What's New in our Lives

There has been so much going on in the McNeil house hold. I thought to share all the latest things in our life.

First Big item, we got a new car a Subaru Forrester "04" with turbo engine in it. It's John's everyday work vehicle. We needed something newer and something that had less miles on it to last. John's going to go through all lot of miles on it, as he travels more now, and we needed something really reliable too. So, Thanksgiving weekend, we traveled for an hour to go look at this vehicle, saw it on crag's list, and really liked it.




Next big Item,





We got John's office built in the garage and he's finally getting it organized. It's a little cold right now it there. No heat, just a propane heater to help take the chill out. Soon we will put heating/AC unit in it, but it's not to important since he's gone 80% of the time travel around town or out of town to clients.




Next Big Item,








I finally got the girls room changed from baby room to a bigger girls room. Butterflies, and flowers is their theme now.











Next Big Item,




John and I re-range our living room, and got rid of our entertainment center and bought two book shelves and we couple of months ago bought ourselves a flat screen T.V. We needed to make more space in our living room and this was what we decided to do. Our re-ranging living room is still in progress.



Next Big Item,



I got my hair cut a couple of weeks ago, the shortest I've ever done. I'm starting to get used to it and love it.




Next Big Item,







A week ago we went and bought me my own snowboard set-up for an AWESOME price. We have been renting every year for me at a ski shop and Finally I can own my own set-up. John has own his own set-up since before we got married. Now we just only have to rent for the girls. We plan on taking Ashley this year and teaching her to snowboard finally. She was to young last year for a snowboard and this year she wants to learn and I can get help from John more on teaching too.


Yes, we have been busy on changing things in our home lately and some of it will slow down since we are crossing things down on our to do list for house projects.

Tea Party

Group Photo's all who came




The best party you could have for a girls night is off course "Tea Party". We had a glorious, no WONDERFUL time that night Dec.6th. The girls and I planned a big lay out and theme for that night too. This was a show and tell evening, and you came dressed up in your best accessory's and we even ALL had stage names for that night too. So my sage name was Mrs. Sadie Lynn, and Ashley was Miss Lora, and Hannah was
Miss Cinderella. I got out my china dishes and went Goodwilling for dishes and tea dishes. I got out my nice table clothes, and decorated the table nice with candles, water fountain, and of course FOOD. I made all the desserts. I made homemade donuts, and my first time EVER to attempt a two layer Strawberry cake. It turned out good I put in the middle strawberry jam with butter as a sauce and covered the cake with whipping cream and strawberry's. I also made homemade fondue.I do have to say that it turned out great and I got many compliments on it. All the other food was from other people. We had so much food left that night. After eating we all took turns doing our show and tell time and enjoyed every minute.

In order of show and tell:

Mrs Lilly Pad-- (my grandmother LeBleu) read daily life recipe's
Miss Laura -- Ashley recited two poems in sign language
Miss Cinderella( Hannah) and Miss Mamzelli RellaPink(Mimi)-- Ballet dance
Mimi La Rue(Brenna)-- Showed off her crochet scarf she did
Miss De Laura (Rebecca)--- Showed off her dance video of her dance class
Madame L'Herondell (Christine)-- Showed of her coat made from several goats that she grew up with
Miss Peacock (Angie) --- Showed off her scrap book pages she did for this party and ready to slip photo's in it
Mrs. Scarlet (Kim)-- Showed of "How to cut hair"
Mrs. Sadie Lynn (Me) ---- Performed a poem in sign language
Mrs. Ruby Rella (Elizabeth)-- resigned to perform anything---

It was a glorious time and we all enjoyed our performances and nice warm tea and food with each other. This is our first but not last "Tea Party".

My lay out for Tea Party invitations web site, English Party Invitation #1

My invitation to all said this in my card:

This is a show and tell tea party, just like old time people would do. No television to entertain us, only our great minds and wonderful stories. So, come to perform a song, recite your favorite poems, show off your arts and craft works, show school projects off, do a skit, teach us how to crochet or knit something, share stories, cooking secrets, anything that you think would be great to show off. Use your imagination and have the kids do something too.
Please come in your finest pearls, fancy hats, scarf's, fancy earrings, your finest accessories, and with an accent, and have a stage name for the night. Dress casual fancy all ready to have fun and ready to have pictures taken.
Please bring finger foods, and any tea you want to share. Dessert dishes will be covered by the McNeil girls. Ask if you are unsure what to bring. Come and enjoy this great memory and wonderful friends.


The Poem I had to go with it:


EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMEBODY

People need people and friends need friends
And we all need love, for a full life depends
Not on vast riches or great acclaim
Not on success or worldly fame
But just in knowing that someone cares
And holds us close in their thoughts and prayers
For only the knowledge that we're understood
Makes everyday living, feel wonderfully good
And we rob ourselves of life's greatest need
When we "lock up our hearts" and fail to heed
The outstretched hand reaching to find
A kindred spirit whose heart and mind
Are lonely and longing to somehow share
Our joys and our sorrows and to make us aware
That life's completeness and richness depends
On the things we share with our loved ones and friends
- Helen Steiner Rice -


Here's a slide show of the rest of the pictures

Here's Ashley's two poems she recited:

The Little Turtle

I had a little turtle
Who lived in a box;
He swam in a puddle;
He climbed on a rock.

He snapped at a mosquito
He snapped at a flea;
He snapped at a minnow;
And he snapped at me.

He caught the mosquito;
He caught the flea;
He caught the minnow;
But he didn't catch me.

--Valchel Lindsay-


Mix a Pancake

Mix a pancake,
Stir a pancake,
Pop it in the pan;

Fry the pancake,
Toss the pancake--
Catch it if you can.

--Christina Rossetti--


Here's my poem I recited in sign language:

The Golden Chains of Friendship


Friendship is a Golden Chain,
The links are friends so dear,
And like a rare and precious jewel
It’s treasured more each year…
It’s clasped together firmly
With a love that’s deep and true,
And it’s rich with happy memories
And fond recollections, too….
Time can’t destroy its beauty
For, as long as memory lives,
Years can’t erase the pleasure
That the joy of friendship gives…
For friendship is a priceless gift
That can’t be bought or sold,
But to have an understanding friend
Is worth far more than gold…
And the Golden Chain of friendship
Is a strong and Blessed tie
Binding Kindred heart together
As the years go passing by.


Thank you all for coming to my wonderful tea party and thank you all you the readers to being my friend too. That night meant so much for me to bond and rekindle with close church friends. I was well satisfied on how it went well and everybody that came sure enjoyed themselves too. I want to be that Christian mommy who puts all her effort on pleasing and making smiles on people faces. SO smile because I love you all. Be happy and Always have a happy heart.

I'm Back

Yes, I'm back from our trip to Townsend, TN and actually we have been home for a couple of weeks now. We have been SOOO..... Busy that I simply didn't have time to update this blog. Everybody knows life sometimes can go like five miles a minute and you just don't have time to breath.
Well, I’m at that time in my life right now. I think I have so over whelmed myself with my schedule this year with home schooling and other activities. Ashley is enrolled with Home Source this year, which she has roller skating on Wednesday’s and on Thursday's she has tap (at Hosanna Dance Studio) and puppet making class at on site with Home Source. We even signed Hannah up with tap/ballet class on Monday's with Hosanna Dance too. So, I’m usually working with Ashley on her school work while her sister is in class and I do the same with Hannah when Ashley is in classes. Every other week I go to my dad's house and help clean his house for a couple of hours. I also have ensemble practice on Tuesday evenings and private music lessons on Thursday evenings AND......... I got myself in a play date/geography class with another home school mommy every other Friday's. Whatever time is left is for me to clean and cook and be mommy at home. Not much house cleaning lately and my house is a disaster zone.

The first project I did since we got home is cleaned out all of John's office stuff from the school room and FINALLY I can designate it as a school room/music room now. Though, John's office walls aren't built yet and in our garage are boxes and things just pilled high un-organized and staring me in my face as we come and go from our house.

Our next BIG project (this weekend) is to organize the girl’s room, bag and get rid of many toys, start turning their room more girly and fully rearrange their furniture. I will be spending some money to get Rubbermaid storage boxes to stop all this clutter in the girl's room. I also plan on getting some stencils and turn their room into a butterfly room with many frills to go around. It's time for girls to grow-up from baby room to little girl’s room.

The next big project is to go upstairs to our attic and take down all our baby stuff and get it ready to pass to a friend who is due mid December. I've got a whole year and half worth of clothes upstairs and we really want to lighten our load of clutter around this house. We've got many things upstairs that we to put on crag's listings and parting with; like an coffee table, bed frame and head and back board that we aren't using anymore. We also have our old TV and water bed mattress that's been sitting up our attic since we moved in this house six years ago (where has time gone, six years in this house). There are many more misalliance things that will go too. They will all go in a pile in the garage ready to be separated to pass to friends and Goodwill.

Next room is our living room. We are going to get rid of our entertainment center, as we just bought ourselves a flat screen TV and will mount it on the wall and buy two book shelves for our electronics to go on and many decorations to spruce up our living room. We need to give ourselves more living space in our house and fill not so cramped in this small house.

I hope my life will slow down soon and it will, once I make some changes with my schedule.

I have plenty of pictures to share with you all from our TN trip and school projects, and work on girls room ASASP.

Trying Something New

I found this site lately and I might do this more often

for sharing my photo's. These pictures were taken
a month ago by our garden area. Ashley wanted
to dress up as a wedding girl and Hannah wanted
a scarf around her head with a beautiful bouquet
of flowers . I took all these pictures including of myself.

From the Words of my Mother

September 1981... My Birth Story

From the words of my mother........

We were living in the duplex on Meriau Ln. at the time I was expecting miss Charisse. It had been a pretty good pregnancy except for a bad flu and some sinus headaches, and the motorcyclist that died on the lawn on the other side of the duplex when I was about 6 months along. But at the very end my body started to give out again. I started getting some of the same old bad symptoms and felt pretty ill. I was saying beseeching prayers asking for help to go through this, and the midwife was worried that I was carrying a verrry small baby. I was such a neat little package and less than the normal belly measurements at full term. She thought the baby was under 5 lbs and may have to be hospitalized upon birth, (they won't release you unless the baby is at least 5 lbs). I went into labor somewhere in the middle of the night. The contractions woke me out of a deep sleep. I laid there calmly timing them. At my last check up I had already been at 2 centimeters dilated and was sooo thrilled. I woke Robert up and told him I was in labor and the contractions were steady. We called the midwife and Lynn(This is my aunt to me, Charisse). An assistant midwife came to our home to check and make sure I was truly in labor. She said absolutely and that I was at a stretchy 3 centimeters. I marveled and was thrilled!!! We headed down to Cottage Grove where my clinic was. About a half hour drive south of Eugene. I was so hoping I would not have major contractions while cooped up in the car. I had exactly one! I was rather worried that maybe my labor had stopped, but we got there and my real midwife checked me immediately and said I was at 6 centimeters already! OH WOW!!!!!!!! UNREAL!!!!!!!!!! So I paced around in the living room of the clinic and joked and laughed with everyone. After an hour or so the midwife checked again and I was at about 8 centimeters and doing great! I can't tell you how ecstatic I was! But she detected that the baby was at a slight angle. about a 45 instead of backbone straight up. So, she had me get on all fours, kneeling and go through several contractions that way so the gravity and pressure would straighten the baby out. OK, then it DID get uncomfortable! Up to that point the pain was like nothing I had had with Lorrell(Charisse's sister). Not even close in the intensity. It was like day and night sooo much less painful!. Soon she let me up to walk again. For about an hour or so at the end the pain was pretty intense again but I worked through it. There was a gentle rain outside during my whole labor which was very soothing. I liked it. At 8 something a.m I brought miss Heather Charisse, all 6 lbs. 10 ozs of her(which shocked the midwife! HA!), into the world as the sun broke through the clouds and streamed through the windows in brilliant rays. Miss Charisse was wide eyed and bushy tailed. Looking all around happily. I let Lynn hold her on our trip back to Eugene as my gift to her which she yet thanks me for. Charisse still did not sleep as most newborns do, but looked all around in rapt attention the whole trip. When we arrived downtown Eugene we stopped at a crosswalk by the Hult Center and a woman walking two big dogs crossed the street in front of us, totally topless, and calm as you please! ha! I heard later she was picked up by the police. Anyhow, we made it home and I marvel yet at what a *miracle* her birth was. (In my mothers words written for a good friend of hers and mine Mr. King. I just added a few things in brackets for you, the readers.

My words....

And yes, I just turned a big whopping 27 today. Please no Happy Birthday comments, as I don't celebrate birthdays. I just thought to share you this story of my birth.

Life of Trials

My "Life of Trials " post will be changed somewhat and I'll just give you the short version of what's been happening. Next post!!

Homemade Maple Ice Cream

I've been asked for this recipe several times and I'm just going to post it on my blog so anybody can try my mothers homemade ice cream treat (always a treat on Fourth of July growing up).


Mother's Maple Ice Cream

In a 4 quart ice cream maker: If you don't have one just use a big soup pot, filled with 3/4 of water and a big stainless steel bowl on top of the pot and you have a double broiler.

In top of double boiler---

6 eggs
1 Cup of Maple syrup
1/4 Cup corn starch dissolved in 1 Cup of milk
1 Quart of half and half
Add milk @ 1-2 Cups


*Cook the first five ingredient's on top of a double boiler on high till it coats the spoon. Stir constantly!

Now Add:
3Tablespoon of vanilla
1 Pint raw cream
1 Tablespoon of lemon juice

* Stir in well and remove from heat. Let it stand and cool down for awhile, then you can pour it in your ice cream mixer or put in refrigerator to use the next day.

This ice cream tastes very much like maple caramel. Your never want any other ice cream again.


Half Receipt in 4 quart ice cream maker:

3 eggs
3/4 Cup maple
1/8 Cup of corn starch dissolved in 1/2 Cup milk
1/2 Quart half and half
1 Cup milk

Follow the top directions--

The add---
1 1/2 Tablespoon vanilla
1/2 pint raw cream
1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice


*I took photo's of me making this but uploading is having problems so I'll post it without and come back to post the pictures.

Living in disaster

Okay... Okay.... I'm living in disaster right now and have put all computer things in the back burner for awhile. I'm alive but just hanging in by a thin thread. I'm so exhausted and barely awake and just didn't take more time to up date you all. This story will take to much time if I put it in one blog so this will be a continuing story. I'll go to present to past.

Here is what our house looks like right at this moment...


Our east side of our house, first place where we started. That took all day Sunday and one hour on Monday.. We are doing the work ourselves with help with family and friends. We are using hardy board to reface our house.




During mid day yesterday... Look the disaster zone..



About finished by the end of the day yesterday...




What our back of the house looks like right now. We are replacing bottom of the boards all the way to the end of the house since there is dry rot from that white line and bellow. That's me working on closing the chicken coop up more with wire. As we have caught four baby opossums so far, as we drowned them. We are still needing to get the mommy who we hear some night's . We also have seen raccoons too. When we do catch the bigger ones, we still don't know what to do with them yet. One thing for sure, there're not getting released alive. As you can see in the picture we have a censer light that tells us if any predators come close. Our bedroom is that window right across from the coop, so we have our window open and can hear things well.
I'm living in a disaster zone every where outside and inside is all a mess. This is SOOO not me to have messes, but when you do remodeling yourself it takes longer and you have to live in messes. I guess I should be used to it right now, we've done many remodeling since we have moved in this house. I'm about tired out with this house projects.

Stay tune for our adventures leading up to this last weekend. I have plenty to share. "Life of trials.."

Without Power

Just thought to let you all know we are going to have our power shut off tonight and hopefully be off for a day. EWEB is coming to shut it off, and then John's going to work on the rotten boards behind it and we are in a start on preparing our house for new siding. We had to get a permit for working around the electrical box. We are going to upgrade our electrical box while we have the power off and Comcast will be coming over too and rewiring wires so we can put our new wires higher away from where we need to reside. Yesterday, we also got a big shipment in with all our materials to reside our house, Over two grand worth of stuff. We are using hardy board to reside our house. Don't worry, our house will be painted the same color since we have many areas we don't want to redo and it would take us longer on details that's already there. So, if you want to contact me, email won't be the way for several days, or maybe the phone (?).

We are going to camp out in our backyard and have a little camping trip in our yard. I do hope that we don't have to have a cold shower for too long ;).


I will post updates on our house project as we get further on.

Just the nick of Time

You can't call this better timing than this....

Well, after our long four day weekend, as John took of Monday for vacation time, He decided to work on building our nesting box for our chickens. We built a community box since it was going to be easier and more efficient on keeping it cleaner better. We finished it that afternoon and I put many layers of straw down. We have not gotten a handle or lock for the box yet but that will be soon. Well... a couple of days ago we have had a VERY loud hen that seems to squawk for many hours in the morning and JUST would not STOP. She was acting like she wanted out of her coop and paced up and down the fence line. She would finally settle down after a couple of hours. I figured she wanted her daily scrapes from us (corn on the cob, and garden veggies). I figured it is several week before we'll get our first egg as they are only 17 wks old.
Well... the box got finished on Monday and Tuesday evening the girls went in to play with them and I hear Ashley and Hannah running in the house saying.... "THERE'S EGG'S IN THE BOX". I just dropped what I was doing and thought, it's too early for them to start laying, have I counted wrong. Sure enough as I opened the box from outside, there were TWO Beautiful white eggs, small ones. I just ran in the house got my camera and wanted to embrace our first eggs in our memory. The girls wanted to hold them and I did not want them to drop them, it was hard for them to contain themselves.
WOW... Our first Two golden/white eggs and I'm SOO excited for opening that box everyday now to see those eggs in there and to finally have a taste of my raised chicken eggs. I came home today and found two more eggs in the box so there is two of my four laying now.
We have named our chickens finally but we can only tell one for sure since we put food coloring on their backs.

Red--- Trixy (the only one who still has the color left on).
Blue--- Sarah
Orange--- Hannah (who named that one?)
Green --- Beauty

We are having predator problems now and we are seeing opossum's nightly lately. On the 6th (Sunday) we had a BBQ at our house with bunch of our church friends over and a few people stayed late to see some of our fireworks show. As John went back to show our coop to a friend John noticed there was movement in their run area and saw a tail hide behind a wooden spool we put in. John realized that it was an opossum, baby one at that, and it slipped in by praying the wires open a little bit and jumped down. Now this opossum was too small to kill the chickens, it was after the corn on the cob's we left in there. To put it lightly, John and the friend stabbed it and it was lying wounded on top of the fence. We came back later to dispose of the body and it had disappeared from the fence. It must have slowly rolled itself down and crawled away. It wasn't going to live much longer since its insides were hanging out. I decided to get my dad's live animal trap since my chickens are in danger now.
My chickens are my pets and I will do whatever it takes to protect them. I have a shovel right by the back door as my weapon if I see any predators in the backyard. I'm not afraid to smack one (as I have already killed one baby that was in our garage). I had no problem on doing it. I will not be one of those sissy girls who send their man to do all the killing.

I uploaded pictures and they are coming out in code so I can't easily write my descriptions about the photo's, so you will have look and figure it out yourself this time.

My two Beautiful girls

In their beautiful dresses for Pentecost


I just wanted to share you some of our latest pictures of our girls in their best clothes for church. These photo's were taken on June 16th (on a holyday) for us. I think they turned out great!
Yes, I'm showing my children off, I'm the mama and I think I deserved to some times. This is also for my family too. I love you mama, these are for you to enjoy!!



Miss Ashley princess (as she called herself that day)


They love smelling roses








Can you feel the love going on with the sisters......














Face to face with sister


My little Hannah is no longer a baby, four years old already

Ashley second dance recital

I am finally able to sit down for a few minutes to post pictures of Ashley second dance recital at River Road Park, Wednesday 18th of June. The park had a summer school out carnival and her class was asked to perform in it. Ashley did very well, and we are proud parents to see our beautiful daughter perform again. As always, I do her up glamorous, and make it even more special to her. After her two performance, which was tap, and ballet dance, we got to go to many stations that had mini games for children to play. The girls both wanted to get their face painted so they chose which design they wanted "cat" design if you couldn't tell. How fun that was!! They also got to play in a blow-up bouncing play area twice (a favorite). We spent most of our late afternoon there and came home for a late dinner and mommy made homemade ice cream as a treat for Ashley and Hannah. It was very much an evening of memory for parents and children that will always be in our hearts.




Ashley Posing Before Dance Recital




Showing Some of her Moves





Her Fancy Hair Do





Bouncing on blow-up play gym





Cat Girls "Meow"


Purring Like a Cat




Let's see..... can you guess what's happening here?

Life

These are the times when you realize you have been too busy for any down time in your life. Last week was very tiring at, the least. I was gone everyday doing errands or taking Ashley to T-Ball camp M/W/F in the afternoon at River Road park three times last week and on top of her dance class, so I was at River Road Park four times last week. I also had ensemble lessons that Tuesday night (as always) so I was busy that day too. I was able to sneak in a Goodwill run after my voice lessons and it's so much peaceful without my children and I can just brows the isle find something that's a great buy.
John and I went also gift shopping for the girls for just because gifts from our rewards credit card points and we got a hundred dollar gift card to Target. We bought the girls nice play kitchen dish sets and Ashley a new bicycle. They love it all and when I went to goodwill, I found a mini tea cups and saucers for the girls to play tea time.
Ashley has been working with riding without training wheels and she has just taken off the other day. She is pretty much on her own; the stopping with brakes hasn't gotten down yet. Little Hannah, has Ashley's old bike (with training wheels) and has taken off too. She loves it and wants to ride all the time know.

We are also been dealing with a dead vehicle (that has left us stranded several times) and know we have been looking around for a new car. John has been working on our car and has finally gotten it to start and is driving it to work to test how it's driving. We finally got out Trooper paid off this February and I SOO...... don't want to get into car payment again. We knew we would have to find a bigger vehicle when that time comes for the next child in our house arrives. For right now I'm driving my brother’s vehicle again (what joys, a two door truck). John the other day got the car working and has been test driving it to work lately, so, I hopefully able to drive our vehicle soon.

We also have refinanced our house again for the fourth time since we have been at our house (going on six yrs). So we were busy signing papers last week too. We are getting cash back to help us fix up our house. We have to reside our house, paint it again, finish our kitchen, put bigger electrical box in and run more wires, also refinish our bath tub (which is SO scratched-up), and a few odds and ends around here. So, we have a full schedule this summer working on our house. We are still working on chicken coop and will be for a couple of more weeks.

The other day the girls and I went to go U-Pick strawberries at Thistledown Farms, but they told us they aren't doing that right now and they just put out their first display of boxes out. So, we just bought two big flat boxes for $18.99 a box. We aren't having much sun lately and the crops aren't growing fast right now so things are not fully ready yet.

Tonight we plan on going hiking at Spencer Butt with some friends and the girls and I going together. Ashley and Hannah do well, expect I have to ALWAYS carry toilet tissue and hand sanitizer, since Ashley seems to have to do her number#2 businesses ever time. Even if she has already gone once or twice that day she still has to do that business (I feel like I have a dog, lol).

Stay tuned next week since Ashley has a dance performance with the River Road summer carnival on the 18th. I will get plenty of pictures and will post them up with my story.

Mr. King

This a sad and hard thing for me to share, my music teacher died over a week ago with pain cancerous tumor. I'm still trying to get over it while telling myself that I will no longer have him there for me to pull my chin up with singing. There has been so many times I wanted to give up and he pulled me right up and gave me confidence of something I got in me(more a less, what he say in me). I loved Mr. King with all my heart and he was called my daddy#2. Those of you, who know me, know that I have taken singing very seriously and have put it my life several times a week. I told myself that I will even strive harder to reach my goals for my daddy#2 and for me. I will always give my teacher the out most respect and give all his songs he composed 5 fingers up to Excellency on true feeling of words of God. I want to just wrap up in all of his songs and feel close to God.

O Lord God of my salvation, I
have cried day and night before thee:
Let my prayer come before thee:
incline thine ear unto my cry;
For my soul is full of troubles:
and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

Psalms 88:1-3

This text was our duet song we use for the song. This is a sad and hard thing for me to share, my music teacher died over a week ago with pain cancerous tumor. I'm still trying to get over it while telling myself that I will no longer have him there for me to pull my chin up with singing. There has been so many times I wanted to give up and he pulled me right up and gave me confidence of something I got in me(more a less, what he say in me). I loved Mr. King with all my heart and he was called my daddy#2. Those of you, who know me, know that I have taken singing very seriously and have put it my life several times a week. I told myself that I will even strive harder to reach my goals for my daddy#2 and for me. I will always give my teacher the out most respect and give all his songs he composed 5 fingers up to excellence on true feeling of words of God. I want to just wrap up in all of his songs and feel close to God.

Mr. King and I put together for me to perform this with my father. The bold texts are what we used in the song. I have not yet performed it and when I will, it will be full of deep emotions and tears in my eyes. I'm planning on dedicating this song to Mr. King, when I get it copyrighted.

And yes, I am a very deep troubled person who likes these more meaningful cries to God. I want to break down and cry and tear myself down and show all my respect to our Creator.

As for all you who want to know how my first duet went, well it went good. I did NOT pass out and matter of fact I wasn't as nervous this time as other times. God surly blessed me with that, though I wasn't perfect on my pitches a couple of times and did one mistake on coming in a little early (but that got erased out on the final copy). Mrs. Garland and I did very well on making our voices unison, sweet famine voices. This is only my first duet of many others to come. If any of you who want to hear the duet I have a copy and would be pleased to share it with you all. I will not give up on my goal and will keep pushing on with my singing.

I'm asking a favor if you would please let me know your favorite love songs. I need more songs to work on as my solos for weddings or any time themes.

Music Duet

Mr. George King my music teacher(my second father)





We finally have come to the day when I will be performing my first duet this Saturday. This piece will be performed with Elizabeth Garland. The title of the song is "My Soul Doth Magnify The Lord". It will be performed in unison and I'm very excited but also nervous. This song was written especially for Elizabeth G. and me from our dear friend and second father(to me)Mr. George King. I will let you know how it all went and if I passed out during the performance(haha):). These are some pictures of me in our feast ensemble at Townsend, Tennessee taken last fall. I performed eight pieces.





These are our Townsend, Tennessee Ensemble group, not our Eugene ensemble group. Mr.King was our director.

Our Anniversary Get Away

Our 7 year Anniversary Get Away For Two Nights
(First time ever away from children at night)

This is a story of our amazing anniversary getaway last weekend, first of May. Our anniversary is April 29th, but it was in the middle of the week so we waited to do something tell the weekend. I decided that we needed to finally get away and have some time to ourselves, more a less, time to reconnect and love that person even more. I found a nice condo to stay in Lincoln City that was very reasonable. I fully recommend you this place for a getaway on your next time out. The website is http://www.allseasonsvacation.com/index.html. The place is called SeaScape, a very awesome place, which has practically a remote control for everything in that place (an AHH...to a guy). We arrived to our place Friday afternoon and unloaded our things and went out to walk on a romantic walk, hand and hand, love in the air and mind I say, no kids to interrupt our holding hands this time. I almost couldn't believe what was just happing. Did I just enter honeymoon again? I pretty much thought so. Life is what has happened to John and I, and we were finding ourselves getting further away romantically and being the dull boring married couple who has been almost living separate lives lately. It's called having a husband working like three jobs and ME taking care of house, children, and daily everyday stuff. We would see each other at night and I'll get kissed a goodbye kiss, and a hello kiss and sometimes sit down to talk but that was pretty much what we got for awhile and I had a emotional break down and we talked all night long (pretty much) and decided we needed to get away to help us get pass this slump we were in. So here we are, taking a beautiful weekend away and loving it every moment. I thought I would cry not having my children with me at all times but I was so fully ready to step away for a couple of days from them. I didn’t shed one tear. I had a great dear friend stay at our house and take care of the girls and take them to church for us. She was the only person I fully trusted to do this for me and I knew they were in great hands and not being influenced at all in the (not ok things). She did great and my girls didn't want her to leave when we came home. Thanks Rebecca!!
Anyways, after our walk we came back to our condo and I made ahead of time, a fancy dinner.
Our Menu for our romantic first night in:
Chicken Parisienne
Tossed green salad
Rye bread
Green beans
Drinks--- John's favorite beer(Oatmeal Stout) and me Marinellis ( I chose not to have wine)
For Dessert:
Homemade strawberry's and marinberry cheese cake.

After dinner we brought our drinks to the couch with the sliding door open(to hear the ocean waves) and put on beautiful relaxful music(very low back ground), and had the gas fire place turned on, and John and I wrapped ourselves up in a blanket and just took in the scene. We talked for hours that night. Sabbath morning arrived and we made breakfast and quite enjoyed our time together peacefully. Soon after that we got ourselves ready for church (since we drove to Vancouver, Wash. for church service). It was about a two hour drive from Lincoln City. We hadn't been up there for some time, so we decided it was time to visit our other brethren. I got to visit with my sister more as we went over to her house after church for a longer visit. We stayed there for several hours just enjoying ourselves and being with my sister. Then mid evening we headed back to Lincoln City for a romantic dinner out at Kernville Steak and Seafood restaurant. Here's the web site for them http://www.kernvillesteakhouse.com/. I fully recommend that place as a feel good atmosphere, and awesome food. John had a steak with steamed veggies, and steamed red potato, and tossed green salad. I had their poached salmon with the same side dishes on my plate. It was very reasonable prices and the waiters were very nice too. Around midnight that night, somebody decided to do a few fireworks, and it disturbed our ocean sounds for awhile. Thankfully it didn't last long.
The next day we cooked breakfast in again, I guess we decided to test the fire alarm, since we were cooking hash browns on stainless steel pans and they stuck to the pans and made all lot of smoke. I've confirmed why I don't like stainless steel pans since they are very hard to cook with and you have to be experience chiefs to know how not to have them stick. It didn't take long for the smoke to leave since we opened the sliding glass door and the beach wind took it away fast. After breakfast we packed up and checked out of our place and went down to the beach again for another hand in hand stroll(a very cold stroll), the sun was out and beautiful but the wind was very nippy and gave us ear aches after it. We then wanted to go to the Lincoln City outlet center to shop a little and so we were there for a couple of hours walking around. We then drove back home and stopped in Newport for lunch and then finally headed home.

As we got back home John and I were sad to see our mini vacation go, but it was also great to be home with your children and your own bed. The bed in the condo was well.... you pretty much sank down and we aren't used to beds like that. John and I like our bed firm, not soft and fluffy. Both of us need good back support mattresses since it seems to help our sensitive spins.
The girls were well needing a nap by the time we came home so we pretty much had them clean their messy toys all around the house and off to bed they went. A few more minutes of peace was nice to say. Everything went well, as I was told. The girls didn't want Rebecca to leave our place since MOMMY and DADDY were home with RULES again. I just had to ignore those comments of wanting Reb here than mommy and daddy, I knew they were only thinking of fun, fun, and that appeals more to them at this age. I figured our next day was going to be hard but it actually wasn't and we had a decent school day too.

So this was our very memorable story of our anniversary this year. We will always enjoy bringing back those memories in future life together. I hope that this is the start of our mini trips together and many more experiences and closeness to come in our marriage together.
I have posted many photos of our trip. I seemed to get a few photos out of order sorry. Enjoy!!

Beach photos





Our dinner out


Me taking self portrait



Our Friday dinner together





Coming home from our dinner out



My smashed homemade cheese cake(it sill was good in tummy)





The happy couple


I had to take picture of John and his remote control ahhh....





Pictures of walking on the beach






John our dinner out(we didn't eat the white bread)



Picture of my niece Rachael (3yrs old, only two month younger than Hannah)





My sister Lorrell




My church dress, also my ballroom dress








The master bathroom



Fancy Kitchen


Another beach photo from the view of our condo




Living room




Big screen TV and fire place



More off living room


Master bedroom