The Jayne Train 2010 Year in Review

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

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

The Jayne Train #1

The Jayne Train #2

The Jayne Train #3

The Jayne Train #4

The Jayne Train #5

The Jayne Train #6

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?

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

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?

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!

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.