Painting for Grandpa and one for a friend!

The painting on the top is one I did for a friend (Tiffany) I wrote her life verse over the top of it. I think it turned out pretty great!

The second painting is the one I was "commissioned" to do for my Grandpa's 80th birthday. I wanted to show a certain part of his life and that was his mission work to Mexico. This was my first hand at a collage technique. I layered the whole canvas with writings, maps and descriptive words of my Grandpa and then painted over the top, leaving some of the words and pictures to show through. This isn't quite the finished project because I also painted the frame but here is the main idea. It was a lot of fun! Love you Grandpa!

Family Reunion 2008

Our family reunion this year was great. We all met in Manzanita, Or right on the beach for our bi-annual get together. We stayed in a really nice house along with Charlie and Emily, Dave and Carol, Rachel and Dan, Karen and Corey, Joel and Morgan, Brenda and Dave, Connie and Mike and all the kids. The girls had a great time getting to play with Leah, Denise and Angela. Both houses had lofts that the girls all made into their hideouts.

The weather was beautiful the whole time. It was perfect for everything we wanted to do. A whole group of us went running on Saturday morning......probably about 6 miles on the beach......my first beach run. It was great! Then we headed back for our Zumba class taught by Shawna, our own personal certified Zumba instructor! Zumba is and aerobic dance class including latin, african and hip-hop dance. It's a lot of fun if you're coordinated. Ha!

We had great meals together - how did we get so many amazing cooks all in one family? We had great laughs together (Charlie acting out synchronized swimming) and we even got to celebrate Grandpa Longs 80th birthday!

Can't wait until the next one!

Sydney's 4th Birthday

Sydney's Birthday was slightly chaotic from the start but it turned out really well. We were supposed to meet at Esther Short park but as it turned out, about 3,000 other people were already crammed into that park. That is exactly why I called ahead to make sure this was a good weekend to have it there. I think I talked to the wrong person. Oh well, we made it over to Marshall Park and everything worked out just great. The kids had a nice time playing on the huge playground while the adults enjoyed the shade on a hot day!

Can't believe little Sydney is already 4!

VBX with Cousins

Vacation Bible School was definitely Extreme this year! We got to have our cousins Sierra (10) and Kian (3) stay with us for a whole week and enjoy VBX together. The kids had a blast! The theme was POWER LAB, there were lots of experiments, great Bible stories and lots of awesome music. I think we had 260 kids attend this year. Kian and Sydney are in the second picture and in the third picture Sierra had her picture taken with the craziest guy there Jesse Atwood. In the last picture is Noel and her two good friends Chrissy and Savanna.

The winner for MVP for the week though was hands-down, GRAMMY (Ben's mom). She came over every morning at 7:30am and got breakfast going while I got the 4 kids ready. We had to be out the door by 8:15am. YIKES! She then stayed and cleaned up which was so nice. My family alone can cause a tornado in less than 10 minutes......4 kids, you guessed it............total disaster zone. A lot of work.........but a lot of memories too! The picture of Grammy at the top sums up how we were both feeling by the end of each day!