kids there naturally they come to us to dump their stuff off with. Jo-Lynn's daughter was first to bring her heavy coat for her mommy to hold. After about 10 minutes Jo-Lynn commented on how heavy it was and I stated how my daughter brought her large bag in and was surprised she hadn't asked me to hold it yet. I look over at her and she does not have her bag. Puzzled I began to look around to see where she put it.

This is where I found it. She had asked the YM's President Jared Mueller to hold it for her. He even posed for a picture. What a nice guy and a good sport.
Next we got to go out on the Flight Line to watch 3 of the F-15's take off.

Master Sergeant Brockman gave each person ear plugs and off we went.

We got to see how they do all of the routine checks on the jets before they go up. They spare no little detail.

Maddy out on the tarmac waiting to see them take off.

Sierra, Macie, Maddy (in the background is Nick and Travis)

We also got to see the cockpit of the F-15

What an amazing piece of equipment, everything at the fingertip of the pilot. The F-15 carries 30,000 lbs of fuel. Shoots rounds of 940 bullets in less than 10 seconds and the bullets weigh approximately 1 lb. each. We were given so much information in such a short amount of time that I cannot remember all of it.

The only picture that I have gotten of Cole in forever. This guy just won't let me take his picture.

Macie, Sierra and Maddy in the Hangar
Our Group...

from front left: Caleb, Lance, Laurissa, Maddy, Me & Heidi

2nd row: Morgan, Brianna, Travis, Nick, Madison, Madison, Macie, Sierra, Jo-Lynn, Kiara

top row: Bishop McGill, Cole, Jeremy Frey, Master Sergeant Brockman, Don Haner, Jared Mueller, Kelvin Brown & Cavan Dover

Thanks again to Don Haner for arranging this tour. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Maddy's academics get her the Gold

At Clear Creek Middle School the Principal has always honored the students that do well on their state testing and class GPA. There are three levels of awards. Bronze; awarded to those who improved their state testing scores and their GPA by .5 and having at least a 2.5 GPA, and no more than 2 office referrals. Silver; meeting state testing scores and maintaining a 3.5 GPA or higher, and no more than 1 office referal. Gold; exceeding the state testing scores in all subjects, maintaining a 3.5 GPA or higher for all grading periods of the school year, and no office referrals.

Maddy has maintained a 4.0 GPA the whole year and exceeded on all her state tests. I am very proud of her and her efforts in the classroom as well as her efforts at home with homework. She is one that does not put off an assignment. As soon as she receives a big project that she has 3-4 weeks to complete she gets it done in the first week. At the beginning of the year she would turn her projects in right away. Unfortunatley she learned from that, that some other students are not always honest and copy your finished project. The Teachers knowing she turned hers in first have given her credit but have warned her that in the future she needs to protect her work from other dishonest students. So since then she has still completed her projects way ahead of schedule but has waitied to turn them in so no one could copy. Here is the principal of Clear Creek Middle school, John koch ( pronounced cook)

On Monday of this week he was announced as the new Gresham High School Principal as of July 1, 2010. So my older 2 will get their old principal back and my younger kids will have to wait and see who will be their principal for the upcoming school year. John Koch is very good with students. He interacts well with them, has a great sense of humor and has possitive advice to give. He was named Oregons Principal of the year in 2008. A very top honor.
Also in the photo, next to my Maddy is Maddie Huff. Happy 12th Birthday! Then Maddie Sheehan, Maddy Halberg and Delaney Jackson. Congrats girls on your academic achievements!

Two 3rd place finishes at 12U Tournaments in Newberg, OR

Maddy's fastpitch softball team had 2 tournaments back to back. April 24-25th & May 1-2nd, 2010. They finished 3rd both weekends. The girls played well and just came up a few runs short to make it to the championship games. Maddy got to be the first girl to take the trophy home.
Team photo after winning 3rd place!
Starting from the bottom left: Coach Tricia Huff, Sara, Allison, Ashley, Maddy L., Emily, Arika
2nd row: Autumn, Bethaney, Nichole, Maddie H. ,Trisha, Maddie G.
top row: coaches Tom Rombach, Kelly Woodard, Joe Stanfill and Travis Wilson

The girls after winning 3 games in a row on may 1-2nd, scoring 50 runs and only allowing 3 from their opponents. Maddy hit a triple in one of the games and a homerun in the 3rd game.
Steven borrowed his mom's camera and took pictures of the tournaments. over 1000 pictures between the 2 tourneys.

Maddy plays catcher usually about 4-6 innings per tournament. She does a great job of protecting home plate and catching pop up foul balls.

I seriously have not gotten a full face shot picture of Cole for over 6 months. This kid will not look at me. So I have to settle for the side shots.

Presley and Syd actually getting along, trying to stay warm is more like it!

Maddy up to bat. Look in the back ground, you can see Presley, Me, Syd, Sierra (yes, shocker! Sierra actually came to one of Maddy's tournaments) & Cole

Here she is sliding into 3rd base. Maddy is so quick, she has yet to get picked off on a steal!(Steven had just put the camera down when she hit her homerun, so we did not get a picture of that :( bummer)

Maddy made 4 double plays during the April 24-25th tournament. During the game deciding the 3rd place winner we were up 3-2, bottom of the 7th inning. Maddy is playing 2nd base. The opposing team is up to bat, first girl hits a ball to pitcher she throws her out at first but the retarded ump called her safe. Next batter comes up.. hits the ball, it is over first basemans head, Maddy is in a full run... she catches it about 20 feet behind first base, the runner from first is already at 2nd, coach sent her thinking there was no way someone could catch the hit ball. Maddy runs up and steps on first base 2 outs. 3rd batter gets up and hits a line drive right back to our pitcher, Emily, she catches it! Game over!

After a long day of softball games, This is Cole on the drive home( probably from boredom)And Presley! This girl plays so hard at the tournaments. She literally wears herself out playing with a few of the other kids siblings from the team.

I LOVE IT!!

Cole Baseball

Isn't this a great picture through the fence! I asked Syd to take a picture of Cole batting and that she needed to get up tight to the fence and take it through the slot. Hey, at least it focused in on Cole and not the fence. Cole has played 3 games a week for the past 4 weeks. I have taken very few pictures because when I take out the camera Cole asks me to put it away. So I do because I don't want to make him nervous when he is up to bat. 2 weeks ago during a game aginst Barlow High he took a pitch in the ribs. OUCH! It left the perfect imprint of the ball including the threads on his side. He got to take his base and stole each base all the way home. He scored the only run for Gresham that game. They played in Hood River on April 7th. The town has actually grown in population since Steven lived there back in '86.
Another picture through the fence line by Syd. Cole hit a nice bunt and ran to first base before they even got to the ball. This was during an away game against Sandy High School. Gresham won 6 to 4. Cole played left field and made 2 amazing catches.

We lucked out at this game and did not get rained on. It was sure cold though.

Sydnee and Presley all bundled up and it is April 30th! You would think by now we could be shedding the blankets and heavy jackets.

Cole is the fastest runner on the team, so when one of the pitchers gets on base Cole is the designated runner for them. He has safely stole every base thus far. There is only 3 weeks left of their baseball season. Fingers crossed they get to play today. We have had a mixed bag of weather... hail, heavy rain, sun breaks and high winds 20+ MPH. Game is in Canby, they tend to have better weather down there. I hope so.

Track Meets

So here it is another 2 1/2 weeks have passed since I have updated my blog. I just can't seem to stay caught up. Maddy Has had 2 more track meets. On April 15th Clear Creek went to Barlow High school to compete against Orient/Damascus. Steven atttended her meet. (I was at Cole's Baseball game) Maddy ran the 4X100M relay. They took 1st place. She ran the 200M in 30.02 seconds and got 1st place. She ran the 100M in 14 seconds and took 1st place. Jumped 12 ft. 5 inches in the long jump and took 1st place. The sun was actually shinning for this meet. YAY!!

So next meet was April 29th, 2010 (they had a bye week) At Floyd Light Middle School. The weather is back to rainy conditions with a few sun breaks. Maddy lucked out, it was not pouring when she did her first 2 jumps. She jumped 11 ft. 10 inches, got 1st place again. Ran the 100M and took 1st

Had to throw these pictures in. That morning she put on my shoes and was walking around the house. She joked about trying to run in them. HA Ha

I think she is much faster in her spikes(track spikes that is)

But she looks HOT!!!

Maddy also ran the 200M and got 1st. It is fun to watch her run! She is posting times faster than most of the 7th and 8th grade girls. Go Maddy!

April Bring NO Showers Tournament!

Softball Tournament season has begun. The Riptide had their first official tournament this last weekend. They ended in 5th place out of 18 teams in the Gold bracket. Not bad for their season opener. They had a couple incredible games. 11-1 and 10-2. We lucked out with no rain for the weekend. Saturday it was cool and windy but Sunday it was beautiful.

Thanks Grandma Judy for coming to watch Maddy play! Next game is Thursday! Looking forward to it!

Maddy running Track for CCMS

Madelynn stays very busy. She enjoys all sports. So when it came time for spring track she was all for it. We were a bit hestitant because she is playing tournament softall right too. And there is the conflict of Cole's baseball games. But we let her go ahead. They had their first meet last week against Alice Ott Middle School. The weather started off overcast and cool. It transitioned into heavy hail, then snow then back to rain, cold rain. Then the sun came out. She ran the 100M and took 1st, 200M took 1st, and the 4x100M relay also got 1st.

Here is her relay team. I am not sure of this first girls name on the left, but next is Brenna, Maddy and Elizabeth. CCMS has their 2nd meet today against Damascus/Orient. The weather should be in the low 60's by start time. Maddy is excited to run and not have frozen limbs.

Baseball 2010

Cole is playing baseball this year. It came as quite a surprise to us. We just figured he was going to run track. The day spring sports began he came home and I asked him how track went. He said I didn't go to track I went to baseball tryouts. He made the team. He plays the outfield. right and left field. He has caught every ball that has come out his way. We are enjoying watching his games.

They have 3 games a week on their schedule. Monday, Wednesday and Thursdays. But we live in Oregon. The rain dictates when we actually get to play. So we are learning that if the monday game gets rained out, it gets moved to Tuesday, and if it gets rained out it gets moved to Friday, and if it rains on wednesday or thursday it gets moved to Saturday. Well you get the picture. Basically i have to plan on a game every night of the week. We love it! Baseball is fun to watch. I need to invest in a snuggie for the whole family. It has been cold and breezy so far this season. I am patiently awaiting the warm spring weather.

Sydnee' s week

Ok so my week has been awsem.Monday was fun I went to school and i got to do the morning announcments. its called D.A.W.G. DAWG RADIO it is a fun thing to do. The next thing I got to do at school was my work.Sometimes it is boring but then it is not. Oh yah I started to do my state reading test. I really want to pass it! then me and my class got to go to music! ya NOT i hate music nobody likes it. Because of our new music teacher Mr.DRUMB he is the meanest teacher i have ever had. i know i am pretty mean but it is true he is mean. He yells at my class for no reason but when the teacher is in the room he dose not yell at us. So he pretty much yells at us 20 four 7. Oh on wednesday at flag seramony when it was over i saw Mr.DRUMB hit a third grader. Tuseday i went to school went to class did morning work went to Mrs.COOKES litercy group worked on litercy on the computer.Then i went back to class then i did testing.Then i dont remember the rest of the day.Ok so now we are on wednesday it was a long day. I went to school then iwent to class then went to flag seramony then went back to class.then me and my class had to pull weed in the planatorium.Then after school I went to coles baseball game in HOOD RIVER. Thats 45 minutes away. So on the way there me and presley wached a movie called sydney white its a good movie. also it is pretty funny.So we get there and we are in hood river so me mom dad and presley walk to the bleachers. So we sit down on the bleachers. and it starts raining. Basicly sprinkleing out but we were fine we had umbrellas.Ok so the game is fineally over and gresham lost and hood river won but they all did good.So after the game was over dad took us to a pizza parlor so we had pizza for dinner it was so good the pizza that dad got was pepperroni with olives. Presley was pouting because she did not get cheese pizza. But she should be thankful that she got something to eat.Oh yah my grandpa is in the hospital and we all hope he feels better.Then we went home and i went to bed.Ok so now we are thurseday and i woke up with a cold i had an eye cold but now it is better.Also i have a stuffy nose and sore throat.So i had to stay home frome school.So i watched t.v. and movies all day so that sucked.Then the next day witch is friday i did not go to schoool becayse i woke up with my toncles swolen so i an writing this.So my mom wanted me to write about my week so i do not get bored the whole day. So this is what is keeping me busy.Ok so thats my week.

AURGHHHHHHH!!!!

So Sierra and I spent quite some time yesterday trying to upload a family picture for the cover of our blog.And everytime it turned out like this....too large. It didn't matter if I clicked the button to shrink the picture to fit or try a different picture in hopes it was just that picture. Nope, it still came out too large. It is frustrating and hopefully it soon will be fixed. But for now enjoy looking at Syd and Cole from the shoulders on down.
So a little of what we have been up too. cole is playing baseball this year for Gresham High. He had 3 pre-season games before spring break and one since. This week has been rained out until today. The sun is actually out and we are headed to Hood River for his game this afternoon.
Sierra has been busy with her studies and social life. OHHH to be 16 again. The fun the drama. She went to a birthday party last weekend and dressed up as a 1920's flapper girl. She looked so cute!!! sierra has also been a huge help with picking up her brother and sister from their practices. So many places to be at the same time it is a blessing to have her around to help out. :)
Maddy is playing tournament softball and they had their first pre-season tournament over spring break. Her first tournament is this weekend. Fingers crossed the weather cooperates. She is also running track for Clear Creek Middle School. She has her first meet tomorrow(Thursday) we are excited to see her run. She came home from the first day of track and said she was one of the fastest girls even out of the 7th and 8th graders. So we'll see.

Syd and Presley are busy with school and projects and have been so good about being dragged all over town for softball and baseball games.

Steven is very busy with work. We all pray that this company buy in is successful. His hours will increase, if that is even possible since he already puts in ridiculous amount of hours. But in the long term it should have benefits.

As for myself just keeping up with all of the kids activities and the normal house stuff and my service in the YW's keeps me busy.We have also been receiving blessing for taking meals to the hospital for dear family friends of ours, The Gledhill's. Our friend Jay had just been diagnosed with congenitive heart failure and began taking the meds to regulate it when he suffered a pretty severe stroke. After 23 days in ICU and a couple of long serious surgeries he is now in a specialty hospital on the long journey to recovery. He is doing amazing and we pray for a full recovery. His wife Natalie is a rock. She has been there 24/7 for him and has never given up hope. I admire Natalie so much. Even during this most trying time in her life she is still thinking of others and concerned for their well being. for example, being in the ICU for over 3 weeks she has seen many come and go and the families right along with them. As she sees their difficuly she is quick to go and extend a warm hand and offer assistance in anyway. Not only is her husband in the icu, they have a family business to still run. What a great example she is. We love the Gledhill family dearly and ask all to keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Until I find time again to upload a few photos and blog about them, farewell.

Easter At "Grandmother Judith's"

So Here it is April and once again I find myself WAY behind on my blog. So rather than trying to catch up I will just pick up from this point forward. Easter Sunday also General Conference Sunday, which meant for a less stressful morning. Got to enjoy the morning session talks as I made a pan of rolls. It is nice, Maddy enjoys helping with the rolls so it goes twice as fast! All of the kids helped form rice krispie treats into the shape of eggs and then we dipped them into chocolate then into sprinkes.

Grandmother Judith Hosted and made the rest of the delicious food. It was so nice! Presley loved this chicken that I am looking at. It drops jelly beans from its back end.

Okay so Grandmother Judith printed out a bunch of coloring pages of our own family photos. Pretty cool huh! So after we ate we all sat down and colored a picture. This one here of the family is the one I colored. I used colored pencils and well if you make a mistake it is not erasable. And I messed up on Stevens hair and the more I tried to fix it the more he looked like his Dad. I honestly did not mean to do this. Well he saw it and to get back at me ......
He colored this!

It is actually pretty funny. He made me look a bit older and it looks like I have sunburned eye lids but hey, lets face it if I keep worshiping the sun that is what I will eventually look like. Sierra got the biggest laugh. I am pretty sure she took a picture of it on her phone and sent it out to most of her friends. Now it is on our refridgerator. Ya know, where all the special art goes!

This is what I look like for now.
And Here is all of us with grandmother Judith!

Here is Presley's picture that she colored of me. She at least made me look my age.

This is how much fun Cole had!(He did not want me to take a picture of him)

In this photo is Wally, Sydnee, Grandma Judy & Sierra

Sierra and her Daddy

Presley, Steven and Sydnee coloring

Thanks Mom/Grandma Judy for having us over! We had so much fun!