Christmas

This year we traveled up to Tacoma on Wednesday for Christmas festivities. On Thursday (Christmas Eve) we just hung out all day and Carter and I went to IHOP with Silas and Sarah Fitzsimmons (friends from Carter's church here as well as OC buddies). It was fun reminescing with them and enjoying some companionship with people our age since we don't know very many people in our age group in north bend.  At night our Christmas Eve dinner was ate at "Famous Daves" which is a BBQ place and that was yummy. Following dinner we drove around to see all the lights and we went through "Spanaway Lights" which is a long drive through lights show that lasted over 20 minutes and they did a great job with it!

Christmas day Carter's brother Clayton and his wife Sarah came over around 11 and we opened presents. We got spoiled and ended up with quite a few great things and a decent amount of chirstmas spending money. We spent the rest of our day playing games and eating a yummy ham dinner followed by going to the movie Sherlock Holmes (a pretty great film).

The Dogs thought the presents were for them and were begging like crazy.

On Saturday we went shopping at the SUPER MALL where I made quite a dent in my christmas money but I got tons and tons of great deals. Carter only bought 1 pair of pants and 1 movie. (why am I not suprised).

Sunday we have spent at church and then with Clayton and Sarah and Paula and Darrell all playing games and having a good time, followed by dinner at Red Robin (Carter's Fav).

So far we have had a great and relaxing trip and we are just enjoying being with family and seeing people from here.

Long overdue Judo Tourney Post

So back in October Carter had a Judo Tournament that I've been wanting to post about. But I wanted to include video with the post but our Mac wasn't working and our dell wouldn't let me download video. So now, I have this working and I'm going to post about that crazy weekend. 

The tourney was up in Spanaway, WA so we stayed with Carter's parents and they joined us at the tournament as well as Sarah our sister-in-law (Clayton's wife).  Carter did great, he won 2 out of four matches and his last match was to get "true second." During his last match he was fighting the guy he had beat the first time but this time things went wrong. We didn't know this but apparently the guy had head butted him when they fell and split open Carters chin pretty good. They guy ended up throwing Carter for an Ipon (an instant win) and when Carter went over to the medic area we had no idea what was going on. So after a lot of chaos over there Carter walks over with his sensei (coach) and announces to us that he needs to go and get 4-6 stitches. The stitches thing ended up being so annonying because him and his dad went to urgent care and as they were filling out paperwork the lights went out so they ended up having to go to the hospital. About 6 hours later everybody was back at the Davis house for a late dinner and a quick game of pictionary with Carter's nasty chin.

Oh yeah, Carter received 3rd place overall. So proud of him!!

 

Showing off our coast

A view from where we hiked

This is a view from where we hiked at, isn't it beautiful!?!?

There might be a seal in here

The following 3 pictures are of some seal covered rocks down the road from where we hiked. Unfortunately they are so far away that you can't see them by eye, just by super zoom camera or binoculars.

A few weeks ago we had a recruiter from York College who was on the west coast come to town to visit with some of our kids. She ended up staying with us and had never really been to the ocean before so since I didn't have to work in the morning the next day I took her down to the beach, and then on a little hike that leads to cliffs that hang over the ocean. She of course loved it and thought it was gourgeous. We also were lucky to see tons of seals swimming below us probably going fishing but that was fun. It was such a gourgeous day outside too that I couldn't help but take some pictures to share with all of you!

Animals do the funniest things

Just a little warning that these videos are gross but extremely funny...Just thought I would share them with all of you so you can say ahhhhhhhhh.....grossssssssss.............!!!!!!!1

Toyota Ride Fun

A couple Sunday nights ago we had life group at the Mueller's house which is the home of the people who we first stayed with when we moved to Oregon. They live on a lot of land and are so into dirt bikeing that they have their own track behind their house. Well one of their favorite things to do and to take visitors on is a Toyota ride, which is when everyone gets in the truck and they go around the dirt bike track including the hills and around the rest of the property. Let me tell you that this was a blast!!! We took two trips, one when it was still kinda light out, and one when it was dark. Us girls took the safe position resting against the cab of the truck while the boys got a little more of the action on the tail-gate side. Now I know what you are thinking...WHAT THAT IS SO DANGEROUS and although I'll admit it was a little scary I am a huge chicken and even I felt safe the whole time. The dad who was driving the truck has done this so often that he knows every inch of his property and knows the feel of his truck and would never do anything to put us in danger. With that being said, Carter did fall out once, but it was when the truck was backed up a hill and he decided it would be a great day to stand up while we were rolling back down, except the dad assumed we were all seated and quickly threw on the brakes for a little fun. Well Carter was right across from me and all I saw was him flipping backwards. He actually caught himself on the tailgate and was holding himself up while laughing hysterically. The whole thing was great and a great bonding experience for all of us as we are laughing pretty much the whole entire time. The only down side was that we were so sore the next day from all the jarring that we did in the truck.

Here we are excited to start

Up the hill

Back down again

I love this picture, the boys are sliding down toward us as us girls are laughing while trying not to get smooshed.

This is actually a steep hill although it doesn't look like it.

Happy Hallow-Eve

This week was busy spent in preparation for my pre-school halloween party which was this morning and was a huge success! All 11 of my kids had a fun and I had 9 voluntees which was 7 more then I thought would show up. We had a bunch of stations for them to rotate through as quickly as they wanted and they got candy at everyone. I also made a halloween bingo that we played together and was a hit as well since I used stickers instead of numbers. We also did a cute craft that Melissa at AFTER came up with and I simplified for my kiddos.

Also, tonight I convinced Carter that we would need to carve pumpkins because we've never done i before and although Carter hates the feel of the insides he was a good sport and we both had fun carving the simple faces. I wanted to get some of the fancy designs but i waited to long and most places I looked were sold out...bummer. I roasted the seeds and now our pumpkins are proudly displayed on our porch for all to see, that is at least until the Racoons get a hold of them. Oh well.

Mine is on the left, Carter's on the right in front of our apartment....aren't we festive?!?!

Carter's is on the left, mine is on the right

Frosting our own cookies, yummy yummy!

Their Craft

Let's go fishing, this was their favorite area!!

Doing the craft

Candy walk

All in line for our costume parade

The sample craft that I made the night before the party.

I made these yummy pretzels for the kiddos to take home and enjoy

one of THOSE days

Everyone has one of those days, where nothing seems to go right or it is just crazy and today was one of them for me. It all started with my going to the gym which is at the local community college. Well, apparently 10:00 is the time to be there because none of the machines I wanted to use were available and I couldn’t even start on the weights because there was a class learning how to use all of them. Then at AFTER (my job at the elementary school after school hours) the kids were all riled up and going crazy!! I swear that I had to blow my whistle and tell the kids “hands off” more times then I ever have this year, maybe ever. They were just CrAzY and I desperately just wanted them to behave so what did I do? I sent them all to run/walk two laps around the track before they could all come in for snack, aren’t I mean?? Then, when I was already tired from work I still had to run to Albertsons to pick up something for dinner and what do I forget after I’m all rang up? My debit card of course so I had to tell them to please hold my stuff while I run home and search desperately for my card. Luckily it was in my back pocket of the jeans I wore yesterday but I really need to stop doing that it scares the crud out of me and is a hassle. So, really it wasn’t a horrible day, but just an annoying one!

No Excuses

I wish I could tell you that I had 100 good reasons for not keeping up with my blogging but I really dont have any. I've had time to post stuff, I've probably even had a few good stories to share...but I always forget them by the time I think that I need to post. So now I'm recommitting myself to my few readers I have out there and any stalkers who have not made themselves known to me and my lack of blogging. So, take this post as my true word that I'll make a better effort from this moment forward to update you on the happenings of my life and If I don't better you can give me a hard time about it forever or hunt me down, your choice!

Clothing Giveaway

Labor Day weekend, a little late.

Over Labor Day weekend we took two of our teens to a huge youth rally called Faith Quest at camp yamhill in Yamhill, OR. This rally consists of over 390 teens and chaperones and although it was a different kind of experience for us we still had a pretty good time and enjoyed the worship aspects as well as the socializing with people that we usually only see once a year at church camp. I also saw two girls who I was in the same social club (Gamma Rho) with who I didn't even know were in the Pacific Northwest. Here are some pictures and two videos of some great singing that we got to experience while we were there!

Over Labor Day weekend we took two of our teens to a huge youth rally called Faith Quest at camp yamhill in Yamhill, OR. This rally consists of over 390 teens and chaperones and although it was a different kind of experience for us we still had a pretty good time and enjoyed the worship aspects as well as the socializing with people that we usually only see once a year at church camp. I also saw two girls who I was in the same social club (Gamma Rho) with who I didn't even know were in the Pacific Northwest. Here are some pictures and two videos of some great singing that we got to experience while we were there!

This was a fun song that had everybody jumping and shouting.

I love this song it is so powerful!

Success

Tonight we had a spaghetti dinner before church with a teen family planning meeting during service and it went Great! It was a big encouragement to us and every teen was represented by a parent which is what we totally were hoping for but not positive would happen. We now have a few new methods and things to try and the biggest thing we learned is communicate with the parents...go figure! We always assumed that the kids were relaying things to their parents but apparently not...but you know what they say about assuming....

Computer Down

So for the past 6 months we've been a one computer household. We always used to have Carter's mac and my dell and then my dell went on the fritz and was causing so many issues that I decided it was time to put away my dell and share with Carter on his mac. Well for some reason a couple weeks ago I got the urge to pull out my old dust covered dell and see if it still had the goods to turn on and go. Well, it turned on and was working as if nothing ever happened. This was a good thing that happened cuz as it turned out we are now just using my dell. The mac is on the fritz and at first I thought it was a virus but after a lot of fidgeting and looking around and tons of anti-spy searches I figured out there is no virus but the warning screen that keeps popping up is telling me that there is a hardware problem dealing with the BIOS something or another. I have no idea how to solve that so I called Oklahoma Christian today and now have a phone call placed in with them so hopefully they can help us figure out what's going on with it even though we're not students there anymore.

Soooo moral of the story...even when you're tempted to throw out technological junk, don't do it because you may need it later!

Hiking in the Woods

That is where Carter is this week with his old youth group boys and youth minister, and a young man from our church here. I know he is having a blast even though it is probably raining on them and they are smelly and gross. I told him to be careful and come home in one piece which I'm praying will come true because he is quite the adventure taker when it comes to climbing rocks and the such.

Because of his trip I am spending time alone this week and although I miss him terribly (I can't even talk to him on the phone) I have been pretty busy so far and the rest of my week will stay at about the same pace so hopefully Saturday will be here quick!

Finally a post on Beach Fest

Beach Fest is a youth rally that our church, The North Bend church of christ has put on every year for the past 4-5 years. We invited every church of christ in Oregon that we could find an address for and since Carter was in charge we were waiting for this event to come and be over so our stress level would decrees. It was August 7-9th and we would like to consider it a success! We had around 50 kids participate and then their chaperones and youth ministers came too. It was a weekend of fun, encouragement and praise and was a huge uplifter for the members of our church that participated too.

We couldn't have asked for better weather, on Saturday which is when we spent the whole day at the beach there wasn't any wind and it felt like a nice 68 degrees by the water. We kept joking around that our visitors were going to think that the weather was always like that because it is quite rare to get consecutive nice days like that and we were so excited! It was also nice that there was no wind because on both Friday and Saturday nights we had fires on the beach so it was great!

*Note to self, if we ever do a scavenger hunt again, make sure that the right clues end up in the right envelopes...never assume...great!