The Wood Between the Worlds

I got my hair cut [very short]! It's fun.

Who's the newest little smarty pants in the family??

It's Joshua, of course! He is loving first grade. His reading has taken off so quickly. He is now reading (for fun) one short chapter book per day (you know, those short ones with pictures on every 3rd page?). Today he read "The Magic School Bus Chapter Book Series and the Search for the Missing Bones," and then he wrote a neat little book report on it for his homework. He is doing such a great job and we are so proud of him! His teacher told us at our last meeting that she wants him to be tested for "TAG" (talented and gifted) in the spring.
Bragging off.

Brent was recently called as the EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS specialist in our ward. He is in charge of helping the ward members to be prepared in case of a disaster. This has been great motivation to work on our food storage and other emergency essentials. It is so NICE to have a house where we have room for food storage! There are several potentials for natural disasters here in the Portland area: tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, flooding due to heavy rainfall or due to global warming raising the sea level. (WE are pretty safe up on top of our bluff at about 200 ft). But our Stake Presidency (presides over the churches/wards in our city and a few neighboring cities) has specifically instructed us to prepare for a Flu Pandemic and a corresponding 3 month Quarantine. So we are readying food, supplies, personal protective devices, sanitation, etc. in case we are stuck in our house for 3 months. Oh! And here is a great link to some Pandemic preparedness information that Brent found: BYU-Idaho Pandemic Training. "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear..."

That brings me to the next point. CANNING! My current calling in church is the Enrichment Leader and one of the special interest groups that I have tried to organize is a canning group. We have planned and consulted and done canning demonstrations to take advantage of all the wonderful and fresh produce that we have in the Northwest (many farms even within 15 minutes!). My friend Tara was awesome enough to invite me to can with her. We planned it while our kids were at school and we did it together to pass the time. I am so HAPPY that Tara taught me so much about canning and I am ELATED about this:



This is my half of the canning that Tara and I did this year. We did Pears, tomatoes, salsa, pickles and applesauce. We have officially re-formed "the cult of domesticity" here :-). (A club that my friends Emily, Maria and I had in high school in which one had to bake, sew and do various other domestic activities in order to join.)

So, I promised my sister Heather that I would post pictures of the Halloween Costumes since she is all the way in NYC and couldn't see us. I figured most of you would want a look too.

I know that I should have mentioned in my last post how lucky we are that it was only our tree that got taken out and not any of our house. Miraculously, our house was completely unharmed.

...This happens:

We came home from church last week on a ferociously windy day to find that our neighbor's carport thingy blew out of their yard and landed right on top of a good sized tree in our side yard, snapping it right in half! Poor tree. It was half dead when we bought this house and I was able to nurse it back to full health and it was getting nice and big and now...snap! What a bummer. It looks like I need to do some tree shopping.

We visited a very fun farm down in the Country...Canby, OR last week. There was a spooky train ride after dark, a hay pyramid to climb on with a maze inside to test your navigation skills, and of course picking up our own pumpkins! Now hopefully we'll get around to carving them before Halloween.

All of the festivities were after dark, but here are some pictures in the car on the way:

Brent's friend and colleague from pharmacy school came down to visit from the Seattle area. Brent and Allen went canoeing on Saturday morning and then we all went out to lunch at Old Wives Tales in Portland and took a brief tour of the Downtown Saturday Market. The boys were overly excitable during Allen's visit due to several Halloween parties and too much candy...we hope that Allen can forgive them and come back and visit again soon. Maybe next time we can go canoe around Point Defiance up on the Puget Sound!

These pictures are courtesy of Allen Shih:

I strongly recommend that you go view the music video for New Soul on YouTube. (I would put the clip on here, but I can't figure it out.)

Keeping it real:
I just have to say why this song means so much to me. I discovered it last year during Joshua's kindergarten year from hell. It was at the point where I had just about hit my lowest point. I could no longer take the negative comments from the teacher and the principal almost every day and felt that Joshua (a new and different beautiful soul) was greatly misunderstood and misjudged. This song pretty much described how I felt at the time and surprised me with HOPE for a happy end. I especially appreciated that the person making the mistakes wasn't asking someone to make her "normal" but tried to take others "by the hand" to go "far away" and see a different perspective. OK, now you can see why I was crying by the end of this concert. But the good news is, that at this time in life it is a cry for remembering hard times only. It is not a cry in the present tense. For this year, it seems as though Joshua never had any problems in school. And this end boosts my confidence so much because this was the end that I suspected all along. I always knew that Joshua would mature and grow out of his issues and it appears that he is and has. It just goes to show that the mother's intuition is always right!
yAeLnAiM official website...eNjOy!