Angels in Disguise

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Though my own children have long outgrown the desire to go "trick or treating" (most of them anyway), the little ones that I watch during the week are at the perfect age for all the festivities. Today I asked everyone to bring what they're wearing tomorrow for the big day. Danielle and Ethan came to join in the fun (not to mention Danielle was a lifesaver when it came time to dress everyone). They were so proud of their costumes. Nina kept saying over and over, "I'm a ladybug Joanne! I'm a ladybug!!".

We started out on the trampoline to get out a few of our wiggles...
not much jumping yet but isn't Alex's pose adorable? He's wearing an authentic German outfit called a Lederhosen.
Kylin showing off his "monster hopping skills" to the girls.

Picture Time
Jack, Alex, Ethan (my grandson), Kylin and Nina

Again...take out Ethan, insert Vanessa who joined us from next door

Jack, you melt my heart!!!

My favorite little OCTOPUS (Ethan) :)

Vanessa as "Snow White"

"Sweets for the sweet"

Joanne and Marissa's EXCELLENT Adventure (aka-What to Do When Life Gives You Lemons)

Marissa and I left at 7:00 am Saturday in the Mustang to get her over to Clackamas Community College for her ACT test. On TV highway I noticed the battery light come on. About the same time the lights seemed just a bit dimmer. I called Garth. He told us to turn off the headlights as soon as possible and anything else that might drain on the battery and to just keep driving (our first mistake) . It was still fairly dark, however as we got onto 217 I only used my parking lights. Then about the time we exited onto 205 for Oregon City things started to get ALOT more scary. Multiple lights started popping on. I called Garth again....this time not my "usual calm self". :) Of course it didn't help to have Marissa advising me from the passenger seat. "Let's just stop. I can MISS the test!" I'm thinking "No thanks! There's nothing around but a bunch of woods." Not to mention no exit coming up. So this time Garth suggests we continue on and at least try to get her to the college. I decide to ignore Marissa's and my growing panic and push on. Our next clue comes in the form of an audible beeping from the dash. Wow! That's a new one. I've never heard that before...I wonder if it's trying to tell us things are going from bad to worse. Yep!!! Right after we take exit 10 as we're pulling up to the light I can feel the car starting to lose all power. And I do mean ALL- even the emergency flashers wouldn't work. My first feeling is to stay calm. Marissa's is "Woo hoo...no test!!" (we were just 3 miles away but might as well have been a 100). After letting Garth know where we are we start putting a plan into action. I stay in the car and flag traffic around us and Marissa starts walking to a 76 station across the street and behind us to ask for help pushing the car. While she's gone I'm thinking I should have been the one to go for help. (Not one person that drove past me, and there were MANY, stopped to see if I needed help. If she had been sitting there I bet half a dozen young men would have stopped at least! :D
Finally she returns with a guy from the gas station. They start pushing but partway through the intersection they are losing momentum because the road is on an incline. Suddenly, a cop pulls off along with several other men to join in the effort. Prayers are answered and before you know it we are safely in a parking spot. Marissa and I walk to a nearby coffee shop for breakfast and then manage to squeeze a nap in while waiting for Garth to finish his exam and come to our rescue. He had the forsight to look online and call me with several phone numbers to see where we might be able to get the car fixed. By the time he arrived we had a service destination and a part being delivered. What a blessing. Next came the impossible....to tow the Mustang behind the toaster (Scion XB for those not familiar. This car was never made for towing or the freeway for that matter. Once you get it up to about 65 in the highest gear it sounds like it's going to blow. We love it because it's a spacious , lightweight runabout that gets great gas mileage.) Anyway, Garth crawled around on the ground until he found a way to connect the two and off we went. Would you believe our "Brave Little Toaster" not only got us to the shop, it climbed two very steep hills on the way. We saw them from a distance and Garth accelerated as much as he could and I PRAYED. I was leaning over the steering wheel and very tense because we were going so fast and the cars were so close together. Garth had to leave us once we got to the repair shop so he could get back to class.

After finding out we would have about 3 1/2 hours to kill we decided it was "time to make lemonade". What at first appeared to be a shady area of town ended up providing us with hours of pleasure. We discovered the Oregon City Antique Mall. Amazing!!! I've never seen so much stuff in one place. Marissa and I even found a few trinkets for our bare arms....

We had lunch at a very cute place called "Singer Hill"....

Marissa enjoying her passion fruit smoothie.

They even had a garage door that rolled up so you could eat and enjoy the outside air as well!

Looking out the window next to our table.

Later we walked around and took lots of fun pictures...

Check out those beautiful trees...

"I'm too scared to let go!!"
It ended up being a beautiful afternoon(literally) and we decided we were quite content with our unplanned adventure. If not for the car problems, we would have hurried through the day and never taken time for a leisurely afternoon of fun. Too bad we are always in a hurry in life. I wonder what other hidden treasures and memories we've missed.

PURRRRfect Companions

Meet our new kittens- Alice and LuLu (they are sisters). We adopted them on October 2nd from Cat Adoption Team in Sherwood. They are 3 months old now and each one weighs approximately 3.25 lbs. We are really enjoying them. They already have such adorable personalities. LuLu is the talker, loves to head-but and has taken on somewhat of a "mother role" to Alice. Alice seems to think if she sucks on LuLu's stomach long enough she may get some milk from her. Apparently she misses her mom. Alice loves to crawl under the covers and sleep by your feet. She is quick to purr and loves to have her tummy rubbed. She is a bit cross-eyed which is actually quite cute when you look at her face, however it's hard to get a good picture of her since one eye always reflects the camera flash brighter than the other.

Other than playing their two favorite pastimes are....
Eating

and Sleeping
Alice
LuLu

Now if I can just train them to quit climbing my tree in the dining room.....we are starting to wonder what fun a Christmas tree will provide for them. Happy times I'm sure!!! :)

Cross-country districts

Today I had a cross-country districts meet! This is Marissa, by the way =) Anyway, the meet was held at the Meriwether golf course, which is pretty much flat, so that was good. My race was at 4:45pm, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. So that kind of got annoying during the race when I couldn't even see. And it was pretty hot for an October day. I had a pretty good race, though. I didn't do as well as I had hoped since
it was such an easy course. I wanted to get sub-27, but I ran a 27:28. And as you can see in the picture above, I like to lick my lips while I run. I don't know why. It's one of those weird things, I guess.














Oh, and did you notice the permanent marker tattoo on my right leg? Yeah, our head coach has a tattoo just like that on his right leg, so all the girls on the team thought it'd be fun if we copied him =) And we also thought the black eye would look cool alongside our pretty rad tattoos. So now cross-country is over. And I already miss it.

Breaking News!!!!

Jason got his mission call on Tuesday the 14th. We had a small impromptu gathering for the occasion. Bishop Poulsen, Danielle, Ethan, Marissa, Kylin, Grandma Fondren (by phone), Garth and I watched with great anticipation as he opened the envelope.


He conveniently leaves out the name of his mission as he reads it the first time (thus the big grin). NOW for the big announcement...... where to?!?!?
Mesa Arizona Mission- English speaking
He enters the MTC on the 7th of January.

He is so excited to share the gospel with the people in that area. We are proud of him for the choices he's made and his desire to serve the Lord. Now comes the fun of preparing and gathering all his things he will need to take with him.
CONGRATULATIONS JASON!!!

Bloggity Blog

We have decided it's time to start a blog so we can better keep in touch with family and friends. Not to mention some of us (me in particular :) have a hard time feeling motivated in the journal department. This will be a fun way to record our family adventures, mishaps and memories. We hope you'll enjoy the journey along with us.