Happy Holidays (and other stuff)

Since our last post, fall has gone and the Christmas season is now in full swing. As usual this fall, we had many leaves in our back yard to rake up and "give back" to our neighbors behind us. And being a kid, Lanna could not resist playing in the leaf piles. This reminded me of my own time as a kid playing in the leaves!

In early November, we lost a wonderful neighbor. Bill and Lanna shared the same birthday, and every year at his birthday party, he made sure that everyone sang Happy Birthday to Lanna too. That same day, Lanna learned to ride her bike without training wheels! How excited we were for Lanna as she conquered this feat in just a few hours!

Dan and Carol ran the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day, while Maggie and Lanna helped Nanny prepare the Thanksgiving dinner. The night before, they helped make the pumpkin pies, and how delicious they were. Lanna says she wants to be a chef, and Maggie loves to help in the kitchen and also says she wants to learn to sew. Good thing they have a grandmother who knows how to do both well!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we took our annual trek to the Fern Crest Tree Farm to pick out the "perfect" tree and to visit with Santa. As a bonus, we had snow that day and it was great fun (but cold) walking thru the snow and watching snow flakes land on our eye lashes.

The house is now decorated, the lights hung up outside, the school holiday program complete and the kids (including Dan) are now out for Christmas break. The girls are eagerly anticipating Santa's arrival, and even got a phone call last night from the big man himself. How fun it was to watch their faces as Santa talked to them about what he was planning to bring, but that they needed to be nice to each other and make sure to clean their rooms.

We wish you many blessings as you gather with family and friends, and hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year.

It's the Great Pumpkin...

Pumpkin Patch Visit - 2007

Today was our annual pumpkin patch trip to select the “perfect” pumpkin and get into the spirit of Halloween. We visited a different patch this year, and had a great time. There were lots of pumpkins, some tractors to climb on, a corn maze to walk thru, a hay pit to jump in, a tractor ride and, for the kids, a fun spin on the tractor train. We always have such fun picking out our pumpkin and just enjoying the day together as a family.

The girls really enjoyed the kids train and didn’t at all mind the mud splashes, as you can see.

We saw some friends at the patch and had a good time visiting and watching the girls run around together. Alas, it was time to wrap the trip up and make a stop at Starbuck’s before heading home. The only thing that could have made the day better was sunshine instead of sprinkles, but the memories we made were warm none the less.

The Ruiz Family, "farming" for pumpkins

The Great Columbia Crossing

After a long Saturday of soccer, our running group took Sunday morning to ourselves and ran the Great Columbia Crossing in Astoria, OR. This race starts in Washington at the Dismal Nitch Rest Area, crosses the Astoria-Megler Bridge over the Columbia River and ends in Astoria, OR. It was a beautiful day and everyone did great. The bridge is 4.1 miles long with a ¾ mile long climb up 205 feet before descending back down toward Astoria. The 10k (6.2 mile) race finished at Tapiola Park in Astoria. If you live in Longview and do your running training anywhere other than Lake Sacajawea, you have to run hills. Fortunately for us, we were well prepared from our many training runs, and everyone passed more runners than they were passed. This is how runners measure how well we run, and of course we looked totally better than everyone else! (LOL) We all finished between 53 and 57 minutes and then enjoyed a bowl of great chowder and a leisurely walk back to our ride.

Dan doesn’t run with us in the mornings, but we consider him one of our “Raccoon Racers” and he has joined us for a few races. We missed one of our training partners, Cindy, this race, but she'll be with us at the next one. Next up...the annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot.

The Raccoon Racers - Shannon, Trish, Carol and Dan

(Absent - Cindy)

Astoria-Megler-Bridge

Labor Day and Soccer Weekends

We decided to enjoy the last “weekend” of summer this year by spending our Labor Day Holiday camping. The girls had a blast fishing, hiking and hanging out by the fire. They enjoyed being able to “poke” the fire with their own stick and throwing more wood on. We were all a little dirty and tired, but it looks like we will be going camping again next spring and summer. Time to invest in some good camping gear.

Last weekend was the start of fall soccer and the kick off jamboree. Both girl’s teams did very well, and Lanna has announced that she now likes outdoor soccer. (Previously she only liked indoor soccer). Maggie continues to enjoy all the positions from goalie to defender to goal scoring striker.

Both the girls had quite the fan club today as cousins Cole, Jo and Darian (Tina’s neice) came up this weekend for a visit. Cole was quite into Lanna’s game, cheering her on and using body English to will her a goal. It may even have worked, and Lanna connected on a few today. They have all gotten along well, and even given the parents some relaxation time. How nice it is when they can entertain themselves.

Carol and Jill played in the Mark Morris Alumni game this afternoon against the Mark Morris Varsity Girl’s Soccer team. We are proud to say the alumni won 3-2! We like to think we had valuable contribution to the win, but what can you say when you have Lisa Sari on your team. What an honor it is to have played with such a great player.

Time to chill out on the couch and watch some college football.