Mom made me do it

Ok, so I can't put this little calendar thing up on our blog since a couple of my co-workers look at it and I have not told them yet. So...now I am going to put it on this blog so you can follow along with our little fish-looking thing that's growing inside me. Enjoy!

The text that goes with the picture :>)

The Cougars first tourney was last night. They slicked the first team they played but the 2nd team took them to 4 games with Joanna scoring the last 2 points of the 4th game for the win. It was sooo much fun!! We appreciate her coaches and the team unity they've helped create. The girls look like they're having a blast and they've already come together as a team. The school photographer has a website with pics that he updates fairly often. You can go to the school website from our blog and hit photo galleries, scroll down to fotozone online and click on that or go to fotozoneonline.com and click on the CCC Cougars (or something like that) and you'll get the v-ball photos. These are the photos Joanna's in: 15,17,18,21,23,24,25,34,35,36,37,39,62,66,68,69,72,72,75,78,79,92,93,
95,111. I gave you the numbers because she's #14 but her number isn't always visible and sometimes it's hard to tell who's who.

Jo's First Tourney

We're Done!

Mike finished installing the cabinets on Wednesday. He did such a nice job you can't tell the old from the new...except that the old cabinets now look in desperate need of a fresh coat of stain/whatever. Later...for now we're just enjoying having our kitchen back.

Julia's try at a digital scrapbook

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Keeping Up With the Cougars

Here is a link for Joanna's volleyball news and info. This is the only new picture but once the season begins there should be more. You can keep up with their wins and losses as well as her personal stats. I'm checking to see if they livestream the home games. I'll let you know if they do.
Jo's #14 up on the top left. She was pretty excited the other night at practice when she successfully blocked their hardest hitter who is a sophomore this year :>)

http://depts.clackamas.edu/athletics/volleyball/index.htm

A Little Alli

In the context of the news from Ben and Alli (Congratulations!!), here's a picture from a long time ago in a land far, far away (the L.A. land)....

Family Fun

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

John's New Old House and....

This is the "Intern House". The sign over the door says it too. John has been living here since about May. He lives rent-free as one of the interns at Skate Church.
Skate Church is an amazing warehouse full of skating ramps, etc. They minister to hundreds of jr. and sr. highers. The house is OLD but it is cool with built-ins and wood floors. The best thing is that it is across the street from school and across the parking lot from church. I think there will be 5 guys living there when school starts. Pray for John as he and 12 students and other interns travel to Vancouver, B.C. in a week. They will be visiting some other skate churches and skate parks. Thanks!
And... presenting Leah. John and Leah became friends (just friends) when they worked together over the past year. She has since moved on to another job in her field of filmmaking as a production assistant for an independent film company. Recently John and Leah decided they liked each other more than just friends. We're crazy about her too despite her drinking problem:>)
Hershey's Chocolate Syrup

Brandon in Willy Wonka performance

Today we saw Brandon in Willy Wonka. He has been in summer drama camp for about 6 weeks. He plays Agustus, the little German boy who falls in the chocolate river. He did really well and his German accent was great! He had 11 performances on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This picture was taken from our seats (we weren't supposed to take pictures with flash but we needed one for the blog...haha) He is on the left with the green pants and white shirt. The other picture is of all his fans who came today (except for the photographer - Franny). After the performance all the kids ran outside with their tickets and got a Wonka chocolate bar!

Fremont Happening

This is Rick. This is Rick retired. Rick is very happy retired. Rick really loves his Happy Retirement balloon!

Abraham Family 1961 Newark, CA Jeanie and RuthAnn have been busy editing recipes for the Abraham Family Cookbook. Jeanie and I have coordinated the dates and captions (in Visalia) with the pictures (in Hawaii). We thought you might want to see some "teaser" pictures so enjoy!

Friday Night Excitement in Town

Last night we heard sirens and a few minutes later a friend called William to say an Amtrak train had hit a car on the tracks and that the car had exploded. The county fair is going on in Canby this week and it
happened right in front of the fair. We don't yet know why or how they got stuck but it's sad. This morning John and I saw the car at the local towing company near our home. It's completely black except for about 10 inches at the front end. Sure feel for the families and for the conductor of the train. It's kind of amazing this doesn't happen more often given the high number of trains traveling through town everyday.

Local Boy Makes Good

Stan Carrisoza Jr.

This is Stan, or "Junior" as he's known around here. He is the son of the Visalia Unified School District Superintendant (the man who signs my checks), so everyone knows of him. He's a local sports and drama high school student. Why do you want to know? Because you can see him Sunday and Monday nights at 8pm on ABC as one of 12 students who are up for a part in High School Musical 3. The TV show has already sent 4 contestants to the choir so if you want to watch, do it soon, I'm not sure how long our local boy can last!

Baby Girl is on the move!!

Last night we loaded up the trailer and her car and moved the baby girl up to her new apartment. Yep, she's turning 19 in less than a month but she's baby girl. Joanna's sharing a place with 2 girls from her team. It just made sense with the cost of gas. Since school is paid for we felt it was an even trade gas-wise. This way, she has a place to go between classes. She's 5 min. from campus when they get home late from away games and when the weather gets cruddy, which can be really cruddy with ice, etc. I think she'll feel more a part of the team also which is one of the things she loves about playing volleyball.
Her trunk is full of clothes :>)
We didn't count how many trips up and down the stairs. I'm pretty sure it was less than the 3-story sets of stairs at Ben and Alli's. Tee hee.
I forgot to take pictures inside. Suffice to say there are a lot (A LOT) of surf posters and volleyball pics and paraphernalia. Roxy and Tommy are hanging everywhere, even in the bathroom (shower curtain and all). Look at the sliding glass door on the deck: it's a HUGE #1 with surf stuff on it. They're gonna have fun!! Who knows, Joanna may learn to cook. It's weird though. John and I feel like we've been through so many transitions over the past few years. But like I said when John got a little misty, "Honey, you know how it goes, one leaves and another one or two come back." Such are our empty nest experiences thus far.

Amelia's Photo Gallery

Julia, Mom, Amelia, and I met for lunch while Mom was down here in July. After lunch we went to see Amelia's gallery at the wine shop. I thought this picture would be a nice addition to Amelia's blog about her photography.

Kristin is into double digits!

We enjoyed celebrating Kristin's 10th birthday. We had her birthday dinner last night because today looked to be a really busy day and we wanted to give it the attention it deserves. I have to say it was the most unusual (gross) dinner I have ever made for any of my kids for their birthdays. I always let them choose the dinner menu but I don't know where this one came from. It started with shrimp and cocktail sauce followed by ramen with hot dogs chopped up in it. Next was watermelon and feta salad. No, I have never served her ramen with hot dogs, it was her own invention. It was all wrapped up with "worm" cake which you can see in the picture. We had a great time. Afterwards we watched the Olympics but Mark was a great big brother and let Kristin serve him tea from her new "magic" tea set. They giggled and giggled and giggled. It was pretty fun to watch between that and men's gymnastics. She'll have some friends over on Wednesday for one last celebration and then 10 will be done...or actually, just begun.

Movie Recommendation

This was John and Joanna's film choice last night. John had seen it on a flight from Hawaii last year. This is a family film so I think T's and Ruth Ann's kids would like it and Franny's grands would enjoy it as well, very clean, very cute and very funny. The little girl is ADORABLE.

Amelia's Update

Outside of working for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for over two years and getting ready to graduate college in December with my bachelor's in business...this is the fun part of my life:

The boyfriend
Chris and I have been dating for over a year and half. We met through mutual friends when I first moved to Fresno a few years ago. After being friends for a year, we decided to start dating and the rest is history. Here is a picture of us visiting Alli and Ben in Portland last week:

Photography
I was very excited to display my photographs at a local wine store for about six weeks this summer. I matted and framed seven botanical photos from the past few years, including some I took in Hawaii in 2004. Although only one photograph sold, it was more of the experience than making money. The photos now hang in my office at work. Below is the usual favorite of the bunch:

Random Projects
One of my goals for this summer was to work on my laundry list of projects ranging from paper cutting to oil painting to making homemade strawberry jam (and yes, it is delicious). Here are few so far:

First attempt at oil painting:

grape "painting" with wine bottle stains:

Paper cutting - I cut out the white image and glued it to the red paper:

Traveling
So far this summer I have been to: (the links take you to an online photo album)

• Reedley - In March the family celebrated Aunt RuthAnn's birthday and a few of us went on the Blossom Bike Ride. This was my mom and Chris' first cycling event and we did the 25 mile ride.
  
• Monterey - 4th of July with friends, kayaking and the aquarium.
• Napa - Chris' brother got married a few months ago and I was one of the photographers for the wedding.
• Hume Lake - family vacation with Mom, Dad and Chris. We went kayaking, mountain biking, played a lot of games, read, and enjoyed each others company.
• San Ramon - about once a month Chris and I visit his parents in the bay area. On Saturdays, our full day there, we usually visit San Francisco, Berkley, or nearby museums.
  
• Portland - in April we drove up with my parents and last week Chris and I flew (much faster).

Well, I hope this wasn't too long of a post. I will leave you with one last image:

Mountain biking in Kings Canyon

Love,
Amelia

End of my summer

Since these are my last few hours of summer I decided to do what I want and cut fabric all day. This is a Scrap Therapy quilt designed to use your leftovers. ALL the fabric is leftover so I only need the larger border piece to go around this as I don't have large pieces of "leftovers". It is on my design wall so I can put up all the pieces and move them around until I get it just like I want it before I sew it together. I have enough in my fabric stash to make one more of these too! Meanwhile I spent all Friday in my classroom getting my mind wrapped around the idea that I need to teach this week. I have to say, it is currently not a pleasant thought as I have to hit the ground running with meetings and so on. It makes me envy Rick's idyllic life as a retiree. Someday.... Until then I will steal minutes when I can be creative. Enjoy!

The B.F.

This is for those of you who haven't yet met the BF (boyfriend). Daniel Louis Steffen is his name and he is a wonderful young man. He is a certified firefighter and has lived at the station in Turner this summer where he's been a volunteer for a couple of years. Hillary and Daniel met in high school where he was a year ahead of Hillary. Daniel is beginning his last year at Corban where he plays on the men's soccer team. He's majoring in business but hopes to get his E.M.T. training to be a firefighter/emt.

misc. pics

Okay, I confess, I love me my pets :>) Sometimes they do the cutest things in the world and I have to take pics and then I have to share (or bore you with) them. The cat lovers will totally appreciate these. Linus is the orange boy that John rescued from the dump. He had no teeth and wasn't even walking yet. We bottle fed him for 3 wks. He is a hoot and real cuddly boy. Sookie is our full figured girl. We should have named her Jane Russell and we do call her that sometimes. She has a snooty personality but is gorgeous and very spunky. By the way, John built the scratching post you see in the pics.

Joanna played volleyball in Hawaii last summer

And the bonus was that Joanna got to spend some time with Aunti Jeanie. Devoted Aunt that she is, Jeanie flew over to Oahu for several days to watch Joanna play ball. They visited a temple, Joanna tried bread pudding for the first time and became addicted to it (thanks Jeanie!). They enjoyed the flora and the fauna. Jo got a kick out of the bathroom sign :>)

This One's for the Girls

The hydrangea John and Will gave me for Mother's Day several years ago. It's a lacy one.

This is the star jasmine we first planted outside our front door. It now takes up about 15 feet of the backyard fence. It is full of blossoms now and smells wonderful!!

These are some of our flowers. The 2nd one is our man-eating butterfly bush. Every year John prunes it down to almost nothing and it comes back in a gi-normous way! I'm guessing it's about12 ft. tall.

Lopez Island, Washington

I'm bored so get ready to look at lots of pictures!! i had a crown prep on Mon., lived in lots of pain until yesterday and finally got medicine. apparently i have an infection so i'm on pain pills and antibiotics. we're having some fun now!! This is our friend's, Betty and John Vaudt's, home on Lopez Island, Washington. John was the vice principal of the middle school in Canby when our boys were there and we go to church with them. They built this beautiful log home on the Puget Sound several yrs. ago with the help of their kids. They usually rent it out but we were celebrating our anniversary (2 yrs. ago) when John was unemployed so they gave us a weekend there. Joanna came with us and on the way home we caught Hillary's soccer game at NW Christian College. It was a great, relaxing weekend.