Ten Tidbits To Catch Up

I got this idea from another blogger. She posted 10 photos off her cell phone and a little blurb about them.
 

Halloween 2010
One Scary Princess and Heatblast from Ben10

 

Frances Turns 8!
We went out to Safari Sam's to help celebrate. Fun for all!

 

Escape Goats!
Ben Finn and Billy Birch let themselves out of the pen. In my attempt to get them back in I let out all the chickens. It was a scene of hilarious farm chaos!



Everyone Said Goodbye-
Gracie stayed with Grandpaw Woody in the hospital as he passed. It was an amazing end of life journey and I can only pray that I will go so peacefully, with such dignity, and surrounded by those that love me.

Ruby's Handmade Christmas Present for Ephraim-
I imagine that he fails to see the love that was put into this but to me it's the most beautiful gift that anyone got this year.

Mop Top Beauty Shop!
We put some (ok a lot) of pink highlights in Ruby's hair and decided while we were at it that Lucy should have a pink mohawk. It was totally fun and despite the fact that Ephraim HATED the dogs hair pink everyone had a good time.

3rd Anniversary
We woke up on the morning of our anniversary and I decided that I needed a new tattoo. I wanted 3 small hearts to represent "past, present, and future" and "Judy, Ephraim, and Ruby" and I loved that I would be getting it on our third anniversary. Judy wanted to get the hearts too however she took a huge leap of love and got my name put on as well!

Lila
A snake for Ephraim had been in discussion amongst the Mom's for awhile and we decided it was time. Lila the young cornsnake was a trooper and was very much loved by her boy. He tried to take her to school in his pocket. He played with her way too much and we were sure that would bring an early end to her life. In the end it was a tragic escape and death at the hands of cats.  



The Sock Monkey Hat
Judy has been in search of the perfect sock monkey hat for Mom to make her for nearly a year. A friend guided her to a newly posted pattern on ravelry.com and Mom was able to produce the most loved hat ever! It really does suit her.
Click on the picture to get to the pattern.

One Broken Arm
The kids are madly in love with their razor scooters. Ephraim took a spill on his on a Sunday evening. Everything seemed in working order no swelling or bruises so we thought maybe a sprain or strain. When it was still hurting him enough for him to complain in the morning we went to the doctor only to find out it was broken! Doh!



Job Fair - Fairly Interesting

On Tuesday I was able to work with the fabulous people Judy works with at the annual PCC Cascade Job Fair. It was a full day setting up to the break down and all the people watching in between was priceless. I'd like to offer up a few of my favorite observations.

• If you ask a question and you don't like the answer, you're not going to get a different answer by asking the same person the same question AGAIN!
• If you can't play nice with others while standing in a line outside waiting to get into the Job Fair then odds are good you're going to have one heck of a time trying to work with others.
• First impressions are important, with that in mind, don't walk into a Job Fair with your breast hanging out and child attached. I am totally fine with public breastfeeding and could personally careless about seeing your boob flopped out for everyone to see cause your kid was too busy checking out what was going on to eat. I just think you might want to reconsider the impression that makes on an potential employer.
• You know I believe that pajamas can be worn anywhere you want to wear them. EXCEPT THE JOB FAIR!!!!
• If you can't follow a simple request to fill out a survey as a means to gain admittance to a free event that might help you and/or 1300 other people than you have no business bothering to look for a job because heaven forbid they ask you to fill out an application!

A Lesson Worth $24.95

I'm pretty sure I already mentioned that I was back on the blog again because of a class. The assignment was to create a blog and have the blog meet certain criteria. I talked to the Insturctor and received permission to resurect this blog instead of starting a new one. I've been excited about this since I got his reply. When I first sat down to blog again I just wrote. Then I came back to update the page design and play with the links and things. Since then I've started going back over the old entries. I very quickly discovered something very sad... the majority of the images used in my blog were gone. Empty black squares with nobody home. My subscription to my Flickr account where they all were stored had expired taking with it access to the nearly 600 photos over the free account limit. Ughhh! So at a time in my life where $25.00 feels like $250.00 I chose to restore my account. I needed access to those photos. It felt like such a loss to no longer have the slideshow of the making of our wedding rings, the pictures of the kids, Bagby campouts with good friends, and the snow of 2008. I feel so lucky to have these memories returned to me. I think one of the reasons I felt that I had to get these memories back is that I believe I've permenantly lost the kids blog. I clicked on the link yesterday to go read and start migrating more of the entries there over to here or at least put them somehwere safe. It's gone!!! The page is gone and it refers you to migrate over to WordPress. Which had I known about the blog going away a mere month earlier I might have done it. That's right.... I most likely have lost some incredible documentation on our crazy life. I'm just sad and dissapointed and not sure how to handle it. The first step is to figure out what exactly the email address was that I used to set up the blog because I apprently need it to request help. So... to those that read this and may remember the good old days... what address did I used to send the kid stuff from? Your help is greatly appreciated. In the meantime I'll start saving my pennies and hope that it costs less than the $24.95!

Grandpaw Woody - June 18, 1918 to December 4, 2010

Copied from the Daily Astorian - Tuesday December 7, 2010

Woodrow L. “Woody” Nance, 92, of Seaside, died Saturday, Dec. 4, 2010, in Seaside.

He was born June 8, 1918.

Mr. Nance is survived by two brothers, Bill and Edward Nance; a sister, Edith Mickey; a son, Lenard Nance and his wife, Debbie; three daughters, Mary Lou Dawson and her husband, Leland, Linda Essex and Carol Jo Horn; and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, cousins, nieces, nephews and other relatives.

A memorial will be held May 29 at Grandview Cemetery near Madras.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to erect a flagpole to fly his Veterans USA Flag to Connecting Cultures in Christ, P.O. Box 12647, Salem, OR 97309.

Image From Grave Walker

Old posts about Grandpaw:
Las Otras Dos Mamas: A Weekend With Grandpaw: "Life is curious. This weekend we played Guitar Hero on the TV at Granny's. Grandpaw Woody, age 90, watched on with amusement and fascinatio..."

Posting Backwards - Spring Break 2011

This year the Dawson family had a fantastic Spring Break. We spent the week out at the coast at Granny's house. We were fortunate to be able to include our friend Jenna in the adventure. Some of the things that we did:

• Trip to Astoria to visit the wreck of the Peter Iredale - including a trip to Goodwill for dry shoes for the kids, and a Costco run to keep everyone fed and happy for the week
• Time in Seaside letting the kids play at the arcade while the adults raided our favorite candy store the Buzz on Broadway. We were able to get the kids on the Carosel for what might be the last time as there were many protests about being "too old". The whole tribe enjoyed a visit to Seaside Mostly Hats in the Carosel Mall for a photo shoot of their fun hats.
• Trip to Tillamook to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory with a detour through the Tillamook Country Smoker.
• A visit to Granny's friends farm. We got to meet the new ducklings, help feed the lambs, heard the sheep in from the pasture, and just spend some time enjoying the farm life.

Communication Isn't Just For Facebook Anymore

Our world is an interesting place. It's busy and full of suprises. I've been away from the blog for awhile and so much has changed. I've been drawn back as a part of a class assignment but even as I type this I know it's something I've been missing. I think I partially have Facebook to blame for the demise of our blog. It's so easy to feel like I'm doing a good job of connecting and providing information on the goings on in our family with a quick Facebook update and the occasional posted picture. In reading back over the blog however there is so much more here. The entire story isn't summed up in 20 words or less. Whole feelings and reflections aren't posted in a single line. I've missed the opportunity to ramble and to really be a more robust version of myself. My goal is to blog three times a week for the next 4 weeks. Under the current circumstances I believe this to be a reasonable goal. Should things change drastically I will reevaluate. With that let the blogging begin!!!!

LIFE UPDATE:
Angie:     As of the beginning of February I became a happily unemployed student. Well the student thing isn't new but the unemployed part definatly is. I have to say that for the most part I'm enjoying the fact that finding a new job is going very slowly. Financially we're finding a way to keep a roof over our head and the majority of the bills paid to the point that nothing has been turned off (yet). As a part of my new status I have had the amazing privilage to become the Mama I've never gotten to be. I pick the kids up everyday after school, I do all the doctors visits, therapy, running around that was taking us all away from work. The kids are actually enjoying the amount of time they get to spend with me and I with them. I'm really not sure how we managed to do all this stuff without a stay at home parent. I'm hoping that out of shear convenience the universe will see fit to have the right job come along just in time for Jen to be home with the new baby so that we can keep this up for the kids. (Sidenote: Yes..... new baby..... The Girls have a newborn bio-sibling set to arrive the first part of July.... more on that later) I realize it's no where to be found on the blog but I've been in school now for over a year. It all started with a desire to take Spanish with Judy and be able to spend more time with her. I've been taking computer application systems classes and really enjoying it. There was a definate slow and painful learning curve to getting back into the swing of school and to be honest being unemployed hasn't really helped that. There always seems to be something other than school that needs to be done. This term I'm taking all online classes which seems to be allowing me more freedom to get my work done as needed. As the super procrastinator I am that's not always the best but so far so good. I refuse to have a repeat of the end of last term. I'm far to old to stay up all night that many nights in a row. Hence the realization that maybe having another baby isn't for us.