Pressure to Make Christmas Special

We are staying in the PNW for Christmas this year. We have not done this in the 7 Christmases that we have lived here. We have always gone to spend this time of year at "home" in NorCal.
Just the 4 of us.
My family will be coming up at some point. Not sure when though or for how long.
I am feeling the need to make this a special Christmas. What to do!!!???
A delicious--special breakfast is in order. I am in search of a fantastic recipe.
I want to actually do some baking this year. What to bake?????
...almond rocha (of course!)
...sugar cookies?
...fudge??
Go really crazy and try my mom's See's Candy recipe??? Ugh! I don't know about that!
Then...what about dinner?????
Serve a meal to the needy?
Maybe go to the movies?
So much pressure!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and don't get me wrong.....no matter the lengths of my endeavor to make it special.....it will not be appreciated....not now.....but I tend to look to the future for the appreciation due me. It will come. 

Less than 2 weeks! Ugh!........the pressure!!!!!

Baseball Season

Baseball season in the PNW is very fickle. It is super changeable. But, what are ya going to do? We love baseball!!!!!!
Samuel is playing for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes team (FCA). He is playing with a great group of kids that are all 13ish. The coaches and other parents are pretty great too. We are looking forward to a lot of baseball. FCA will be playing in the Sandy Koufax league in N Seattle. We will also be seeing some tournament action on the west and east sides of WA. Pretty exciting! He is playing P, 1st and CF. And his preference is in that order.
Benjamin is now a LS Red Sox!! Yay!!! Jeremy will be coaching the Red Sox for another 3 years. Benjamin is doing great. He is the only 10 year old on the team. He has played outfield, 2nd base and catcher. He really loves to catch. He is waiting for his chance to pitch. I may have to have a talk with the coach. He is quite a hitter too! So fun to watch him!!!!!
Pictures will be coming!

One Terrible Blogger!

So, it has been since January that I have blogged. That is crazy. But..it has been a crazy year. In March the Director of Financial Aid, at the college where I work, retired. Against my desire and better judgment, I applied for the position. I was hired as an interim, which I remain to this day. So, I have been very busy learning as many aspects of the world of Financial Aid as I can. There is A LOT to learn! I am learning of new things that I need to learn weekly! For real!
Along with learning a very involved new job, I have been taxi-ing to and from games and practices, school, and such. Both boys played baseball last spring.
It was Samuel's last year in Little League. His last year as a Red Sox, unless he plays for them in the MLB of course!
Benjamin played minors and will begin his 3-year stint on the Sox, as Jeremy will remain the coach. I will get my money's worth on the jacket that I bought. Benjamin's minor team (Mariners) did awesome! He had a great coach and a great group of kids. He loved to pitch and catch. He is so cute and focused out on the field!!!! He was selected to play on one of the minors all-star teams and he had a great time at that too!

Over the summer, Samuel played on a couple traveling tournament teams, as a fill-in. That was fun. It is a definite step up from LL. We had fun getting to know some really nice people.
Benjamin got to spend the beginning of his summer in Cali with family. Lucky guy!!!! He had a blast going to kids' camp with Hayden and getting to see Hayden practice some football. And just generally hanging out with Hayden. He LOVES Hayden!
Samuel spent a lot of time at home while I worked...MAJOR GUILT...And we had a rough summer...but I won't get into all of that....
In August, Samuel tried out for an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) Baseball team. Jeremy took him to the first tryout and was very impressed. I took him to the second tryout and I was in tears!!!!! The coaches talked to the parents about their philosophy of coaching. It was something to the effect of "My purpose on earth is to populate Heaven and depopulate Hell." Uh-Yah! There will be no yelling or cursing. We want to teach the boys baseball as well as develop their relationship with Christ. Samuel and I arrived at the tryout on not-so-good terms...putting it mildly. I was a wreck. I was seriously begging God to let Samuel make this team. Even though there was a different team that Samuel really wanted to be on, and he was basically a shoe in for a spot. Well, God is good!!!!! Samuel was asked to join the team and accepted the offer! I was elated!!! Ever since, any contact we have with the team, coaches, training center, I just feel more and more blessed about Samuel's decision to play for FCA.
Wow, this is long! It has been a really long time!!!!!!!
That is all for now. I will write more later. If you got through this whole thing...wow you are dedicated!! And probably very bored!!!!!
Blessings to you!

Samuel

I can't believe that I dropped Samuel off at the church today for his first youth trip. It is crazy to me! It is the first time that he has wanted to go on any kind of church trip, of course I am excited! I am excited for him to have a wonderful time, gain some independence and build relationships with other kids from church. I just can't believe that he is youth-group age! It is just bizarre. He really is a great kid, and I am looking forward to watching as he grows into the man that God is shaping him to be! I am just having a warm fuzzy moment thinking of my Samuel.

Can I Just Brag on My Kids for a Minute?

I don't do this very often, but I am feeling the need to brag on my boys for just a minute or two.
Samuel is in 6th grade and in our school district that means middle school. Samuel has been identified as a leader. He was voted to be a representative in the school's ASB and he was chosen by teachers to represent the school at a middle school leadership conference. He was excited about that and had a great time at the conference, where they had workshops on leadership and relationship building. The goal is for the students to take ownership over the atmosphere at their school. What a great idea! At Samuel's teacher conference, today, we discussed his WASL scores, which were above grade level and his teacher recommended that he move up to the Honors classes next semester. Very cool!!! I have known that he is capable of this, but hopefully hearing it from his teacher will help him to believe it.
After all of the drama that he and I go through on a daily basis, it is just really great to get positive feedback from his educators!!!! It does this mother's heart wonders!
Benjamin is in 4th grade. He was selected to be a "Conflict Manager". These selected students go through pretty extensive training on how to help their peers solve problems that they encounter while out at recess. After the trainings and role playing, they are assigned a couple of recesses per week to walk around the playground, while wearing visors and carrying clipboards, looking for opportunities to help children resolve conflicts. Pretty exciting. He is stoked about the end of the year field trip to the water slide park that the conflict managers get! We also met with his teacher today. While academically he has a lot to work on, he is such a great kid. Apparently, he bought several of the girls in his class erasers from the book fair. And the other day he earned a prize from the prize box and he let a classmate choose something instead. He also shares his lunch when a classmate doesn't have one. I am so very proud of him. Now we just need to work on getting him to focus on school work! He has also done a great job playing fall ball this fall. He has been pitching against 9-12 year olds, and holding his own. His bat has been great too!!!!!!!
Okay, I think I am done for now!!! Thank you for bearing with me!!!!!

Ready for School

This has been one lonnnnnng summer!!! The boys got to spend 3 weeks in California with family. That was awesome for them. They miss all of the cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents so much! AND we were HUGELY blessed by Jeannie because she coordinated with us and drove the boys down to Middletown and then Joel brought them all the way home to us. That was great! We got to have Joel visit for a day or so. What a great brother! He drove round trip 26 or so hours just to bring our boys back to us. Wow!!! Thank you so much Jeannie and Joel. It really meant a lot to us!
So, the boys got to rest and chill (not literally, because it was really hot down there) out with the fam. I was hoping to get the house nice and clean and work a lot while they were gone, but that was not to be. I have been dealing with medical issues since mid July. For more on that you can read my blog (I haven't posted quite yet, but plan to post soon) www.shannap.blogspot.com.
A couple days after the boys got back from California Benjamin had a 3-on-3 tournament and we all got to go down on the field at a Mariner's game. Jeremy and Samuel entered a drawing and they got 4 free tickets and got to participate in a trivia contest. That was pretty awesome! They won the contest and got 2 free Mariner's jerseys from the team store. Super cool. So now both boys have new jerseys. Samuel got a Griffey Jr. and Benjamin picked Ichiro. Sweet! Jeremy and Samuel were so nervous. They had no idea what questions would be asked. They were studying up on their M's trivia. The questions ended up being general baseball trivia, which was no problem. The last question was about the M's and Jeremy kind of guessed and got it right! Yay Jeremy!

The rest of the summer has been pretty low key. I have been working. The boys have been hanging out at home and at friends' houses. They aren't really admitting it, but I think that they are ready for school to start. We went to the welcome bar-b-que at Samuel's middle school tonight and got his schedule and walked him around to his various classrooms. I think he is nervous, but excited. Benjamin got his letter telling him who his teacher is. He really wanted the same 4th grade teacher as Samuel had, but didn't get her. I think that he is going to have a successful year with the teacher that he was assigned. She teaches a 4th/5th combo, so he will have her for 2 years.
We are supposed to be going camping this weekend. I think that we are planning to go, but aware that the forecast is not good, so it may or may not work out :) We shall see.
School starts Wednesday of next week. I am so ready for that. We all need to get back into a normal routine. The boys have watched way too much tv and played way too many video games. They need to have the cobwebs swept from their brains!!!
That is pretty much all I have for now. Blessings!!!!

So Far This Summer......

has been great! Samuel made the 11 year old All Star Team, Benjamin played in a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, the kids got to meet their aunt, uncle and cousins from Alaska and I got to have some hang-out time with Jenn and Kelly.
I won't bore you with wordy details, but here are some stats:
Samuel's All-Star team has won their first 2 games. Samuel pitched the first game, throwing 61 pitches in 5 innings to gain an 11-1 win. Their 2nd game ended at 8-1. Samuel played first base for a couple of innings and made some nice outs. Their next game isn't until next Sunday, but he has practices most nights this week.
Benjamin's 3-man Basketball team won their first game at the Hoopfest 3-on-3 Tournament in Spokane, and then lost the next 2. The last game, they lost in overtime by a free-throw. Bummer. We will be more prepared next year!
Today, Benjamin has an unofficial soccer practice. He just decided that he is going to play Fall baseball and soccer this year. Great. Last year Samuel did it. We will see how that goes. Anyway...here are some pics!

My Sweet Benjamin

Poor Benjamin was completely bored today. We had a late night last night, and I have been a zombie all day. Samuel was at baseball practice and none of his friends were around. He was in and out of the house throughout the day. He watched some TV, went knocking on some doors to find some playmates, but none were to be found. So, this afternoon he decided he wanted to sell juice on the sidewalk. He came in the house, told me what he wanted to do, and got everything ready. He cleaned a milk jug out, made the juice, made signs, got the table and chair out, filled cups with ice and out he went. I went out to take some pictures of him and he informed me that he was giving the money that he made to Grace, our next-door neighbor and classmate of Benjamin's. She is Little Miss Aquafest this year, and is involved in raising money for charities. So, he did this to support his friend in her cause. How amazing is my little man? I am so proud of him.

Samuel's Great Pitch

Samuel threw this strike three pitch and then got the biggest smile. I couldn't figure out what had happened, because usually he is stone-faced on the mound. But apparently he threw some kind of pitch. He told me it wasn't a curve ball. It was just something he thought of. The kid went for it and struck out. Samuel was stoked!! I just thought I would share. Are you sick of my baseball stuff yet?

p.s. You have to click on the title of this blog entry to go to the video.

Samuel Pitched Great Game......

.....but they lost to the Tigers, again.




Here are some excerpts from emails we received tonight from the Assistant Coach and the Manager of his team.

"We joke a lot about Sam but his pitching stats are starting to look a bit gaudy. 20 K's and 3 walks. 73% strikes. Against the Tigers he threw 49 strikes in 66 pitches. In the 2nd inning he threw 7 pitches, and 2 of the outs were strike outs. In the 4th inning he threw 12 pitches and 2 of the outs were strike outs." "That is just plain filthy. A pitching performance like that against the Tigers. If we could just get some hitting behind him, he would win everything."









Okay, so I am a little proud!!!!!

Lake Stevens Red Sox

Samuel is on the Red Sox for the 2nd year. Last year was less than thrilling, to put it mildly. We, the parents and coaches have been very excited for this season, as our players are all really good kids and they seem like they will do very well together. Having said that...we are 0-3 right now. But, they are really showing potential!! Hopefully they can keep a good attitude and get some wins! Today they played the Tigers. We were winning and then tied and then 2 kids on the Tigers hit out of the park home runs. Bringing the score to 9-5. We got a run in the bottom of the 6th, but it just wasn't enough. Samuel did very well. He got a hit, an RBI, a sacrafice, got quite a few out at 1st and made a great diving catch down the 1st base line. That put a huge smile on his face! All I can say is GO Red Sox!!! They play again on Tuesday night. I will keep ya posted!

It's Been A While

Well, I haven't blogged in quite a while so there is a lot to talk about. We found out in February that Benjamin needed glasses. He was quite excited. He has been wanting glasses ever since he saw some by Xgames at the Eye Dr. He ended up getting Converse glasses as they were a much better fit. It is so weird, but now he just doesn't look right without them! He has been pretty good about wearing them, and has only forgotten to wear them to school twice. His prescription is about the same as mine, which isn't terrible, but the board must have been pretty blurry to him! For some reason I cannot find the pictures that I took of him the day he got his glasses. That really bums me out, but here he is.....

This picture was taken at his 3rd Grade Poetry night. His group did great. I cannot remember the title of the poem that they did, and he is in bed so I cannot ask him. If you really want to know, I can find out for you. :) Then their class did a poem, something to the effect of "How to annoy your teacher". It was pretty cute!

Of course, the highlight of the month is my birthday!!!! My wonderful mom and sister surprised me with a trip down to spend my birthday with them! I was so excited and thrilled! So, I flew into Sacramento on Friday afternoon and was picked up at the airport by Katie, my Mom, Belinda and LeAnne. We went straight to the mall and met up with Sarah, Jamie, & Laura. Then later we met up with my cousin Judy and her daughter (also my cousin) Brittany. After a bit of shopping and hanging out at the mall, we made our way to downtown Sac, to my favorite restaurant in the whole entire wide world.....THE MELTING POT!!!!!! I cannot think of a more fabulous way to spend my birthday! With fun family and friends that I adore and excellent food to top it off!!!!!! ( I do wish that I could have gotten a birthday hug from my boys on my birthday. But they did sneak cards into my luggage! Tricky boys!!!) After the melting pot, we made the 2 hour journey to Hidden Valley Lake. Belinda was snoring, my mom was sleeping beside her and I was OUT in the very back of Katie's van. Katie and LeAnne chatted the whole way home. Thanks LeAnne. I don't think that I could have stayed awake to keep her company!!!!!! Saturday morning I went to Jazzersize with my mom. That was fun. Then we got coffee and I went with Katie to pick up my very beautiful butterfly birthday cake. Hee Hee! She didn't request butterflies....she asked for purple flowers. I just really thought the butterflies were hysterical!!!! They also got us the cake for 1/2 price! Saturday night was spent with my family. We had a delicious dinner of my dad's homemade beef stock soup. YUM!!! And then Lorri Mac came over and we watched the movie "The Changeling". I don't really like Angelina, but it was a really good, but sad movie. I even stayed awake for the whole thing! On Sunday was church and then we went to see "Slum Dog Millionaire". Super good!!!!! THEN.....Belinda and Pauline came over and hung out with Katie and I while Philip was working. It was so nice to hang with them all again. I miss them so much!!!!!!!! My time in CA came to an end way too quickly!!! And I flew from sunny warm-ish weather into snow! Happy Birthday to me!
Jeremy's birthday was on a Wednesday night. Samuel was supposed to have a game that night, which was just fine for Jeremy, as I think that is one of his very favorite things to participate in! But...it was cancelled due to the field being covered in snow/ice. So we had a nice dinner at home and of course cake and ice cream!
Samuel also had a performance in March. The 4th and 5th graders put on a concert. It was something about Pirates. He was not at all thrilled about having to participate in it. But, he did a great job and I think he even had some fun!
No more pictures...please!On the 13th and 14th, my friends Jen, Mary and I took a group of kids from our church to a local children's Conference called NITRO. We have gone for the past 3 years and it is a lot of fun! We spent Friday night at our church. Jeremy and Samuel came to be the chaperone for the boys, just during the spending the night part, because Samuel had a baseball game on Saturday afternoon (which ended up being rained out after 2 innings).
Well, that pretty much brings you up to speed. Except for baseball. But I will post that separately. And...if you would like to stay updated on Samuel's baseball team, you can join the team website at weplay.com.
I pray that you are blessed and healthy as you read this post!

Our Journey to NorCal

So, the plan was to spend Christmas day at home, with some friends. We were going to get up in the wee hours of the day after Christmas, and begin our 13 1/2 hour drive home to Lake County, CA. But............. being that the kids got an early start on their Christmas break from school, due to a lot of snow, we were ready to get out of the house. Wednesday morning (Dec. 24) I decided that it might be a good idea to leave that day. Jeremy was at work, so I made the call to share my wonderful idea. He wasn't quite sure, but as usual, said "whatever". The boys and I started cleaning...hamster cages, litter boxes, kitchen, laundry... packing up clothes (not enough pjs I now know), and getting ourselves ready for the trip. Waaaaaaahooooooooooooooo....we are leaving today!!!!!

Jeremy came home, we got packed up and the animals all ready to be taken care of, by our wonderful neighbors, and headed out....twice.....

Did I mention that we were having snow flurries at the time? There was 18 or so inches of snow, and a couple inches of ice, on the ground already. Good idea? I don't know. We set out...nervously.

We got through Seattle just fine, Tacoma, fine, Olympia fine, then we got south of Olympia and it was basically blizzard conditions. Good idea? Maybe??? Ice on the I5. Really!!!!

So, it was pretty slow going. Trying to avoid the sheets and moguls of ice on the road.

Got through Washington! yay!! Only 500+ miles to go. Oh...what time was is? 9:30 ish.

Portland was okay. South of Portland, was a whole other story. Ice...lots of ice on the I5. Surrounded by ice. A couple inches this and frozen solid! Stay between the ice. Don't cross over the ice. Now it is blizzarding again. The snow was not coming down. It was swirling all around us. It was crazy!

Got to Salem, whew!!!! The roads and weather were fine from Salem to Grants Pass. Then the snow hit again. We made it to Ashland and had to put chains on. Chains from just north of Ashland all the way into California. Yay...we are in Cali!!! Time? Midnight. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Chains off for about an hour and then chains back on north of Dunsmuir. Another hour, chains off. This is about when I say.."I can't wait to get to Redding to make up for some lost time. We can go 75 after Redding." ha ha ha ha

20 minutes after chains off.....FLAT TIRE! No really. Pull off the I5 at 4 AM in the middle of nowhere!!!!! No gas station, nothing. Snowing. Freezing. Sleeping kids. Christmas. Did I mention 4 AM. Did I mention this trip began at 3 pm? I don't think I did. 13 hours into this blessed trip...flat. We have not had a flat since high school. Thankfully. And, thankfully, at this point we had a sense of humor about the whole trip. Why did we do this?

Back on the road at about 4:45. Had to unpack the trunk to get the spare and pack it all back up. Great fun in the snow in the middle of nowhere at 4:45 AM on Christmas morning.

How fast can we drive on our spare tire? 50 mph. yep! No 75 mph to make up any time. Losing time from here on out!

When we began this trip my gps said that our estimated arrival time to my parents' house was 4:16 am. We were still 4 hours away...if we had been going 75!

So...50 mph down I5 while others are going 75 and 80, with our hazards on!

Did I mention that I am a control freak and have been driving most of the way? TIRED!!!

We stopped in Corning and got the kids and Jeremy some breakfast. I got in the passenger seat and slept..finally...for about an hour. My parents didn't know that we were coming early. The kids wanted to surprise them. My mom kept calling to wish us a Merry Christmas, and I kept ignoring her so that I didn't have to lie. So, driving 50 mph, we arrived at my parents' house at 10:26 am. When was our original eta??? Oh, ya! So we suprised my mom and dad. Made my mom cry with joy and had an enjoyble Christmas with both of our families, but separately.

This was my dad when he saw us. I got a picture of my mom too, but I cannot post it, as she would surely kill me!

Then realized on Friday that Samuel had quite an injury and needed to be seen. Katie, Samuel and I spent a lot of Friday on a trip to the ER. But he is fine. Thank you, Lord! And on the mend.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

p.s. Needless to say, we are not looking forward to the return trip on Saturday!