Saturday, August 30, 2008

Out with the Old, In with the New


For some time now I have tried to find a way to get rid of some of Erin's clothing. She has so many clothes because of friends giving her their old stuff that it is almost impossible to keep her room clean because the clothes just spill out all over the floor. Well, I believe God gave me an answer today. WE had planned a shopping day with one of Erin's friends today. Erin asked if she could get something and I had just thought about what I would say. So my response was, "If you get rid of ten pieces of clothing, I will get you a new piece of clothing." Well, she ended up getting rid of 40 pieces of clothing, and I'm not talking about 20 of the pieces being socks. We filled a tall kitchen garbage bag full of clothes and we brought them with us. We went to Old Navy and to the mall. Erin ended up getting two new pair of jeans, three shirts and one sweatshirt. Far less than what came out of her drawers. Yea! Mom was very happy. And, to be sure that none of the clothes made it back in her dresser, we dropped the bag of old clothes off at the Good Will on our way home. To me, a successful day of getting rid of stuff. The nice thing is that she is growing and needed the new clothes anyway.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Our House Gets a Face Lift.

Before:

After:


For those of you who have been to our house before, it was pink. Jim decided he was done with the pink house and he has spent the last two days painting the part that you can see as you drive up. The rest will get painted in the upcoming weeks. Now, our house is tan and burgundy. Jim recently built a shed and it needed to be painted so now was a good time to do the house also. We definitely like the tan and burgundy better.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Pepper and the Fruit Bar

Erin's kitten apparently does not like lime fruit bars.


We bought a new video camera today, a Flip Ultra. This is the first video I have tried to put onto our computer. The best thing about the video camera is that it is very small. It fits inside a shirt pocket and it is a one touch use camcorder. To download your movies on to the computer, you simply plug it into a USB on your computer. The software is built right into the camera. It has built in editing tools in the software that I found to be very simple to use. There really are no instructions on how to use the camera, it is that simple.


Saturday, August 23, 2008

Hats, hats, hats...




Ask my daughter, Kristen, and she'll tell you that I have made a baby blanket for each of her children. I will need to be making another one soon but in the mean time, I decided to try something new. I have been crocheting hats. Erin loves them and is wears them everywhere. Her friend wanted one also, so I made this green one for her. I decided to try another pattern so here are two examples of the hats I have made recently. Erin has a green one like the one shown and also a hot pink one.

Friday, August 22, 2008

James



Our friend, Craig Walker, gave us a CD with some pictures on it. He had one picture of James. James seems to be the child we seldom get pictures of so I thought I would share it. James lives on his own and works at Ryder truck in Tigard. He just got a promotion and a raise. He is being trained in the shop as a mechanic. He works on large semi trucks as well as the smaller ones. We are very proud of him and the job he is doing. We don't see him often but we always enjoy when he comes over or when we talk to him on the phone.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

The Few, the Proud, the Marines and ....


Today we had a going away party for Jermaine. He has joined the Marines and he leaves at 4:00 AM tomorrow morning to go to boot camp in San Diego. We knew he had joined the Marines but he wasn't going to be going to boot camp until October. This week he let us know that he got into an earlier group. So we quickly put party together for him with some of his friends.


We had a BBQ and as usual, way too much food. Friends of Jermaine's kept coming in right up until just before he had to leave. It was neat to see all the people supporting him.

We are very proud of him for his decision but more importantly, he rededicated his life to the Lord at church this morning. God has been working on his heart for quite some time now. Jim has been meeting with him when they both have time and answering Jermaine's questions about the Bible. It has been neat to watch.

There is one more thing... this is Ashley, Jermaine's girlfriend. She was at the party and he had a surprise for her.

Jermaine told everyone about the changes he has been making in his life with his decision to join the Marines, with God, and with his future. He then...


Yup, that's right, he propose to Ashley in front of everyone. And she said...Yes!

Then after that was done, Jermaine said it was time for cake.

While Jermaine is at boot camp, Ashley and her mom will be planning the wedding which will be held in November when he comes back. For now, we will do what we can to help on Jermaine's end since he won't be here. We are very proud of the man he is becoming and it seems that he is really growing up.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Pictures of the Grandkids

Well, it has been quite a while since I have had pictures of the grandkids on my blog but since they are over at my house today, I thought I would combine some taken today and some taken a couple of weeks ago. I know Great Grandma Nervik will really appreciate them.

First we have the many faces of Preston (11 months).







Then there is Brooklyn (2-1/2 years).





Then we have Dylan (3 years 10 months).






Lastly, for those who do not know yet, we are expecting another grandbaby. Kristen is pregnant with baby number 4. His name will be Thomas Victory Jackson Bradley. He is due December 30th of this year.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Spanish Lessons


Today I began Spanish lessons with a lady from our church, Elisa Miller. I really do much better with learning if I have someone giving me things to do and I have a time line to get them done. So, I have a lot of vocabulary to master in the next week and some lessons on adjectives. We will be meeting once a week which should keep me on track for next year's move to Mexico. It will be wonderful to see how much more I understand when we take our short term team down in October. In another three weeks, I begin school with the kids and they will be learning Spanish five days a week in their schooling. Again, it will be great to see how much they know when we go in October. They should be able to communicate more than in the past. I am getting very excited about us all learning Spanish. Please pray that the Lord will open our minds and allow us to remember what we are learning.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Vacation in California


The past week we have been gone on vacation to California. We had an opportunity to go down for a birthday party for Tammy and Marc Lariz (Jim's boss's daughter and son-in-law). We decided to go to the party and show the kids where Daddy works. The first two nights we spent in Lakehead, just north of Redding, while Jim did some work on his boss's lake house. This was a working vacation for Jim; we played, he worked. While we were there the kids got to go in the hot tub which was fun for them although the temperature outside was in the mid 90s.



In the evening the deer came around. The first night there were six deer just outside the balcony in the back of the house. It was pretty dark but they came around again the next day before it got dark. The kids were able to throw some carrots to them which the deer seemed to like a lot.
The cement here is right by the steps leading up to the deck. That's the closest this deer came.
After giving the deer several carrots, Erin was actually able to go pretty close to the deer.
He still is checking us out at this point. Not sure whether to trust us or not.
We stopped by the Shasta Dam on our way to San Jose. It is a pretty amazing sight and the weather was just beautiful. They are still letting water out of the dam at a pretty good rate. They want to keep the rivers full.


The river is full.
Shasta Lake is only 40% full though. The water when it is full is up to the tree line.

From here we we went to San Jose and the kids got to see where Jim works. I was able to see some of the projects that Jim has told me about, the huge castle he built in the play yard was amazing!
Erin also enjoyed playing on the trikes and filling up at the play gas station. She was a little big for the trike but she had fun anyway.


The kids had a fun time catching frogs at the storage yard also. One of them was a frog that had sticky feet. You wouldn't catch me doing this, but it did make a good picture. They caught three all together.



On Saturday we went to Adrian and Gloria's house for Tammy and Marc's birthday party. There were blowup water slides and a pool for the kids also. Erin was able to ride a horse also.

Erin and Tammy's daughter, Brook.

Adrian (L) and Gloria (R)

Erin sitting on Apache.

On Monday, we took the kids to Great America. It is an amusement park that we took James and Kristen to every summer when we lived in San Jose. They kids had fun and so did we.


Jim and Erin on the Drop Zone. It brings you up 25 stories high and then drops you in a free fall. I have yet to try this one, but I do the roller coasters and Jim won't do those.



Jonathan driving a car.Erin driving her own car also.


Erin and Gail on the Flying Eagle ride.


On Tuesday, we drove back to Portland all in one day. It was a great trip and I am so glad we took it. I hope it will be memorable for the kids. Just think, the whole way to San Jose and then back again is only about half way to Puebla, Mexico. That trip is next year though.