The 6 J's

16 and counting

2011-11-25T06:01:00.000-08:00

As of this day, November 25, 2011, my wonderful, beautiful wife and I have been married for 16 years! I planned it on the 25th so that I do not forget it, since the 24th of November is my birthday. Every few years either my birthday or our anniversary falls on Thanksgiving. This year it was my birthday fell on turkey day, so that means our 16th wedding anniversary is on Black Friday of all days! This would not be of any concern for me, as I usually look to avoid doing things that involve standing in long lines for long periods of time or fighting my way through crowds of sleep deprived shoppers being kept awake with large quantities of caffeine and the joy of fighting over the last of the big sale items left in a store. So black Friday shopping is not something I have tried or will ever even think about trying! However, my awesome wife does enjoy these type of activities, and has several friends that enjoy it as well. So I am writing this Thursday the 24th, to publish it tomorrow on our anniversary, after the kids have gone to bed and the crazy shopping women have all left the house. It is now the quietest it has been in the house since getting out of bed this morning. So our anniversary celebration will be quite laid back tomorrow, as Brooke will have had no sleep and we are not even sure at what time of day she will return tomorrow to collapse into the bed. Over the last few years I have tried to by an anniversary gift for her following the lists of traditional and/or contemporary things to buy on certain anniversaries. For instance last year the traditional gift for the 15th anniversary was Crystal and the modern was watches. That is pretty easy. But this year it is Tourmaline for traditional gifts and Silver Holloware for modern gift. I was not even sure what either of those were. Thankfully I have Mr. Google to help me out and after lots of careful research I was able to come up with a gift for her that I know she will love. For our 16th wedding anniversary I am getting Brooke a..................... I can't tell you here now, she might read this before I give it to her! Just know that she will love it and use it often.

Anyway, now that this blog has gone off in a completely different direction than originally planned, back to the topic at hand.

This day we celebrate 16 years of marriage and are looking forward to many more years to come. It has not always been easy, I don't think any marriage is, and no one is perfect, especially me, but I know that I feel I have been blessed to have Brooke at my side as my wife for the last 16 years. I thank God every day for bringing her into my life and guiding us along every step of the way. This time of year we spend a lot of time thinking and talking about what we are thankful for and my wife is always one of the first things that comes to mind.

So I am writing this to tell my wife,

Happy 16th anniversary!!

I Love You!!

Numbers

2011-11-24T05:39:00.000-08:00

What do the numbers 15340 and 2191.3 have in common?

Give up?

Here is a hint; Another number related to these numbers is 42.

Do you give up? Okay, they are all my age.

As of today I am 15340 days, 2191.3 weeks, or 42 years old. Whatever way you look at it, I am starting to approach the age in which you could say I am almost old enough to be considered of the age that some would think is almost on the brink of being able to be looked at as someone who is near the maturity level of a person that may be near the time in their life that a few people might think of as being close to old. Depending on how old you are may determine how close to that you think I am! (if you can even understand what I just wrote!) I do not mentally feel like I am getting older, but sometimes my body reminds me of the fact that it is a fact. Thus far in my life, I have been greatly blessed with an awesome wife, great daughters, many great friends and a good job as well as many other things. I could not ask for anything more than what God has given me to this point.

Now on my birthday this year, that happens to fall on Thanksgiving, I have to say that I am thankful for all the things mentioned above and for each of the 15340 days God has given me this far and I am looking forward to the next 15340 days that are coming.

Now my one birthday wish is that all my friends would be able to come celebrate with me, but since my house is too small, all I ask is that you all have a big turkey dinner to help me celebrate all those days that I have been so blessed to have lived for. I know it will be hard for you all to do this, but all I ask is that you try just for me!

Thanks!

Have a happy Thanksgiving and may you have as much to be thankful for as I do.

The birthday Tea Party

2011-10-30T22:59:00.000-07:00

So Sarah wanted to have a tea party with her friends for her birthday. I have never been to a tea party, nor have I been part of the planning of a tea party, so planning and running the tea party was up to my wonderful loving wife. (as most of the girls birthday parties are.) The tea party was planned to start at 2 pm so we did some family gift giving in the morning before the tea party guests started arriving.

Here is one of her favorite gifts. Shoes to dress up in. She wears them all the time now and feels like she is an important princess. Not that we were lacking in the shoe department(check out this story), but we did not have lots of these dress up shoes.

This gift was from her sister Moriah and receive the most animated reaction for any gift she received. Apparently she really liked the hair brush! It may have something to do with the Disney princess on it.

Leah could not stand to be left out, so here is her picture.

The table is set and waiting for the guests to arrive.

All the cups and princess trinkets are in place.

The goodies were waiting to be eaten.(they were all very good. I had to do some quality control.)

Just waiting for all the 4-5 year old little girls to get here and start the tea party.

Now as far as how the tea party went, I am assuming it went well. I never heard any loud screams and crying and we were not visited by an ambulance. I do not really know because about the time they started showing up, I made my way to the shop to work on some projects. I am out numbered enough in this house on a daily basis and knew that a house with nine 4-5 year old girls, a 2 year old girl, several 7-10 year old girls, and a few moms, was no place for me to be! I have since seen the pictures and it seems that fun was had by all. And I got some woodworking in too!

Another birthday!

2011-10-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

Sarah winning the contest for the messiest ice cream cone eater!

We seem to always be having birthday parties around here. This time it is for #3 daughter, Sarah! She is 4 years old today (thats 1461 days if you are counting). Or if you ask her, "how old are you?" Her answer will be, "Dis many!" while holding up 3 or 4 fingers depending on what she felt like doing at the time. I seem to say this with all the girls birthdays, but it does not seem possible that she can be 4 years old. In the last year she has grown up a lot. She talks non-stop and loves to sing, dance, and run. Just like her olders sisters at this age, she is in love with Disney princesses, so for her party we will be having a whole bunch of other little girls over for a fancy tea party with all of them wearing their favorite princess dress. It should be very fun for all the people in the house under 4 feet tall. For the rest of us, I am sure it will be entertaining and tiring.

Sarah still likes to sniff the one corner of her blankie and loves to play with her big sisters or go places with mom and dad. She is a constant source of funny quotes and actions as well.

So this post is to tell our 3rd daughter, Sarah Elyzabeth Jayne, that we love her very much and hope she has a happy 4th birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH!

Bored games, or Board games?

2011-08-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

The Jayne Train children like to play board games. Truth be told, the older 2 parts of the Jayne Train like to play board games with them also. There have been many exciting games of things like: Life, Monopoly, Chutes and Ladders, Crainium, and various other games that we find in our game cabinet. Lately the girls have been wanting to play Sorry a lot. The great part about this game is that even the little girls have just as much chance of winning as the big ones!


The latest rousing game of "Sorry"

After a tiring weekend of busyness, we decided Sunday afternoon would be a lazy day, just hanging out watching movies, napping and playing games. After a couple movies/snoozes, the oldest 4 girls in the house (once being my lovely wife) gathered at the dining room table for a rousing game of Sorry, which ended up lasting 1.5 hours. This game give them chance to be mean to each other without getting in trouble, so I think that is why they like it!

My favorite part of this game though, involves #3, Sarah. Every time someone draws a sorry card and chooses to pick on Sarah, their sarcastic "Sorry" that they tell her as they knock her piece back to start, is answered by a sweet and sincere "I forgive you" from Sarah! She is usually just oblivious to what is going on and just happy to be able to play with the rest of them. The next best part is the fact that Sarah usually ends up winning somehow! Which just goes to show that you do not need to think about your moves too much in the this game. Just draw a card and move the first piece you see! I will have to try that next time, since all the thinking and planning I do in the game usually end up with me in last place!

Happy Birthday, Mileah Grayce!

2011-07-13T06:33:00.000-07:00

Today is our youngest daughters birthday. She is 2 years old today and, as I say at all my kids birthdays, it does not seem possible for her to be 2! She seems especially younger because she is so much smaller than all her sisters were at this age. Leah is very entertaining as well as being very cute, most of the time. She is also trying to take Sarah's nickname, "The Fed" away from her by trying to get into even more stuff than she is not supposed to than Sarah does! But I thank God everyday for the blessings of all my children and today especially for number 4!

So Happy Birthday Mileah!

Imagination

2011-07-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

Kids usually have a good imagination. I tend to help our kids along by asking them strange questions to see what they will say. But today we had a conversation with Sarah, our almost 4 yr old, that showed us that she does not need my help with her imagination. Here is how it went:

Sarah came running into the room and told us, "I am almost finished packing!"

To that we asked, "Where are you going?"

Sarah replied, "To the beach! I going fishing!"

"Really," we said, "How are you going to get there?

To that she simply said, "I am going to drive my boat." with a 'duh' kind of tone to her voice!

A while later, she was sitting in the middle of the living room telling us she was in her "silly boat" on the way to the beach!

Now I do not even need to help her to get funny conversations with her! This should be interesting and fun!
Stay tuned!

Happy Birthday, Emma!

2011-06-19T04:33:00.000-07:00

I say this at everyone of my kids birthday, but it is especially true with Emma our first born daughter, I does not seem possible that she can be this old! Today, she is turning 10 (that is 3652 days if you are counting!) years old! She has been anxiously waiting to be in the double digits since last year. She is definitely a blessing from God, as all children are, and a joy to have around.

This last year her and I have been able to go do some special things together and I have been able to watch her do things that she did not think she was capable of doing. I am looking forward to many many more adventures with my oldest daughter in the years to come and I thank God everyday for entrusting her to me to raise for Him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
EMMA NYCOLE!

No, I did not fall off the face of the earth!

2011-06-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

I just recently noticed that I have not posted to my blog for quite sometime. So this post is to tell all my loyal followers (both of them) that I did not fall off the face of the earth and disappear. I am still around and have lots of blog posts in "draft" form right now. I just have not had the time to finish them. I just seems that life has gotten in the way lately and we have been very busy for a season. Although I am just not sure what we did! So stay tuned, my kids and a few other things are still keeping me inspired with lots of ideas for new posts. I just need to find the time to write them.

I need to find some time!!

Daddy Daughter Dates

2011-03-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

We love to spend time doing things with our kids. It sometimes gets a little crazy doing things with all 4 of them. So a while back, I started trying to do what we call Daddy Daughter Dates. These are times when I take just one of them and do something special with them. It is nice to get out with just one daughter so we can actually talk about stuff and not be interrupted. We usually do something that we do not do as a family or cannot do as a family. It does not happen as often as we would like but we really enjoy the times we do.
Just recently I took each of the older two girls on separate trips to Borders Bookstore in Corvallis. They each got to search through the entire store and pick out something that they want to buy. Then we went to the coffee shop and had some hot chocolate and a cookie. They were both very excited to go there but it was interesting to see the differences in them in picking something out. Emma went right to a specific section and had picked out a couple books she wanted in about 5 minutes. We looked around for a while after that, but she still just wanted those same books. Riah, on the other hand, wandered all over the store looking at everything for about and hour and a half and could not decide between a lot of stuff. Finally she decided on an umbrella and a journal. We all enjoyed the time together, and we got to find a few geocaches while in Corvallis as well!
One of my favorite Daddy Daughter Dates was a month or so ago with Riah. We were able to borrow some kayaks from a friend and went kayaking on Cheadle lake here in Lebanon. Here are some pictures from our adventure.

Here is Riah in her kayak next to the dock. She was excited to try this, but nervous at the same time. I helped her get into the kayak and she looked worried. Then she asked if we had to do this. I told her we did not have to and asked if she wanted to get out. Still looking worried she said she would try, but would it be okay if we only went a little ways. No problem, I told her we could stop whenever she wanted to. So I put mine in the water and climbed in and we were off. She decided pretty quickly that it was not only not that bad, but actually kinda fun!

By the end, she was really enjoying paddling around the lake.

Daddy, look at me!

Enjoying a peaceful moment on the lake.

Our expert paddler.

Now she has done something that her older sister has not done!

Here she is coming back into the dock.

Her is my GPS with the track of where we went. Of course there was some geocaches to get from the kayaks as well! We spent about 1.5 hours on the lake then got some lunch and ice cream. We enjoyed it so much that we want to get some kayaks of our own and do this more often! Just cannot wait to see what kind of adventure the next Daddy Daughter Dates will bring. (Emma wants to go kayaking too now.)

You want how much for a maple bar?

2011-03-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

A couple Saturdays ago, we decided to take the whole family to lunch in Eugene and see a movie. We had some burgers at this burger place near Valley River Center that were pretty good and then went to see Gnomeo and Juliet. Everyone enjoyed the movie. After the movie, we decided to go try some donuts at a place we have heard about on TV that makes some interesting donuts. There is one in Portland and another one in Eugene. The doughnut we have heard about it the Bacon Maple bar and we really wanted to try one. Once we found the place and went in, with our 4 daughters, we discovered that it is not a great place for kids. There was some things on the walls for decoration that I did not really need to see. Then we found out that it is cash only. All we had was about $6.00. You would think that would get you a few donuts, but they are very proud of their donuts. The Bacon Maple Bar was $2.75 for 1 donut! They had a Banana fritter with chocolate and peanut butter topping that was $3.99! So we got 3 cheaper donuts just to try and left. We will probably never go back. Now if you do the math, there are 6 people in our family and only 3 donuts, and one of those donuts was for someone else. Since the kids were really looking forward to having donuts we decided we would make some at home! After all, the Bacon Maple Bar was nothing more than a Maple Bar with 2 strips of bacon on it. We can do that!

I think Riah is doing an "I like doughnuts dance" here!

Here the batter has been made, doughnuts cut and rising. Just getting ready to cook them. Next step is deep frying them.

Yumm!

Once they were cooked we had to put some sort of topping on them. The kids had some ideas and we had some ideas so we tried a few different things.

Some of them we covered in powdered sugar.

Then we put some raspberry jelly inside a few. One of the ideas the girls had was to fill up the hole with mini marshmallows.

You know we had to do the Bacon Maple bar!

The doughnuts are all done cooking now. We could not put the maple frosting on when they just came out, so we were waiting for them to cool a little before finishing those.

The girls also wanted to put Cheerios on some.

These are what I was waiting for. The Bacon topped Maple bar. They were really good!

Here we are torturing the kids, telling them that they could not have any until morning! (We did actually let them have one before they went to bed. Notice the Tornado is still moving too fast to be in focus in the picture, as usual.)

Here was all the doughnuts we made. It cost less to make all these than to buy 1 Bacon Maple bar at that other place, and our house is kid friendly! We could start our own bakery making doughnuts to sell, but I think we would eat all our profits and it would not be good for our waists!

Pinewood derby

2011-02-26T22:47:00.000-08:00

A couple years ago, Emma made a car for the Awanas Pinewood derby and ended up winning the speed competition. That came after winning second place the year before for the design of her car. So when the opportunity came for her to make another car for the Awanas Pinewood derby this year, she was all over it. The car had to have the exact same shape as the one she won with. She was convinced that it would be the winning shape again. Then Riah got to build one as well. She decided hers needed to be the same shape also. So once we got the kits we started shaping and painting cars. I ran the saw to cut the shape. The only difference in the shape of the 2 cars is that Riah wanted the edges to be rounded and Emma left hers square. Then came the paint job. I gave them some ideas, but they each decided how they wanted their cars to look.

Here is the first Pinewood derby car that Emma made back in 2007.

At the Awanas in Brownsville, where she was going in 2007, they provided the weights to bring your car up to the maximum 5 oz. That way everyone has cars that weigh same amount. They also provided lube for the wheels which made a huge difference in how fast the cars went down the track.

We tried her car out first with now lube and it stopped before it got to the finish line. Once we lubed the wheels, it did a lot better.

It was not a really fast car, but she won 2nd place for the design. Mainly due to the Bible verse stickers that she decided to put all over the car.

This was her trophy for the design of the car.

In 2008, still at Awanas in Brownsville, she was able to build another car. Here is the story of that event.

Here is what her car looked like that year.

It seems to be missing a wheel after being played with for the last few years. But this was one fast car. It never lost a race and she took home the first place trophy for speed!

Obviously she was very excited to win this event.

Now we are in 2011 and both the girls got to make a car to race. They are now attending Awanas in Lebanon, and they do the race a little bit different than in Brownsville. Now that we know that, we will be prepared better next time.

Here is Emmas car for 2011.

For weights, we just screwed some washers on the top of the car. Other people were taping coins to the bottom of their cars.

We found a little bit of graphite lube, but it did not work that well this time. Her car crossed the finish line every time, but she did not win any races. She still had a very good attitude and had a lot of fun participating in the event. I think the Bible verses are a tradition now, so she will have to do them every year now.

Now here is Riahs car for this year. (I personally like the colors!)

She not only followed her sisters design in the shape of the car, but decided to use the Bible verse stickers as well.

The grey stripes are in the shape of a cross if you look at the car from the top.

Here she is ready for the races to start.

We thought after the first race that Riahs car was going to be just like Emmas was the last time. This was the end of her first race. She won and there are 3 other cars on the track, they just have not made it to the finish line yet. But that was also the last race she won. The lube evidently wore off after this race. Oh well, she had a lot of fun as well. Then at the end, she won 2nd place for the design of her car! She was very excited!

Now we know how it will work next year and we will be able to prepare their cars a little better. I always love getting to do things like this with the kids and I also found out that there is a racer category for the parents. So it looks like next year there will be 3 Jayne cars at the Awana Pinewood derby! Should I make a car the same shape as theirs are? We will have to wait and see.

Here is our current fleet of Pinewood derby cars that have been retired to the display shelf in the girls room.

I think the Tornado here is wanting to get in on this action too!

Happy Birthday Riah!

2011-02-20T07:55:00.000-08:00

Moriah, our 2nd born daughter, also known as Riah, Ry-Ry, freckles, Bob, and George, turned 7 years old today! She is growing up way too fast. I think I say that about all of my children, but it still seems to go by so quickly and seems to be going by faster every year. We think Riah is going to be the tallest of all the girls. She towers over a lot of the other kids her age, and most people think she is a lot older than she is because of her height.

How can anyone not love those freckles? I love her freckles!

She loves to make things, especially to give them to mommy or daddy. She is always drawing pictures for us. Here was a gingerbread Christmas tree she made last December.

Here she is opening her stocking Christmas morning getting some new toys and other things. She still loves playing with her toys, but also is always wanting to help me or Brooke doing different things around the house.

She was really excited to be able to take part in her first Pinewood derby at Awanas this year. Her car did not do as well as she hoped, but she had a lot of fun and building the car with her was a great way to spend the time with her! The picture above was taken just after her car won its first race, but then it was not as fast after that. She did win 2nd place for the design of the car. She was very excited about that.

Here she is hanging out on a tree at Nanas house.(My moms in Paisley) I remember my dad planting that tree when I was in 5th or 6th grade. It was never big enough for me to climb on when I was a kid, but now our girls get to enjoy it.

Our 2nd daughter is 7 years old. It is hard to believe. She is a great blessing to have. Riah is very affectionate to Brooke and I and is always wanting hugs and kisses. I love it when she just randomly comes up to me, gives me a hug and says, I love you daddy, for no real reason other than she wanted to! She does this a lot too!

As God says in Psalm 127:3, "Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from him" and we are thankful to God that He gave us Moriah!

So with all that said,

Happy 7th Birthday

Moriah Tristyn!

We love you!!

Leah to English dictionary

2011-02-17T18:27:00.000-08:00

Just in case any of you end up in a conversation with out youngest daughter Leah and no one else from our family is around to translate, I decided to post a dictionary to translate Leah into understandable English. Most of her words are just missing the first consonant, so I would tell you to just pick a consonant and add it to what she is saying. However, one you see the things she says, if you added the wrong consonant to a word she is saying, there is a possibility of some minor miscommunication and misunderstanding! So here we go.

EES = Please
Banky = Blanket
Uckle = Buckle
ock = Sock
BaBa = Milk
up = She wants you to pick her up
Hi, Hi, Hi, = She is telling you Hi
Dis = This
Ni-Ni = Goodnight
ByeBye = Goodbye
Ose = Nose
Ba = Ball
Hungee = She is hungry
Uppy = She wants you to pick her up, Please
Eet = Seat
Dat = That, usually goes along with pointing at something.
Air = Hair
owwn = Down
Nana = Food
Ooosh = Shoes
Bilk = Milk
OOkie = Food
At = Hat
gik = tickle
meou = mouse
ump = jump
ook = look or book

Thats about all for now. She says some other words, but they do not translate into English. They are unique to the language Leah speaks. I cannot even get a good spelling on them so she may have some new letters that do not exist in English either!

More Quotes from our children

2011-02-12T17:12:00.000-08:00

Well this was going to be quotes from all our children that entertained us, but Sarah seems to continually giving us so many entertaining sound bites that it was making a full post all by themselves. So this is just all Sarah our 3 year old.

Here is Sarah, AKA the Tornado. She now is speaking in complete sentences. Some of which almost make sense and are able to be understood.

Sarah speaking to Mommy very excitedly. "Mommy, I forgot to buy monkeys when we were at the store today"

Sarah at bed time one night: "Daddy, I thirsty, I need a piece of water!" (I asked her if that was ice, but she said no.)

Brooke and Sarah had a conversation about a math book the other day. Here is one part of it.
Brooke asks, "Sarah, what is 8 minus 1?"
Sarah answers, "NOT CHICKENS!"

Another conversation with Sarah
Brooke, "Sarah, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Sarah, "A Bug!"
(pause here waiting for the laughter to stop)
Brooke, "What kind of bug do you want to be?"
Sarah, "A Fox!"
Brooke, "Thats not a bug!"
Sarah, "Not a bug, I want to be a little girl, this big."(She holds up her hand with her thumb and finger about .5" apart)

Today during dinner, Emma was asking Brooke about the movie Robots, which Emma had just finished watching. Brooke said that she did not think she had seen the whole movie. Emma then asked her, "Which parts have you not seen?!" We laughed and Emma looked a little confused on what was so funny. So I said, "That is like saying, 'Whoever is not here, raise your hand.' " To that Sarahs' hand shot into the air and she yelled "ME!". So apparently, even though it looked like she was sitting at the table, Sarah was not here today during dinner!

The next computer programmer

2011-02-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

Our 1 year old is already typing on the computer! She can't even talk or read yet, but she thinks she can do stuff on the computer. She usually gets in trouble for touching the computer but this time she looked as if she knew what she was doing so we let her stay there to get some pictures.

It is always amazing and humbling to me to see the things that our kids pick up and learn just by watching us. It just makes you think about the things you do to see if it is something that you want your kids to be doing. With Leah being just over 1 year old, not able to talk, and definitely not able to read, we had not spent any time teaching her how to use a computer. She just climbed up into the chair and started doing what she has seen Brooke and I do. So when God said in Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," He was not just referring to the things we tell and teach our kids, but also our actions and behavior. The things we do and how we act and interact with others probably teaches our children more about life than the things we tell them or teach them verbally. Seeing Leah do this on the computer was just a big reminder of how much children pay attention and learn from us even when we are not aware they are looking. So think about the things you do when your kids are around. Is there anything that you do that you would not want your children to do? I just thank God that it is not totally up to me, because I screw up all the time, I just have to ask for forgiveness and be thankful for Gods grace.

Why are you supposed to water your Christmas tree?

2011-01-25T22:26:00.000-08:00

After Christmas in 2009, we started a new Jayne family tradition. Once we take our tree down, we put it out in the middle of the street and set it on fire! We tried it 2 years ago and we had watered the tree too much so I would not burn. In 2009, we did not ever water our tree so in burned nicely, as you can see in the pictures on my blog from that year. In 2010, we continued with the tradition and did not water the tree at all, just so it would be nice and crispy for our after Christmas fun. But for some reason, our tree did not dry out as fast as normal this year and we had to wait a few weeks with it in the garage. Our patience paid off as you can see in this video.

Now you know why you are supposed to water your Christmas tree. If this happened in your house, there is a slight potential there for a problem!

Disclaimer: DO NOT attempt if you are clumsy, accident prone, fear fire or lack common sense.

No buildings, people, animals or property were harmed or in anyway damaged in this ceremony. This would not be wise to attempt indoors or on a dry lawn.(use common sense)

I hope everyone got as much amusement out of this as I did and I wish you all a happy and safe 2011!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

2011-01-18T21:31:00.000-08:00

Today was my mom's birthday. You will have to ask her to find out her age though. I know what her age is, but I am not sharing that here! We just made the trip to visit her last weekend and we all enjoyed spending those few days in Paisley with her. We all wanted to stay longer but I had to go to work on Monday. Now, two days later, it is her birthday. So I had to write a blog to tell her Happy Birthday!

I searched through thousands of pictures on our computer only to discover that we do not have very many pictures of Mom. We will have to do something about next time we go visit her. Here are a couple of the few that I found.

Mom at our house for Christmas in 2009.

Mom at our house again when Mileah was born.

Mom and her house giving Riah an art lesson.

Mom at our house giving Emma an art lesson.

We all love Mom and wish we could see her more often. We just have to cherish the times we do get to spend with her.

I am just thankful that she is my Mom and wish her the very best on her birthday.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Paisley, Oregon

2011-01-17T22:25:00.000-08:00

We took a trip to Paisley to visit my mom last weekend. It is always a nice and relaxing trip. On Saturday, Emma wanted to go for a walk around town. So I grabbed the camera to take some pictures of things that are still around from when I was growing up there and things that are new since I was growing up there. Then Emma, Riah and I spent a couple hours hiking around town with them asking me about what it was like when I was here before. So here are the photos from this trip and some of the memories from growing up.

The first view of Paisley as you are driving south on highway 31.

This is the first house I remember living in. Our family moved here when I was 1 year old and we lived in a couple of other government houses before moving to this one. My parents had a house built and we moved out of this one when I was in the 5th grade.

Here is the house my parents had built when I was in the 5th grade. So I lived here from then until I graduated from Paisley High School.

Here are Emma and Riah being silly in some snow near mom's house as we started our walk downtown. The next 3 pictures are from the top of the hill behind mom's house looking down into Paisley.

This is a common site in town as well. There were nine deer in this field right next to some homes. 2 of them were bucks. There has always been deer in town.

They are a little more brave than I remember though. They have been hanging out ON my mom's deck and staring in her back door!

As we were headed down the hill the girls were looking forward to doing a stick race in the irrigation ditch that we have to cross. Unfortunately, it was not flowing very fast so the sticks did not move! Other than to bounce off the ice.

Just below that frozen irrigation ditch is the town fire hall. I am not even sure what kind of fire apparatus they have now.

This is a new addition in just the last couple years. Paisley has a coffee stand now!

This is the main part of downtown Paisley. There is the Pioneer Saloon, the Mercantile, and the Homestead restaurant. Across the street to the north is the Chewacan Garage.

To the east of the Chewacan Garage is the Post office and behind that to the south in the Paisley community center where most events happen in town.

Here is the 100+ year old church that my mom goes to church in every Sunday.

This is a fence around a front yard at a house next door to the school. It is in pretty good shape for being as old as it is.

Here is the front of the school. My class graduation was held on those steps right there. There was 18 of us graduating that year.

Emma and Riah playing on the swing set at the school. The chains and seats are probably not as old, but the frame of the swing set was here when I was a kid. Just in a different part of the school grounds.

GO Broncos! We were the Paisley Broncos and this was on the gym above the entrance.

Not sure if this is still the same old bus they had back when I was here, but it sure looks the same.

The high school building.

This next picture was take by something that was not here when I was here. ODOT has a camera set up that you can access on the tripcheck.com website. I called Brooke and waited for her to save a picture of us from the ODOT camera.

Emma, Riah and I went for a walk around town Saturday afternoon. Here we are waiting for the ODOT camera to take our picture.

Here is the site of a sawmill that used to employ a lot of people in town. It closed down after I had graduated from college and this sign is all that is left.

I saw this and had to take a picture of it for a friend of mine that was in the Marines. I won't say anything about the truck or him being old and wore out.

Anyone want to go for a swim. This was the local swimming hole in the Chewacan river just out of town past where the old mill used to be. Might be kind of chilly today!

Here is the US Forest Service office. My dad worked here from the 70's to 1997 when he retired. I am not sure how many people work here now. But I am sure that it is a lot less than when I was growing up.

Not every town can claim to have a skull from an Elicorn! That would be a cross between an elk and a unicorn! But there is one hanging on a barn in Paisley!

Here is my dad's old truck. I learned to drive in this truck. I inherited it when dad passed away. One of these days I am going to take it home and start fixing it up. I have lots of plans for it if the budget ever allows.

Here is the entrance to the Paisley Cemetery. They have made a lot of improvements to it since I lived in town. The big sign over the entry way was a project from a graduating senior just a few years ago.

Here is Emma looking at Papa's headstone.

There's a lotta bull hanging out close to mom's house!

The Paisley "P". When I was going to school here, the seniors and freshman would all go up there on a certain day during homecoming week in the fall. The freshman would have to rearrange the number into the current graduating classes year and repaint the rocks on the number and the P white. Then there would be a big paint fight between the seniors and freshman and we would all walk back to school. A fun time! I am not sure what they do now since they do not have enough students to field a football team so there is no homecoming football game.

Here is some pictures of what was my back yard or playground growing up.

There was always someplace to go play and something to do.

I spent little time at home. Now I live in a house in a town and have a lot the size of Mom's front yard! Makes me wish I could be back there in Paisley again. I always enjoy going over there for visits. All the wide open spaces, a much slower pace, no traffic, and all the people are friendly. What else do you need?

Here is one more thing that was not here when I was growing up. Someone has built themselves a half pipe!

So if you are looking for a nice relaxing place to go on a vacation, you can go visit Paisley, OR. The food in the restaurant is good and all the people are really nice. I sure whoever built the half pipe would let you use it!

One last thing. If you do go visit, watch out for the mosquitos! They have been known to carry people off!

Elk Season 2010/2011

2011-01-17T20:34:00.000-08:00

Elk season was quick this year. It started on the 1st of January as usual, but I always seemed too busy to get out in the woods and look for a gawker to shoot. I went out for the first time for a couple hours on the 10th, but never saw an elk. Then I headed up in the hills on the 11th and within an hour, I found some gawkers gawking and one shot later, the hunt was over. I think this was the fastest I have ever filled my tag for any hunt. Now we have meat in the freezer again. Or at least we will once I cut it up!

Holy or Holey?

2011-01-15T14:43:00.000-08:00

ho·ly adj \ˈhō-lē\

Definition of HOLY

1: exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness

2: divine holy — Psalms 99:9(Authorized Version)>

3: devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity holy temple> <holy prophets>

4: having a divine quality <holy love> b : venerated as or as if sacred <holy scripture> holy relic>

hol·ey adj \ˈhō-lē\

Definition of HOLEY

: having holes

The other day, Brooke pointed out to Riah that she was wearing some very holey pants. Emma was nearby and at first laughed, but then got a sort of confused look like she was trying to figure something out. Then she asked, "Mommy, why do they call them Holy pants?" Both Brooke and I laughed and looked at her for a second or two until we figured out that she was serious. Brooke answered with, "Because they have holes in them!" To this, Emma started laughing and said that she should have known that. She just automatically thinks of the word Holy when she hears that. It did not even cross her mind that Holy could also be written holey. I like that she thinks that way. I think that is a good sign that she is learning and remembering the things we teach her.

Look out world, our kids are driving!

2011-01-06T06:11:00.000-08:00

Everyone that comes into Angelee court had better watch out now. Two of our daughters are now driving. They do not have licenses yet, but they both got vehicles to drive around and terrorize the neighborhood. So if you come onto our street your are likely to get run over by our 2 high speed racers! They do not understand steering quite yet!

Here is Sarah in her Ferrari! It will go from 0-60 in, well, never. It moves at the blazing top speed of about 3.1 mph! I think it can do the quarter mile in about 4 minutes flat! It is a good thing that the quarter mile is a straight race, she doesn't turn very well!

With a little coaching and a little turning for her, she started to realize she can control it, but it is still a little crazy behind the wheel. Just as most 3 year old probably.

Then there is our 1 year old, Leah. She got a hopped up quad for Christmas!

Here she is tearing up the cul-de-sac! She was just ripping around at the quads top speed of a whopping 2 mph.

Although I use the term ripping "around" loosely, as she never did grasp the concept of turning. She does just love it though. At first we just let her ride it in the house. The first time she got on, she would push the button quickly and make it jerk forward and then let go. She loved it. After a while she figured out that she could actually move if she held the button down! She would go until it ran into something and stop. Then she would get off and try to turn it around.

She even did some curb hopping!

Once we let her outside with it, she did the same thing. Just rode straight until someone turned her or it ran into something and stopped. If she happened to hit the curb right, it actually had enough power to go up on it.

So now you know to watch for little things trying to run you down on our street. I think you will be okay though, as long as you can react fast enough to dodge something moving at a max speed of 3.1 mph.

Another hair blog

2011-01-05T05:56:00.000-08:00

You would think that there are a bunch of girls around here as much as I blog about hair. Especially if you know me and how much hair is on my head! Well, there are a bunch of girls around here and here is at least my 3rd blog about hair in the last year.

We were getting ready to go run some errands as a family last Sunday afternoon and I noticed something a little out of whack with the Tornados hair. So I asked her, "Sarah, what happened to your ponytail? Did you get a flat?"

Someone let the air out of one ponytail!

"Yep!" She replied.

I got ponytail!

Then I ask her where her ponytails are.

Here they are! See?

"There right here Daddy!" Thankfully mommy was nearby to rescue the near hair disaster and fixed them before we went out in public. We know the Tornado would have been traumatised for years to come going out in public like that!

There is what the ponytails are supposed to look like!

Now seeing that there are a large number of girls around here, this will probably not be the last blog about hair. Just remember I will probably not be talking about my hair.

Separation anxiety!

2011-01-03T05:53:00.000-08:00

In a recent post I talked about some of the addictions the Jayne girls have. One of them was Leahs addiction to her thumb and blankie. We saw just how addicted to the blankie she is the other day. Brooke took the blankie and put it in the wash. It needed it! Everything probably would have been fine, except Leah saw the blankie leave the normal living area of the house and go into the laundry room. Brooke even took her out to see her blankie "taking a bath" in the washing machine and then brought her back inside. The following pictures are what happened next.

This is one unhappy 1 year old.

Its over there, help me get it!

She would probably been find had she not seen the blankie going into a place she could not get to. She will run around and play for hours without even looking at her blankie normally. But this forced separation caused her to think that she would never see it again.

Its right through here!

Won't anyone help me?

I just need someone to open the door!

I just need my blankie, she is telling us. I think she stood at the door crying for quite a while hoping someone would help her. She did not want any other blankie or any other toy, she just wanted her blankie so she could hold onto it and suck her thumb!

At last.

So after what probably seemed like half a century to her, she got a nice warm, clean blankie back and was able to give it a big hug. She got right down to business and got that thumb in her mouth too! Next time it needs washed, we will have to be a little more covert in the operation so that she does not see the blankie disappear.

Elk Season is Starting

2011-01-01T10:05:00.000-08:00

As 2010 has come to a close, another hunting season has started for me. I have an antlerless elk tag that is good for the month of January. I am so gung ho for hunting that I have not even gotten my rifle out yet! I am sure that I will go hunting and hopefully will fill the tag and have some meat in the freezer. I usually do not have any trouble filling the tag as I get one almost every year. It is just a matter of going out to see which herd is hanging out where they usually do at this time of year. I should put a little effort into getting an elk quickly because the freezer is empty and we actually had to buy some beef the other day. We have not had to do that in a long time! So sometime in January, God willing, I will see a scene like this picture above and will put one of them in my freezer.

The Jayne Train 2010 Year in Review

2010-12-31T06:28:00.000-08:00

As 2010 comes to a close, it is time to think back about the year and remember the fun things that happened and the changes that were made.
Our first big change as a family happened right at the start of the year. After about 12 years of attending Calvary Chapel Corvallis, we made the change to Lebanon Calvary Chapel. Not only has it saved us a lot of gas money from driving all the way to Corvallis every week, but we have grown spiritually in ways that probably would not have happened had we continued going to Calvary Corvallis. I was able to help a little with some construction projects on the church property and we also ran the BBQ ministry during the summer. Brooke has just taken over managing the nursery schedule for church as well. We miss our old friends over in Corvallis, but have made many new ones here in Lebanon that we can actually see more often than just briefly on Sunday morning. It has been about 1 year since we made the switch, but it seems like we have been attending in Lebanon forever.

Our family vacation this year was a week long trip in to Washington around the 4th of July. We started with a day at Mount St Helens National Volcanic Monument and the camped for 2 nights and 3 days in Rainier NP. We had never been to either of those places and they were definitely worth the trip. It was a little early in the year to hike all the trails I wanted to in Mt Rainier NP because of snow. But I was able to see a lot of the park and really enjoyed it. Emma and Riah completed a workbook and became Junior Rangers while we were there. From there we went on to the Seattle area and spent 4 nights at a rented townhouse. We went to the zoo and the Pacific Science center. Saw the Space Needle and went to another National Park that is in downtown Seattle. It was the Klondike Goldrush Museum, and the girls got to become junior rangers in that park also. On July 2nd, we went to Geowoodstock VIII. It is a big geocaching event that brings geocachers from all over the world together for a day of fun. We watched the 4th of July fireworks with some friends that live in the area in Bellevue, WA. We were going to watch them in Seattle, but the weather was not good so we went back to our townhouse and watched the Bellevue fireworks instead. After all that, we headed home and back to the normal everyday routine.

Later in the summer, Emma, Riah and I made a trip to Paisley to see mom. We only spent a weekend there and headed home. But we decided to take a whole day to drive home and went via Crater Lake NP. We wished we had more time to spend there, but it was better than the last time we were here. We went to Crater Lake for a day during a family vacation 2 years ago but the day we picked had bad weather and we could not see the lake because of the fog. This trip had nice weather and we saw a lot of beautiful scenery.

Riah turned 6 last February but always seems to act a lot older than that. Emma turned 9 in June and is looking forward to being double digits this coming year. Leah had her first birthday in July and has become quite the climber and entertainer in our home. Sarah, the tornado. What more needs to be said. She turned 3 in October and is definitely still Sarah!

We are homeschooling our kids once again. Emma loves to read and learn about history. She reads at a level several years ahead of her age. Emma used to have problems with math and did not like it, but suddenly this year, she is figuring it out quickly and likes it. Riah likes to do school in general and is just starting to figure out reading. She quite often takes forever to do her school work, but that is just how Riah does things. As I described in a recent post that you can read here. Brookes' biggest challenge with the homeschooling is what to do with the other 2 little ones while she is working with the big ones. Sarah wants to start doing school, but is still a little young yet. She might start next year. Leah just wants to climb on everything and is a constant distraction. Thankfully she still takes some long naps so that is when a lot of school work gets done, at least the parts Brooke needs to help them with.

The year was quite busy, but there just does not seem like we did a lot of exciting memorable stuff. I am sure I will think of some other stuff once I actually publish this post. Oh well, if I do, it will give me something else to blog about I guess.

So now we are getting ready for 2011. We cannot wait to see what God has in store for us this year.

The Jayne train travel bugs

2010-12-30T06:09:00.000-08:00

No, this does not mean we have a bug in our britches about doing some traveling, although we have lots of places we wish we could travel to. The only thing stopping us are little things like, my job, bills, time, and money. You know, little things. The travel bugs I am talking about have to do with one of my many hobbies. Geocaching. Travel bugs are also called trackables. They are little dog tag type things with a unique tracking number on them that you can log into and out of geocaches. You put them into and log them into a geocache somewhere, then, most of the time, another geocacher will take them from that geocache and put them into another geocache somewhere else. Then you can watch them trough the geocaching website and see where they travel. Since there are over 1,000,000 geocaches worldwide, there is no limit to where or how far they can go. For the last 3 years, one of the stocking stuffers we have done for the whole family is a set of travel bugs. One for each member of the family. We have a theme for each year and we give travel bugs names and a goal as to where they want to go and what they want to do.

2008 was the first year and we had a family of lizards. One lizard for each member of the family.

The lizard family travel bugs before being sent out.

There was DaDa, MaMa, Ems, RyRy, and Sizy lizard. They were all released into geocaches in December 2008 or January 2009. They had a goal of traveling to as many geocaches as they could and to see who could travel the most miles. Today, only MaMa Lizard is still moving around caches. The others have all gone missing. As of today, MaMa has traveled 13108 miles since being release. She has traveled all over Northwest Oregon to Washington state, then to Alaska. From there she went to Japan and traveled to Nova Scotia. At this time, she has been picked up by a cacher in Ontario, Canada and should be moving a long ways again soon.

The two bands of Knights ready for their travels.

For our 2009 family travel bugs, we made "The Knights of the Jayne Table". This set consisted of a Knight for each member of the family. The girls got to pick the Knight they wanted out of a package of them from a craft store. Their mission was to see which team, red or blue, could get the most miles logged by Christmas this year. The Blue team has won, even when 1 went missing. Of the 6 that went out. 5 of them are still floating around in some cache somewhere. The Blue Knight #3 traveled the furthest of all and was hopping around Europe for some time, then went to Turkey, to Alaska and is now on the way to Indiana according to the cacher that picked it up.
For this years travel bug theme, we decided to go with our new family nickname. "The Jayne Train" as Brooke started referring to our family. So we have 6 train car travel bugs to release into the caching world this year.

The Jayne Train

Their goal will be to travel around the world and get to caches near trains. They are in a race to see who can get the most miles by December 31, 2011. We will see how long they last this time.

What did I get myself into?

2010-12-27T06:28:00.000-08:00


The relay will be over on the other side of those mountains over there.(the Sisters) This is on the top of Wolf Rock when I climbed it in 2009. Click here to read about that adventure.

Well, the new year is almost here and I have to start getting in shape and losing some weight. In order to give myself some motivation to actually do this, I signed up to run on a company team in the Cascade Lakes Relay. It is a 200+ mile relay race from Diamond Lake to Bend, Oregon. There are 12 members on each team and each of us will run 3 legs. Early in December we all got our lane assignments, so to speak. There was a team meeting at which everyone in attendance was able to pick the 3 legs they wanted to do. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this meeting. So a few days later, I got a sheet with all the legs listed and had to put my name into the legs that I wanted to run out of the few that had not yet been selected.

My first run is leg #3. It is 7.5 miles long, starts at 5043' elevation and drops down gradually to 4614'. It is my longest leg and all downhill. My second run is leg # 18. It is only 5.3 miles long. It has 98' of elevation loss and 317' of elevation gain, so it is mostly up hill. My last run will be leg # 30. It is 3.9 miles long and gains over 550 feet in elevation. It is my shortest run, but is labeled as a "hard" leg. In total I will have to run 16.7 miles. Looking at these now make me wonder what I got myself into, but I did used to be a runner so I should be able to get myself into shape for it. I guess I better start training.

Strange addictions

2010-12-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

People get addicted to a lot of different things these days. There are drugs, alcohol, gambling, and cigarettes just to name a couple. Then there are the Jayne girls.

Leah sucking her thumb and holding her blankie

Leah is addicted to her thumb and blankie. This is not too out of the ordinary for little kids. She loves to hold her blankie and suck on her thumb. When Emma was little she was addicted to her blanket as well and always had to sniff the corners. We thought it was cute and funny in a strange sort of way. She would sniff a corner then turn the blanket around to the next corner and sniff it. Then she would turn it again and sniff the next corner. She quit doing this as soon as we stopped giving her a pacifier. I do not remember is she had a specific corner she liked but was always just sniffing all the corners of the blanket. Weird. Or so we thought. Then along came Sarah, aka, the Tornado. Early on she was addicted to shoes. "Shoes" was one of the first words she spoke and she always had to be putting shoes on, taking shoes off, and putting more shoes on. But her longest lasting addiction is the most strange of all. She seems to also have a blanket corner sniffing problem like Emma did. Only she has taken it a step further. She has a definite favorite corner and stops to get a hit, I mean sniff at any and all times of the day. She can tell if it is the right corner without being able to see it as well.

Sarah taking a hit from the blankie.

That's good stuff!

She is willing to share with anyone that wants a hit.

Sarah is not stingy with her blankie either. Well, she will not let anyone take it out of her sight, but she is more than willing to let anyone else get a sniff if you ask her. She is happy to shove it right up in your nose! (it does not smell all that great by the way!) Early on we figured that a good washing would take care of this issue and she would stop sniffing it or resort to a random corner, but that was not the case. As you can see by the condition of the corner, she is always able to find it again. The other 3 corners look just as they did the day the blankie was made.

This is also not something she just does when she is getting tired. She has been seen walking across a room to go get something and happen to come by her blankie. She will stop to pick up the corner and take a sniff, then drop it and keep on going! We are not really concerned with this habit of hers. There are a lot worse things she could get addicted to. Maybe if she is still doing this as a teenager we will get a little concerned! Until then, if anyone has a thing for blankie corners, come on over. Sarah has a good one and is willing to share with you!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T06:09:00.000-08:00

Christmas is here. Christmas is a fun time of year. All the presents and giving, the kids really love it. But the real meaning is usually lost to a lot of people. We want to make sure that our kids grow up knowing the reason we are celebrating the Christmas holiday. We are always talking about what Christmas is about as soon as the decorations start coming out all over town and in the stores. And our bedtime stories always are something to do with the meaning of Christmas. Then, Christmas morning, before any presents are opened, we read this to the girls.

Luke chapters 1 & 2

¹ Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, ² just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, ³ it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴ that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.

John’s Birth Announced to Zacharias

⁵ There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. ⁶ And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. ⁷ But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.
⁸ So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, ⁹ according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. ¹⁰ And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. ¹¹ Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. ¹² And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
¹³ But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. ¹⁴ And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. ¹⁵ For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. ¹⁶ And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. ¹⁷ He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
¹⁸ And Zacharias said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.”
¹⁹ And the angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. ²⁰ But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time.”
²¹ And the people waited for Zacharias, and marveled that he lingered so long in the temple. ²² But when he came out, he could not speak to them; and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, for he beckoned to them and remained speechless.
²³ So it was, as soon as the days of his service were completed, that he departed to his own house. ²⁴ Now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived; and she hid herself five months, saying, ²⁵ “Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”

Christ’s Birth Announced to Mary

²⁶ Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”
²⁹ But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. ³⁰ Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. ³² He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. ³³ And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”
³⁴ Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”
³⁵ And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. ³⁷ For with God nothing will be impossible.”
³⁸ Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Mary Visits Elizabeth

³⁹ Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, ⁴⁰ and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴² Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! ⁴³ But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴ For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. ⁴⁵ Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.”

The Song of Mary

⁴⁶ And Mary said:

      “ My soul magnifies the Lord,
       ⁴⁷ And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
       ⁴⁸ For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
      For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
       ⁴⁹ For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
      And holy is His name.
       ⁵⁰ And His mercy is on those who fear Him
      From generation to generation.
       ⁵¹ He has shown strength with His arm;
      He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
       ⁵² He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
      And exalted the lowly.
       ⁵³ He has filled the hungry with good things,
      And the rich He has sent away empty.
       ⁵⁴ He has helped His servant Israel,
      In remembrance of His mercy,
       ⁵⁵ As He spoke to our fathers,
      To Abraham and to his seed forever.”

⁵⁶ And Mary remained with her about three months, and returned to her house.

Birth of John the Baptist

⁵⁷ Now Elizabeth’s full time came for her to be delivered, and she brought forth a son. ⁵⁸ When her neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they rejoiced with her.

Circumcision of John the Baptist

⁵⁹ So it was, on the eighth day, that they came to circumcise the child; and they would have called him by the name of his father, Zacharias. ⁶⁰ His mother answered and said, “No; he shall be called John.”
⁶¹ But they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.” ⁶² So they made signs to his father—what he would have him called.
⁶³ And he asked for a writing tablet, and wrote, saying, “His name is John.” So they all marveled. ⁶⁴ Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, praising God. ⁶⁵ Then fear came on all who dwelt around them; and all these sayings were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judea. ⁶⁶ And all those who heard them kept them in their hearts, saying, “What kind of child will this be?” And the hand of the Lord was with him.

Zacharias’ Prophecy

⁶⁷ Now his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying:
       ⁶⁸ “ Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
      For He has visited and redeemed His people,
       ⁶⁹ And has raised up a horn of salvation for us
      In the house of His servant David,
       ⁷⁰ As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets,
      Who have been since the world began,
       ⁷¹ That we should be saved from our enemies
      And from the hand of all who hate us,
       ⁷² To perform the mercy promised to our fathers
      And to remember His holy covenant,
       ⁷³ The oath which He swore to our father Abraham:
       ⁷⁴ To grant us that we,
      Being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
      Might serve Him without fear,
       ⁷⁵ In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.
       ⁷⁶ “ And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;
      For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,
       ⁷⁷ To give knowledge of salvation to His people
      By the remission of their sins,
       ⁷⁸ Through the tender mercy of our God,
      With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
       ⁷⁹ To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
      To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

⁸⁰ So the child grew and became strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his manifestation to Israel.

Christ Born of Mary

¹ And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. ³ So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.
⁴ Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, ⁵ to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. ⁶ So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. ⁷ And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Glory in the Highest

⁸ Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. ¹⁰ Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. ¹¹ For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
¹⁴ “ Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

¹⁵ So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. ¹⁷ Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. ¹⁸ And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. ¹⁹ But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.

Circumcision of Jesus

²¹ And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called JESUS, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.

Jesus Presented in the Temple

²² Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the LORD”), ²⁴ and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

Simeon Sees God’s Salvation

²⁵ And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. ²⁶ And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. ²⁷ So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, ²⁸ he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said:
       ²⁹ “ Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace,
      According to Your word;
       ³⁰ For my eyes have seen Your salvation
       ³¹ Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples,
       ³² A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles,
      And the glory of Your people Israel.”

³³ And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him. ³⁴ Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against ³⁵ (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Is that AM or can you get FM too?

2010-12-24T06:45:00.000-08:00

Brooke has always liked to do fun things with the girls hair. Leah is no exception, she just has not had enough hair to do anything with until just in the last couple months. She started by just putting a single pony tail on the top of her head.

Leah with her AM antenna. It is even adjusted to the side for better reception!

That was when she just had an AM radio antenna! There was barely enough hair to accomplish this. Now her hair has grown out enough that Brooke can get two pony tails in it.

Here is the FM antenna.

Needed to make a tuning adjustment for better reception!

So now we can get FM as well! But at the same time, she has gotten big enough and curious enough, that she will not leave them alone. Leah has quite the hairdo when she pulls them out. I will have to save these pictures for when she gets to be a teenager and is always worried about her hair! I think that Brooke has given up on this for a while. At least until she starts leaving them alone.

Thankfully she is pretty darn cute with or without the ponytails in her hair. In fact, I think she is one of the 4 cutest little girls I have ever seen. Not that I am biased at all.

Differences

2010-12-23T20:06:00.000-08:00

We have 4 daughters. They are all individuals, but they all share a lot of similarities in their appearance and likes and dislikes. You would think that 4 sisters that grow up together would be similar in some ways and they are. But there are some huge differences that make it obvious that they are each their own person. This picture is an excellent example of one of the main differences in number 2 and number 3. (That would be Riah and Sarah)

It is a great representation of the speeds at which the respective child moves through life at this point in time. Sarah, as I have blogged about before, has earned two very appropriate nicknames already in her short life so far. One being "Fed" which is short for 'federal government' because she is always getting into things she is not supposed to. The other one is "The Tornado" because she is always moving rapidly in a random direction and there is always a path of debris left behind. Riah on the other hand, is just Riah. She could not be more different that Sarah in this regard. Riah can be very fidgety, clumsy, and has a hard time sitting still, but when it comes to doing almost anything, she does it very slowly. She is always the last one to finish eating, by a long time! It takes her several minutes to get in or out of the car. It takes her days to clean her room. Well that might just be any kid I guess! But anything she does, it takes her longer than any of her sisters. Not that that is all bad. She takes her time and thinks about things a lot before she does them. It is just part of Riahs' personality and even though it can be frustrating at times when we think we need to be in a hurry, it is just Riah and who could not love a little girl with all those cute freckles!

My new geocaching logo

2010-12-18T22:16:00.000-08:00

Check out my new, hot off the presses, geocaching logo. Not sure why I really needed a logo, but now I have one. It looks pretty cool though. My geocaching name is jaynes4jesus, in case you cannot figure that out.

The annual Danish Pastry project

2010-12-18T09:06:00.000-08:00

Every year, sometime in December, our company has a goody day. It is a day where everyone brings their favorite goody to share with everyone else. We all meet in the break/conference room at the appropriate break times and completely stuff ourselves with all the food that you want to eat but know you should not eat. I make one of my all time favorite Christmas time snacks that my mom used to make every year when I was growing up. We call them Danish Pastries. And yes, I make them. I do not have Brooke make them and then claim that I did it. They are pretty simple to make but take a lot of time. I usually start right after dinner the night before, and usually finish cooking the last batch about midnight. This year was no exception. Emma and Riah helped me a little bit this year, but it did not seem to go any faster. I was still cooking them until 2357. (that is 11:57 pm if you do not understand 24 hour time,) I did not think they turned out as good this year, but everyone else seemed to like them. I made somewhere around 6 dozen for work and they are all gone.

Here is all it takes to make them.

Like I said, they are pretty easy to make. You just need some butter, flour, sugar, salt, milk, yeast, Cinnamon, and powdered sugar and your ready to go. I would recommend a mixing bowl, whisk, measuring devices, some wax paper, a small spoon, and a rolling pin as well, but that's just how I do it! Just mix some ingredients, roll some dough, chill some dough, roll it again, cut and form some shapes, let them rise and cook them. So I guess you need an oven too.

Here are some in the rising stage and I am rolling some more in the background.


More in the rising stage while I am cutting and shaping some more.

Here is the end result after around 5.5 hours of hard labor in the kitchen. I hope everyone enjoyed them after all that work. I would be glad to show you how to make them, but not until next December. Once a year is plenty. Now I know why my mom only made them once a year at Christmas time.

Innocent until Proven Guilty

2010-12-17T06:35:00.000-08:00

The crime scene.

We had a mystery to solve the other day at the Jayne household. We had our immediate suspects, but since our justice system says everyone is innocent until proven guilty, we had to examine all the evidence before making a verdict and sentencing the guilty party! The first step was doing some forensic analysis of the mess to determine where it came from. It was determined that is was the remains of a cup of hot chocolate. Next, after forensic analysis of the footprints, it was determined that the suspect had very small feet. That ruled out the owner of said cup of hot chocolate because her feet are a lot bigger than those. It was determined however, that she was an accomplice in the crime because she left the cup within reach of other suspects know to have the propensity to perform acts of a similar nature in the past. There are two that have long rap sheets of similar crimes against this household. Next we reviewed all of the surveillance photos that were taken of the incident.

"I didn't do it!"

Here is suspect number one showing that she is trying to help clean up a mess that someone else made. The evidence all over her face is telling us a different story though.

Caught red handed.

Upon further review of the surveillance photos, we found this one of the act in progress. She is found guilty on all charges of unauthorized use of an unsealed liquid beverage container and unauthorized disbursement of a liquid beverage in a non eating zone. Now it is up to the jury to sentence this horrible criminal.


Using the "I'm too cute defense!"

Now she uses the "I'm too cute to punish" defense. Which she is almost too cute and it was determined that her punishment would be a nap. (It was nap time anyway!) This criminal was allowed a warm bath and some fresh clean clothes before being sent to serve her sentence.

Playing house.

2010-12-15T09:09:00.000-08:00

It seems that it must be a natural instinct for girls to want to play house. Not that I would have any knowledge of what little girls like to play, since there are only 4 of them running around my house! We had never told the girls or taught the girls about the game called playing house, but they seem to just know how to do that. Not only do they know how to play house naturally, they can play house in just about any given situation with just about any sort of object to use as people. A perfect example of this happened today while we were getting ready to make dinner. Brooke and I were sitting at the kitchen counter and Sarah, our 3 year old, aka Fed, or the tornado, climbed up beside Brooke at the counter. She then immediately grabbed the two screwdrivers that happened to be sitting on the counter, handed one to Brooke and said, "Mommy, lets play house." She then proceeded to hold the screwdriver in an upright position and bounce it along the counter like it was walking and made it have a conversation with the screwdriver that Brooke was holding. The screwdriver family had a nice time conversing and dancing around our counter for a few minutes and then the tornado moved on to bigger and better things.
So this phenomenon seems to be built into little girls and comes naturally to them. At this point 75% of the little girls I have been able study have this behavior built in. That 25% that has not displayed this knowledge, does not speak in full adult English sentences yet, but I bet once she does, we will discover that the babbling sounds she makes now is her version of playing house, we just don't speak that language to be able to tell. I am not sure if my sample size is big enough to be statistically significant, but I am going to draw my own conclusions anyway. Let me know if you see any little girls that need to be taught to play house! I have 4 that are professionals and would love to teach anyone that does not know how. They do not even need to bring their own screwdriver. They will just use whatever happens to be handy when it is time to play!

The Washington Family Ranch

2010-12-13T21:15:00.000-08:00

The main entrance to the Washington Family Ranch

This weekend I went to the Washington Family Ranch near Antelope, Oregon. If you have never heard of the Washington Family Ranch, I am not surprised. I had never heard of it until recently either. It used to be called the Big Muddy ranch and back in the 80's was taken over by a cult that also took over the town of Antelope for a while. In June 1999 it was turned into a Young Life youth camp. As a fundraiser for the camp, there is an event here in June every year called the Wild Canyon Games. Part of the Wild Canyon Games is a geocaching event and that is why I am here. A friend of mine got involved in setting up the geocache part of the event last year and invited me to help him this year. It was a hard decision for me. Go to central Oregon for a weekend with free lodging and food, and hike around the hills and mountains checking on geocaches hidden for the event. It may not sound like fun to you, but other than going out to a place like this with my family, this is a dream weekend for me! Here are some pictures of the terrain I got to hike around on. The weather was not cooperating for having a camera out, so I did not get to take as many pictures as I would have liked. But, I will be going back!

Some rugged terrain and some un-Eastern Oregon like bad weather.

An indoor sports facility.

More fun landscape to hike around in and hide geocaches.

The John Day river.

The sun peaked though the clouds for a few minutes.

The sun hitting some of the big bluffs.

I was surprised that the ranch is down at 1500 feet elevation.


Looking west up the valley towards Antelope, OR from the front of the main ranch house.

I am greatly blessed that I was able to go out here. Not only am I getting to do stuff I love to do in an area I love to be in, but it is for a good cause as well. I am looking forward to more trips out here in the future.

The girls are growing too fast!

2010-12-11T13:45:00.000-08:00

Found some older pictures of the girls the other day. We can see a lot of similarities in the older ones and the younger ones when looking at these pictures. Can you tell who is who?

Riah

Emma and Riah

Riah

Riah again

Sarah when she attended the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco

Just a couple of the pictures we were looking at. It is amazing how fast they grow and how quick they change. You do not necessarily notice the similarities in the girls as much until we look at pictures of them when the older ones were the age that the younger ones are now.

Trick questions?

2010-12-09T05:45:00.000-08:00

The other day, Emma and I got on the subject of trees and leaves. I do not remember why, but I do remember part of the conversation that had Brooke and I laughing pretty hard. She was talking about leaves and shapes of leaves, so I asked her what shape the leaves on our Noble fir Christmas tree were. I thought it was a pretty simple question, but she apparently did not understand. So I decided to help her a little bit. Here is what I said, "Emma, can you tell me what shape those needle-shaped leaves are?" She just did not get it and kept trying to come up with some words to describe the shape of the leaves. Then her little sister, Riah came in to help and didn't understand either. I even repeated myself several times stressing the needle-shaped part of my question, but to no avail. Eventually, so as to not frustrate our daughters too much, and once Brooke and I stopped laughing enough that we could talk clearly, I explained it to the girls and they thought it was pretty funny too. Emma was thinking that it could not be that easy, it had to be a trick question! That might be because I am always asking her off the wall questions that usually make no sense, but, hey, it keeps us entertained right? Isn't that what our kids are for?

Oh no! My Trees are all dying!

2010-12-07T14:53:00.000-08:00

At work, my job is to get baby trees planted and take care of them to make sure they survive and grow. If we see trees dying we always want to check it out and figure out why so we can fix it when we plant more trees there. There are a couple spots on the property that have recently caused people to come into our office to tell us that we have a big patch of dead trees. The same spots have even caused some other employees in the company to search me out to tell me that a big patch of trees are all dying! I am usually concerned about this, until they tell me where they saw this happening. Here is what the spot looks like.

All the trees are dying, what's going on?


A close-up of all the yellow needles, that's a bad sign.


This would normally not be a good thing in our plantations.

There are two basic kinds of trees out there. Conifers, which generally have needle shaped leaves and stay green all year long retaining a couple years of needles all the time. The second kind of trees would be Deciduous trees. They generally have leaf like leaves and the leaves fall off every year and new ones grow the next. The most common tree we plant in the forest is a Douglas-fir. It is a conifer and is green all year long. That is what most people are used to seeing in the plantations out in the woods, so when they drive by a bunch of conifer looking trees that are all turning yellow and falling off, they think the Douglas-fir trees are all dying! However, these particular trees happen to not be of the Douglas-fir variety. They are Western Larch, which is one of the trees that caused me to say "generally" when talking about conifers and deciduous trees earlier in this post. Western Larch is a conifer, but it acts like a deciduous tree in that it loses its needles every year. So if you are driving around on the forest property I manage and you see a big patch of trees that are all losing their needles and looking dead it is likely to be a patch of Western Larch. So there is no worries, they will be green again in the Spring. Just some more of the wonderful things that God created.

Christmas Card

2010-12-05T16:06:00.001-08:00

Snowflake Wishes Noir Holiday

Make a statement with custom holiday cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Decorating the Jayne family Christmas tree

2010-12-05T11:33:00.000-08:00

We were going to go get a Christmas tree last Sunday, but the girls decided that they would rather have me go get on during the week so that they could go play in the snow with our friends. We all had a great time and all was fine. Then Monday after work, the girls started asking constantly if I got a tree and if I was going to get it the next day. They really wanted to decorate the tree and the house for Christmas. Emma says it is her favorite day of the year every year. I was finally able to get one during the day on Thursday and put it beside the house to torture the girls for a couple days. It drove them crazy that we had a tree and it was just sitting outside by the house. But we just did not have time to put it up, it was a busy end of the week. Finally after getting home from watching the civil war football game at a friends house, we decided it was finally time.

We got the many boxes of decorations out and got the tree stand out of the shed. I trimmed up the bottom of the tree and put the stand on, then we had to rearrange the living room to make room for it. Once that was done, I brought the tree in and stood it up. Then, as I was trying to straighten it, I discovered that the stand was broken and the tree could not be straightened. So after a quick trip to a store that I really do not like, I had the tree standing up straight in a new stand. While I was gone to the store, Brooke and the girls were able to get a bunch of the house decorations up. Once the lights were on, the decorating began. The 3 older girls put most of the ornaments on the tree and only one was broken in the process. That was not a big deal because we have too many ornaments anyway. I did the ones up high where they could not reach, then Brooke and I did some rearranging after they all went to bed. Here are some pictures of the project.

Just getting started with rearranging the furniture.

Brooke did some vacuuming to cleanup as we went. Leah liked this part the best.

This was Leah's contribution to the effort.

giddy-up!

Ready for the tree.

Getting the tree ready for stand number 2.

Time to start putting on the ornaments.

Lots more to go.

Riah getting ready to hang a sheep on the tree.

Sarah putting an ornament on her favorite branch. She put a lot of them here.

It's done!

The finished product.

The tree is up and the house is decorated. I guess we are ready for Christmas now and I can start looking forward to my favorite part of the Christmas tree. Click here to see that story. Once again we will continue to teach the girls that all this is fun and nice, but the real reason for the season is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ our savior. We are celebrating God's love for us that he showed by sending his Son to be sacrificed for our sins and give us the opportunity to have eternal life with Him. We try to teach the girls to look at this time as a time of giving and showing love to others and not a time of getting things.

There's a squirrel stuck in our Nuvi!

2010-12-03T15:15:00.000-08:00

About a year ago, we got a Garmin Nuvi navigation GPS free for opening a new checking account at a bank. This last year it has been very helpful in getting places, especially when we have made long trips to places we had never been before. In the Nuvi, we can select the voice that talks to you to tell you where and when to turn. We tried lots of different ones. Last Christmas, we found an elf voice that was pretty cute. Once the Christmas season was over, we had to change it. That is when we found the squirrel. Thats right, we have a squirrel voice in our Nuvi! The best part of this voice is not just the funny sounding voice when giving directions, it is all the funny comments that the squirrel just randomly throws out. The entertainment value of his voice got even better recently when Leah started noticing it. Now, every time the squirrel speaks, Leah starts laughing hysterically in her car seat. We now like to turn on the GPS and have it navigating somewhere, even when we are just driving to the store in Lebanon, just to hear Leah cracking up.

Here are some samples of the funny things the squirrel says, for the best effect, read them out loud in your best Alvin the Chipmunk voice and then imagine a 1 year old behind you in the car cracking up. (At least it will entertain those around you!)

"We've made it!"

"Awww, nuts! Hold on, I'll get us outa here!" (says this whenever we miss a turn, which happens a lot since I am not actually using it to navigate to anywhere, I'm just listening to Leah crack up so I am never going the way it is telling me to.)

"You know, my cousin's a gopher"

"I sure could go for some walnuts about now."
"Wooo-Hooo!"

"Have you told your friends you have a squirrel stuck in your Nuvi?"

"Out of all the voices you could have, you pick me, that's swell"

"Do you think a gas station would sell walnuts?"
"Turn right, Okay!"
"Well I'm just having a great time today."
"Let's keep movin, we're almost there. Hooray!"
"Well, what's on the agenda for today?"
"Shhhhh, I thought I saw a fox!"
"Drop me off if you see some trees."
"At this speed, I feel like a flying squirrel. Get it? Ha Ha!"
"Are we stopping here? What about here? Here? Here?"
"Sometimes I get distracted, its like I...... Hey you wanna get some peanut brittle?"
"If you see a squirrel run out in front of you, it's probably my uncle Frank. He's crazy like that!"
"It's tough being a squirrel, but this Nuvi is a big upgrade from my previous place!"

There are probably more, but it is hard to stay on the road when you are trying to write down quotes from a squirrel! So I better stop. If they weren't that funny to you, you forgot to say them in your Alvin the chipmunk voice. Go back to the top, reread them and follow the instructions this time! Leah thinks he is hilarious and we get a kick out of it as well. We will probably have to switch back to the elf now that it is the Christmas season. He says some funny stuff as well.

Ambush!

2010-12-01T06:45:00.000-08:00

Back on November 23, we woke up in the morning to a nice layer of white covering the ground. The girls were all very excited to go play in the snow. So excited, that they did not even want to wait to eat breakfast first. They just had to get dressed and go play in the snow before it melted. I don't think I have ever seen them moving that quickly first thing in the morning!

I was not ready to go outside as quick as they were, so I stayed inside a little longer and shot some pictures out through the window. Then they got the idea to ambush me!

In this picture, I am still getting my shoes on inside. They are banging on the window yelling that they have something to show me and asking me to hurry up. (Notice the snow in their hands? Not really a snowball because the snow would not really stick together, but they did have snow in their hands.) Since they were so eager for me to get outside quickly, I made sure to do everything in slow motion. I think it took about 5 minutes to get each shoe on! Once I finally had my shoes on, I slowly walked to the back sliding glass door and opened it. They reacted just like I knew they would. I could hear them yell, "He's going out back" and started running around the house. So I stepped out on the deck, grabbed a handful of snow, and ran back through the house and out the front door as they are trying to open the gate to the back yard. Once they got the gate open and looked into the back yard, they realized I tricked them and headed back to the front, right into a nicely targeted handful of snow. Their ambush backfired! They were sure they could ambush me with some snow but I outsmarted them. This time!

Once everyone was nice and cold, we came inside to warm up with some hot chocolate and oatmeal for breakfast.

Turkey on the Traeger

2010-11-30T22:51:00.000-08:00

The Thanksgiving leftovers are all gone now. No more turkey, no more pie, no more cranberries, no more sweet potatoes. All the food we had this year was great. But the turkey this year was the best we ever had! Partly because I was thinking about it being related to the one that dented the hood of the Suburban a few months ago, but mostly because we decided to try cooking it in the Traeger grill instead of in the oven this year. We cook all kinds of other stuff in the Traeger and it all turns out good, so we had to try a turkey. We were going to practice before Thanksgiving to make sure it would turn out but were unable to find the time, so Thanksgiving day was the first try. We had a back up turkey that we cooked in the oven the day before, in case we ruined it, but that didn't get touched on Thanksgiving because it is hard to ruin something on a Traeger.

This is what it looked like coming off the Traeger after 5 hours of cooking. It was so moist and delicious that I could not get enough of it. df a a skdfo{;nui Shb (sorry, had to wipe the drool off the keyboard) From now on, we will cook the turkey this way every year. It was stuffed with some sliced veggies and oranges, then had a home made sweet/spicy rub all over it that made some great drippings for gravy and just to dip the turkey in!

The next thing to try in the Traeger (think Traeger will pay me for saying their name so much?)

a whole deer leg. Just have to find the right recipe. I am getting hungry just thinking about it.

Playing in the snow

2010-11-30T06:21:00.000-08:00

On November 28, we planned on going to get our Christmas tree after church. But, we ended up just going up into the mountains with some friends to play in the snow. I remember getting to play in the snow a lot growing up, but my kids do not even get to see snow very often. The kids had a lot of fun sledding down the hill we found. I heard Emma say at one point, with her arms raised into the air, "This is the best day of my life!" Suffice to say that she had a good time! Here are some pictures from the day.

She is okay as long as she is in a tire track and not in the deep snow.

Look out below!

Made it to the bottom!

Back up the hill again.

The older sisters team up to get some speed.

Pile them all on!

Leah did not like to be in the snow. This was an instant reaction to being put down in it.

Cute sisters.

She is just so cute, I had to put this one in too.

Three of the girls came down at once!

All the younger kids on the ATV.

Daddy and Emma together.

Audry and her dad racing down the hill.

More friends coming down.

Emma tried to take Leah on the sled, but she did not want anything to do with it.

Riah and daddy, look out below!

Almost to the bottom.

We made it.

Fun was had by all, but eventually between the darkness and kids starting to lose it, we had to leave. I am sure we will do this a few more times this winter as long as the snow keeps coming. I just hope we can live up to Emma's expectations now, since this was "the best day of her life!"

What are you Thankful for?

2010-11-25T07:55:00.000-08:00

This is the question I asked my family to answer the other day, as Thanksgiving approached. To really make them think, I told them to write down one thing that they were thankful for each letter of the alphabet. Here are the responses:

LEAH: Okay, she cannot write, read, or really even talk, so here is my translation of her answers. I am pretty sure she is thankful for cake. She really got into this cake on her birthday. Literally, she buried her hand clear to the bottom of the cake!

A - ba-ba - (that means food or her milk cup)

B - Dada - (self-explanatory)

C- Mama - (again, self-explanatory)

D - men - (this is what she says for Amen at the end of a prayer)

E - that - (when she is pointing at something she wants)

F - eese - (please)

G - this (pointing at something she wants and can reach)

H- Hi

Well, you get the picture. That is about the extent of her vocabulary so far. Give her a break, she is only 1.5 years old.

SARAH: Like Leah, she has a limited grasp on the alphabet and writing, but she can answer questions. So I sat down with her and asked her to tell me what she was thankful for that started with each letter. Sometimes I gave her suggestions of things that started with the correct letter, other times I just wrote down the first thing she said. Here is what Sarah is thankful for this year:

A- an egg

B- Bob the tomato

C- Apple

D- Dora splora and boots

E- Emma and elephants (She could not decide between the two!)

F- Fingers

G- God and gum

H- Happy Hippopotamus

I- Pillow case

J- Jesus

K- Kitty (or maybe katty, I was not sure)

L- Laughing

M- Me and mommy (she is thankful for herself and mommy)

N - Eyes

O- I like painting

P- Pee Pee on the potty!

Q- Clock

R- Click Clock

S- I lay down right here! (she had to adjust her position)

T- Crock pot, water and cracker, I need those for Christmas

U- Jesus

V- ummm, I love you!

W- My blocks and blocks

X- I want a computer for my birthday and a boat and a big house. This big!(she shows me with her hands, about 6 inches!)

Y- Pillow

Z- Daddies eyebrows (her attention span is about gone and she has started playing with my eyebrows)

Obviously, Sarah does not know her alphabet but she really thinks she is answering the questions. She is so cute. Not that I am at all biased!

RIAH: Now Riah is getting close to 7 years old and is very capable of doing this list. She wanted me to help her, and I did a little, but for the most part, I made her think about it and do it herself. Here is what Riah is thankful for in 2010:

Apples

Baby sister (that would be Leah)

Calvary Chapel (our church family)

Dogs (we do not have one, but maybe that is why she is thankful for dogs!)

Emma (I think she means her sister, not the neighbor next door)

Family (she actually likes us all!)

G- God

Help (either people helping her or her being able to help us)

Icicles (One of the words I mentioned to her and she liked)

Jesus

Keepsakes (all the girls have a box that they keep special things in. Mostly things that Brooke wanted to keep for sentimental reasons)

Lillie (a girl next door)

Mommy

Noni

Opal (because it is mommies birthstone)

People (she is just thankful for everyone in the world)

Quizzes (I guess she still likes school, although you wouldn't know it by how long she takes to do it)

Riah (either she is thankful for her name, or she is thankful that she is who she is)

Sarah (one of her younger sisters)

Toys (at 6 almost 7, toys are still important to her)

Umbrellas

Violins (Because she could not think of anything else that starts with V)

Winter

X-rays

Zoo (just not the peacocks! Click here if you do not know the story!)

EMMA: Emma is 9 now and loves to read, write and be creative, so I expected her to get into this assignment. Here is her list that she titled "The Thankful Alphabet, A to Z":

Authors in general and American Girl (her favorite book series)

Books (she reads a lot)

Cousins (does not have very many but is thankful for the ones she has)

Daddy (aww, how nice, she likes me!)

Ellie (her friend that lives next door)

Family and friends

God

Horses

Internet

Joys

Kindness
Lollipops

Mommy

Noni

Ocean

Power (Gods power)

Quilts

Rain (yes, my child likes rain! Where did I go wrong?)

Sisters (hers, not the mountains over by Bend!)

Tales (she likes to tell stories and listen to stories)

Umbrellas

Vans

Water

X-rays (I told her to get a dictionary and find something with X to be thankful for)

Youth Group (Not that she has been to one yet, she just thinks they will be fun)

Zoos (what else starts with Z)

BROOKE: Next is my beautiful wonderful wife. Once she finally sat down and write the list, she came up with 2 lists. One is a spiritual thankful list and the other is just things she is thankful for. Here is what she came up with:

Agape Love, Another year with my family
Belonging to Christ, Beavers (Oregon State University)
Christs sacrifice, Coffee (with a little fancy creamer)
Discipleship,Dates with John
Easter, Emma
Forgiveness, Friendship and fellowship
Grace, GPS
Heaven, Homeschooling
Isaiah, Internet
Jesus, John
Kindness, Kissing
Love, Leah
Mercy, Mom
New Life, Neighborhood
Omnipotence, Obedient children
Peace, Photography
unQuenchable thirst for the Word of God, Quiet
Redemption, Riah
Self-control, Sarah
Trinity, Telephone
Unchangable God, Unconditional love
Virgin birth, Video
Worship, Warm sunny days
eXtra grace, mercy, and love, eXtra dessert
Yahweh, You (yes you! : ))
Omega(its not a Z, but it is the last letter in the Greek alphabet and God says He is the Alpha & Omega, the first and the last.), Z the last letter of the alphabet

ME: Finally its my turn. I will try to not make this the same as last year, but that might be hard. We'll see. Here it goes:

Almighty God
Blessed assurance of my salvation even when I stumble

Changing Churches - This year we switched from going to Calvary Chapel Corvallis to attending Lebanon Calvary Chapel. Although we miss all our friends from Corvallis, it has saved us money and time. But more importantly has been very good for our spiritual growth in 2010 and we are able to serve more living in the same town instead of 30 minutes away.

Daughters, I have 4 of them and they bring great joy to my life, at least now while they are all under the age of 10!
Earth and all creation. The natural environment speaks so loudly of a creator it just boggles my mind that people can think that it created itself from nothing.
Freckles. Riah has lots of freckles and I just love them. I always tell her to be careful not to wash them off in the shower and make sure Emma doesn't steal anymore of them. Emma has just a few and I gave her a hard time that she stole them from her little sister!
Gods word. I get to read it everyday and study it to learn how to live the way God intended when He created all this.
Hobbies. I have a lot of them so I do not spend a lot of time on any of them. I also stay busy with the family, church and work so I do not have a lot of time for them. It is nice to know that I have things that I like to do if I ever find some free time to do them!
Ice cream. Yes I am thankful for Ice Cream. It is a very yummy dessert or main dish depending on the day and mood of the family.
Jesus. This letter has to be for Jesus. His sacrifice on the cross for my sins way back in the past is the only reason I have any of these things to be thankful for.
Kids. Children are a blessing from the Lord. I thank God everyday for the blessings He has given me and entrusted me to raise.
Love. I am thankful for the love of God, the love of my family and the love from my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Marriage. I am thankful for my marriage. God gave me a beautiful, wonderful, loving, caring wife that makes my life exponentially better than it would have been without her. Not to mention that today is our 15th anniversary!
Not stuck inside. Well, at least most of the time. I am thankful for a job that I can enjoy being outdoors and not stuck inside at a desk all the time. I am even thankful for this when the weather is bad. That should tell you how much I prefer being outside to being at a desk!
Oak trees. I am thankful for the Oak trees in our yard. Not as much this time of year because of all the work cleaning up their leaves, but the shade they provide in the summer is great.
Patience. I do not have a lot, but am learning it more as I raise my kids and just going through life. Things just do not always happen the way you think they should and you just have to have patience to know that it will be okay.
Questions from my daughters. I know this is the same as last year, but I really am thankful for the questions they ask because of the things it makes you think about and the entertainment value as well. Besides, Q is a difficult letter to find a word for. Especially when the dictionary is all the way across the room.
Resurrection. I am thankful that my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ rose from the grave to defeat death and give us eternal life.
Snuggling with my daughters. They all like to cuddle up in my lap when we sit down to watch a movie. I really enjoy it when then do that too. Only about 2 at a time now. They are getting too big! Makes me want them to not grow up.
Thanksgiving. I am thankful that we have a holiday in this country that makes us think about what we have and all the reasons we have to be thankful.
Unmerited grace and mercy of God. I am thankful that God has given me blessings that I do not deserve (grace) and that he does not give me the punishment that I do deserve. (mercy)
Veggie Tales. I am thankful for these movies and shows with Biblical values. They are made for kids but I like them too. It also ties right into why I am thankful for the letter S.
Woodshop. I am thankful for my woodshop. I do not spend a lot of time in it, but it is there if I have the time. I really enjoy building things and having projects to work on. It will probably get used more when the girls all get older. What is my house going to be like with a bunch of teenage girls?
Xylography - That is the act or art of cutting figures into wood, in representation of natural objects. Okay, I did not know that, but I was looking in the dictionary for a word starting with X to be thankful for and found it. It kind of fits don't you think?
Yearning. I am thankful that God has given me a desire to know Him better and to live for Him to be an example to my family and those around me.
Zygodactylous! I just thought this was a cool looking word. It was almost the last one in the dictionary. I will let you look it up if you want to know what it means, but do not ask me how to say it!

Well, there you go. That is what the Jayne family is thankful for at Thanksgiving 2010.

Happy Birthday to me!

2010-11-24T05:31:00.000-08:00

Today I am 14975 days old. That is 41 in human years for all you mathematically challenged out there. It does not seem like I can possibly be that old. It seems like only a couple years ago I was in high school in Paisley, Oregon, (If you have never heard of Paisley, Oregon, don't worry about it, neither has most other people on the planet. But it is a great place to go!), but I actually moved away from there over 20 years ago. The past seems like a blur now as time continually speeds past me. Now looking back on the past years of my life, I see the all the wonder blessings that God has given me. I was not always walking with God like I should have been, but He was always there watching over me and teaching me. Now as I move on into the future I get to continue growing in knowledge and wisdom. You come to realize, as you get older, that you never really knew as much as you thought you did! I thank God that I get to keep going with all the wonderful things he has blessed me with. Two of which are in the picture with me above. In the grand scheme of things, I am not really all that old, but I am probably past halftime in my life, so now it is time to finish strong do all that I can for God. I'll start by continuing to lead my family and serve the Lord in whatever way He asks.

Conversations with number 3

2010-11-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Our 3rd daughter, Sarah, is a source of constant entertainment for Brooke and I. She has really started talking in the last few months and always makes us laugh. I like to have fun with her and ask her off the wall questions to just to hear what she will say. A lot of the things she does has earned her a few nicknames as well. You can read about those HERE. Like the nickname blog said, I often call them Bob or George when I first see them. Mainly Sarah, because she responds in a more funny way than the older girls. The older girls just look at me and say, "Daddy, my name is not Bob!" For Sarah, this is just the beginning of a conversation about her name.

Here is how the conversations usually goes.

"Hi Bob!"

"I not Bob, I Sarah."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I Sarah Bob!"

"What about George?"

"I Sarah Bob George."

"So your name is Sarah Bob George?"

"Yes, George!"

This can continue as long as I keep asking her more questions. The other night we were at a friends house and she was asked what her name was. She responded with Sarah. Then when she was asked how long she has been named Sarah, she looked at her fingers and said 3. Next she was asked if she knew what her name was before her name was Sarah. Without hesitating she said, Yes. Sarah! Later that night at home, I asked her the same questions. Here is the conversation that followed.

"What is your name?"

"I Sarah."

"Who named you?"

"I did."

"But who gave you the name Sarah?"

"I myself!"

"You named yourself Sarah?"

"Yes, I Sarah!"

"You don't think that maybe mommy and daddy named you?"

"Daaaadddddy, I Sarah. I name me!"

Then she walked off to play with some toys. So our 3 year old is very confident that before she was named Sarah, her name was Sarah, and she named herself Sarah! Conversations like these are the ones that I cannot wait to show her when she is older! That will be fun.

Anyone want some Oak leaves?

2010-11-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

Being a forester, I like trees. I love to be out in the woods walking around enjoying all the amazing things God has created. However, I am not very fond of Oak trees. At least the ones in my yard. Well, actually I don't really like Oak trees in the woods either. There are several reasons for this. If you have Oak trees in the woods, it is a good sign that the trees that have commercial value will probably not grow there and the Oak trees we have around here are not that valuable commercially. They are also a good indicator of poor soils that will be really hard to plant trees of any kind and get anything else to grow. The most important reason though is that, if there is Oak trees, there is usually a lot of Poison Oak in the area as well and I do not get along with Poison Oak very well.

Our Oak trees are great in the summer when they help shade our house on the hot days and keep us cool. But in the Fall, starting in October, they start to drop their leaves and make a big mess in our yard and the street. It would not be that bad it they just dropped their leaves all at once and were done with it, but our trees have to start in October and slowly drop leaves on us until mid December. As a result, I get to spend a bunch of time every couple weeks blowing and raking the leaves off the yard into a pile in the street for the city to come and collect sometime in December.

Everyone that lives in the houses at the end of the cul-de-sac blow all the leaves out into a pile in the middle of the street instead of by the curb so that we can still park on the curb in front of our houses. This is the pile that has built up as of November 20 before I blew this weeks leaves on it. It is actually a lot bigger than it looks in this picture.

Here is what I have to contend with this week. I would just leave it there until all the leaves are on the ground, but I would end up with dead grass and a lot of moss. I don't have enough grass actually growing to afford letting any more die! That is another downside to the Oak trees. The grass does not like to grow very well under them.

Using this tool and a rake, about 4 hour later, I am finally done.

Here is the pile now. Again, it is a LOT bigger than the picture makes it look. There is a couple of dump truck loads of leaves here.

The lawn looks a lot better now too! I should only have to do this one more time this year, I hope! The leaves are almost gone off the trees.

It usually takes a lot longer for all the leaves to come off, but I think all the wind and hard rain last week really helped knock them off.

So if anyone has the need of a big pile of Oak leaves, I can hook you up! If you like raking and running a leaf blower, come on over, I have not done the back yard yet!! I will even let you use my rake and leaf blower!

Thanksgiving Decorations

2010-11-20T15:47:00.000-08:00

Friday night, Emma and Riah decided to make some Thanksgiving Decorations for their room. The got out all kinds of paper, pens, markers, glue, glitter, stamps, ink, and scissors and went to work. They are making leaves, scarecrows, turkeys, and Pilgrims. I also told them about pumpkins, corn, cornucopia, and sweet potatoes. They are hard at work, it will be interesting to see the finished product. Maybe we will have them decorate the rest of the house too!


Here they are with all the decoration making supplies.

Leah wanted to help them.

Sarah wanted to help too. This was her contribution to the effort. I think she is posing as a scarecrow!

Emma coloring a leaf.

Riah showing me a leaf she made.

Here is the results of all their hard work.

Now they are already planning on what they are going to make to decorate their room for Christmas. It is only 28 days away they tell me! I think someone needs to check their math on that one, but we will let it slide for now.

What to do on vacation?

2010-11-19T18:51:00.000-08:00

After work today, I officially started some vacation. I am off work until November 29th. Now I am thinking about what to do while I am off. Here is what I have come up with so far, not in any particular order:

Sleep
Play with the kids
Spend time with the wife
Blow the leaves off the yard
Clean up the shop
Work on some random woodworking projects
Eat some birthday cake
Celebrate 15th wedding anniversary
Smoke a turkey on the Treager
Eat a turkey dinner with family and friends
Study 1 Kings 6 and prepare a bible study on it
Think of something to blog about
Do some geocaching
Go mountain biking
Run on the treadmill
Call mom
Play in the snow
Take the girls to swimming lessons
Go out in the woods and get a Christmas tree
Put up and decorate the Christmas tree
Start a Christmas/End of year letter to send out with Christmas cards

I am sure I will come up with a lot of other things to do and only get a couple things on this list done, but I will start off with some sleep. I am usually up by 5 am, but I think I will sleep in until at least 7 tomorrow! Although by Monday or Tuesday, I will not be able to sleep anymore and I won't be able to go to sleep until 1 or 2 in the morning and I will wake up by 6 or 7. That is just how my vacations usually go, so I should have time to get lots of stuff done. We will just have to wait and see how it goes.

Family Game Night

2010-11-18T00:31:00.000-08:00

We like to play games as a family. I realized a few nights ago that we had not played any games for a while. I asked the girls what they wanted to play and they came up with Jenga. It is a great game to play with children! Especially children who tend to sometimes be a little clumsy! I thought it sounded like fun and had to have the camera out to catch some of the action. Sarah wanted to watch a movie instead of playing, so it was just Emma, Riah, Leah and Daddy to play. Brooke was out running errands. Leah didn't stand much chance of not knocking it over by just getting within 3 feet of it, so she became a spectator. She is very good at that! Although, she did kind of come and go. She would watch the Jenga tower being built for a few minutes and then would go keep Sarah company watching her movie for a few minutes and then come back to check on the progress of the game.

She was quite happy to point a blocks now and again and tell her big sisters that they should get that one. Her main job, as is her main job all the time, was to be cute and funny. She excels at the cute part and is usually quite funny with the things she tries to do. She does have her moments of, shall we say, unfunniness, but we don't need to talk about those today.

The first round of Jenga, lasted about 5 minutes and here is the end of the game! As you can see in the picture, Riah was not happy that she knocked the tower over. She likes to see it fall, but does not like the crashing noise it makes. She would prefer to have it fall when someone else is taking their turn so she can have her fingers in her ears. So when we started game 2, on everyone else's turn, she would stand and watch with her fingers in her ears, just in case it fell!

We started a second game. Emma and Riah get really cautious after I pull all but a single bottom block out at the start of the game. They are sure that it was going to fall right away.

They got really serious and amazingly patient for 9 and 6 year olds! Look at the concentration.

Here, Riah took a couple minutes to pull out this block. Then I would scare them by flicking a corner block out of the tower without even grabbing it! Emma tried it once and almost knocked it over early in the game. She decided that was not a good way to get a block out.

Riah became very steady and careful, which, if you know Riah, she is usually very jumpy, bouncy and not careful as a person can be. The tower in game 2 was getting quite high and lasting a long time.

Leah cam back to visit again and give Emma some advice. Emma learned that advice from a 1 year old is not something that should usually be followed. The tower almost came down, but some how it stood back up. She may have bent the rules a little bit by how much she was touching, but I am not sure so I did not worry about it.

Riah got another one out and back on top. It is getting really tall now! Emma and I each went another turn and then it was back to Riah.

She looked at it and thought about it for a while and then went for her block. She barely got her hand on it and CRASH, it came down again. It was a fun night of playing games with the girls.

The next night, we all played the board game "Life". That is another one of our favorite games. Emma and Riah had a couple of bad games that time though. They both kept landing on bad spaces and having to pay out all the money they got. When we finished the game, Mommy had won with over 2 million dollars, I had 2 place with 1.8 million dollars followed by Emma with 700 thousand dollars and then Riah with 150 thousand dollars!

Oh yeah, thats why I don't like running!

2010-11-13T13:38:00.000-08:00

People who knew me in high school, knew me as a runner. I was not fast, but I ran cross country and distance races in track. I don't think I really enjoyed doing that back then, but it was something to do and it kept me in shape for the other things I liked to do. I was really skinny and could not gain weight no matter how much I ate. Those were the days! People who have only known me since I got out of college have a hard time believing that I used to be a skinny runner.
I quit running as soon as I went to college. I still stayed in decent shape by playing basketball and mountain biking, but I did not ever go running. I found that I could now gain some weight! I gained about 50 # my freshman year of college! I still stayed active all through college and stayed in pretty good shape. Then I graduated and started working. The basketball and mountain biking pretty much stopped but I worked out in the woods and stayed in shape just with the physical activity of work.
Now it is 17 years since college and I still work out in the woods, but it is not always a physical as it used to be and I spend about half of my time in the office. So I have decided that it is finally time to do something about my weight and physical conditioning. I had started running on our treadmill that we bought years ago to keep jackets, old papers, books and other needless junk on. I would run on it 2-4 times per week for about a week at a time, but without other motivation to keep me going, I would stop and restart 3 months later. So it was not really very helpful for my conditioning. So next July the company I work for is going to have a team in the Cascade Lakes Relay. This is a 216 +/- mile relay race starting at Diamond Lake and ending in Bend, OR. So I thought that I would sign up for it and use it as motivation to lose weight and get in shape. I have been a little more consistent with running on the treadmill since then. Today however, was a group training day for our team. Everyone that could make it met at the Benton County fairgrounds in Corvallis, and we went for a run/walk in Bald Hill Park. It all went well for me. I took my GPSr with me to see how far I went and only stopped to rest at a couple geocaches. I went to the top of the hill and back and up some side trails too. In all, when I got back to the truck, I had covered just a little over 6 miles. Not too bad for someone who doesn't run.
Now that I am all done with the run and back at home, I remember why I did not like running all that much back when I actually did it. The geocaches kept me distracted during the run and I felt pretty good. But after sitting in the truck driving back home from Corvallis, my knees and ankles are letting me know what they think about running. They are saying, "see this is why you stopped doing this 22 years ago! It hurts!" I just hope that as I keep going and get in better shape, that my knees and ankles do not revolt and actually start liking the lighter weight that should be pounding on them. We will see. I have around 7 months to get in shape to run my portion of the relay. At least I am doing something.

Deer Season 2010

2010-11-10T05:35:00.000-08:00

One of my many hobbies is hunting. I have, in the past, enjoyed going out in the woods stalking around in the brush, tracking down large game animals to put meat into the freezer. The amount of fun derived from this has waned over the years and greatly depends upon which large game animal I am hunting and how many other people are hunting the same animal.
Deer season tends to be the season that the fun has pretty much drained completely out and the deer to human ratio in the woods is about 20 to 1 the wrong way. So, I only bought a tag to make sure that I did not see any deer, let alone the gawkers that stand there and ask to be shot! For the last several years, for me, having a deer tag and going out hunting has been like animal repellent. I had rarely seen any deer at all during the hunting seasons of the past. That is even with seeing deer everyday for months leading up to opening day. Then once deer season opens, they seem to vanish into thin air. This has only convinced me that my theories about Gawkers may be true. (If you have not read my blog about Gawkers, click here and read about my gawker and runner theory.) I figure that if I actually did not buy a tag then all the deer will be standing out in front of me holding their hooves up to their forehead in the shape of an L, knowing that I cannot shoot them. So this year I bought a buck tag and a doe tag just to ensure the deer were not making fun of me. (At least out where I could see them.) For the most part this deer season went as my pessimistic vision told me it would. The season started some Saturday back in October. I think I remembered to take my gun with me by the first Monday of the season and remembered to get the bullets by the first Thursday. It did not matter because I did not see a single animal, just as planned. (I did not look very hard.) I did see plenty of other hunters. In fact, I was in fear for my life a couple times at work when I had to go out into a plantation to check on some baby trees and discovered I was surrounded by about 14 people with guns, all sitting in the a car or truck vigilantly watching the plantation for that elusive buck to walk out and commit suicide in front of them all. I made sure to wear some brightly colored clothing that most deer are too embarrassed to be seen in and did my best to not look like a deer. I am pretty sure I heard some deer in the brush talking a laughing amongst each other about how silly all those 2 legged creatures in their cars look. Thankfully, I made it out without any new ventilation holes in my body.
Then, the 3rd week of the season, it took a strange turn. While out in the woods, with rifle, bullets, and valid tag in my possession, I had some deer run out in front of me and stand there Gawking! I almost was not sure what to do. But then there was a loud boom and the deer jumped out in front of my bullet and crashed to the ground. So, I filled my doe tag this year and have a little meat in the freezer!
But the season was not over! One would think that this sudden success would give me a more optomistic attitude for filling my other tag, but, it didn't. I did not put in anymore effort to fill the second tag than I did the first.
Well, last Friday was the last day of the season. I once again found myself out in the woods taking care of baby trees. This particular day, I had to walk about 0.25 miles through some prime Gawker habitat to get to the plantation of baby trees. So, I actually took my rifle with me. Then, just a few hundred feet down the trail I found this:

That would be a buck track. A pretty fresh buck track. If I didn't know better, I would have gotten all excited and thought I had a chance to find him and add him to my meat collection in the freezer. But, as expected, this is all I saw of him. I am sure he was a nice size buck. His print was pretty big. Here it is next to my boot:

Hmmm, maybe next year!
Yeah right. I will just buy my deer repellent again and be done with it.
Now I am just waiting for elk season to start.

Are you outliving you life?

2010-11-08T05:35:00.000-08:00

Title: Out Live Your Life: You were made to make a difference

Author: Max Lucado

In Out Live Your Life, Max Lucado is challenging the reader to think about what people are going to remember about your life when you are gone. Were you living for yourself or striving to follow God and live for him? Are you doing things that will make a mark on society or other people once you are gone?

This is the first Max Lucado book I have read. I enjoyed it and will probably be reading some of his other books now. It is well written and easy to follow and read. Max Lucado uses stories of many different people and the things they did in their lives to make a difference to inspire the reader to look at their life and evaluate if they are going to be remembered as someone who made a difference. He shows us how God has used just ordinary people to accomplish great things in the past. The concepts he shows us in this book should be nothing new to a true Christian, but can remind us of how we should be living. We need these reminders once in a while as we are all still sinners and our lives tend to get in the way of Gods will sometimes. We just need to remember that we are not doing good to be seen and remembered, but as a response for what God has done for us. Out Live Your Life serves as a reminder of how we should be living.

I loved reading this book and would recommend it to anyone who wants to be inspired to live a life worth remembering.

I recieved this book for free from the publisher through the booksneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255. "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Kids, hammers, glue, and nails!

2010-11-06T15:07:00.000-07:00

We like to do things with our kids. Back when Emma was only about 3 years old, we discovered the Home Depot kids workshop. The first Saturday of every month you can take you kids into Home Depot and they can build a project that Home Depot provides. This is great for me since I love doing things with my daughters and I love woodworking, it is fun for all of us. They give each child a little Kids Workshop apron with their name written on it and a certificate of completion when they are done. The project is different every month and sometimes goes with the time of year it is, for example, they usually build a race car in February to go with the start of NASCAR season.
It started with just Emma and then, once Riah was about 3 years old, I started taking her with us too. Now, Sarah is 3 so we decided last month that she could join in the fun. Actually, Brooke was gone to a women's retreat, so I had to take all four of the girls so that Emma and Riah could build their project. Since Sarah was there, I decided to let her build on too. (I helped her a little) Leah was content to just sit in the stroller and watch her big sisters bang on nails with a hammer. Last month they built a fire boat.
This month the project was a little spice rack. Here are the girls proudly displaying the finished project. (We had to put a bunch of tools out in the picture for effect!)

Here is one of my cute little woodworkers.

They also each get a little pin that shows the project that they completed. Our girls like to put them on their aprons.

Here Sarah is showing me where her pins are. She has 2 now.

Here is Riahs apron and pin collection. She has done quite a few projects.

Then there is Emmas apron. She just about needs help carrying it because it has so many pins.

I think this is a fun tradition that I hope to be able to do with my girls for a long time!

The moral of the story,

2010-11-04T16:45:00.000-07:00

The moral of this story is:
Don't go upstairs and leave a 1 year old downstairs with a bowl of ranch dressing on the table. Even if you think she cannot reach it. She will find a way!

I think she is looking at mommy and asking "What? Is there a problem?"

Leahs' drawer

2010-10-31T05:55:00.000-07:00

Why do we think our kids need all kinds of expensive toys and things to keep them entertained? There are all kinds of toys for kids of all ages around our house. (Probably due to the fact that there are kids of all ages running around our house!) Our youngest, Leah, plays with (and chews on) a lot of them. Even ones that are meant for older kids. However, her favorite spot to play, and favorite things to play with, are not in her or her sisters room, or are they even toys!

She likes to climb into a drawer in the kitchen and play with all the dishes in it.

Now this drawer contains all the plastic kids bowls, plates, and utensils. They are in that drawer for a reason. It was planned that way as a good distraction for her while mommy is in the kitchen cooking and such. We did that for the other kids when they were little too. It was fun for them to have a drawer that contains items that they will not get in trouble for playing with.

All the other girls were content to just play with the dishes, make a mess on the floor for mommy to clean up and move on. It kept them from getting into drawers that contained more hazardous items. Leah has taken it a step further.

She is not content to just play with the contents of the drawer. She feels the need to get into the drawer with the dishes. The drawer does seem to be strong enough to hold her up at this time, but we will have to watch as she grows.

I was wondering if she just wanted to see what it was like to be a dish in a drawer, but she keeps going back on a regular basis. I sometimes wonder what is going through her mind when she is doing the things she does.

She once tried to use the other drawers as a ladder to get to the counter top. She would have made it, but we spotted her in time to stop her. Something about a 1 year old on top of a counter playing with steak knives, glasses, and who knows what else, did not seem like a good idea at the time.

Now she seems content to just hang out in the drawer playing with all its contents. She does look pretty cute doing it!

Now to all you parents of little kids out there that are thinking, "I'm never letting my kid go eat at there house! That kid is walking and slobbering over all the dishes that they are going to put food on and feed the kids!" don't worry. We almost always wash them before putting them away.

So there is no need to spend any money on all those expensive gadgets and toys that are out there to entertain your children. They can get hours of enjoyment out of simple household items. Now if I can just get the other 3 to be content with stuff like this we would be set!

Sarah is 1096!

2010-10-29T05:44:00.000-07:00

That's right, Sarah, our 3rd daughter is 1096 days old today! To all the mathematically challenged out there, that is 3 years! A couple of years ago, Emma came to me and asked how may days old I was. I told her that I was 39 years old. But she asked again, how may days old are you? So I thought I would make a spreadsheet that does that calculation for her. Now she can look at any time and see exactly how many days old everyone in the family is. As of today, I am 14,949 days old! That makes me sound reallllllly old!
But now Sarah is turning 3. We had no worries of forgetting that her birthday was coming, because her older sisters told her it was coming about 2 months ago. So everyday since, she has told us (multiple times per day) that it is her birthday! It is finally here and I just hope that she doesn't keep telling us that it is her birthday once it is passed. If you ask her how old she is, she will hold up 3 fingers and tell you "I this many!"

Cute little thing, isn't she!

First Snow of the Season

2010-10-27T05:55:00.000-07:00

The year started off with strange weather patterns, so why should it stop now. We had multiple days of single digit temps at the end of last year. Then, there was no snow all winter long! But, once Spring rolled around we got hit with snow, as my post back in April showed. Then we had an unusually wet June and the first 80 degree day was the latest in the year that it ever happened. Now we are into fall and it seems like it has been normal, but I am not sure I can remember what normal is around here. Then I went up into the mountains on October 25 and found snow already! There was a trace of snow at about 3100 feet elevation. These pictures are from up at about 3600 feet. There was 4 inches of fresh snow on the road.

The leaves are not even all fallen off yet.

Nothing like fresh snow to play in!

Now we have to wait and see what the rest of the fall and winter weather will bring.

Carpenter Mountain Lookout

2010-10-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

CARPENTER MOUNTAIN LOOKOUT

Elevation: 5349 feet
Built: 1934, renovated 1995
Trail: 1.0, moderate
Staffing: Currently staffed by McKenzie R.D.
Rental status: non-rental
Geocache: GCGJQR

It was October 23, 2010 and a small crew of adventurous geocachers were taking part in Pablo Macs Mystery Geocache Adventure #1. The mystery was he would not tell us where we were going until the night before. This adventure took us up into the Cascade mountains northeast of Springfield, Oregon in the McKenzie river watershed. Our goal was to hike to the Carpenter Mountain lookout and find the geocache hidden there. This lookout, is situated atop a basalt plug, and offers an impressive view of the McKenzie River Valley and Wolf Rock (an exposed monolith). The Cascade Crest, Mt. Jefferson & Three Fingered Jack, the Three Sisters, and Mt. Washington are also within view from the lookout if the weather decides to let you see them. On this day, we expected to get rained on. Thankfully, although the weather was windy and cold, it did not rain at all during our trek. We parked at the trail head and our GPS receivers showed us being only 0.49 miles from the cache located at the top of the hill. However, the trail wandered around the mountain and covered a little more than 1.25 miles from the trucks to the top. The views from the lookout made the tough hike up the trail worth it. Here are a few of the pictures I was able to get during our trek.

These first few pics are just a couple hundred yards up the trail from the parking area.

Everyone is making it up so far.

Here was one of the first viewpoints along the trail.

Here the trail came out of the trees to cross this meadow.

There is our destination. This is the first spot along the trail that we could see the lookout itself. It looks like we are pretty close.

But, we were not as close as the last pic showed. Now you know what a "Basalt Plug" is. It is that big rock the lookout is sitting on.

A little closer still.

We found it! Our names are on the geocache log. The cache is just below the lookout down where some trees can actually grow and hide it. With that mission accomplished it was time to get up to the very top and enjoy the view.

This was one of the main views that I wanted to see on this hike. This is Wolf Rock. Wolf Rock is recognized as Oregon's largest monolith. This was the plug of an old volcano that has eroded away to the hard core. The rock towers 900 to 1000 feet above the surrounding area. I really wanted to see Wolf Rock from here because last summer, Pablo Mac and I climbed it to find the geocache on the top of it and we could see Carpenter Mountain lookout, as well and many other peaks, from there. I was excited to be able to see where we had climbed from this vantage point.

We spent about 45 minutes up on top at the lookout taking in the views and enjoying all Gods creation. Here is a picture of the crew with Wolf Rock in the background.

I had to throw in a couple more close-ups of Wolf Rock. If you want to get the Wolf Rock geocache, it is right there on that highest point in the middle of this picture!

This is not the route Pablo Mac and I took last year!

This adventure was not a physically challenging as climbing Wolf Rock was, but it was every bit as enjoyable and worth the effort. I had a great time with great friends and am looking forward to our next great adventure.

Sunday Morning Breakfast

2010-10-23T21:56:00.001-07:00

Here is our breakfast from last Sunday. There are 2 extra plates because Emma and Riah each had a friend over to spend the night Saturday. (Yep, that meant it was me, my wife and 6 girls in the house for a full day and overnight! As if I am not outnumbered enough already! What was I thinking?)
So I got up and made breakfast for everyone that day. You can use up a lot of food in a hurry when feeding this many people! Here was the menu:

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
4 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
pinch of salt
1 cup butter
2 cups milk
(okay, that is the ingredients to the homemade drop biscuits I made. I did not make them eat that list of stuff separately!)
10 scrambled eggs
6 sausage patties chopped and in the eggs
Raspberry jelly
Strawberry jelly

It seemed like a lot of food when making it, but when it was all dished up, it barely fed everyone!
I thought a double batch of biscuits and 10 eggs was enough, but I was still quite hungry afterwards. I guess next time I will cook a little more. I don't know if I can afford all the food it takes to feed all these people around here!

New hair styles!?

2010-10-14T05:54:00.000-07:00

Here is what happens when you let your 6 year old make her own hairstyle!

If anyone needs a new do, she is more than willing to help you find a new style!

She works cheap.

Here is another view to show you she does not skimp, but gets all the hair involved.

Even with wild hair like this she is still pretty cute with all those freckles!!

Okay, before you turn me in for being a bad parent, she did this to her hair for a reason. It was crazy hair night at her Awana club meeting and she wanted to have the craziest hair! I did not see the other kids hair, but I am sure this had to be in the top 5. I would say that she would not normally go out in public like this, but she probably would. She does not usually pay much attention to her hair. I am sure that will probably change in the next few years!

Shoes!?!???!!

2010-10-11T17:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know one of the big stereotypes of women is that they all like shoes. I also know that I am severely outnumbered by people of the female gender in this household.(5 to 1 for those of you who do not know our family.) However, only 1 of those aforementioned females is over the age of nine, one of the others just started walking and wearing shoes, and 1 other spends all her time running around with no shoes because she cannot find any shoes to put on her feet. Then, every time I actually notice what shoes the 6 year old and 9 year old have on, which admittedly does not happen very often because I am not female (yes, I know, another stereotype, it just happens to be true this time), they are wearing the same pair of $10.00 Crocs that they wear everywhere! So you would not think that our family would have a problem with excessive shoes laying around, or even a problem with where to store our shoes.

Well, I wish that were the case! My wife recently told me that it was time to get the boxes of clothes out of the attic so she could put away summer clothes and non-fitting clothes and restock the girls closet with clothes that fit and were for the right season. No problem. Then she said she was also going to have the girls bring out every pair of shoes that existed in the house and go through those as well. Great, sounds good to me! I did not know how many pairs of shoes our girls had accumulated over the last couple years. It does not seem possible. When I got home today, here is what I found in the living room!

There are shoes everywhere!! Big shoes, little shoes, medium shoes, work shoes, play shoes, black shoes, white shoes, running shoes, boots, blue shoes, snow shoes, fuzzy shoes, smooth shoes, flip-flops, crocs, sandals, pink shoes, baby shoes, walking shoes, clean shoes, dirty shoes, shoes with holes, shoes with Velcro, shoes with laces, shoes with buckles, shoes, shoes, none of them my shoes!!! I was going to count them, but I ran out of fingers and I didn't want to take my shoes off to use my toes because I might not ever find my boots again!
I know what you are thinking, "He must have a good paying job to have a wife who stays home with the kids and can still afford all those shoes!" That would not be true though. Most of the shoes have been hand me downs from other families. We do occasionally buy shoes when we need to, but we always look for deals. The scary part is most of the hand-me-downs came from 1 family, from 1 of their daughters!! What does their shoe closet look like!

I think we will be getting rid of a lot of these shoes, since there is not enough days in the year to wear them all, even if each daughter wore a different pair everyday! I think we have plenty of shoes. Maybe I will start a shoe store! Anyone need some shoes for kids? Just don't tell the shoe store, they won't want the competition.

Has it really been that long since my last post?

2010-10-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

Where did the time go? It was April since I last posted on my blog, but it does not seem like it was that long ago. Probably because we never really had a summer. My last post was about it snowing in April when it was to be Spring. Normally we would expect to have a couple months of warm and dry weather as a summer. It never showed up and since it has started raining and getting cooler already, I do not think it is going to.

We had a very busy summer, although we did not do half of the things that we thought we were going to do because other things kept coming up. Not that that was all bad. The things that came up were all good, just not what we had planned. The weather was also a deterrent to some of the things we wanted to do.

At our old church in Corvallis, I had always helped on the BBQ team during the summer. It was always a lot of fun cooking burgers and chicken for the body every Sunday. Now we are going to church in Lebanon and as the summer approached, at least according to the calender not the weather, my wife and I were asked to take over the BBQ ministry for the pastor. We accepted and had a whole new BBQ team experience than before. In Corvallis, all I had to do was show up, set up, cook what was here and clean up. Now we had to do all that plus a lot more. We made it through and had a lot of fun doing it. We are looking forward to serving the church in this way every summer.

Only 1 trip to Paisley this summer. Just could never find the time to get away. It was a good relaxing weekend.

Instead of our, what was turning into an annual vacation trip to Sunriver, we took a vacation over the 4th of July, spending a day at Mount Saint Helens, camped 3 days at Rainier NP, then 4 days in the Seattle area. We all had a lot of fun.

We survived all the kids birthdays with only 1 more to go this year. Hard to believe how old and big the girls are getting. Sarah has started talking and Leah is walking/running all over the place, not to mention climbing on everything like a little monkey. Emma has all kinds of big plans for projects all the time, she is quite creative. Riah is always there to help out and wants to do everything Emma does.
Brooke and I were able to get away to a church leadership conference with about 20 others from Lebanon Calvary Chapel in late September. There was great teaching and great fellowship for 2 days. Followed by a late night drive home so I could be back to work at 0630 the next morning.

I know there was a lot of other things that went on or we did since my last post, but it went so fast it is just a big blur and I cannot think of anything else specific to write about.

It is now deer season. I do not plan to put very much effort, or any for that matter, into actually hunting deer. But, I did buy a tag and I put the rifle in the truck every morning when I go to work. I even remembered to grab some bullets after about the 4th day of the season. So if there are any gawkers that happen to step out in front of me when I am out in the woods, I will be ready to put some more meat in the freezer. I am not counting on it though, as I have not seen a buck during deer season is several years! Oh well, I should get an elk in January again.

I think it is time to end this rambling post. Stay tuned, all 1 of you that might actually be reading this, and I will post something more interesting when I get inspired and have time.