In a Raindrop

Fall 2009

2009-10-25T22:55:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Fall.....Back to School

This is a picture of Dustin on the first day of school...Dustin is off to 5th grade and Deanna is off to yoga. I think her little brother has finally caught up with her. Both brothers have passed her up. She is now the shortest in the family. We still love you.

Amazing fall colors....Seattle Arboretum

These are a few of the photo's I took on the latest photo outing with mom. The colors were so amazing, I really felt like I was walking in Kinkade painting.I found that using the foliage setting worked much better.....

It was so beautiful . The only bad part
is when you see the leaves falling you know what is coming next. Winter :(

Mom getting a perfect shot..

The Japanese Gardens were closed for the day. But we didn't let that stop us, we hiked around the back side and took pictures through the fence.

The bridge that goes over the main road.

What a beautiful fall day.. it was overcast . We decided that we better get down there before all the leaves were blown off the trees. I think we were a few days to late. But I'm glad that we made it.

Dog Walking Team

2009-09-26T20:40:00.001-07:00

Deanna, and sometimes Darren, walk the neighbors two Alaskan Malamutes, Nova and Noodle (AKA NuNu, or Kujo). Noodle is 6 months old now, but in the outside pictures he has to be three months old. Recently he was driving his owners(and Nova) crazy and they sent him down to our house to spend the morning with Deanna. She happened to take some pictures of him. He has grown so much! He is quite the character, He knows Deanna's name now. If you say "Deanna?" to him, his eyes will light up and start wagging his tail. It's really cute.

Four Leaf Clover

2009-09-26T20:32:00.000-07:00

Deanna was lucky enough to find a four leaf clover in our yard. Since then she found a whole patch of them in Oregon.

Spring/Summer Yard

2009-09-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of posts. But here are some pictures of our pond and yard from this late spring and summer.

I'm back (kind of...)

2009-06-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I have not had time to post lately. The weather finally got nice enough(although a little to hot) to do projects outside. We have been working this week on

Refurbishing our stairs to our front door.
Yard work
and setting up the pool so the kids can go swimming.

Dustin also had his final concerts this week. He was awesome. It's amazing how much progress they have made from coming in at the beginning of the school year knowing nothing, to be playing songs! We are so proud of him, we are also glad to hear that he has decided to continue to play the viola again next year.

Deanna had finals this week. So she has been busy studying this week. Darren is working on finishing his school work so he can start summer vacation.

I promise that eventually i will get around to posting better posts. Just give me some time.
That's all she wrote,
Diane.

Dustin's Spring Comcert

2009-04-24T14:34:00.000-07:00

Dustin had his spring concert and he did great. He was afraid he wouldn't do well because he miss so many classes due to our trip. They sounded awesome. The concert had all ages playing, (4th-12th grade) it was the best school concert I had been to. The high school chamber orchestra had just won 1 place in a competition against Washington, Oregon, California and Idaho. So we were listening to very talented kids.

Dustin has been asked to play in a concert for his school. He will be playing with the older students. So he has to learn harder songs...keeps him out of trouble.
I no longer need earplugs when he practices. Things just keep getting better and better.

That's all she wrote...
Diane

Happy 10th Birthday Dustin!!

2009-04-22T20:37:00.000-07:00

Dustin is in double digits!!
I can't believe that Dustin is 10 years old already. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that he can home from the hospital.

I asked Dustin what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday and he said "Mom you're busy you don't need to make a cake". That's what I love about Dustin he is very thoughtful of other people. Well, because I had nothing better to do (ha ha) I decided to make him a sword cake, that should be easy..just a handle and a blade. After spending several hours I finally had a cake that I liked. You know me I have to put too much detail into a simple cake.
Dustin got a sword (reproduction) as a birthday present, this inspired us to redo Dustin's bedroom. I will put up pictures when it is finished. We are painting, remodeling furniture, and getting rid of 10 years worth of toys...maybe 8 years of toys most of the stuff in his room has not been played with for a long time. This has turned into a huge project.

I didn't want the boys fighting with real swords so I also got them play ones...Oh the battles that have been fought.

Lot's of fun.

That's all she wrote..
Diane

Fun in the sun day 5,6 and 7

2009-04-06T08:42:00.001-07:00

Palm Springs....

Mom and Dad wanted us to experience the tram ride up Mt. San Jacinto from the Coachella Valley. It is a 2.5 mile ride up some very rugged cliffs. The cars rotate so you get a 360 degree view all the way.

It was a very beautiful ride. The tram was built in 1963 the main reason was to get people out of the heat in the desert and to colder air in the mountains, were they could enjoy hiking etc...

It was very interesting you leave the valley were it was in the high 70's and desert, mostly sand, rock and a few cactus. As you road up, the plant life changed, more bushes and grass. Then at the top you are in a alpine forest and snow. At the top the elevation is 8515 feet.

Looking down at Palm Springs.

The next day Dave and kids wanted to spend the day at the pool. The condo has a beautiful pool or pools. They have water slides, two hot tubs, one under a waterfall, a in pool volleyball area, a lovely place to just relax.

Dad, Mom and me decided to go exploring, we noticed that the Indian Canyons were about 2 miles from the condo. so went to check them out. We were sure glad we did.

>Indian Canyon is really a group of 5 canyons in the Santa Rosa Mountains. It is located in the Auga Caliente Indian Reservation. Andreas Canyon first, if you decided to go on this hike take the path on the right, with it's 150 species of plants and native Washingtonia Palm trees it is breathtaking. You hike along a creek, there are so many plants you feel like you are in a jungle. As you walk along you can see the mortars in the rock were the Indian women ground the corn. I would recommend this short hike to anyone who likes to take pictures, watch birds and lizards. It is only about a mile but took us a over an hour as we couldn't stop taking pictures.

These are the mortars where the corn was ground.

Then we drove up to the trading post and had our lunch. They had hummingbird feeders hanging out by the Info desk, I never seen so many hummer eating at the same time in my life.

A view across the desert.

Palm Canyon

We then took the Palm Canyon hike this is a 14 mile hike....we only went a couple miles then can back. As person could send a couple days just hiking up here. It is so different that the we take through the Pacific Northwest forest.. Palm trees instead of cedars, I really felt like I was hiking in some jungle in South America. Enjoy the Photo's

Some of these Palms date back hundreds of years. The ones that look black are burnt . They are fire resistant so if the tops don't get burnt off they will continue to live. The last fire here was in 1980. This is looking up the Palms.

It's amazing that a place so pretty is tucked away the these mountains.

Now it is time for us to fly back home. Back to reality. That all she wrote.. Diane

Fun in the sun day 4

2009-04-05T21:26:00.000-07:00

Day 4..we were sad because Donna and Jim needed to go home. After taking them to the airport in the morning, we came back to the hotel and had a little bible study. Packed up our stuff and left our wonderful hotel. One nice thing about our hotel is they had 1:00 check out so we didn't have to hurry to fast. It had rain over night and the snails came out to eat the flowers.. they were everywhere! See how many you can find in this photo.

All I know if these were my flowers I would be having a fit....where is the slug bait...I wouldn't be taking pictures that's for sure!!

Dustin is really into Knights and anything to do with sword fighting. So for his Birthday we took him to Medieval Times . He was so excited..we couldn't of found anything he would of liked more. We all had a really great time... It was a Medieval play that included real horses, medieval weapons, sword fighting, jousting. And lets not forget dinner...a little different eating with your hands. Deanna had saved a plastic fork to take with her but some how it didn't make it there...wonder how that happened. I think everyone felt it was well worth the cost.
The knights...we cheered for the Black and White Knight...he won a couple of battles but ended up dead in the end..so sad:[

Sir Dustin and Lady Fern and Sir B.O.B.

After the show we drove to Palm Springs for the rest of our vacation. They had a bad wind storm during the afternoon. We saw downed palm trees, lots of palm fronds on the ground. The power had been out so the condo had some problems with having rooms ready....It took along time to get checked in. By 9:30 we had gone grocery shopping and came back and made pizza for dinner so all ended well. It was amazing the town of Palm Springs had the mess from the storm all cleaned up by the next morning. Everything looked fresh and clean.

That all she wrote...
Diane

Fun in the sun .....day 3

2009-04-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

Day 3 brought to you by the flowers of Disneyland. When we started out Saturday morning I told Deanna our photo theme for the day was the flowers of Disneyland. It is fun to have a theme, it makes you notice things in a different way. Here are some of the pictures Deanna took. She did a awesome job.

She is getting the hang of her new camera.....

These were the flowers in Fantasy Land.

What a life for a sparrow living at Disneyland. Never a shortage of people to feed you.

The rest of the family gave up on Disneyland at about 1:30 we went back to the hotel. I think the pool had more of a draw then the lines at the park. After lunch Deanna and I went back and continued our photo search. The next picture shows the crowd. You can see why they were happier to stay and relax by the pool. But we had a good time in spite of all the people.

The next few pictures are my interpetation of the flowers at Disneyland.

It was so nice to see flowers....
instead of dead brown frozen
flowers, like we have at home.

We found a Mexican Restaurant and had dinner there. And yes, you can find places that aren't crowed, we enjoyed a great meal in a beautiful spot.

This was the view
we had from the
restaurant.

After dinner, we rode Splash Mountain again, only this time we put on our rain gear so we would be splash proof.. It worked pretty well....the first ride went well, so we decided to go again. The second time was going great, we splashed down the big drop then our log stopped...we waited and waited then a voice came over the load speaker and said"keep your arms and feet in the log at all times...a cast member will be with you shortly" We heard this repeated about 20 times...30 minutes later a cast member came and helped us get out of our log, which was very tricky as we had about 2 foot jump from a tipsy log over the water. We had to wait there, in the ride, while they evacuated the other logs for another 30 minutes. Then we walked through the rest of the ride . It was really weird being "in" the ride, walking next to the animated animals. Deanna thinks they are really creepy when you are in the log so found it very disturbing walking next to them. We asked why the ride stopped and had to evacuated and all he would say was "Oh, did you get wet on the ride." We still don't know what happened.
But it was a experience. Not sure bad or good..well interesting.

That's all she wrote..
Diane

Fun in the sun....Day 2

2009-03-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

We started the day off with a laugh, we had decided to go to breakfast at 6:00 a.m. at 5:45 I decided to make sure everyone was going to make it. Being Deanna likes to be actually presentable in the morning and not looking like she just crawled out of bed it takes her longer then the boys who don't care. Deanna stayed in Grandpa and Grandma's extra room.I went and knocked on the door, no answer, went and called Moms cell phone, still no answer, called the room, still no answer...I was beginning to think they had died in there. I called mom cell phone again finally a very sleepy voice said "why are you calling so early?" By this time it was 6:05...well lets just say we didn't make it to Disneyland by 7:00 for our early bird pass.

When we got to Disneyland we rode Indiana Jones, Pirates, Splash Mountain, Calico Mine Thunder Mountain , the Matterhorn, the haunted mansion. Then we headed over to California Adventure and rode Grizzly Rapids and even got Grandma Fern on California Screamin' all by noon.

We were so wet from Splash Mountain and Grizzly Rapids that we decided to go back to the hotel for lunch, and dry clothes. As you can see from the photos when we got to the car Dave took his shoes off and was leaving wet footprints on the parking lot.

Lunch time!

The hotel was so nice and peaceful we decided to spend the afternoon enjoying the pool and hot tub.

Later after going out to dinner we went back to Disneyland.... we had some bad luck with the soaring over California ride, after waiting in line for 30 minutes we were at the door to the ride, our turn was next, we are getting excited, then" we are sorry this ride has just broke down. We will have to give you a pass to come back later." We couldn't come back later because California Adventure was closing. So we went over to Disneyland and used the pass on the new finding Nemo ride. Which worked out great because that ride has a really long line and we got to go to the front of the line. We didn't close down Disneyland but we lasted until midnight. Not to bad considering we had gotten up at 5:oo a.m. and some of us at 6:00 a.m. Dustin trying on flying gear at Condor Flats Flying Store.

That's all she wrote...
Diane

Our fun in the sun....Day 1

2009-03-30T17:03:00.000-07:00

We had a great trip. I don't know if I would recommend getting up a 4:00 a.m. , flying to L.A., renting a car, checking into a hotel and going to Disneyland until 11:oo p.m. This makes a long day...but you're only young once, unfortunately my once is long gone. A few years ago I would have stayed until Disneyland closed...guess I'm getting old.

Mom, Dave, Dustin and I went to a drawing class at Disneyland. We learned how to draw Piglet. I think the three of them did a great job. Mine which, will not be pictured, looked more like a kangaroo than piglet. Maybe it because Duane and Deanna called me and I missed a few steps.

Look out Disney Artists you have competition.

We were lucky enough to have Donna and Jim join us at Disneyland was really fun getting to spend some time with them.

We all went to see the "Broadway style" play of Aladdin. They had some amazing props....great jokes...Aladdin flying on the magic carpet...life sized elephants, camels and horse puppets. Dave even stayed awake most of the time :) so it must have been good.

When we were heading back to the car after our long day, we were lucky enough to see the Disneyland fireworks from the top level of the parking garage.

Our bed sure looked inviting when we got to the hotel...I think we all made record time getting ready for bed. We stayed at the Radisson it was a great place to stay and play. They had a complete breakfast, sleep number beds, kitchen and beautiful courtyard.

That's all she wrote,
Diane

Global warming?!?!?!?!

2009-03-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

The sun has not come back..only more snow!! It is March 9th, we should be enjoying warm spring showers not snow showers. We got up to snow, then it melted, then it snowed again, then melted, then it was a blizzard, and we got 3 inches in about a hour. That time the snow stayed, it was a beautiful winter wonderland.

I was filling a little house bound so Darren and Deanna and I built a snow women, Molly,(This is Deanna now, That's not really the name, She changes it every 5 minutes. Deanna out.) to represent what we would like to be doing.Sitting by the pool, drinking Diet Pepsi What do you think? Looks like she could use a little more sun. Deanna didn't think she needed the sunscreen, that she could use all the rays she could get. The sun screen is on the chair next to her.
While we working a little bird came and sat on her head. It was cute. It stayed there quite awhile.

My tulips are the only real sign that spring is on its way. Only 11 days until the first day of spring..yay!!

That's all she wrote,
Diane

The Almost Potluck

2009-03-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have wondered what happened to us, we never showed up at the potluck. After meeting we went home to get our food and table and chairs. We loaded up the car and off we went, stopped for gas and the car wouldn't start. The engine just made a horrible grinding noise. Oh no what is wrong now!
Dad worked on my car on and off all last week to get it to pass the emission test. And it was working wonderfully, almost like a new car so what is going on? It passed the emission test fine, no codes, so what is wrong??
Well, after a phone call to AAA they came and towed us home. Thank goodness for AAA. Dad doesn't have to rescue me this time.
After we got home Dad and Mom brought us over the Saturn so we could go to gospel meeting. We were stuffed in there like sardines.
After meeting Dave and Dad took the car apart. The intake manifold had burned out. Thank goodness Dad had just replace the one on his car so he knew what was wrong.
So Dad gets to spend tomorrow fixing my car and looking for the parts that I lose while helping him. Thanks Dad, we could not get anywhere with out you!! You really keep us going.

That's all she wrote,
Diane

Mr. Sun please come here, or we'll shed a tear!

2009-03-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

While we were driving home we saw a sign that said "Mr. Sun please come here, or we'll shed a tear. " This is how we felt yesterday when we got up to snow again. It is March we have had enough. That is why we live in the Puget Sound area it is only supposed to rain here in the winter.
My flowers are wondering if they will EVER get to go back outside. They miss the sun as much as I do. We will take 50 degrees and rain anytime over 30 degrees and mucky.
That's all she wrote,
Diane

Welcome

2009-03-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our families blog. After being bugged about not having a blog we finally decided to jump on the band wagon. Deanna claims we don't do anything so why have a blog. Diane says she is too busy and the boys just fight, and Dave just goes to work and kisses the paycheck goodbye.

We are planning on going to Disneyland and Palm Springs for spring break. Donna and Jim are meeting us there. Mom and Dad wanted to join us and thanks to Jared and Margret being willing to take care of Grandma Grace, Mom and Dad get to come too. We are really looking forward to some warm weather and all being together. Especially since it snowed this morning! California here we come!

That's all she wrote,
Diane