The Sirrine Family Living Life and Loving It!

2010-08-22T09:50:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday Mom!

2010-01-02T10:12:00.000-08:00

We love and miss you everyday!

Hawaii

2009-09-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

We recently had the opportunity to go to Hawaii. This time we went to Honolulu. Pam and I have been to three different islands and our kids have now been to two. We stayed at the American Forces Resort called the Hale Koa which was right on Waikiki beach. So, it was fun going to one of the most famous beaches in the world. It was very nice, but not quite as peaceful as Coki beach or Trunk bayin the Caribbean. We did a lot of sight seeing, swimming, and other things. Below we're walking the beach right out in front of our hotel.

Here we are posing for a shot. We were looking at all the beautiful places the island has to offer.

Jacob and I went on an ATV ride. Jacob loved it and we had a great time! We also went on a movie location tour. I thought of Pam and Val. because they really groove on things like that. After Pam picked us up we went to the North Shore. We looked at it but didn't get out. The waves weren't great that day. Then we went to BYU-Hawaii. It's a small compass but beautiful. Then we went to the temple. It's number 5 in order of completion. It was so neat to see this beautiful temple in such a remote location. I wonder what it must have been like back when it was orginally built. It must have been really remote then.

We had a wonderful time and are already planning out next big adventure there!

Our trip to Reno.

2009-07-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

I should've put the photo's in the right order but! Oh well. Lately we went to Reno as a family. Our family now consists of mom, dad, Jake & Michelle. The rest are married or in college. We always liked going to Reno. Oam & I have been there 4 times. The kids remember the hay ride, the all you can eat breakfast which no longer is there. They liked Lake Tahoe. Then there is Virginia City. I've always wanted to do 2 things. Take the steam train & spend the night there. Well the 1st few times there the diesel ran. This time the steam ran & I was able to spend the night.
This photo is with 1 of 9 existing engines of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. They had 27, 2 numbered twice. 4 are at home in Carson City or Virginia City, 3 in California, 1 in Penn., & 1, the #11 which is the oldest survivor is at the Old Tuscon Studios. This is the #18, the Dayton. It's in a little museum in Virginia City. $ still actually work. The others can but cost is huge.

This next photo is the Silver Queen Hotel. It's suppose to be haunted, Very Haunted. This is were we stayed. I had only a minor incident. The Priesthood help me stop it. This is Jacob in the early AM. We've never seen Virginia City in the AM & the sun hit just right & the camera loved it. Hence early Am is one of the best times to photograph.

This is our room. Back in those days all you got was a bed. The bathroom you could obviously tell was a add on.

This is a picture of our hotel.

The next 2 photo's are AM shots.

This is the Spiro staircase in the Washoe club. It's suppose to be haunted. No one usually go's upstairs. It's condemned. We almost got to go up. The guy didn't show up. That would've been fun. Close!

We are on a ghost hunt. We did one in Gettysburg as a family, except Matthew & we a blast. So, Jake & I went on one in Virginia City. Here we are at the Mackay Mansion. Last time our family been here, with Jeff/Val & kids, along with Oma, we toured the house. I thought we had something when someone said, "Look, the drapes are moving." There are no central heat,air & the windows were closed. Taps?

Here we are in Pypers Opera House. We have a lot of ghost hunter want a bes with their K2 meters saying that there was an "audience" there. Hmmmmmm!

Were going into the Opera house. It was rebuilt for the 3rd time in 1885.

Here we are in Rm. 11. Now this is the most haunted room. Very few people stay here. The lady committed suicide. Taps stayed here & did their thing. The guy in the time period cloths, well, I don't remember him! Just kidding. He works at the visitors center & he wears the cloths to fit the mood.

The Catholic church is being remolded. Pam saw this & we thought it was quit cute.

At the Cemetery I had my photo at the grave of the guy they named the county after. Lyon.

We took a ride on the railroad. But it wasn't the Reading. It was the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. They are rebuilding it again. But, we just rode to Gold Hill 2 miles away.

At Pypers I'm in the box usually reserved for Mackay, one of the Silver Kings. I snuck up there when the tour wasn't looking.

The suicide table 3 known people who lost their fortune on a throw of a dice committed suicide.

The haunted halls of the silver Queen. Our room,19 which faces their main street, is also haunted.

Again, the "Haunted Hall!"

Panning for gold.

The Cemetery.

Whenever we go there we always have to take the tour. Its fun & it seems

like we always learn something. I didn't do the Utah trip cause I had to come home. I can't write about it since I wasn't there. I heard they had a fun time. I miss my kids & grandson.

Wenatchee - Apple Blossom Festival

2009-05-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

Judy, Valerie and I had the opportunity to take our business Windmill Lettering, to Wenatchee to participate in the Apple Blossom Festival this past weekend. We all worked very hard to get ourselves, our families and our shop prepared to go and I am happy to report a successful and fun time had by all. The festival is a huge event in Wenatchee and everyone in town itself and many of the surrounding communites come. There are many activities taking place like bands playing, parades, fun-runs, food booths, golf tournaments, pie eating contests and of course the craft show which we were a part of. At first we really felt like rookies. Lots of the vendors there have large shops and are professionals. They move from show to show every weekend. The booth next to us does about 35 shows per year and each weekend throughout the spring and summer they move their operation from show to show. They sell scone mix.....for $6.25 a bag (yikes!). All of them were raving about what a great show Apple Blossom is/was and how lucky we were to get in it our first year. We were getting a little nervous about what to expect. It did not turn out to be quite as crazy busy as we thought it would be. Some said they only did about 50% of what they usually do. There were very large crowds and we did well but the rain on Saturday just after the parade caused a lot of people to leave early that day which traditionally is the biggest day. There were lots of other lessons we learned such as:

We need to get a merchant account to have the ability to accept credit cards.
We need to bring warmer clothes...just in case.
We need to have a more comfortable chairs to sit in. 3 days in a folding chair is not good!
We need to raise our prices. (we could have charged at least 20%+ more than what we did)
We need to include sales tax in the price of the item. It is a big hassle to look up the taxes with each sale.
We need to do some tweeking in our booth on our displays. Especially the cash register area.
We need more merchandise. I thought there was no way we would be able to display everything we had but we were able to and we could have had twice as much and still sold a bunch more. Especially the more popular items.
We need more custom stuff. People love that! And they love it when we can make it right away for them.

Anyway, here are some pictures of our booth. It looked really really good and it was really fun. We will most definitely do it again next year. Our next sale this year is Maple Valley Days in Maple Valley June 12 -14. We have A LOT of work to do to get ready!

The "Signs" of all of our "Time"

2009-04-25T10:12:00.001-07:00

Ahh....vinyl....it seems to be all we do or think about these days. Over the past few weeks we have been preparing for our craft show season. We will kick off the season next weekend by participating in the Apple Blossom Festival in Wenatchee. We are very excited but literally, every waking minute these past few weeks has been focusing on vinyl. Yesterday we finished the majority of our preparations by assembling about 100 pre-made signs. Here is a picture of my dining room right now. It is nearly wall to wall craft tubs filled with all sorts of cute projects and supplies. I am not sure how we are going to fit it all in a 10 x 10 booth but how ever we do it, I know it will be cute. Tell everyone you know to come visit us in Wenatchee...and our apologies to our family and friends who we have been completely ignoring. We are sorry....thanks for your support. Hopefully it will all be worth it.

Fences Make The Best Neighbors :)

2009-04-25T09:59:00.001-07:00

Lately we have been having a little bit of a problem with our neighbors. Mostly their 15 year old mischievous son and Jacob's nemesis. We had been wanting to put our side gates up to give us some privacy in our backyard for a while now but we have just never gotten around to it. The straw that broke the camels back happened a couple of Saturdays ago. During a family get together we some how were hysterically accused of letting their pet pig out of their gate which we had nothing to do with. It was decided then and there that the gates needed to go up. My brother Jeff volunteered to do it for us and with Jacob working as his apprentice, they had it up in no time. It looks great and we owe Jeff big time. THANK YOU SO MUCH Jeff! Now...on to the back fence.

Checking Off Another Milestone

2009-04-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

Today we had the special priviledge to attend the college graduation of both Jamie and Landi. It was a super fun and special day and we could not be more proud of them. Jamie graduated with a Bachelors degree in Elementary Education and Landi graduated with Bachelors Degree in Construction Management. The ceremony took place on the BYU-Idaho campus. The main ceremony where they walk in together was held in the Hart Building and was presided over by our newest apostle Elder Anderson. He was only ordained an apostle yesterday and it was very special to hear one of his first talks as such. Our family then moved over to the Taylor Building chapel which is where the Education Department held their convocation ceremony (that is where they actually call their names and get their diplomas). Landi's brother Elton and his wife came as well and they went with him over to the Hinckley Chapel where the Physical Sciences and Engineering convocation ceremonies were held.
Jamie is the first of the 30 grandchildren on Sirrine side of the family to graduate from college and I believe she is the third or fourth on the VanderHoeven side of the family to graduate college (I know of Linda and Andrea but I am not sure about the other Toves). They were both very excited to be "starting life" and we were very excited and proud of them as well. GREAT JOB you guys! I know it was not easy butyou hung in their and achieved your goal.

What's next for the Duka's? We packed up their U-Haul this afternoon and they headed out to Landi's new job in American Fork. He will be working with a construction company and bossing a crew around as they work on the new southward expansion of I-15 near American Fork Utah. Jamie is hoping to find her dream job but most of all she is just going to enjoy not being a student for a little while. She will be doing her student teaching in the fall. There are soon to be some 2nd or 3rd graders out there that someday will have Mrs. Duka as their teacher. Lucky kids!

Here is an actual video of Jamie graduating. If you listen closely you can hear them call her name and then she moves across the stage to shake President Clark and Elder Anderson's hand. Pretty neat!

More Pictures From Arizona

2009-03-19T16:55:00.001-07:00

Thanks Robbie!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Robert.Sirrine/GrandpaGailsFuneral?authkey=Gv1sRgCIKKtMCQoJy1HQ#

Our Arizona Family

2009-03-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned previously, we had the opportunity this past weekend to travel down to Arizona to attend Mike's dads funeral. Even though we went for a sad reason, we had a wonderful time seeing everyone again. It has been a while since we all have been together and it was so nice to just relax and visit with each other. All of Mike's brothers and sisters were there along with their spouses and most of their children. Here are some pictures of the funeral itself. It was a sad occasion but it was so nice to be together to celebrate dad's wonderful life and legacy.

The best part of the weekend was seeing our children. Jamie, Landi and Matthew all drove down to Mesa. (Chris, Cat and Logan could not make it. We missed you! :( )

I know it was very far for them to come but I am so glad they did. It was so fun to be with them and to catch up on how they are doing and what is going on with them. It was also nice for them to get away from the cold Idaho and Utah's winter to the 80 degree weather in Arizona which I know we ALL enjoyed. We spent a lot of time just visiting. Of course we did the regular things. We went to Tia Rosa's restaurant, twice, which Mike's brother Dennis owns. It was delicious!

We also went to all the historic monuments in Mesa. Mesa is the only place you can go to where people actually pronounce our names right! It is like we are almost famous there or something. We went to the Sirrine Home.

We also went to Sirrine street (very cool...I want this street sign for my garage).

And we visited Pioneer Park just across the street from the temple where there is a statue of our great great grandfather George Warren Sirrine one of the four founding pioneers of Mesa. He is the one with the long beard kneeling up front. The enscription on the monument says "This monument is dedicated to the founding men, women and children of Mesa whose efforts, along with others of all races, religions and cultures, changed the harsh desert land into this vibrant city today. When the settlers first came in 1877-78, they found the remains of an irrigation system built over a thousand years earlier by the Hohokam. With gratitude for the work of these early people and after eight months of worrisome toil, the new settlers restored one of the ancient canals and water once again flowed to the desert from which the community was destined to grow. We of Mesa are proud of the heritage of these honest, hard-working pioneers have left us. May their spirit and determination continue to enrich our lives through this memorial.

We spent a lot of time visiting with family, laughing and riding the ATV's at Dennis's house.

We also took some time to visit at Dennis's train set. As you can see from the pictures this is no ordinary train set. It is more like Madurodam in Holland. He has an entire garage full of trains and it is even more beautiful when he has the lakes and waterfalls filled up. Every year a group of train enthusiast come to his house just to see his collection. He is famous all over the world for this setup. It is truly unbelievable.

As much fun as we had, we are happy to be home again safe and sound and we are hoping that things can be settle down a bit again.

Gail Onel Sirrine

2009-03-09T16:13:00.000-07:00

On March 1, 2009 Mike's father Gail Onel Sirrine passed away at a hospice center in Mesa Arizona. He was 80 years old and had been battling Alzheimer's Disease for the past 2 years. He was a wonderful man who touched many lives.

Dad was born on October 20, 1928 in Mesa Arizona. He was the great-grandson of one of Mesa's founding fathers George Warren Sirrine and was raised with a strong sense of family and responsibility. He had 1 older brother (Keith) and 1 older sister (Nadine). His younger brother Ronnie was born 10 years after him. They were all raised in a two bedroom house off of Country Club Drive in Mesa. Dad met mom at a dance just after Christmas in 1950 at Mesa High School. It was a dance for alumni members held every year. Mom was engaged to someone else at the time and she just went to the dance to give her sisters a ride. Dad ended up asking her to dance and she accepted. They dated and two weeks later, they were engaged to each other. They were married in March of 1951.

They had 6 children, 4 boys (Dennis, Steven, Michael and Robert) and 2 girls (Linda and Diane). Dad worked as a Landscape and Building Contractor his entire life. He loved all things having to do with nature and took a great amount of pride in making things green and planting beautiful flowers and plants in the hot desert landscape. He was perfectionist and everything he touched turned beautiful. He built all of the homes that Mike grew up in with his pride and joy being the home he built for them on Fairfield.

Mike lived in this home most of his life and it was truly beautiful on both the inside and outside. Dad taught all of his boys to work hard and to do their best and Mike spent many hours working with his dad on his landscaping jobs. They spent a lot of time landscaping the gas stations and business offices around Mesa. The boys used to wonder why their dad never rented an auger to do some of the work for them as they dug big holes in the hard ground to plant trees. Dad's response was "why do I need an auger when I have you"? They never complained though and each and every one of them took a great deal of pride in doing a good job and working hard. Those who know Mike know that dad's green thumb has rubbed off on him. Mike loves to work in our yard and make it beautiful. At the funeral Mike reminisced about that and said that one of the reason he does that is because if his dad every came to visit, he wanted his dad to know which house belonged to him. Our yard is always beautiful and I think dad most definitely would know. Mike takes a great deal of pride in that. I am so grateful for the kind of dad he was to Mike. He made him the man that he is and I could not ask for a better husband or father to our children. Dad continued to work hard all of his life. He was a great example to all of us. He was a man of great faith, of great service, of great love for his wife and most of all as a great dad to his children. I am honored to have known and love him.

He now has a total of 30 grand-children and 20 great grandchildren with more to come. What a beautiful posterity! Dad never hesitated to tell all of us how much he loved us and he would always show it in his actions and example.

We love him very much and will certainly miss him. We are so grateful for the knowledge that we have to know that we will be reunited with him someday.

Whose Laughing Now?

2009-03-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

WARNING! If you are an Elmo fan you might want to stop reading now. Our dog Bella loves and lives to chew things up. We are constantly on the look out for a new toy that she will not be able to destroy or that will entertain her long enough to allow us to get some peace and quiet. So far, we have not found one. As a matter of fact our new game is to guess how long it will take for her to destroy something. This was getting expensive. Dog toys usually run anywhere from $5 - $10 a piece and usually it only takes a squeek or two for Bella to become bound and determined to get to that squeeker out along with every piece of stuffing. She is ALWAYS succesful. A couple of weeks ago we decided that rather than going to pet store to get these toys we would just stop at D.I. We had fun finding stuffed animals that would entertain her the most. We ended up coming home with 5 toys for a total of $5. What a bargain! Her favorite toy was great big Elmo. Despite a lot of "tickling" from Bella, Elmo is not laughing so much anymore. A matter of fact, the only thing left are scraps. She pulled the last leg off yesterday! Poor Elmo.

The Birthday That Doesn't End

2009-02-21T08:49:00.000-08:00

Last night Michelle had about 20 of her best friends over at the house to help celebrate her 16th birthday. From the smiles and incestuous giggling I would say a fabulous time was had by all. Here are some pictures of the celebration.

Here is her cake. No fancy fondant or anything but fluffy and pink and YUMMY!

The food table with lots of treats for everyone to enjoy.

Some of Michelle's best friends Alyssa, Mckayla, Kaylene and Cody.

This is Cody who is a boy that is obsessed with Michelle. He was trying to give her her first kiss (on the cheek of course!) and Michelle was having none of it. I know that sounds weird but he is really nice kid.

Blowing out her "16" candles.

Sarah had a bum leg and the kids were going for walk so Sarah got to go along for the ride in the kiddie car.

The kids had a rousing game of "Capture the Flag" and "Sardines". Bella wanted to join in on the fun.

It was a fun night. We are now officially out of the birthday business for a few months.

Happy Birthday Michelle...SWEET 16!!

2009-02-17T14:50:00.001-08:00

Today is very special day for Michelle. It is her 16th birthday. Michelle was born 16 years ago today in the military hospital in Frankfurt Germany. She is the youngest of our 5 children. I know every mom thinks their kids are really special but I have to say that Michelle tops them all. From day one Michelle has been a ray of sunshine in our home. Her smile and sunny disposition can light up a room and we are so happy and grateful that she belongs to us. Today as she turns 16 and as she looks forward to driving, dating, independence and all the other things that come along with it, we wanted to honor her. We love you Michelle! Happy Birthday and we wish many many more to come!

A Day By The Bay

2009-02-17T10:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday our family had the chance to travel to San Francisco for the day. Mike was off of work and the kids were out of school so I also decided to take the day off and we headed out of town. After discussing our options, we decided upon San Francisco. We had a few different options and were seriously considering going to SeaWorld in San Diego. But after checking the weather and seeing it was raining like crazy there, we decided upon San Francisco. We got up early (3:30am for a 6:30am flight) and had no problems getting on the flight. When we arrived it was raining and we thought we were doomed to a day of walking under umbrellas and getting wet but the clouds soon cleared and the sun came out and it turned into a pretty nice day.

Rather than renting a car and worrying about parking in the city, we decided to use BART which is the public transportation system there. It was pretty easy to take although not cheap ($10.80 per person roundtrip from SFO airport to downtown). We caught it right at the airport and after about a 30 minute trip we found ourselves in downtown at the Powell Street station. We wanted to head down to Fishermans Wharf because our big goal for the day was taking a tour of Alcatraz Island. Anyone that knows San Francisco knows that there are a lot of hills and we were probably about 20 blocks from our destination. We decided to take a cable car ride up and down the hills to get there.

That was a fun adventure with lots of pulling, pushing and grinding of brakes. It was a fun way to see the city and experience all the fun there.

Anyone that goes to San Francisco needs to ride a cable car. Upon arriving at Fishermans Wharf we looked around a little bit and then headed to Pier 33 which is where the Alcatraz Tours leave from. It was pretty good walk away but it was fun to walk along the waterfront and see all the sites there. We were able to purchse tickets for the 12:45pm ferry and tour. We had a little bit of time to kill so we headed to the pier next door (Pier 39) to have some lunch and do some shopping.

We had lunch at a place called Wipe Out. It was your typical burgers and fries (oh....my diet....not good!). The best thing about it was the view. We had a window seat that looked out over the water. Nearby were the famous docks where hundreds of seals and sea lions sun themselves. That was very cool to see.

After lunch we headed back to the Alcatraz pier and began our trip there. The ferry ride over was very pretty.

The bay is very beautiful and as were heading over to the island, the sun came out and we had a great view of the city behind us. We spent about 2 1/2 hours on the island. When you arrive you get a quick orientation tour and then you can do a guided tour with a park ranger if you want or you can go and view a film about the history. Mike and Jacob headed out with the ranger and listened to the tour which focused on various escape attempts. Michelle and I opted for the film and began our tour there. The best part of the trip there was the audio tour of the cell block area. You are given headphones and a recorder and it is a sort of self-guided tour of the prison area. It is narrated by former guards and prisoners themselves and the audio portion of it is very good. At times it felt as if you were there in the prison at could feel the metal doors slamming behind you. It was very cool and all of us really enjoyed it. There were hundreds of people in the prison but because everyone was listening to their own headsets, they were not talking so it was very quiet. Anyway, it was really really neat. Here are some random pictures of "the rock".

Sign along the shore as you come upon the island warning you to not help any prisoners escape and your fate if you do.

This sign is on the large building just as you step off the ferry. This building was the apartment building where guards lived along with their families. Notice the red graffiti on the wall. This is welcoming indians to the island. Apparently in the early 70's when San Francisco had a lot of protesting going on, American Indians took over the island and set up a new community there. They welcomed all indians to the island. They lived there for about 19 months and then U.S. Marshals kicked them off. There are still signs of indians all over the island.

Guard tower

There is a steep walk up to the cel block area but it is really nice. In addition to the prison there is a bird sanctuary on the island and many beautiful gardens with unique foliage. It was a nice walk.

Audio headphones and player are given to everyone viewing the cell block area.

Pictures of the guards and prisoners that provide the narration.

Typical cell

Solitary confinement. Not a great place to be. When the outside doors are closed it is pitch black in the cells. Some of these cells are said to have ghosts.

Picuture taken from inside a solitary confinement cell.

Michelle in the library.

Some prisoners tried to escape by prying some of the bars apart. They were able to overcome some guards in the gun alley shown below. The attempt failed because the guard did not have the right key to open the recreation yard doors.
Visitation area. Most prisoners never had anyone come to see them.
Michelle standing out in the front yard of the Administration Building with the city view behind her.

This is the wardens quarters. I think several years ago they had a fire there and most of it was destroyed.

Jacob in the recreation yard.

The dining hall.

Some of the buildings left from when the island was a military base.

Guards and family apartments.

Waiting for the ferry ride back. If we look cold we were. The wind was really blowing and it was chilly!

It was late afternoon by the time we were done and so we started our trek back to the airport. We were trying to take a 5pm flight but we did not leave the city until about 4:30 so we knew we were not going to make that. There was 7:30pm flight that was almost got on but because there was an earlier flight in the day that was cancelled and because of the bad weather all over California, the flight was delayed and ended out going out full. We waited for the last flight that was suppose to leave at 9:30pm but again was running very late. We did not end up leaving SFO until about 11:30pm getting back to Seattle at about 2:00am. It was very late night and some point we felt like this. This is the reaction of a crazy Asian lady when she missed her flight in Hong Kong.

All in all it was a fabulous day and we are planning on doing more day trips like this in the near future.

Dancing Queen

2009-02-10T19:03:00.000-08:00

This year Michelle has joined ballroom dance again and she is having a ball doing it. She is on the Youth back-up team and in addition to going to class twice a week for 3 hours each day, she occassionally gets to perform with her team. This past weekend her team performed at the Quest for the Best competition. She did a really good but even more important than that, she had a blast. She loves her team and is actually starting to get pretty good. I like it because it teaches her a fun skill and she gets lots of good exercise from it. Neither one of us take the whole thing too seriously (which I think can happen) but we are glad she is having such a fun time. Here are some pictures from her performance.

Super Sonic!!!

2009-01-31T09:51:00.000-08:00

We heard from a very reliable source that a Sonic Drive-In is being built in Bonney Lake. It will be located right next to the new Lowe's stores along Highway 410. Yummo! I see lots-o-hospital ice in our future!

Jacob's Day At The Zoo

2009-01-15T17:42:00.000-08:00

Jacob is taking a Marine Biology class this semester in school and it has become his new passion. He is utterly and completely interested in anything having to do with fish and their life cycle. So much so that for his birthday this year he got an aquarium. He is constantly on the lookout for something new to add and so far only about 10 or so of the fish have died :). That's ok though...it is getting better every day and PetSmart is right up the road so they are easily replaced. This past week Jacob and his class had the opportunity to go to the Pt. Defiance zoo and get a sort of behind the scene tour. They have a great shark display there and they also have a large enclosure that shows the environment and eco-system of Puget Sound. I think he would have an entirely different perspective on snorkeling in the Caribbean now. Last time we were there he was totally scared. Now he is super excited to go again in the spring and is studying up on the different types of fish there. We are even considering possibly becoming PADI certified prior to our trip so we can really see some different things. I am excited that he is excited to do that!

Here are a few pictures and observations from his trip:

The male walrus weighs as much as our pick-up truck.

The penguin enclosure smells really bad.

It is super cool to feed jelly-fish.

Beluga whales know how to do tricks.

And polar bears look huggable but are huge and scarey!

Our weekend trip to Holland --- NOT!

2009-01-15T17:02:00.000-08:00

When Jeff and Valerie mentioned to us a couple of weeks ago that they were going to Oak Harbor for a weekend geocashing event it sounded like a fun time. They said that Oak Harbor was a "dutch" town and that they were staying in the Auld Holland Inn and that there was even a dutch restaurant on site. Dad chimed in and confirmed that Oak Harbor was indeed dutch and that they even had a dutch store. The stress of the bad weather and the holidays had caught up with us and a weekend away sounded like just the thing we needed. We left the boys at home and Michelle and I took off on Friday afternoon to return on Sunday afternoon.
Well, the trip was fun but the hotel and the dutch tradition in Oak Harbor were not what we expected. Working in the travel industry I am sort of a hotel snob. I know a lot of behind the scene stories of bad hotels and usually if a hotel is less than 3-stars, I don't stay there. I would probably give this hotel 1/2 a star.

The Auld Holland in is actually a mix between an English Tudor house and a German guest house that is stuck in a time warp of the 70's. The front desk clerk was from India. There was some delft blue hanging in the lobby but it was the kind you find in a cheap souvenir shop. The on-site dutch restaurant had been turned into a Chinese restaurant. We found an old menu in our room and the only thing dutch on the menu anyway was steak with "hollandaise" sauce so I guess it is just as well. I did not even know that was dutch! I asked the girl at the front desk if there was a dutch store or a dutch bakery in town and she was totally cut off guard by the question and said that there was not but if someone was interested in starting one, it would make millions. Anyone? Anyone? Regardless of the bad accommodations it was a fun weekend and took us somewhere we had never been.

We got to cross over the deception pass which I have heard a lot about but never had a chance to see. Notice the orb's. I think it is haunted.

We got to shop at the outlet mall. Hooray for shopping! We had a beautiful drive and best of all we got to have a weekend away from home. One of the highlights of the trip was breakfast at "Pami's Restaurant" We of course had to eat there for breakfast. It was really good. As we were paying I noticed a framed newspaper article with a picture of the real "Pami". Notice the resemblance?

The ferry ride home was fun too!

New Year Tradition

2008-12-31T11:58:00.000-08:00

Traditionally, every New Years Eve, dutch people make a treat called "Olebollen". Literally translated it means "Oil Balls". Sounds delicious....huh? I am sorry to say that I am not a big fan. As a child I remember our dutch relatives gathering at our house on New Years Eve and my mom making this dutch treat. She would make it in a big bucket and I distinctly remember the smell of yeast dough, raisins and oil. After they are fried they are sprinkled with powdered sugar and you eat them until you are sick. I just have never liked them. I don't really like anything with raisins and they are just too sweet and oily for me. Now that mom is gone, I like to keep the dutch in me alive so I have started a new tradition of making dutch krokets on New Year's Eve. Most of the time the adults and younger children in the family gather together to visit and play games. Krokets are a lot of work to make so New Year's bring a rare great opportunity to make them. Our numbers are usually reduced because most of the teenagers and younger couples are off doing their own thing and we get to hoard them all to ourselves. Yum! I thought I would go ahead and post the recipe for them here in case anyone else every wants to make them..hint..hint! This recipe comes from my sweet Auntie Tonie. It is the same recipe my mom always used and it is delicious. There are many other recipes out there but this one is tried and true and works great everytime. The secret is taking your time and using good quality, fresh ingredients. Thank you Auntie Tonie! Here is everything you need. This recipe makes about 16 krokets depending on how large you make them. Since these are always so popular, and because they freeze very well, whenever I make them I make the recipe four times over so I get about 60. It does not work if you just take the recipe and multiply everything times four. You need to make each one separate. I am not sure why it does not work, just trust me, it doesn't.

2 sticks of butter (1 cup)
1 cup flour

4 cups beef stock (I use the liquid from the meat and then add beef consomme soup and water to equal what I need)

4 cups of finely chopped beef

4 tbs parsley (I use dried but fresh would be delicious)

4 tsp lemon juice (I used bottled REAL lemon juice)

4 tsp onion (I used dried minced because they are chopped small)

1 tsp salt

Dash of nutmeg

Dash of white pepper

Bread crumbs

Egg whites

The first thing you need to do is prepare you meat. I usually do this the day prior. You can really use any cut of meat but I prefer to find something that has as little fat as possible. If you use meat that has a lot of fat on it, then your krokets will be too greasy and they will not come out well.

Make the roast just like you normally would. You will need to brown it in butter adding salt and pepper. Once brown I cover it partially in water and pour a can of French Onion soup over the top. Cook it at low temperature until it is very tender.

Once cooked I remove the meat from the liquid and refrigerate it. I also refrigerate the stock because that allows the fat to rise to the top and then I can skim it off so it is not included in my broth.

The next morning I take the meat out and chopped it up very finely. It is important to cut across the grain of your meat because you want the consistency to be fine and if you cut with the grain, the meat will be stringy.

I also return my broth to a pan and add whatever consomee is needed. I warm it because it mixes into the recipe better when the broth is warm. I also gather all my ingredients and measuring cups. Once you start cooking this, it goes very fast so it helps to have everything readily available.

Step 1 is to melt your butter in a pan. You can cut it up in smaller pieces if you want so it melts faster and more evenly.

Step 2 is to add your flour to your butter. Stir this mixture vigourously to form a rue and let it brown slightly.

Step 3 is to slowly add your stock 1 cup at a time. After you add each cup, stir the mixture together to prevent any lumps. The mixture should thicken. Once you have added all the stock, continue stirring and let the mixture cook for a minute or so. Then remove the mixture from the heat.

Step 4 is to add the remainder of your ingredients and stir everything together.

Step 5 is to pour the ingredients onto a plate or a cookie sheet. Cover the mixture with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold. Don't skip this step. It must be cold before you begin rolling it or else it will be very sticky and will not work for rolling.

Step 6 is the rolling process. Take about 1/2 cup of dough and form it into the roll about 1 inch think and about 4 inches long forming the kroket. Roll the kroket in bread crumbs, then in egg whites (I usually add a little bit of water to them and slightly fluff them with a fork), then in bread crumbs again. As you roll them you will continue to shape them and you will want to try and make all of them as uniform as possible.

Return them to the refrigerator until you are ready to serve.

Step 7 is to fry them up in 350 degree oil. Only cook about 3 or 4 of them at a time. If you add too many of them to the oil at once, the oil temperature will drop and they may fall apart of become oily.

Step 8 is to serve them with yummy dutch mustard and slice of bread with butter. These are really delicious! I will post pictures of everyone else's opinion after serving them tonight. Happy New Year everyone!!
A Typical Dutch Kroket from Robbert Ritmeester on Vimeo.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-29T08:57:00.000-08:00

This Christmas was very different than any we have had in the past. For one, the icy roads and snow really changed the way we normally celebrate. Not only was it difficult to get out of the house to hit the stores, but our usual trip to the Lutz Family home on Christmas Eve was cancelled. I thought they were making too much of the snow because in our area, by the time Christmas Eve arrived, our roads were fairly clear. I guess it was a totally different story on the hills of Redmond. In fact, I traveled to Redmond this last Saturday and the road were horrible. I was able to get up the hill but there were clear tire tracks on the road. If I were to go outside of those tracks I would surely have gotten stuck. The snow was so deep between the tracks that bottom of my van was dragging and I thought I would surely need to stop at the Bob Lutz Automotive Garage to have my muffler and gas tank reinstalled. It was bad! Anyway, we had a modified Christmas Eve at my dad's house. It was very nice. It was both of the VanderHoeven families, us and of course dad. We did the usual things. We pulled together a yummy spread of food, read stories, sang Silent Night and of course had the white elephant gift exchange. With a smaller crowd, the exchange was much shorter than the usual hour long ordeal. The gifts were just as great though. By the way, Jacob got the fruit cake and it is now packed away with our Christmas decorations waiting for next years sucker! Christmas morning was also really nice. It was fun to actually have snow outside and added to the ambiance of the season. Matthew has been home from BYU the past week and it has been so much fun having him home again. I know I have said it many times before but it is really fun to see your children grow in to adults. It is fun spending time with them, hearing about all their adventures and sharing in the dreams and goals. We could not be more proud of my children. They are all unique but we love that about them and we support them in everything they do. Anyway, we opened presents early and spent much of the morning playing with toys, trying on clothes, assembling things, having a big breakfast and just enjoying each others company. In the afternoon we headed over to dad's house to keep him company on a special day. The VanderHoeven's met us over there and we played a rousing game of Monopoly. Golden child Matthew was the winner! Then we played the most difficult game of Trivia Pursuit. The questions were super hard and we thought we should have gotten double credit for everyone we got right. Matthew's friend Ryon came over as well. It ended in a tie but we are demanding a rematch in the near future. It was actually a really fun day. It was much quieter than we are used to but it was very relaxing and we had a great time. The rest of the weekend was spend shopping, lunching, and just spending time together. Sarah VanderHoeven ended up staying with us rather than traveling with her family to Yakima. She got to see what it was like to be a Sirrine and I think she officially approved. I have posted some random pictures of the past week or so. This morning I took Matthew to the airport for his flight home. Mike is back at work full-time and I actually traveled to my office in Bellevue to get some work done. Life has officially returned to normal! Hooray! The next priority item on my agenda...a vacation to somewhere warm and sunny. I am surfing the net now looking for a bargain! We really need a vacation. More information on that to follow.

Santa Mike after passing out all the presents.

I am NOT a morning person!

Jacob heading upstairs to play with his new Guitar Hero game.

Michelle singing along with Jonas Brothers on her new Disney Sing Wii game (painful!)

Matthew watching Michelle!

Fat cat Matthew with all his winnings.

Having some lunch together before hitting the Super Mall and all the after-Christmas bargains!

Merry Christmas from the Sirrine Family

2008-12-23T20:13:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Snowy Sunday

2008-12-21T11:34:00.000-08:00

It is not very often that we get snow here in the Northwest but over the past few days our town of Bonney Lake and all of the surrounding area, has become a winter wonderland. We were hit last Sunday by a small amount of snow and ice. Naturally, everyone paniced and our church meeting were cancelled. We were left to a very rare pajama Sunday at home on the couch just relaxing (darn! :) ). Usually when we have such a day, the snow quickly turns to rain and is gone in a day or so. That was not the case this week. The temperatures have remained very cold and the crummy weather has stuck around. Yesterday the prediction was 100% chance of 6 - 12 inches of snow and winds of up to 90mph. Our family took advantage of a break in the weather to sneak out and try to finish our Christmas shopping, prepare for the storm, and do the usual Saturday thing of visiting with family. We were able to get out and get what we needed but the storm began to hit around 3pm just as we were leaving Costco. We had heard nightmare stories of people taking 5+ hours to get home between Kent and Bonney Lake so we decided that rather than going to visit dad and risk getting stuck, that we would head home (sorry dad!). The roads were starting to get bad but we were able to beat the peak of the storm and we traveled home safe and sound. The storm did come but it was not nearly as bad as predicted. We did have snow. Probably about 6 inches. The winds blew but it was more just blowing the snow around rather than toppling trees and we did not lose our electricity. The best news of all was that church was once again cancelled and today we get to enjoy another pajama Sunday here at home. The kids headed out to the sledding hill early and are having a ball. They start at the top of the hill and sled all the way into our cul-de-sac. So fun! Here are some pictures of our neighborhood.

Looking out from our driveway.

Our house.

Angeline Road which is the main road going out from our development into town.

Our cul-de-sac.

A view from the corner of Angeline Road of the sledding hill and path that takes the kids all the way into our cul-de-sac.

Michelle heading up the hill.

Michelle heading down the hill.

Bella doing her thing. She can not get enough of the snow! Loves it!

The forecast for next week. More snow and temperatures in the mid-30's. That sounds down right balmy right about now!

2009 - The Year Of The Blog

2008-12-19T14:17:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I have not been very good at keeping up with our blog. Our days and lives in general are pretty boring and even though we have lots of "blog worthy" experiences, by the time I think about posting something or have a free moment to sit by the computer, the experience has lost it's glitz or someone else has already blogged in. It is my resolution in 2009 to be better at blogging. I am hoping Santa Claus will bring me a small camera that I can keep in my purse so when those "moments" happen, I will be ready. Check back often!

Happy Birthday Cranky Franky!

2008-12-12T09:27:00.000-08:00

Today is Jacob's 18th birthday and as has become customary on our blog, we wanted to honor him on his special day. Jacob was born in Killeen Texas and was our fourth child. Our largest gaps between children was between Jacob and Matthew of 3 1/2 years and I remember how excited we were to be bringing another baby into our family. He was born just before Mike was deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Desert Storm and I remember it was just me and my 4 children for the first 5 months of his life. Those were really tough times but looking back on it now, they were also really fun. We are so grateful for all of our experiences and challenges. They have made us the people we are and have shaped our children into really becoming awesome adults.

Jacob is really a great guy. He is a little bit misunderstood in that he has this really tough outer shell and comes off as being a little rough around the edges but those of us that know him really well know that he is a marshmellow on the inside. He has a very tender heart and is deeply caring and loyal to those he cares about. He has strong opinions and is never afraid to stand up for what he believes in. We love you Jacob! We hope you have a wonderful day.

My Happy Place

2008-12-04T16:57:00.000-08:00

This is not my 4th picture in my 4th picture folder but this is one of my favorites so I thought I would post it on our blog. Sorry Karen and Valerie for the swimsuit picture. This picture has been hanging up on my bulletin board at work for the past 2 years. We recently moved office and in the moving process I took this one down. Everytime I look at it, it brings a smile to my face.

The story...this is Karen, Valerie and I jumping into the polar bear cage at the Karmina Palace (now Barcelo) in Manzanillo Mexico. We took this trip several years ago. We did is sort of last minute (of course) and we really did not know much about where we were going but we had a wonderful time. This was a carefree day and we were just having a fun time. Good memories!! Don't you love Valerie's face expression?

Maybe they could use this in a AT&T commercial. "Raising the Bar".

Happy 25th Birthday Christopher!

2008-10-14T11:22:00.000-07:00

Wow! We are getting really old.

I can hardly believe it has been 25 years. Seems like only yesterday. Now he is a daddy himself and has a very sweet little family.

We could not be more proud of you Chris. We love you very much and we hope you have a wonderful day!

Let's take a walk down memory lane.

Proud daddy taking a nap with his baby boy! (love the yellow lamp!)

We were really young!

Chris and Linda in 1984.

Eating pizza in bed. Just after this picture was taken, he started chocking.

He has always loved football. He really had no choice.

In Holland all ready for church.

At Disneyland with Grandma and Grandpa Sirrine

Just after we moved to Seattle in 1995

Picking up Oma and Opa at the airport on their way home from their mission. All the cousins in a Mariner craze!

Skinny Chris at Disneyland.

In Cancun with Oma.

On his way to the MTC!

Chris and Cat.

Proposing to his sweetheart!

Chris and his baby boy Logan!

Got VINYL?

2008-09-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

We do! Judy Valerie and myself took the plunge and are now officially in the vinyl business! We purchased a vinyl printer along with all the essentials to get started last Monday. We are working now on plotting our course of where, when and how we are going to make our first million. Before we can do that however, we need to figure out how to run the darn thing. The instructions are printed in Chinese and offer a very literal confusing translation in English. We will get there though and when we do...watch out. I envision everything I own having some sort of vinyl attached to it. Let everyone you know who loves or needs vinyl that we are in business and would be more than happy to take their order! Oh...and we are looking for a cleaver name so feel free to leave comments with your suggestions.

More About The "Goat" Hike

2008-09-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Mike and Jacob went on what was suppose to be a 2 night hike with the VanderHoeven gang (Jeff, Sarah and Joshua) on a 13 mile loop to Goat Lake. To read all about it you can go to the VanderHoeven blog but long story short, they were a little less prepared than they thought. The weather started getting rough......and you know how it goes from there. Anyway, Mike took some nice pictures of the hike that I thought we would post to our blog. As difficult as the hike was, it sure looks beautiful! Not that I would ever be crazy enough to go there myself...but still, beautiful. They had a great time and already planning their next big adventure. This time though, I am doing a pack check :)!

Happy Birthday Jamie!

2008-09-13T08:49:00.000-07:00

Today is Jamie's 23rd birthday. The birthday's of my children always make me a little meloncholy. They remind me of all the good memories we have shared over the years. I vivedly remember the day Jamie was born in the military hospital in Frankfurt Germany. From day one she was very mellow and huggable always walking around with her thumb in her mouth. She is still that way today. Not the thumb in the mouth, but the mellow spirit. She has a very compassionate caring heart and she is very tender. Jamie and her sweetheart Landi are still in school at BYU-Idaho but they will both graduate in April and could not be more excited.

We love you and miss you Jamie and we hope you have a wonderful day!

Saturday Is A Special Day!

2008-09-05T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hey...so I am working from home today and I left my laptop in the van which Mike has at a job interview. Without my laptop I am lost because I do not have access to my email contacts or instant messenger on my home computer. Knowing that you all stock blogs, I thought I would just post a message here to see if anyone wanted to do something fun tomorrow. I never have Mike home on a Saturday and we are both sick of shopping so we thought we might head over to Northwest Trek. Is anyone interested in going along? Looking at their website it looks like the admission is $13 and kids under 3 are free. Let us know what you think. If not Northwest Trek, maybe something else. Maybe "Ride the Duck" in Seattle? Anything except the mall!

Catching Up!

2008-08-21T18:31:00.000-07:00

This blogging thing is really stressful! Especially when there has been so much going on and you get behind. When I started this blog I thought I would never have anything to write about but the last 2 - 3 weeks has been so incredibly busy with life altering events, that now I feel stressed out because I have not had the time to blog about them. I will try to catch up with everything in one post.

To start out with on Tuesday August 5th our son Matthew returned home from his mission in Tijuana Mexico. It was so fun to greet him at the airport to welcome him home. Everybody was there. I could not have been more proud of him as he came walking out of the terminal. His worked really hard and his testimony is strong.

His best friend Ryon Stewart he has known since the 5th grade, flew home from Houston Texas to greet Matthew as well. Ryon stayed with us a few days afterwards and it was just like old times having these silly boys around the house. Over the past couple of weeks we have had the opportunity to hear Matthew report on his mission several times. The Sunday after his return he reported to the Puyallup Stake High Council in the morning and he then spoke in our ward (Bonney Lake Ward) that afternoon. Last Sunday he also had the opportunity to speak in the Silver Lake Ward in Federal Way. That is the ward we lived in when he left on his mission and it is also the ward that many of his friends and youth leaders still attend. It is fun to hear about all of his adventures and I now am sure I know why the church only allows missionaries to call home on Mother's Day and Christmas. If LDS mom's knew all the scary adventures their son's and daughter's were experiencing, there would be many more calls to the mission home making sure they were safe. Anyway, we are so glad to have him home and as I have said on more than one occasion, we are so proud of him! Matthew is still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life but for now I will be bringing him back to school in at BYU Provo next week and which time his future will officially begin. We will miss him!

Jamie and Landi also came home for Matthew's homecoming. It was really nice and fun to see them again. They are a super fun couple and I really enjoy spending time with them. They are both big Grey's Anatomy fans and one of the things they wanted to do most while they were home was to ride the ferry. Landi had never been on a ferry before and as he was really looking forward to it. We drove to Bremerton and looked around a bit. We had lunch at Anthony's which had a beautiful view of the water and then just waited around for the ferry to leave. They loved the ride. When we got to Seattle we met up with Ryon and then took a look around the Pike Place Market. The market is one of Landi's favorite places in Seattle. He especially enjoys the Turkish food shop where he always orders a Doner Kabob and some special fruit candies called "turkish delight" that remind him of home in Albania. We did lots of other fun things while they were here but most of all just enjoyed each others company and spending time together. They left early on Sunday morning back to Rexburg where they both are finishing up their final year of school. They are very excited to be done and start a normal life.

The other big life altering event that took place for us was the birth of our first grandchild Logan Dean Sirrine. He was welcomed into the world with big cheers and sighs of relief at 11:44 pm on August 13th. Poor Cat was such a trooper. She had a really tough time with labor. Even though it was still the early stages, she was hurting and the doctor could not do anything for her until she dilated a little bit more. With each contraction Logan's heart rate would drop and so they were very cautious about pumping up the drugs to put her into hard labor until they were sure of what was happening with the baby. Finally around 3 or 4 in the afternoon they were able to break her water and give her the epidural. She was singing the praises of the anesthesiologist and was finally able to smile through each contraction. Her mom was there cheering her along the way which I am sure gave her great comfort. Finally around 11:00 pm or so, the doctor came in and said that they were just going to go ahead and do a c-section. Logan was not tolerating the contractions well, Cat was tired and she just was not going anywhere. We were all relieved most especially Cat and Chris who had had a rough 24 hours. Logan was born at 11:44 pm and he was absolutely perfect! Dr. Blakeney said that he was really wrapped up in his cord and had it around his neck twice and under his arm once. Pressure on the cord with each contraction is what was causing his heart rate to drop during labor and the doctor said it was a good thing they did the c-section. Here are some cute pictures of Logan. He is really tiny and fragile which of course make me very nervous. Cat and Chris are great parents though and taking very good care of him. When he left the hospital he was on 5 lbs. 8 ozs but over the past week has put on 4 ozs so he is almost back to his birth rate. He is a real sweety and we can hardly wait until he is a little bit bigger and not so fragile so we can give him a big hug!!

Dance Festival 2008

2008-07-29T06:57:00.000-07:00

Dinner out on a Friday night $40.00. Parking at the Tacoma Dome $8.00. Seeing Jacob in a sailor suit, PRICELESS!

This past weekend our children, Jacob and Michelle had the opportunity to participate in the Tacoma Dance Festival 2008. The festival consisted of a three day event where over 2500 youth from 12 stakes from throughout Washington state gathered together in the Tacoma Dome. The kids have been practicing their dances since January and were very excited to show off what they had learned. The theme of the conference was Phillipians 1: 27. "That ye may stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel,"

Day one of the festival consisted of a youth conference. There were several Especially for Youth speakers including Kenneth Cope and the church general YW President Elaine Dalton. Their message to the youth was to remind them that they were a choice generation and to always stand up for what is right and what they believe in. The spirit in the conference was strong and I know my children were touched by it.

Day two and three were performance days. We along with Valerie and her family (thanks Val for supporting my kids) attended the Friday night performance. It is not easy corraling 2500 kids and the performance had it rough spots but overall I was very impressed and the kids did a fantastic job. Our stake was part of the dances for the 1940's era. They did the swing. Jacob was in a sailor suit (very handsome) and Michelle was in a super cute full skirt polka dot dress. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed so I do not have any pictures of them in costume but they looked great!

My favorite part of the show was the when the youth choir sang the As Sisters In Zion/Army of Helaman medley and of course the final number when all 2500 youth came out together on the floor and danced to "Were All In This Together" from High School Musical. After they danced they all sat down on the floor and the room went dark and on the video screen they showed a map of the world. As a new stake was created it would flash and light up on the map. It went year over year since the church was organized. As the number of stakes grew and grew, the kids on the floor would light a glow stick until they reached 2008 were every glow stick was lit and there were over 2500 stakes. At the end they all threw them up in the air. It was AMAZING!

As I have said many times before, I am so grateful for the youth organization of the church. It is truly awesome. I am also grateful for being a member of our ward. The youth in our ward are all very close. They truly all love each other, watch out for each other, and are each others very best friends. As a parent, this is an true blessing.

For those that missed the performance we will have a copy of it on DVD if you ever want to see it. Maybe movie night on the back porch with a fire sometime.

Small Miracles

2008-07-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is the little things in life that make us happy. Last Saturday while in Tacoma I came across gas that was priced under $4.00 a gallon. As a commuter that drives 100 miles a day to and from work, this was sweet relief. I can only hope the price keeps going down. Although with my new job, my numbers of hours on the road each week will be drastically reduced. HOORAY!

Our WILD Weekend!

2008-07-21T12:50:00.001-07:00

Summer is supposed to be a time to relax...right?....wrong! It seems that this summer is busier than ever and every weekend there is something going on. Don't get me wrong, it is all fun stuff but I would love to have a weekend where I had nothing to do but relax. I guess that can wait for one of those cold drizzly fall days.

Anyway, this weekend was no exception and were busy non-stop. Of course Friday was Cat's baby shower which was an all day event and a lot of work. I was already tired by Saturday morning. Saturday we had a blast doing a geocaching event. It was an event called "The Amazing GeoCaper" and it was basically a scavenger hunt around Pt. Defiance park solving logic puzzles as quickly as possible. I was so busy I did not have a lot of time to take pictures but for a detailed description of the race, go to my brother's blog at http://www.vanderhoeven.blogspot.com

When we arrived we thought we did not have a chance to beat some of the brainiac people that were there but we stayed calm and used our sense of logic and were thrilled to end in 3rd place. We are already making plans for next year where we plan on bringing the 1st place trophy home!

On Sunday we attended the McChord AFB airshow. It was the first time they had the show since 2005 and we were excited to go. When we went in 2005 it was a great show but it was miserable because it was over 90 degrees and there was not a lick of shade anywhere. Due to security issues, you can not bring ice chest, large bags or umbrellas into the show. This year the rules were the same. So since the real show was in the air, we decided to set up camp by our car. It worked out really well. We did not have to haul anything anywhere, we stayed cool and we enjoyed the show and never had to leave the comforts of the parking lot. Mike went with Jacob and Michelle to look at the various displays while I stayed at the car, read and hung out with the dog. It was so funny to see the same people walking around in circles looking for their cars. The parking lot was enormous and unless you looked around very carefully when you left your car it was very easy to lose it when you came back. I can tell you the number of people that walked by our setup and said they were going to do exactly the same thing that we did next year.

The highlight of the show is the Air Force Thunderbirds flying team. They were the last act of the event. In order to beat the traffic we left about 15 minutes before their performance and enjoyed their show from a parking lot at the end of the runway. All in all it was super fun day and we will most definitely be back next year.

Today is Monday and I am back at work...relaxing!! :)

Logan Is Almost Here!

2008-07-21T12:26:00.000-07:00

Our first grandchild, Logan Dean Sirrine, will be arriving any day now and we could not be more excited. On Friday night my wonderful sisters and sister-in-law Valerie, had a baby shower for Cat. As with any VanderHoeven machine event, we can never do anything in small way and it felt more like we were planning a wedding than a shower. There were over 50 people invited and we had at least 35 or so attend. We had the shower over at Opa's house since it was more centrally located and large enough to hold a crowd. We spent the entire day Friday getting things ready. The highlight of the preparations had to have been when I opened the BBQ grill to cook chicken skewers and there was rat inside there enjoy the remnants from our last party. After I had a heart attack, I screamed for Jack who attempted to trap the thing inside and light the grill. Upon reminding him that we needed the grill to cook food for the shower, he decided that he would just gas the thing. The rat ended up escaping through one of the holes on the side of the grill but I am sure he at least had a headache and hopefully, we will NEVER see him again!

Anyway the shower turned out very well though and sweet Logan received many many cute and useful things. We can hardly wait to welcome him into our family soon. Thank you everyone for your help and support. You guys are the BEST!

Our New Puppy!

2008-07-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

I know...can you believe it? We finally bit the bullet and got a puppy. We have always wanted to have a dog but our lives seem so busy that there never seemed to be the right time. Plus neither Mike or I am big fans of having both our house and our yard ruined but all the fun things that come along with having a dog.

Last week Ady got a new yellow lab puppy. Mike was talking to him at work and he was saying how cute she was and how much fun she was. Ady mentioned that the owner had one black puppy left and that they were willing to give her to us for a discount. As I was driving home from work that Friday afternoon, I started to think about it more and more and when I finally got home Mike and I discussed it and decided that we would go "take a look" at it. Well you know how that goes, to make a long story short, we brought her home that night and our house has not been the same every since.

She is adorable and is really a lot of fun to have around. We are bound and determined to train her to be obedient and well behaved. So far she seems really smart and is catching on. She loves to chew on everything of course and some of our shoes have puppy bit marks in them but for the most part she is a very good dog. I am sure we will have more puppy horror stories to tell in the future but for now, so far so good!

Girls Camp 2008

2008-07-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

Every summer Michelle looks with great anticipation to Girls Camp. She absolutely loves it and can hardly wait to go. The dates for camp this year were July 7th - July 11th and it was held at the Ensign Ranch which is located up near Snoqualmie Pass.

In our stake they separate the girls by their year of camp. For instance all the first year girls stay together and all the second year girls stay together etc. Michelle loves it that way because as much as she loves the girls in our ward, she really enjoys getting to know all the other girls in the stake that are her age.

Anyway, she had a blast. Since this was her fourth year camp started with a 12 mile hike up a mountain and then an overnight stay with the other fourth year girls. It was a lot of work but as you can see from the pictures, the girls all survived and were even smiling when they reached the top.

The following day they joined the rest of the stake at the Ensign Ranch where they enjoyed a week of waterslides, horseback riding, crafts, skits and of course lots of laughing and even a little bit of crying.

I am so grateful for the youth programs of the church and for leaders who are so willing to sacrifice their time to build up and care for these girls.

Next year...YCL!! Yee haw!

McChord Anyone???

2008-07-11T14:44:00.001-07:00

Give us a call if your interested!

Our Missionary Is Coming Home!

2008-07-07T20:31:00.000-07:00

Our son Matthew has been serving in the Mexico-Tijuana Mission for the past 23 months. He will be returning home on August 5th and we are so excited to see him. I marvel every week at the outstanding and dedicated missionary he has become. In fact, yesterday I was reminded of it once again. There was a sister that lives in Utah that called us. She said that every year her and her husband along with a group on youth, travel to Tijuana to build houses for families in need. While she was there she had the opportunity to meet and work with our son. She said she was so impressed with his dedication and love for the Mexican people and she said he truly has the light and spirit of Christ in him. She said his leadership skills and mentorship of the younger elders will truly be missed in the mission. She said she wanted to call me and tell me what an outstanding person Matthew is and that we should be very proud of him. Indeed we are and we can not wait to welcome him back in our home and partake of his sweet spirit. He will be coming home on August 5th. We do not know all the details yet but the countdown is on! Only 29 days to go!

And The Rocket Red Glare....

2008-07-07T19:16:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in the blogs from Karen/Bob Lutz and Brian Lutz, we had a most amazing July 4th. Maybe what made is so awesome was we had such low expectations. Most of the family was out town for the weekend and everyone that was in town, was invited over to our house to celebrate. I cooked a yummy chicken dinner. By the way, it is WAY easier to fry chicken for 12 than for 30. Our family went shopping for fireworks the previous night and after dinner we started the show that pretty much went on for the next 5 hours...NON-STOP! It was amazing and unless you were there, you really will not understand it. Every house on our street and in our sub-division for that matter was loaded with every variety of pyrotechnics you can possibly imagine. We missed the out-of-towners and our numbers were small but it was sort of nice because we were actually able to visit with each other without having to shout. If you have ever been to a VanderHoeven family gathering, you know what I am talking about. Anyway, it was really fun and here are some pictures of the night. We can hardly wait for next year!

Fall Planning....Already!

2008-06-27T13:56:00.000-07:00

Even as the days are warming up and summer is upon us, it is time for us enrichment leaders around the globe to start thinking of Super Saturday and what fun craft projects we can plan. Our ward in Bonney Lake always makes a big deal about Super Saturday. For the past several weeks our planning team has been meeting trying to come up with the most fun, trendy, inspiring, educational projects that we possibly can. So far we have about 9 things planned. We are all working now to price and recreate them for our next meeting in July. Here are a few of the things we are doing. I will post more pictures after our next meeting. I would love to have any of your ideas. What have you done in the past that have been succesful in your ward? What worked well and what did not? Oh, and if any of you want to come, it is taking place on October 18th. You of course are more than welcome or we can plan another Super Family Craft Saturday for later on.

1. Painted set of 3 small pumpkin goards. This are really cute to put on a shelf or on an entry hall table. (no picture yet)

2. Decorated Halloween treat bowl - this is basically a wooden bowl spray painted black and then you cut Halloween scrapbook paper in geometrical shapes and decorate the inside of the bowl. Then you decopage the whole bowl and it is SUPER cute! (no picture yet)

3. Family Blocks - pictured below but we will also have the same blocks that say BELIEVE and HARVEST in holiday colors of course.

4. Favorite Things magnetic board - We will be making the boards as well as the cute magnets. There will be two choices. One will say "THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS" and the other with say "MY GREATEST BLESSINGS CALL ME GRANDMA".

5. Hand stitched primative pillows and signs. These are signs and pillows you stitch on muslin and either turn into pillow or frame them and turn them into pictures. CUTE! (no picture yet)

6. Large Family board - This one your can just hang in your house or on your front porch.

7. Birthday card file - This is a handy file you can keep in your purse to help you remember birthdays and other special dates (no picture yet)

8. Scripture signs - The one pictured is the youth theme for this year but we will be doing two other ones that we have not decided on yet.

9. I can't remember this one but I know it was cute! (no picture yet)

Summer Is Officially Here!!

2008-06-21T05:33:00.000-07:00

Not only was yesterday the first day of the summer according to the calendar but it was also the first day our family officially kicked off the season. Chris, Cat, Valerie, Sarah, Laura, Joshua, Ben and I all took advantage of the beautiful weather and spent the afternoon at the McChord AFB swimming pool. This is one of our favorite things to do in the summer and generally the thoughts of spending a summer day at the pool gets us through the cold, dark, wet winters here in the Pacific Northwest.

We had a wonderful time and we can't wait for the next sunny day to go again! Who's in?

What's Cookin'?

2008-06-17T13:42:00.000-07:00

I don't know about everyone else but I am getting tired of eating the same stuff all the time. Seems like we have about 5 regular dinners or so that we just rotate. I would love to make something new. I thought we could maybe exchange some recipes. Email me your favorites and I will post them here. My email is pams@expedia.com

We can start it with my fried chicken. This is a family favorite and when I make it, it usually draws a crowd. My friend Ms. Betty taught me how to make this when we lived in Texas. She was a good ole black southern lady and this recipe reflects that. Here it is:

Aunt Pam's Famous Fried Chicken

Start with boneless skinless chicken breast well trimmed of any extra fat. If your chicken is extra thick, you might want to butterfly it so that it cooks more evenly. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and place them in a bowl of buttermilk, eggs and tabasco sauce. I generally use 1 egg for every cup of buttermilk that I use. Tabasco sauce you can add a much as you would like. This is what gives the meat that little twang when you eat it. If you have time, marinate the chicken in the refrigerator until you are ready to fry it. If you don't have time to marinate, that is fine too but the longer you marinate it, the better it is going to taste and it will be nice and tender

Heat oil to 375 degrees. It is really important the oil is clean and that it is the right temperature. If it is too cold your chicken will not be crispy. If it is too hot, the crust will burn and the chicken will be raw.

While oil is heating, in a separate bowl, mix flour and seasonings. I usually add salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and poultry seasoning. You can add whatever you would like.

One at a time remove chicken from marinate and coat generously with flour mixture. If you want your chicken extra crispy you can re-dip you chicken back into the buttermilk mixture and then in the flour for second time. I usually only dip once though because double dipping makes a big mess.

As soon as you dip in the flour mixture, shake off the excess and drop your chicken in the oil. I usually cook 3-4 breasts at one time. If you add more than that then the oil cools off to much and your chicken will be soggy.

Cook for about 15 minutes. You will want to turn it over a couple of times but try not to touch it too much because it will pull the coating off. The chicken is done when it is golden brown.

Serve with white gravy and a baked potato and you will have a meal sure to please you and your family. If you prefer chicken tenders rather than whole breasts, simply cut each chicken breast into strips and follow the same directions.

Now send me your favorites!

Weekend Getaway to Rexburg!?

2008-06-15T15:43:00.000-07:00

Jacob, Michelle and I had the opportunity this weekend to travel to Rexburg to visit with Jamie and Landi. We have been wanting to go there for quite a while but it seems every weekend we are busy with one thing or the other plus the winter was so cold and snowy, we just have not had a chance to go. A few weeks ago we set this weekend as our date to go and we just stuck with it. We are so glad we did because we had such a nice time.

We left very early Saturday morning. It was so beautiful taking off from Seattle. As soon as the plane lifted out of the clouds, we were welcomed by bright blue skies, sunshine and the tops of the cascades. We could see Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood all at the same time. It was really beautiful.

After a quick plane change in Boise we arrived in Idaho Falls around 11 a.m. Jamie and Landi met us there at the airport and we were so excited to see. They both looked great and are doing so well. We went and had some yummy Italian food for lunch at Johnny Carinnos (sp?). It was delicious. Then Jacob and Landi went to go see the movie "The Hulk" and Jamie, Michelle and I did some shopping. It was so fun to have both of my girls with me on a Saturday to shop and laugh and just have a good time.We met back up with the boys around 3ish and decided to head for Rexburg. We wanted to go and get the Idaho Cache Across America geocache and since we had time and we thought it would be nice to go for a drive. The cache is hidden near the Teton Dam location which by the way is AWESOME to see. I had always wanted to go there and this geocache gave us the motivation and directions to get there. Landi had visited the dam site before with his geology class and was able to give us a full lesson on the physics of why and how the dam collapsed. I was really fun to see.

That evening we went to dance concert on campus. Landi needed to attend the concert for his Fine Arts class and we were glad we had a chance to go. The dancers were very talented. The concert hall was hotter than Hades but we had a fun time anyway. Afterwards we headed to Maverick for some soft serve ice cream and then over to the temple grounds to see the temple. It was a beautiful sunset and the temple was like a crystal light shining up on the hillside. It was absolutely beautiful!

On Sunday morning our flight home left Idaho Falls at 11:40 a.m. Landi and Jamie had church at 9:00 a.m. so when they went to church we decided to start heading towards Idaho Falls. On the way we pasted by "Bear World". We have driven by Bear World a million times and every time we have we had always wanted to stop. This time we actually had some time so we decided to check it out. We are so glad we did because it was AWESOME! You drive you call around the park following a course. You are warned when you go in to not stop, drive 3 MPH and keep your windows rolled up. We sort of laughed at the warnings but when we arrived at the bear enclosure, we understood why. It was the coolest thing ever. There were lots of bears and they were all over the place and they walked right next to your car. They literally came right up to you. We were amazed and we loved it.

We also went to the petting zoo afterwards to feed the baby bear cubs and in the petting zoo there was a mother deer who had just given birth to a fawn. It was still all wet and there was vet helping it. Then we realized that there was another baby coming. We were right there when the deer gave birth to another fawn. It was AMAZING and what we feel was probably a once in lifetime experience. Anyway, we are so glad we stopped. If you are every driving by Bear World, be sure to stop in. It is well worth it!

We arrived home early this afternoon to homework and laundry but we are so grateful we had the chance to go see Jamie and Landi this weekend. They are so happy together and they are so much fun. As a parent you greatest wish is for your children to be happy and find a companion that loves and cares for them. Jamie and Landi are doing great and we could not be more proud of both of them. WE LOVE YOU GUYS!

Michelle's New Room

2008-06-13T15:49:00.000-07:00

Ever since Jamie got married, I have been promising Michelle that we would redo her room. We wanted to make more room for her by taking down Jamie's bed and we also wanted to do a complete color change. Over the past few months we have been picking things out for her but finally this week we got around to making the change. My sore ankle slowed down the progress a bit but for the most part, we were able to finish things this afternoon. We still need to make a trip to IKEA to look for some cool lighting and we need to find something to hang on the wall over her bed but we have attached some pictures of our progress thus far. The pictures do not do it justice. It is really cute and inviting and a room that I am sure any 15 year would love! Michelle sure does!

The balls in the corner are actually lights. I need to get a couple more cords and then there will a set of 3 of them hanging in the corner. We also need to get her a TV table to put her TV on.

How soon will this be reality?

2008-06-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

Five Things....

2008-06-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

Five things I was doing 10 years ago

1. Working at Mutual Travel
2. Running my boys between baseball games
3. Cheering for the Mariners
4. Hanging out with my mom
5. Vacation to Disneyland

Five things on my "To Do" list.

1. Paint Michelle's room
2. Replace the faucet in the bathroom
3. Get caught up on my work emails
4. Clean and organize my garage.
5. Put up a fence.

Five of my favorite snacks/food.

1. Anything dipped in ranch
2. Ice cream
3. Otter pops
4. Strawberries
5. Pickles

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire.

1. Buy a big house with a swimming pool and ATV track.
2. Pay off the houses of all of my siblings.
3. Travel Travel Travel !!
4. Buy a vacation home in the Caribbean
5. Make a large donation to the church for whatever is needed.

Five of my bad habits.

1. PROCRASTINATION!
2. Being judgemental
3. Sitting around to much. I should be moving/exercising!
4. Over shopping.
5. Patience

Five places I have lived.

1. Bonney Lake
2. Federal Way
3. Madrid Spain
4. Germany (3 times!)
5. Kansas City

P.S. There are more!

Wednesday - Hamburgers and Chocolate Milk

2008-06-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

Ugh! Not a very appetizing looking dinner but we have had a very busy week. Maybe Thursday will be better.

Tuesday Tacos?

2008-06-04T07:48:00.001-07:00

Our's were Taco Bell tacos....but they were still tacos.

What's For Dinner?

2008-06-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

Ahh...our favorite dinner week of the year. Ernesta Week! It is the one week that we do not need to ask ourselves that timeless question, "What's for dinner". We all know what we are having!

Monday is hot dog day. How many of you had hot dogs for dinner tonight?

Truck Update

2008-05-29T09:17:00.000-07:00

UPDATE! The battery is in, the truck runs and our house is still in one piece! Mike is back on the road today. THANK YOU BOB!!

My Husband Is No Mechanic!

2008-05-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

Let me start this post by saying that my husband is no mechanic. Is has a lot of other great personality traits and talents. He is a great dad! He is kind and loving. He takes great pictures! He can take a mound of dirt and turn it into something beautiful! But...he knows nothing about cars and he has no desire to. When something goes wrong with any of our vehicles, we usually bite the bullet and pay a professional to fix them or if it is really serious, we call in the family expert Bob Lutz for diagnosis. We NEVER attempt to try and fix something ourselves because past experience has told us it is just not worth it.

Our saga started Monday morning. Mike and Jacob were out working in the yard getting it ready for a family picnic. Mike was moving the cars off of the driveway so he could spray it off. When he went to move his FedEx truck he only got a click click click when turning the key. There was no spark and he knew immediately it was probably a battery problem. He swears he didn't but he must have left the dome light on since he parked in on Saturday afternoon. Anyway, he had a dead battery.

Now ordinarily a dead battery is no big deal. You either jump it with another battery or you replace it, but when you are dealing with a big FedEx truck, nothing is that easy. Yesterday morning Mike decided to take the 24V battery system out (2 12V batteries) out and take them somewhere to be charge them up. Taking the batteries out is no easy task. They are located in a metal box under the stairs on the passenger side of the truck. They weigh at least 50 lbs each and you have to carefully maneuver around sharp metal and wire to remove them. As Mike was removing them he realized that there were no indications on the wiring which wires were positive and which wires were negative. In an "ah-ha" moment, he took a piece of cardboard and made a drawing of how the cables where connected and how to place the batteries back in the box once they were charged.

Several hours later and a couple of trips to the auto parts store the batteries were charged (at no cost..hooray!!) and Mike and Jacob commenced to putting them back in. Mike pulled out his handy drawing and suddenly realized he did not mark the top or the bottom of the picture and it was square. After much head scratching, a few swear words (kidding), and a bit of elevated blood pressure, he thought he had it figured out. He connected what he thought were the positive terminals first and then one negative terminal and then finally the last negative terminal. What happened next I did not witness but as I was pulling in the driveway coming home from work I saw Jacob with a fire extinguisher in his hands and Mike once again scratching his head. Turns out they put the batteries in the wrong way. Mikes words to me were "Your smart...you figure out how to do this. *&%$^&!!". HA!! I went in the house to make dinner.

A short time later I came back outside because I was afraid he was going to blow himself up. We removed everything and started from scratch. I tried to interpret his drawing and between logic and knowing how Mike's brain works, I thought I had figured it out. We very methodically put the two massive batteries back in place only to find out that the space between cables was not fitting correctly. Mike decided to drive down to Freightliner in Pacific to seek the help of a professional. 2 hours later he came back and found out that you need to slightly tilt the batteries to make the cables fit properly and then when you secured the batteries with the crossbar it would stretch the wires and it would fit just fine. Easy right? NOT!!

Anyway, we were finally able to make the cables fit and just when we were hooking up the final negative terminal we once again experience lots of sparking, a small fire, burning rubber and lots of screaming. I had visions of the whole truck and it's 30 gallons of diesel fuel catching fire. Which would have in turn ignited all 3 of our other cars in the driveway and surely our house it was sitting next to. Scary!! We once again had to use the fire extinguisher as Mike bravely used a pair of pliers to remove the connection where the fire ignited. The bolt connection on one of the batteries completely melted off and both batteries where ruined.

Mike returned to Freightliner to buy two new batteries ($240) and I was hoping he would be able to speak with a mechanic or look at another truck and hopefully gain some information on the right way to connect the cables. He got back home around 8pm with the new batteries and phone number to call Freightliner customer support for advise on how to install the batteries. We decided that before we do anything we would talk to them before we risked ruining another set of batteries and blowing up our house. After holding for 45 minutes with no answer, the sun was setting, it was getting dark and we still had no answers. We were not about to attempt to do this in the dark when we could not get it right in broad daylight.

As a last resort Mike called Bob Lutz while I held with Freightliner. As best Mike could he tried to explain the complicated set up and Bob offered as much advise he could over the phone but in the end this problem is still not fixed.

Mike is renting a truck at work today and plans to look at all the other batteries setups on his co-workers trucks and will hopefully come home with some answers. Bob has gracious volunteered to come out to the house tonight to help if Mike can't figure it out on his own so the saga continues.

Lesson learned. If I ever see Mike with a pair of pliers in his hand looking under the hood of a car, I will distract him, call a mechanic and pay the price. He would much prefer it that way anyway! UGH.....CARS!!!

Indiana Jones!...He's BACK!

2008-05-21T13:01:00.000-07:00

I love the company I work for. In addition to just being an all around great place to be, they really make an effort to offer their employees opportunities to have fun. Yesterday was a great example of that.

Expedia is a sponsor of the new Indiana Jones adventure called the "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We have a whole summer promotion based off of the film call the Summer of Adventure where people can purchase adventure travel based of the earlier films. Because of this Lucas Films arranged for our entire company to preview the movie. They rented out the Lincoln Cinemas in downtown Bellevue. There was a town hall meeting first but once that was completed we were treated to a popcorn and soda and we got to see the movie.

One of the highlights of the day was a film clip they showed before the movie. It was an edited version of the last scene of the Last Crusade. Rather than the bad guy choosing the wrong goblet, he chose the Travelocity gnome. He of course chose "unwisely" and his face pretty much fell off. Indy then of course made the wise choice and chose the goblet with the Expedia logo. If you work for Expedia it was pretty funny. Anyway, here is my opinion of the film. if you don't want to know anything about it, you may not want to read on from here.

The movie was good in that there was a lot of nostalgia included. They tied in many things from the previous films which made it fun to watch. Indiana himself has aged but he is still a mega-stud and is my own personal hero. He was great in the film. The part I did not like very much was the story itself. One of my favorite parts of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade was that they were semi-realistic. Some of the actual stories were historically correct. The story line in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was pretty far fetched. I won't share with you all the details because I don't want to ruin it but let me just say nothing even close to this has or will ever happen.

Regardless of how unrealistic it is, it is still a 2 hour must-see movie and you will be completely entertained. I am sure my weekend plans will include several opportunities to see it again.

Our Vacation!

2008-05-19T16:16:00.000-07:00

WOW! What a week we have had. There are so many different things that we could blog about but rather than blog everything separately, I thought I would put together day by day general rundown of our vacation.
First of all let me say that Kauai is beautiful. It is lush and green in the mountains and the beaches have crystal clear blue water and pearly white sand. The people are kind and friendly and I can very much see why the Hawaiian people take a lot of pride in their amazing land. It does however take FOREVER to get there. There is a lot of water between the west coast and the islands. I saw somewhere that said that Hawaii was about 2700 from Los Angeles to the west and another 2500 miles to Marquesas to the east. It is literally in the middle of nowhere.
Our vacation started last Monday afternoon. Mike and Jacob took an evening flight to Los Angeles where they were going to stay overnight and then catch a morning departure from L.A to Honolulu. The reason they chose to go to Honolulu first rather than straight to Kauai was because they really wanted to visit Pearl Harbor. They arrived there around noon on Tuesday and spent the next 5+ hours visiting the USS Arizona memorial and taking a tour of the USS Missouri. They loved it and had a great time!

Michelle and I took a direct flight Monday evening to Kauai. It is 3 hours earlier in Kauai. We arrived there around 7pm but by the time we got our luggage, figured out where we going and navigated our way in the dark to our hotel, it was about 10pm. We stayed at the Sheraton Kauai on Poipu Beach. The hotel was lovely and since check out on Tuesday was not until 12noon, we decided to enjoy the pool and beach for a bit and get our vacation underway. After we checked out of the hotel, Michelle and I went and did some exploring around town and then at 3pm we were able to check in to our condo.
Our condo was at the Waipouli Beach Resort and it was absolutely perfect. One day in the pool we were trying to thing of some things we did NOT like about the property and we really could not think of anything. The property was almost brand new. You can rent units from Outrigger properties but we actually rented ours from a private owner. It was a 2 bedroom 3 bath unit. The bedrooms were on each side of large living room/dining room area. The kitchen was amazing with very high end appliances and every kitchen utensil you could possibly imagine. Each bathroom had large soaking tubs and there two separate stand up showers. The unit was furnished with new furniture and was nicely tropically decorated. Our unit was on the bottom floor and one of our favorite things was to go out on the patio and enjoy our breakfast in the morning.

Tuesday evening everyone else began to arrive. The first being Valerie, Joshua and Benjamin at around 6:45pm. Then Mike and Jacob came in from Honolulu at around 7:30pm and then finally Jeff and Sarah arrived at around 9:30pm. Everyone arrived there in one piece and we were ready for the fun to start.

Wednesday morning we all woke up very early, again because of the time change. The clock said 5am but our body clocks said 8am. We had breakfast and then headed out to the swimming pool which by the way was also amazing. It had 2 water slides and was a series of winding rivers that all came together in a central area. There were 3 hot tubs all with sandy bottoms (wonderful!). Two of the hot tubs were for adults only and the third which is where we spend allot of time was for families. It was fun to sit in there because the water was not as hot as a normal hot tub so the kids loved it. That morning we went from pool to beach to hot tub and then to the beach again. The hotel was on a quiet beach with not allot going on. We pulled up the lounge chairs right into the water and sat there while the tide came up and splashed us. It was really fun. After we had been at the pool for awhile, we decided it was time to do a little island exploring. We knew there was an geocache we wanted to do but sometimes becomes inaccessible if there is allot of rain. Since it was a dry day, we decided to give it a shot. We drove high up in the hills until the road ended and turned in a mud trail. We had to cross over two rivers and we proceeded to go deeper and deeper into the jungle over very bumpy, rocky, muddy roads. It was scary but a BLAST!

We finally arrived at our destination which was the location where Jurassic Park was filmed. The poles in the picture were where in the movies the gates of the park were built. It was awesome to be there and we can not wait to watch the movie again just to say we have been there. There was one more cache 1 mile up the road and since we had made it this far, we decided to give it a try. We made it to the cache and as we were finding it, a couple drove up in the swim suits and started down the trail into the jungle. We asked them where they were going and they told us there was a swimming hole just down the trail. He told us he would show us the way there and the kids proceeded to take off in the jungle behind him. All of the kids literally disappeared into the jungle. We were a little bit scared at first but after following the trail a good 1/2 mile, we finally found them in a beautiful swimming hole in the jungle. There was a water fall that feed a deep pool and then another waterfall went down the mountain from there. The kids (and Jeff) enjoyed a brisk swim.

Later we headed back to our cars, made out way out of jungle and then proceeded to check out some of the beaches on the northern end of the island.

Day 3 again started early (darn that time change). We had booked a river tubing trip before our trip for this day. Valerie and Ben stayed behind at the hotel because Ben was too little and Valerie was too pregnant to go. We went to a warehouse where we were fitted with our gear including lamp helmets and gloves. We were then taken via open sided jeeps high up into an old sugar plantation where our tubes were put into the irrigation ditches. The ditches and tunnels were used to bring water from the mountains to the sugar cane fields. All of the ditches and tunnels were hand dug in the late 1800's. We then tubed down about 3 miles of tubes including 5 tunnels. The longest tunnel was .6 miles long. It was so AWESOME! We had a blast twisting and turning and navigating down the canals. Afterwards we had lunch along the river, did some swimming and then headed back to the warehouse. We met back up with Valerie at the hotel around 1pm or so. The kids really wanted to snorkel so we rented some snorkel gear and headed towards Lydgate Park which we heard was great snorkel spot especially for kids. It is protected by a rock wall making the surf calm and easy for the kids to navigate. We saw fish of every shape and size. The kids that were brave enough loved it. The others (Michelle and Joshua) just played on the beach. That day ended enjoying a hot dog at Costco while feeding the chickens and roosters. BTW roosters and chickens are everywhere in Kauai. Apparently when they had a hurricane back in 1992, a rooster fighting farm was destroyed and all the roosters got loose. Since then their population has exploded and they are everywhere! Big, mean ones! Chickens and roosters there are sort of like pigeons or seagulls here. CRAZY!!

Day 4 was an awesome day. It started with an morning at the pool which was fun. I sprayed Michelle and Sarah's bottoms and legs down with suntan oil to make the water slide really slippery and greasy. It was so funny and they came flying down the slide. That afternoon Mike and Jacob had scheduled an ATV tour. This was 3 hour tour riding ATV's all over a cattle ranch up in the hills. This was the highlight of both of their trips. They had a absolute blast. Three hours later I picked them up and they were covered in the red dirt of Kauai. This dirt does not come off very easily and directly from the tour we headed straight to a luau at the Sheraton that evening. They both had dirt caked to their faces, hair and arms and no matter how much they washed up, they could not get it off. They got to see all kinds of things including the place where Indiana Jones jumps in the river to catch the plane at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Their favorite part was high speed ride to the finish line. They now both insist that we need ATV's. As I said, that evening we went to a luau at the Sheraton which had delicious food and pretty dancing. The setting was beautiful. It was right on the beach and it was lovely to hear the music and watch the sunset. We really enjoyed it.

Day 5 was a day we had planned ahead of time as a day to explore. We headed south and west on the island and did a whole day of geocaching. The best part about geocaching is it brings you to places that you would never go to otherwise. We went down many side roads and enjoys gorgeous views and vistas. We did about 25 or so caches. Our day ended with a trip to Bubba Burger up in Kapaa and then back to our hotel to cool off in the pool. PARADISE!

Day 6 was our last day in Hawaii. We had to be out of our condo by 10am that morning but our flights were not until late that evening so we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do. We decided to get a hotel room at a less expensive property just to use as a day room where we could clean up for our flights home. This ended up being one of our favorite vacation days. After we checked out of our condo we went and did a riverboat ride up the Wailua River to the Fern Grotto. This is a place where fern grow upside down out of the rocks. It was lovely but it was a very sunny day and it was getting hot and humid. After the boat ride we headed to our temporary hotel to see if we could check in early. The hotel was the Aloha Beach Hotel. We were in luck and the front desk clerk allowed us to check in. We headed straight to the pool which was not big but was comfortable and was directly on a great beach. We spent the day relaxing by the pool and boogie boarding on the beach. It was blast and was a great ending for a perfect vacation.

Our flights left that evening. Jeff and Sarah were first at 7:00pm via Honolulu to Seattle arriving at 6:00am this morning. Jeff was heading straight to work (poor Jeff). Mike and Jacob left at 9:00pm and were going via L.A on American Airlines. They arrived back here in Seattle around 10:00am this morning. Valerie, Joshua, Benjamin, Michelle and I all took the 10:30pm Alaska Airlines straight back here to Seattle. We got in around 7:00am this morning. Michelle went right to school and as soon as she got home from school this afternoon, she went to bed. We are all exhausted but we had a fabulous time. It could not have gone any better. The only problem now is....we do not have another vacation planned yet. Humm....where should we go next?

Where have the years gone?

2008-05-12T08:04:00.001-07:00

We were just going through some old pictures and came across this one. Where have the past 25 years gone (besides my hips and chin :) ?)

Mother's Day

2008-05-11T16:26:00.000-07:00

Today is Mother's Day and with comes many mixed emotions for me. On one hand it makes me contemplate how much I love being a mother and how much I love my kids. It's a fun day. I always get the traditional breakfast in bed including all the fixings. Then the rest of the day I get to relax while my husband and children take care of all of my responsibilities. I love it and I love them for making me feel special.

On the other hand it is a day that makes me really miss my mom. My mom died to cancer about 3 years ago. When you lose someone you love so much I don't think you ever really get over it. You just learn to live with it but the emotions and sadness sit right under the surface and sometimes the smallest things can bring all of those emotions back. Take for instance when I was sitting in church today. Of course all of the talks were about mothers and they were wonderful. Our closing song was "Love at Home" and for some reason, just listening to that song really brought back a lot of memories for me and I of course started to make me laugh and cry at the same time.

My mom loved to play the piano. I have many memories of my mom playing the piano and my dad laying on the floor singing the hymns she was playing. One time my dad bought a second hand organ and was teaching himself to play it. One of his favorite songs to play was "Love at Home". It was relatively easy to play and he would work out the chords on the organ and go into some sort of trance while he sang the words to the song. As children we would complain whenever he headed to the organ because his lack of skills sometimes where pretty painful to listen to. He would yell at us and tell us to be quiet and then he would commence to go into his trance again and play "Love at Home". It was pretty funny and the thought of my dad yelling at us one minute and then reverently playing a hymn the next minute make me laugh even today.

Anyway, when I heard that song today it brought back a lot of emotion for me and I started thinking about my mom and how much I love her and miss her. I started thinking about how she has shaped me as a person and about all of the things she taught me in life. Here are some of the things I thought of.

1. She taught me how to clean. She taught me how to make my bed just right and she taught me how wonderful it was to go to bed at night in a bed that was made neatly the previous morning. She taught me that life was just more pleasant and easier when their was cleanliness and organization around you. This has stuck with me and even today it is difficult for me to relax if I there is dis-organization around me. I love having a tidy home.

2. My mom taught me service and sacrifice. My mom was not the kind of person who jumped in to help at the drop of a hat but if there was a true need, she was the first one on hand to offer assistance. She never boosted about the service she performed. It was true silent service. She did it unselfishly and never looked for her own personal gain. She was also always willing to sacrifice everything she had if someone was in need. Especially for her children! I knew that I could ask my mom for anything at anytime and regardless of what it was she would help me. She was willing to go without so long as our needs were met.

3. She taught me how to work hard. She taught me that nothing in life is easy and if something is worth having, it is worth working hard for. My mom was a working mom and she always worked hard both in and out of our home. She took pride in doing a great job in everything she did and she was admired by those around her for it.

4. My mom taught me how to have fun and appreciate the small things. We went on many vacations with her and there was never anything that she was not willing to try or do. She hated getting older and having limits placed around what was she could physically do. Even when she was sick, she wanted to go out and have fun. She would marvel at the smallest things in nature and she would take the time to appreciate the moment. (She would kill me for posting this picture of her!)

5. She taught me to love the gospel. She had a strong testimony that she would share often. She truly had the spirit of Christ in her countenance and you could feel the strength of her testimony oozing out of her. I loved being around her for this. Her strength made me stronger and I will be eternally grateful for that.

6. She taught me "Family First". My mom loved her family. She loved her children and I can truly say that we came first in her life. She would do anything for us. When we lost her it left a hole in each of us. We still do a lot of things as a family but even three years later, she is still greatly missed. She was the matriarch of our family and she truly was the glue that held us together.

7. Lastly she taught me "If you ain't Dutch, you ain't much". She taught me to take pride in my heritage and in my family name and to never do anything to disgrace or bring shame to it. I have not been a VanderHoeven for 25 years but I still take pride in that name and knowing all the responsibilities that come with it. Sometimes it is a bit overwhelming but there is nothing or no place I would rather be.

Pardon my indulgence for putting these thoughts in our family blog. A blog is probably more for putting down current things that are happening rather than a place to share things in the past but I felt compelled today to write something about my mom.

Mom, wherever you are....thank you for being such a great mom. Thank you for everything you have done for me and taught me. Thank you for watching over me and my family. I love you! Happy Mother's Day!

Do You See The Resemblance?

2008-05-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

Everyone has the personality of some cartoon character. Have you ever asked yourself which cartoon character you most resemble? A group of investigators got together and analyzed the personalities of well known and modern cartoon characters.The information that was gathered was made into this test. I took the test and I turned out to be closest to Sponge Bob Squarepants. How about you?

Answer all the questions (only 10) with what describes you best,add up all your Points (which are next to the answer that you choose) at the end and look for your results.

1. Which one of the following describes the perfect date?
a) Candlelight dinner (4 pts.)

b) Fun/Theme Park (2 pts.)

c) Painting in the park (5 pts)

d) Rock concert (1 pt.)
e) Going to the movies (3 pts.)

2. What is your favorite type of music?
a) Rock and Roll (2 pts.)

b) Alternative (1 pt.)
c) Soft Rock (4 pts.)
d) Country (5 pts.)
e) Pop (3 pts.)

3. What type of movies do you prefer?
a) Comedy (2 pts.)
b) Horror (1 pt.)
c) Musical (3 pts.)
d) Romance (4 pts.)
e) Documentary (5 pts.)

4. Which one of these occupations would you choose if you only could choose one of these?
a) Waiter (4 pts.)
b) Professional Sports Player (5 pts.)
c) Teacher (3 pts.)
d) Police (2 pts.)
e) Cashier (1 pt)

5. What do you do with your spare time?
a) Exercise (5 pts.)
b) Read (4 pts.)
c) Watch television (2 pts.)
d) Listen to music (1 pt.)
e) Sleep (3 pts.)

6. Which one of the following colors do you like best?
a) Yellow (1 pt.)
b) White (5 pts.)
c) Sky Blue (3 pts.)
d) Dark Blue(2 pts.)
e) Red (4 pts.)

7. What do you prefer to eat?
a) Snow (3 pts.)
b) Pizza (2 pts.)
c) Sushi (1 pt.)
d) Pasta (4 pts.)
e) Salad (5 pts.)

8 What is your favorite holiday?
a) Halloween (1 pt.)
b) Christmas(3 pts.)
c) New Year (2 pts.)
d) Valentine's Day(4 pts.)
e) Thanksgiving(5 pts.)

9. If you could go to one of these places which one would it be?
a) Paris (4 pts)
b) Spain(5 pts)
c) Las Vegas (1 pt).d) Hawaii(4 pts)e) Hollywood (3 pts)

10. With which of the following would you prefer to spend time with?
a) Someone Smart (5 pts.)
b) Someone attractive (2 pts.)
c) Someone who likes to Party (1 pt.)
d) Someone who always has fun (3 pts.)
e) Someone very sentimental (4 pts.)

Now add up your points and find out the answer you have been waiting for!

(10-16 points)
You are Garfield :
You are very comfortable, easy going, and you definitely know how to have fun but sometimes you take it to an extreme. You always know what you are doing and you are always in control of your life. Others may not see things as you do, but that doesn't me an that you always have to do what is right. Try to remember, your happy spirit may hurt you or others.

(17-23 points)
You are Snoopy:
You are fun! You are very cool and popular. You always know what's in a needed you are never are out of style. You are good at knowing how to satisfy everyone else. You have probably disappeared for a few days more than once but you always come home with the family values that you learned. Being married and having children are important to you, but only after you have had your share of fun times

(24-28 points)
You are Elmo:
You have lots of friends and you are also popular. You are always willing to give advice and help out a person in need. You are very optimistic and you always see the bright side of things. Some good advice, try not to be too much of a dreamer. Dreaming too big could cause many conflicts in your life.

(29-35 points)
You are Sponge Bob Square Pants:
You are the classic person that everyone loves. You are the best friend that anyone could ever have and never wants to lose.You never cause harm to anyone and they would never not understand your feelings. Life is a journey, it's funny and calm for the most part. Stay away from traitors and jealous people, and you will be stress free.

(36-43 points)
You are Charlie Brown:
You are tender, you fall in love quickly but you are also very serious about all relationships. You are a family person. You call your Mom every Sunday. You have many friends and may occasionally forget a few Birthdays. Don't let your passion confuse you with reality.

(44-50 points)
You are Dexter:
You are smart and definitely a thinker...Every situation is fronted with a plan. You have a brilliant mind. You demonstrate very strong family principles. You maintain a stable routine but never ignore a bad situation when it comes. Try to do less over thinking every once in a while to spice things up a bit with spontaneity!

Hawaii....Here We Come!

2008-05-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

We are so excited!! We have been planning a Hawaii vacation for quite a while now and soon we will be on our way. It is pretty much all we can think about these days. Mike and I have both been to Hawaii before. I have been to Maui, Oahu before and Mike and I traveled to The Big Island together several years ago but this time we going to the island of Kauai. We always love going somewhere we have never been before. We are bringing the kids along with us. At least the kids that are left at home. We wish we could bring our married kids along but...not this time. We are traveling with the Jeff VanderHoeven clan so it should be fun.

Our plans? Mike and Jacob will be flying th L.A. on Monday afternoon and staying over night there. They will then catch a flight early the next morning from L.A. to Honolulu. It has been a long time dream for him to visit Pearl Harbor so he and Jacob will spend the afternoon there and exploring the island of Oaha. They will then fly to Kauai that evening.

Michelle and I will catch a flight Monday evening straight to Kauai. We will then hang out around the pool on Tuesday waiting for the rest of the gang to arrive. We will be staying at the Waipouli Beach Resort condos and from what we hear, they are very nice. We have a few things planned while we are there but the best part is we have no real agenda. We are planning on doing whatever we feel

like doing whenever we feel like doing it. It should be blast and we will be sure to post a daily diary on our blog while we are there. WE CAN HARDLY WAIT! We have are so ready for a vacation!

Dutch Fest 2008

2008-05-01T08:24:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the official first ever VanderHoeven family Koninginnedag celebration. We have a fun time celebrating everything dutch! The planning started early with our quick trip down to L.A. to find lots of dutch essentials. Here is a picture of us on Friday night rolling 80 krokets. YUM-OH!

Here is a picture of the finished product. We even had some left over which is a little hard to believe. We have bunch of them in the freezer for next time we have a craving.

A dutch fest would not be complete without authentic patat frites served "met" with frite sauce. We used the turkey fryer so that we could fry alot at the same time and keep up with the demand. We served them in traditional cone bags and they were delicious.

The evening ended playing some games and relaxing by the fire. All in all it was a fun time. Mark you calendar for April 25th 2009 for "The Second Annual VanderHoeven Family Koninginnedag Celebration."

I am HOOKED

2008-04-24T13:05:00.000-07:00

I am loving this blogging thing! I am new to all of this and ever since I started a few days ago, I have constantly been looking at other blogs to find cool new things to post to ours. I came across this sight that allows to you create a slideshow and post it. I thought I would put together a slideshow of some of our most memorible vacation moments. We LOVE to travel and are getting ready for a trip to Hawaii next month. Seeing these pictures reminded me of some very fun times and got me even more excited for our upcoming trip. I hope you enjoy them too!

We Never Have Any Fun....NOT!

2008-04-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

We are always saying that our lives are so routine and we never get to do anything really fun. In fact, that is one of the reasons it took us so long to start a blog. We were afraid we would never have anything to write about. All we ever do is sleep and go to work. In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Yesterday for example. We have a family dutch party coming up on Saturday. We have invited everyone over to our house to celebrate "Koninginnedag" aka "The Queens Birthday". We are planning a party including dutch treats. There were some essential things we can not buy in local store so we were thinking of maybe driving to Canada to go to the dutch store there and find what we needed. We thought a little harder about it and then remembered that we still have flight benefits on Alaska Airlines. Mike worked for Alaska for 8 years and when they outsourced their ramp, as part of his severance package, he retained his flight benefits for 5 years. Anyway, we knew of a great dutch store in Los Angeles and started planning a day trip down there.

Mike is always off on Monday's and I made arrangements to take the day off as well. We took the first flight out in the morning and arrived in L.A. around 9:00am. We rented a car and then headed out for a day of adventure with no real agenda except to hit the dutch store in Bellflower.

Our shopping trip took about 30minutes and we then were trying to figure out what else to do. There are so many options in L.A. I love following the Hollywood stars and all their drama so we thought it would be fun to head up to Hollywood and do a little star spotting. I specifically wanted to check out a restaurant in Beverly Hills called "The Ivy". It is a hot spot for the young and famous and I knew that if we wanted to see a movie star, it would be a good place to start.

On our way we took a drive down Hollywood Blvd. and happened upon the Kodak Theater and Grauman's Chinese Theater. We decided that rather than driving all over town it would be funner to take a double-decker bus tour. This allowed someone us to deal with the traffic and to let us enjoy the beautiful sunshine and all the sites.
It was so fun and we pretty much got to see everything in a 3 hour span. We even did a drive-by at "The Ivy" but were quickly shooed away by the the valet. Unfortunately we did not see any stars but we had a super fun day together just being spontaneous and doing something different. We got home late last night but the lack of sleep today at work was totally worth it.

Who says we never have any fun?

Here We Go!!

2008-04-22T10:34:00.001-07:00

I always love reading all the creative and interesting blogs out there. We decided that we would give this "blogging" thing a shot not only to share our stories with family and friends that live far away but also to record the little things in life that may mean a lot in the future and create lots of happy memories.

I thought it would be appropriate for our first blog to be to share a little bit about us and our family. Mike and I were married on October 16, 1982 here in the Seattle temple. The first 12 years of our marriage Mike was in the U.S. Army and we spent alot of time moving around the world and making new friends. We spent a total of 6 years in Germany (Aschaffenburg and Darmstadt) and 6 years doing two tours at Ft. Hood Texas. We have many wonderful memories of those early years of our marriage that we treasure. After Mike retired from the military we settled in Federal Way Washington and last year moved to Bonney Lake where we purchased our first home. Mike works as an independent contractor with Fed-Ex and I am an account manager with Expedia Corporate Travel. We live very near my family and love having the opportunity to have our children grow up with them. They all have very close bonds with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and dozens of cousins.

Speaking of our children, they are our most prize possesion and we would like to share a little bit about them...

Our oldest son is Christopher and he is 24 years old. He is working at local trucking company as a forklift driver and is doing very well. The most exciting news about Chris is that he found the love of his life and was married in January of 2007 to Caitlin Densley in the Seattle temple. They are a very cute couple and have a lot of fun together. We are very proud of them and all they have accomplished. They are expecting their first baby in August 2008 and we couuld not be more excited to be GRANDPARENTS! We absolutely can not wait to welcome a new little one into our family.

Jamie is 22 years old. She is currently attending BYU-Idaho as a full-time student and is studying early elementary education. Jamie is the quiet type and when she starting actually telling us about a guy she was dating last spring, we knew things were getting serious. Jamie was engaged a short time later and was married to Riland Duka in Seattle temple in August of 2007. Landi is from Albania and is a super fun guy. We really enjoy his sense of humor and the gentleness he shows to Jamie. They both will graduate in 2009 and who knows where they will land after that. We are hoping it is somewhere near us...but we are not sure :(.

Matthew is 20 years old. He is serving a full-time mission in the Mexico-Tijuana mission. He has been out in the field now for almost 21 months and is looking forward to his return in August 2008. He is a wonderful missionary and we could not be more proud of his dedication to his calling. He truly loves the gospel and is using his special talents to share it with the Mexican people. We can hardly wait to see him again and are very much looking forward to his return. 3 weeks after he gets home he will return to his studies at BYU-Provo and is hoping to take advantage of his RM status and do lots of dating!

Jacob is 17 years old. Jacob is also a lot of fun to be around. He is junior attending Bonney Lake High School. He has become very close to the youth in our ward and spends most of his free time hanging out with them and keeping each other out of trouble. He loves anything outdoors (mostly Ford trucks and shotguns) and he especially enjoys working in our yard and keeping things beautiful. We love that about him!!

Michelle is 15 years old. Michelle is pure sunshine and she always brings a lot of happiness to our home. She is fun to be around and always has a smile to share. This past week she got her top braces off which makes her smile even brighter. She also shares a very close relationship will all of the youth in our ward. She loves being with her friends and pretty much just being a great daughter.

Well that should give you some good background about us. We will try to consistently post messages in this blog to keep you up to date on our many crazy adventures.