Cherry Picking at Greenbluff

We love love love our annual trips up to Greenbluff. We were sitting around the breakfast table this morning wondering what to do when I remembered the Cherry Festival this weekend. We all got ready very quickly, called Mom to invite her and we were on our way. It was great -- the trees were just full of cherries. The man at Roening Farms said that it was a great crop this year because of all the moisture we had early on in the growing season. Whatever the case, the girls had a ball filling up their buckets. Bing cherries sold at $1.25 per pound and Rainier cherries sold for $1.50 per pound. Sofia's face was purple from all the cherries she ate by the end of the morning.....

Day 3 of the Schurra Family Visit!

Tonight we all met up at Kim and Jared's house for another multi-family get together (boy there are a lot of us!). It was a lot of fun. The kids especially loved the very super cool battery powered bubble makers that Kim got them! It was fun to have Rick and Karen Giddings, and their 12 year old daughter, Rachel, join us as well. Todd and Rick have been best friends since high school.

Day 2 of the Schurra Family Visit!

Just a few fun pictures of the gang at Chucky Cheese Pizza! It may have been a big loud and noisy for some of the adults, but the kids loved it (of course).

Day 1 of the Schurra Family Visit!

Todd, Pam and the girls rolled into town Wednesday night and we celebrated by getting us all together for a steak and baked potato bbq! They will be in town for about 10 days, so I will try to update our blog with news and pictures from our outings!

Here is a great shot of "The Cousins" together on Grandma's porch swing. My girls were so excited to see them! Natalie is missing from the picture because they had not arrived yet. Lily is 17, Brook is 12, Jamie is 6, Audriana is 5 and Sofia is 2.

Here is Mom with her "baby", Todd. He will also be celebrating his 20 year High School Reunion while they are in town. (West Valley High School, Spokane, WA)

Here is Brook and Uncle Mike just chillin'.

Jamie and Audriana are only 7 months apart. Look at her big blue eyes!!!!!Lily is now 17 and is so beautiful! Her passions are speaking Spanish, working, her family (especially Aunt Kristi), and her boyfriend Danny (Oh, except when she's on Facebook talking to Jesse)!

Sweet Jamie! What more can I say?!Here is Natalie with the other little ones! She is Kim's daughter (Kim is Pam's sister) and was born 1 day before Audriana. She just got glasses (like Audriana) and looks so cute in them.Sorry, Todd, I had to put this one up! Sofia got a hold of my camera and took a picture of her Uncle Todd. She thought this was so funny -- actually, we all got a good laugh from it!

Day Out With Thomas 2008!

Well, this past weekend marked our 3rd annual trek over the mountains to Snoqualmie, Washington. Of course you know that Thomas the Train was there, didn't you?! The girls had a ball - especially Sofia, who, at 2 1/2 is the perfect age for experiencing those "wide-eyed moments" that we all stive for our kids to experience! She's a believer, that girl! Audriana, at 5 1/2 still loved the trek, but is old enough to figure out that the train we rode on was only "dressed up like Thomas". She still loved it, though. We always stop at the look out point at Vantage so I can get a picture of the girls. I've been doing this yearly since Audriana was an infant. It's so beautiful there and I just can't get enough of it!

I have a about 50 other shots of this, but like I said above, I just can't get enough of it!

Here he is, folks! The train leaves every hour (or so) and everyone has a scheduled ride time with a ticket. Once all the coaches are full of his passengers, he takes off on a very beautiful ride through the mountains and stops at the Snoqualmie Falls waterfall (right at the resort). He stops so everyone can get a picture, then returns back to the festival to let all his passengers off.

It's fun to see how excited the kids get to have their picture taken in front of Thomas. The picture doesn't seem to show how really massive he is! The photographs can be purchased if you want (I always do because they make it look so pretty and it's a great keepsake for their baby boxes), but you can also get pictures on your own digital camera, which is nice.
I just love this picture. Aren't they adorable. What you can't see is how tired and cranky they actually were! Shhhh!

The other big highlight for the girls was getting their picture taken with Sir Topham Hat (also available for purchase). Sofia was enchanted with him and just stared up at him with her big brown eyes. It was so cute.I usually have the camera, so you don't see many pictures of me, but Martin grabbed it and got a pretty good one. I thought I should have at least one of me on this blog! The girls each got a new Thomas t-shirt, so they are wearing those here.
A clown giving away Thomas stickers.....Daddy and Audriana on the train......Our Day Out With Thomas 2008 was fun and filled with many great memories. It has really become a tradition and I will be sad when they don't want to do this anymore. After the festival we drove down into Redmond and checked into the Residence Inn and enjoyed the rest of the weekend swimming, walking, eating, and playing. I love my family.

4th of July 2008!

We began our festivities at Mike's house for a family bbq. He smoked an awesome brisket! Great job on hosting us, Mike! It was great!

After the bbq, we followed Mom and Jay up to Jay's cabin (overlooking lake Pend O'reille). This picture was taken at the rest area off of 1-90 just before getting to Coeur d'Alene - the girls had a good time climbing these big rocks and being silly for the camera.

Peek a Boo!

We finally make it up to the cabin at about 9pm and the fireworks across the lake (at Bayview) began at 10pm. The girls did a couple of sparklers, then settled in on the deck and watched the big show. They were so far away that we really had to squint to see them, but it was fine, nonetheless, for the girls. The loud noises were a bit scary for them, but they really enjoyed the show.

Here is Grandpa lighting Sofia's sparkler!




The best idea we had was to bring up our bikes! The girls had a ball and even Martin and I joined in on the bike riding fun! I don't have a picture of it, but Sofia had her little trike and I was so surprised at how fast her little legs could peddle and keep up with all of us!
Click on the arrow to see a little video!




I had to put these pictures up just so all of you can see how beautiful it is up there. Both of these pictures were taken from the deck of the cabin!



Here is Jay bbq-ing our steaks on Saturday afternoon.

Here is Martin giving Sofia a ride on the back of his bike. I was walking behind them yelling "keep you feet out, Sofia!".

Lingual Frenectomy time!

Ok......I have no idea if I spelled that right, but here are the long-awaited "Before" and "After" pictures of Audriana's tongue-tie fix today. Long-awaited? Yah right....only family will appreciate this, so if anyone doesn't want to see it, just scroll down to the end of this post. I was so impressed by her bravery! She never once whimpered or complained about anything. She definitly gets a gold star for today (and a little chocolate ice cream to boot!).

BEFORE....

See that little piece of skin that is connected almost to the very front of her mouth? That was the problem that the dentist wanted to fix before it became a problem later. By the way, you can click on any of these pictures and it will enlarge them so you can really see it.

AFTER.....

sorry if this is a little gross....I find it totally amazing and interesting!

Home now and Doctor's Orders that she eat only ice cream and cold, soft things for 2 days. She's not complaining one bit! Her first choice was a bowl of chocolate ice cream!

Sofia thought that she needed to be "sick" too, so she snuggled up on the couch with Audriana and had a banana popsicle. I think she had more goodies today than Audriana did - that little stinker!

All in all, everything went very well. Aside from me getting a little nervous during the 30 minute surgery, everything else fell right into place. Dr. Collins was so awesome and he totally impressed me tonight when he called from his home to check on Audriana! How cool is that! I was shocked. He told me that he was so impressed by her and that she was such a great patient. He also said that her tongue-tie was as bad as they can get and that he was glad that we did this before she got any older.

The other funny thing that happened today is that the Dr. told me that Audriana would definitly be tired today and would probably sleep most of the day on and off (especially with the help of her prescription of Tylenol with Codein). Well she laid down on the couch for about 2 hours -- never fell asleep, just played her little Webkinz games and watched Caillou. After 2 hours, she had had quite enough of the relaxing and resting that the dr ordered. She wanted to get outside and play! We told her "no" and that she needed to rest, but we couldn't keep her down. Then it was off to the backyard to play with "the kids" for most of the afternoon. You would never have known that she had surgery this morning! Ahhh....to be young again and to be able to bounce back so quickly! :-)

Cameron and Sofia chillin' out in the front yard!