Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Arctic Blast

"Arctic Blast". Now there's a term I just know that we're all waiting to hear from our local weather man...er...person. Unless you're from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Canada, or some other really cold place I'm not sure if you've ever truely appreciated what that term REALLY means, I know I didn't...until now. Let's see today we were treated to a lovely temperature of 8. Yup that's right single digits people! We've had single digits for the past week, with the occasional foray up to 10 and if we're lucky 12. Not so bad you say, well then just add in some seriously strong, even colder wind on top of those lovely numbers. Then what do you get? An icicle formerly known as Leah and tumble weed in your stair well. Still not so bad? Well then you're hardier then I am.







PS. Check this out.....
Boy or Girl you ask?
We know.
Do you?

Monday, December 7, 2009

November!!!!

Do you see? Do you see? Look at the title! It says November! Woo Hoo! I'm caught up!

Okay self indulgent moment past, moving on.

November brought what Ben has been looking forward too for quite sometime. His Birthday!!!! Grandma Eucker and Auntie Lyssa came up for the occasion. Unfortunately Grandpa couldn't come, but we skyped him in. The day before Ben's birthday we took him and his cozy coupe down to "cozy coupe road", which is the foot path that runs in between Pullman and Moscow. He had so much fun driving, running and looking for worms that he made himself sick, literally. The next day, Ben's birthday, We took the poor guy up to Spokane to go to Target (his favorite store) and by the time we got there he was running a fever. It was a short trip. After a nap and some "special" applesauce (laced with drugs) he was feeling better though. But, unfortunately for Tyson Ben only took one bit of his brownie "Sodor" cake that Tyson had slaved over the night before. Sigh. Oh well.



November adventures didn't stop after birthday fun. Two days after grandma and auntie left we got snow!! We might be crazy but we like snow in our household. Despite both Ben and I still feeling a little under the weather we just couldn't past up the white goodness. At first Ben wasn't convinced that dressing up like a marshmallow was such a good idea. He got over that pretty darn fast though. There was just enough snow to go sledding! Word to the wise, baking sheets only work so well. A day and a half later the now was gone so we hightailed it to walmart to buy cheap sleds. We're prepared now!







After the snow things were pretty quiet till thanksgiving. We headed up and over the cascades to spend it with my parents. While we were there we got to spend an afternoon with the Howell cousins. This is the only picture I got of them while trying to catch bubbles, but they had a blast. Ben couldn't wait till the school bus dropped off Carver right in front of the house! Those two boys produced wind energy with their enthusiastic waving to each other. As soon as Carver's feet hit the ground he took off at flank speed toward Ben. I would provide pictures of those two playing, but you wouldn't actually be able see them through the blur.


Thanksgiving itself was an adventure. My family and a friends family had volunteered to but on a dinner for the homeless at a local church. We had done this several years in a row a while back, but it's been about six years. A dinner was very lovingly prepared for 75. Five showed up! Apparently the church had discontinued it's regular weekly meals for the homeless so the church was no longer part of the homeless routine. We got a good laugh out of it, enjoyed a good meal, and took home enough left overs for weeks!


Well folks, that's all she wrote....for now. Hope you enjoyed the ride. See you in real time. (Hooray!)


PS. Ben also said good-bye to diapers this month. Finally!

October

October will be an even slimmer post. No collages even. There was more sickness to be had. The only thing that we did that was even remotely blog worthy was carve a pumpkin or "bumpbin" as Ben calls it. (Apologizes in advance for the ridiculously poor photos. I was playing with the lighting/flash/exposure and never quite got it before the moment was gone.) No we don't even have Halloween pictures. Ben didn't dress up as anything and ending up just staring out the window at all the other kids (yes, I know...sad..) so if there were Halloween pictures they'd only be depressing. But as far as pumpkin carving I'm not sure if Ben knew what to think. I think he tried to find it interesting....


"What IS that stuff?!?!?"



"ewwwwww"


"I think I'll just watch from here thanks....
That's not it dad. It's got to be a little further to the left!"



"Hmmm....you're still not doing it right!"


"Fine just do it yourself then!"



"Hey, that didn't turn out so bad...thanks to me!"

After all was said and done, and everything was a bit cleaner Ben decided he loved "his bumpbin" and was very excited to show it everyone. As long as you could decipher what he was actually talking about.

September....

Well September came and went quickly. We checked out a local park and a near by hill at sunset. We decided the park is the best one around and the hill will be a perfect July 4th perch.



Ben and I also spent a week and a bit on the road visiting grandparents, where he got to go to the father and sons camp out with grandpa Eucker. Ben LOVED it, and that's an understatement. He got to ride in grandpa's truck, run around willy nilly in a field, throw balls, eat hot dogs, and see trains. He wasn't a big fan of not sleeping in a bed though. A few minutes after trying to go to sleep Ben told grandpa "lets go home to bed". So they did. Luckily the "camp ground" (it was a local horse farm) was close enough they could go back in the morning and not miss anything. The rest of the visit was spent at the zoo (one of our favorite places) and hanging out in the backyard. We also spent some time with the Davidson grandparents but I managed not to get a single picture of that.



The rest of September.....well.....two words:

SWINE FLU

Saturday, December 5, 2009

We're Back (again)! & August

So we're back from over the cascades and some inexplicable force is compelling me to continue catching you all up from the summer before I can tell you about life now. I don't know why. Like I said inexplicable force. So lets push through and get to December! Besides I've heard from a handful of people that they actually like all the collages. Huh, who'd a thought?


August.....

In August basically two things happened. First being the 2009 Eucker Family Reunion. It was only three days, but boy did we pack it in. We started off by surprising Grandpa with a new DSLR camera for his birthday. We promptly gave him ample opportunity to use it by going to the zoo and Washington Park playground. Of course no childhood would be complete without the obligatory "naked in the bath" pictures....



We followed that eventful day up with one full of playing in another park (what can I say, kids love parks), playing wii, tie-dying shirts, playing in the backyard, and just hanging out....



Really the highlight came on the last day....family pictures....in tie-dye!



As you can see the boys were especially cooperative!



Alright now that you all think I'm insane for thinking that family pictures was the highlight. Here's the REAL highlight.....The 2009 Eucker Family Olympics!


Now that was fun. Grandma made each kid a flag from the country of their choice. Ben represented Canada, of course! The two oldest girlies even made anthems for their countries! Very cute and well written I might add. Events included an obstacle course, ball tossing, and creative driving across the yard. There was even an opening ceremony and medal ceremonies (no closing ceremony, by then attention spans had been lost). And yes the adults also did the obstacle course, but those pictures and video will only be sold to the highest bidder.

Sadly the fun had to come to an end and so did our time in Portland. The second event of this month was moving to Pullman for grad school. Moving is rarely fun, but at least Ben thought the truck was just about the darn coolest thing. He had to explore every inch of it at least a dozen times.

I didn't actually get any pictures of the moving in process. I was too busy, I don't know, moving or something. But I did get a few pictures of our first few adventures. Namely, the annual Lentil Festival Parade, (yes you read that right, lentils) exploring the local arboretum, (where the boys actually were surprisingly cooperative for mom's camera practice) sending Tyson off to his first day of school, (he once again cooperatively stood for 30 seconds for the standard first day of school shot. Too bad it turned out so dark, and small in this collage) and discovering our tub has sprouted a fungus. Oh boy, Pullman's going to be fun!


That's a wrap! (for August)