Happy 16th Birthday Annika!

Well, after a week of celebrating, it is official.  Annika, our youngest, is 16!  She has been dreaming of this day for a VERY long time.  'When I am 16 I will...' insert a whole host of things that she throws out she wants to do, some of it serious, some of it voiced just to get our attention.  First up, passing the driving test so that she can be an officially licensed driver.  We hope to get this task accomplished this week, although it has been a bit of a challenge.  Test taking and Annika DO.NOT.MIX.AT.ALL.  Soooooo, we keep our fingers crossed, say a prayer (or two or fifty!) and hope that she is able to remain cool, calm and collected and show the instructor what she can do.

Annika, about 13 birthdays ago.

She celebrated her birthday in a variety of ways.  Extended family party was first up.  Followed by party with several of her friends (both girls and guys).  We were dreading this one a bit (will kids show up, will it be the great night that she has dreamed it to be? yada, yada, yada), but it turned out to be a really great night with lots of great kids hanging out to celebrate with Annika.  All night we kept remarking to ourselves how FAR she has come and grown and how amazing it is to see her being honored by a large group of such solid young adults.  

So, Happy 16th Birthday Annika!  We love you!!

A Very Bif and Cleetus Story

Our oldest daughter, Kirsten (aka Bif) is a very creative child (yes, Joshua and Annika you are both creative too—just in different ways).  Last year for her good friend Erika’s (aka Cleetus) birthday, she and another good friend Lynea, put together a story book as their gift.  This year, Kirsten and Erika decided to do a similar story book for their friend Mijo (aka Hijo—aka Bif and Cleetus’ son—don’t ask it makes sense in their world).  The other night Bif and Cleetus sat down and made the outline for the story, assembled their props and costumes, grabbed the camera and got to work.  Today, when I got home I saw that Kirsten had completed the story book.  Once again the final product made me laugh, HARD.  I hope the girls don’t mind, but I couldn’t resist posting the story pages here in my own blog.  I hope you enjoy the creativity and humor as much as I did.  And who says today’s ‘kids’ aren’t creative???

   

Summer Catch-Up

I can hardly believe that today is August, August, August, what day is it???  That’s right, today is August 24.  Last night Annika and I went school shopping.  I was amazed to see that the school supply aisle of Target had been ravaged and was almost empty.  Is it that late in the summer already?  Again, I sit amazed and ask myself ‘where did the summer go?’

We started off with a bang.  Joshua’s college graduation.  After Joshua and Kirsten moved home from college, the blur of activity began to intensify.  Kids finding jobs.  Wedding planning.  Summer Camps.  Kids unpacking.  Kids repacking.  Kid moving.  Groceries, laundry, yard work.  Oh and then of course jobs.  Usually I enjoy at least SOME down time while I am at my office.  Ok, maybe that sounds bad, but when you sit at a desk all day, usually you are able to enjoy a little free time to do a little personal ‘stuff’.  Not this summer.  Nope, this year I have been consumed at work by not only WORK, but also by overseeing the build-out of a new suite of offices (yup, the Friday after the wedding we get to move our entire office from the 2nd floor of our building to the first floor of our building—it will be a good change, but it will also be a TON of work!).  So this summer has been a little crazed.  We are tired, very tired.  But as we look forward to the last official week of summer,  we are glad that we had a couple of little breaks along the way.

In July, Annika headed to Young Life Camp in Malibu Canada.  She had a spectacular time and learned and grew a lot.  It was the first time that we had been separated from her for that long in over 2 years.  It was strange to not have her around at night.  Dean calls her my ‘TV buddy’.  Most nights she and I sit down and watch something together on Netflix or Hulu.  We gave up cable TV a couple of years ago, but we laugh that we probably watch more TV now than we did before.  Her therapist told us once that it was good for her and I to do this, because it gives us time together to work on her language processing ‘issues’.  Sounds good doesn’t it?  That is the excuse for all the TV watching together and I’m sticking with it.  ANYWAY, I digress.  I missed having her around, which was nice. 

In July, while Annika was gone, we decided we needed to get a family vacation planned.  After all this was the last summer before we add Evy officially to the mix of our crazy family, so we felt like it was the right thing to do for us to have some uninterrupted time away, just the five of us.  We got to the first  part of July and we didn’t have a clue how we would be able to get everyone out of town for even 1 night.  Then Josh and Kirsten’s work schedules opened up for 3 days and we decided we had to go for it.  So, we booked a condo at Semiahmoo for 3 nights starting the day after Annika came home from camp.   Never mind that Semiahmoo is only 20 minutes from our house and in the same county, it was ‘away’.  We had a great time and were really glad that we took the time  to regroup and reconnect and relax. 

This picture cracks me up….Kirsten posed, Josh trying to keep his eyes open and Annika wondering what is going on.

We fail at pictures…great ideas, bad execution 

Family vacation of 3 days checked off our list, on to the next thing.  Last week, Dean, Annika and I headed north and east to Lake Osoyoos, Canada.  There we camped and did all things water and boating related with 6 other couples/families.  We knew it was going to be a lot of effort to get our butts out of town, but we decided we would do it.  From the moment we arrived in the 90+ degree sunshine we were SO thankful that we had made the effort to go.  We had an amazing time.  Great people, good food, wonderful sun, warm water and laughter, lots and lots of laughter.  For many years when the kids were little, we used to make this trek every summer.  We think it had been 12 years since we had gone.  Life has gotten in the way and other vacations took priority.  On the way home we planned for our trip next year.  We had forgotten how great it was to vacation with others that you truly enjoy spending time with.  It has been a very long time since we went away and vacationed as a couple with other couples.  Something that we have definitely missed A LOT.  Something that we plan to start doing again, a lot.  A few pictures from our time there:

Early mornings on the water—sun just popping up over the hill.

It was fun to spend time with these two girls ‘all grown up’…oh and Carol, she never grows up!

 the girls challenged the boys to double knee-board—they hammed it up and did first bumps, 360 turns, etc.,  we laughed at them  the entire time. 

I love these two…they have made this trip every year for 21 years!

Our Bobby (aka our Booby)…taking 2nd place in the Osoyoos Idol Karaoke Contest.  He was  ROBBED I tell you, ROBBED…but he will always be #1 to us!

the view from our campsite.

 

So now, the fun and frivolity of Summer 2012 is winding down.  Now, all that is left is to get these two married off next weekend.

We can’t wait!!

I am the parent of a college graduate—how did THAT happen?

Two weeks ago this Friday, we headed to Seattle to celebrate Seattle Pacific University’s 2012 spring graduation.  What was different about this year’s graduation is that our oldest, Joshua, was graduating with his Bachelor of Arts degree in Cultural Studies/Linguistics.   In the weeks and days leading up to this weekend of event, we didn’t have a lot of time to process what exactly Joshua’s graduation meant to us as a family.  We had not taken time to process the impact of this event on us as parents.  At some point during that celebratory weekend though, it hit both Dean and I.  Our parenting days to Joshua were finished, he was now officially an adult.   You go through this a little bit when your kid graduates from high school, but college graduation takes it the last final step.  With college graduation comes the severing of those last financial ties.  No more completing the FAFSA for Joshua’s college funding eligibility--if he wants to go further in school, that will be up to him, our days of negotiating a college financial package on his behalf  are finished.  Time to switch his auto insurance into his and his name only.  Same with the cell phone.  My name can come off of his bank account and the list goes on.  Even more so than that, our days of dispensing unsolicited advice on his life  now switch to dispensing only solicited advice on his life.  Ok, well that one may be a little hard for me, but I have been impressed with how well I am doing in this area—I’m pretty good until it comes to keeping my mouth shut about the length of his hair, or his wardrobe choices (I’m sorry he has SO many nice clothes in his closet, does he HAVE to be so fond of his beat up Old Navy cargo shorts and t-shirts?)  Then of course, there is the BIG MOVE.  He has been coming and going from our home for 22 years, but in 2 months he will make the final move from calling our home his permanent primary residence to designating his OWN address as his permanent primary residence.   I’m ready for all of these things as a parent, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t feel a little strange sometimes.  I know that my job as his Mother was to raise him to be confident and ready for these transitions.   Watching him the past two weeks since graduation, I feel secure in my job being done.  I might even go so far as to say that Dean and I have completed a “job well done”.  Our son is a happy, confident (yet not cocky), empathetic, insightful young man who is ready to make decisions and live with the consequences whatever those may be.   Dean and I never quit marveling to each other at how much more confident Joshua is in WHO he is than we were at his age.  We may not always agree with each of his decisions or choices, but he owns every one of them and so we find it much easier to  step back and make room for Joshua to continue to forge his own path.

Before I post pictures from graduation weekend (sorry folks some of these were posted on Facebook already), I will address the burning question that we have been asked a lot:  ‘so what is Joshua planning to do after her graduates?’.   Joshua’s plan is pretty simple.  He is currently looking for a job that will pay his bills for the next 12-14 months.  This process has included applications to such grand establishments as Ross and Target.  He has also started the process to volunteer with the local Literacy Council where he plans to work with tutoring adults whose primary language is not English.  On September 1, he will marry his girlfriend of many years, Evy.  After they are married, they plan to live in Bellingham until Evy graduates from Western Washington University next June.  If all goes as they hope, in 12-14 months they will leave our area for parts unknown to serve in the Peace Corps.  After that, only time will tell.

Starting off the events…off to the traditional ivy cutting ceremony.  

Procession--what did I tell you about the hair?  It looked like a lion’s mane.

Yeah!!  He found us in the crowd..something hilarious about watching all these young adults trying desperately to find their loved ones in the crowd before they sat down.

Graduation organizers estimated there was over 13,000 people at Key Arena that day to celebrate!

SO mad I got this so blurry…I failed!  He was just on his way to cross the stage and receive his empty diploma folder.  The other pictures of his receiving his diploma are even worse.  Darn.

I love this next series of pictures…they all enjoy each other so much:

James and Kirsten didn’t mean to match..it just sort of happened.

Big brothers are so annoying….