Hey,

Brooke I was just letting you know that you have a whole month before wishing Peter Happy Birthday...His birthday isn't until FEB 28th. You crack me up.

Anyways, all is well here. Just school, work, and volleyball. I am finally getting another coach to help out with my team. I have been having emails and calls from parents because their girls aren't playing enough or they aren't being pushed. I had a rough couple of days but everything is better and it will be nice to have another pair of eyes at practice.

School is good 2 weeks down, 30 to go until I am finshed. By that I mean this semester (14 more weeks) and fall semester (16 weeks). I did find out the other day that I do have another class I have to still take but it is an online class that I can take in the summer.

Peter is enjoying work. He had lunch yesterday by himself with the owner of the company...the owner has been trying to schedule this for a while I guess. They love Peter there and are looking at him, once he gets is professional engineers license, to open an office over in Oregon, I think near Salem. We will se how things turn out...that wouldn't happen for another 3 years or so.

We are heading up to McCall this weekend to go to the Winter Carnival with our friends Justin and Laura. We haven't been up there with them in a while and since Laura's mom has a cabin on the lake there, we have a great place to stay while we are there.

Andrew is growing by the day and I can't believe he will be 6 months on Tuesday. He is so much fun to be around...when he isn't fussing....which makes it hard to leave him at Day care all day while I head off to school, but I know it is the best thing as I need to finish asap so once I am done I can spend all of my time with him.

We love you all and miss you tons.

Love,
Anne

Hi family. I hope you are all doing well. We are- just busy. Barb, I didn't realize we could still make a choice about the picture. Mike told Kenn to just pick one, if you didn't get that message. I didn't see that blog until after that Sunday because of our computer being down, also, I didn't know where to look for the picture choices anyway. If you still haven't chosen one I would prefer one that is cute of everyone-duh- even if it means that Ellyn isn't looking right at the camera, because that's just Ellyn and I don't want it less cute of the girls for eye contact- does that make sense at all?

Peter and Parker happy belated birthday. I can't believe it's already Parker's b-day again. Time flies!

Things are going well here. We got 10 inches of snow the night before last and the funny thing is that school was only delayed by 2 hours. Quite a difference from Washington. We have a great sledding hill across the street behind the playground and we had alot of fun out there yesterday afternoon. The snow is beautiful and it is a bright sunny day and I love it.

Let's see, what else? We travelled to the Nurnburg ward on Sunday and had a really wonderful time in the German ward. They bent over backwards to accomodate our English speaking family in primary and in Sacrament. I'm glad we had such a good experience because with my calling I have to go to every ward Mike goes to and Jane was not really thrilled about that.

The girls are doing well. Ellyn has been having some sleep issues again and that has been tiring and frustrating. Mike and I are actually putting in a request to move to different housing. With our house right by the main road and the walking trail right beside all of our bedroom windows (being on a corner) we think the noises are waking her up and then she can't get herself back to sleep-that is without crying for about 40 minutes- which wakes up the whole family. Also, she has learned how to open the front door and with the main road right there it makes us very nervous (not so much for right now, but summer when the kids are in and out). There is a house plan in some nearby housing that is on a quiet road, with a finished basement where I could take Ellyn in the middle of the night (have our family room down there) so that she doesn't wake up the whole family. I have to go see her Dr about it today and see if he will authorize it. Her therapist is willing to put in a statement because she knows we've tried everything we can. Jane isn't too thrilled because she really likes the friends that she walks home with but we do things with one of the families on a regular basis, the other friend I don't really want her hanging out with anyway and next year she wouldn't be walking home with them anyway. Plus one of her friends lives on the street where the house is located and I think most of it is that she just doesn't want the chaos of moving again. I think she will be fine and I think she will like the other house better anyway. Wish me luck (although by the time you read this I will have my answer-most likely).

I hope you are all doing well. Marnie, good luck. Keep us posted. I have to go clean my kitchen and oh, the rest of the whole house. We love you all.
Love, Brooke

Check out the Schickedanz blog for the stats on their new arrivals....Congratulations, Sean and Bridget!

Also, Tom and Tracey posted pictures from Disneyworld on their website (Ohio Stinchfield's) They are well worth seeing! It looks like you had a great time.

I told several of you my sad story of my UGG boots encounter with a dog at a quilting meeting last night. The dog bit through to top of the boot--the top of the foot portion. Dad suggested I take it back to Nordstrom and see if I could get a new pair. I did and they will be shipping a new pair to my home. Now I believe all the stories...I told them what exactly happened and they still are giving me a new pair.

I also washed my clip IPOD yesterday....it was a bad day for me. But I am going to call American Express and invoke their "buyer protection plan" that supposedly will give your money back or replace anything you buy regardless of the reason for your need. Anyhow, I will let you know how it works!

Love you all,
Mom

You know, after having our family birthday party on Sunday, I totally spaced out that yesterday was his birthday. I hope he had a great REAL birthday!

Safeway is nice, isn't it!!!

Love,

Grandma Barb

Just wanted to wish Parker a happy birthday! Hope he is having a good one.

Thanks Mom for the good luck wishes. I am cramming like crazy, there is a lot to know! I should get back to it now. Love you all!


-marnie

Well, now the days at the coast in August are out. When we received the paperwork, it stated emphatically that no more than 10 people could be in the house AT ANY TIME. That counts children! We have 17 counting all the kids that were planning on coming. So even getting another house or motel rooms wouldn't work. Apparently, it is a Lincoln City ordinance to eliminate big drunken brawls but is enforced on anyone. So we were back to square one...the initial house is way too big....and expensive. It accomodates 26 or 27 people....and there are no houses in between available on the coast.

So....we would suggest that for the Oregon coast part in July or August we just do a weekend and stay at the Pelican Shores together. They have rooms with kitchenettes and they are right on the beach...and it has an enclosed pool also. We'd stay for a Friday and Saturday night...coming back on Sunday afternoon. I need to get from those who would be trying to do this...which weekend would be the best...July 20-22, July 27-29 or August 3-5 so we can make reservations.

Dad and I are also planning on going to Gualala over Memorial Day weekend. Megan Bodily put aside several sites for us since, in our enthusiasm last August, we said we...and some of our family...may want to come. No one needs to feel obligated in any way but we do need to know if anyone would like to come. I think we all have good memories of our Fremont campouts!. Dad and I will be driving down on Thursday to Friday...stopping on the way...staying at Gualala on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then starting back on Monday...again stopping on the way back up to Washington. If anyone wanted to fly into Sacramento, we could pick you up on the way down and drop you off on the way back....just a thought. Do let us know if you want to do it so we can adjust the number of sites.

We love you all.....Good luck to Marnie on her tryout this weekend!

(Mike and Brooke...I am still waiting for your choice of pictures!)

Mom

I spoke to Dad and we decided to go ahead and reserve the house for the 4th through the 8th. Who can come can come....Please let us know. We'll have two units within the house. I think there are a total of five queen beds within the house. It has at least two decks....here is the link to the website http://www.a1beachrentals.com/site/Overview/PropertyID__18437/sd1__08-04-2007/sd2__08-08-2007/3545/default.aspx.

Anyhow, let us know how many can actually commit to coming. We'll keep it no matter how many come. We may have a little sharing of costs as people can...thinking about $100 per person...not counting babies. I don't want that to cause anyone not to come, however.

Love,
Mom

I have talked to several of you but we have cancelled the big house on the Oregon coast that we originally reserved. It is too big for those of us who can come. I am trying to find another house on the beach for us. I have found one that is available from August 4 to August 8. That is a Saturday through a Wednesday. It looks very nice and is half the cost of the big house for the week.

I'm not sure that will be available by the time people get back to me...but for my search...how many of you could come....

July 19-23
July 26-29
August 4-8

Let me know ASAP!

Love,

Mom

I don't know if I have ever related to all of you the amazing difficulty there is in getting anyone to get my name right. Any take out, just about every time it is Marty or Barney or some other variation.Well, we got a picture of it for proof!



Feel my pain siblings with your common names...feel my pain.

Mali (Harrison) Gardner called today to tell me that Chris's brother, David Gardner, was injured in Iraq. He is in the army and was run over by a bobcat (tractor) accidentally. In surgery his fever spiked and necessitated amputation of his foot. He has now been transferred to the hospital in Germany. She called to see if it was close to Mike as she wanted to arrange to have someone give him a blessing. It is not but I did e-mail Mike to see if he could get any contacts for her there. In the meantime, I suggested that she call SL church headquarters and talk to the military affairs people to see if they could give her a contact there.

Anyhow, I'm sure he could use all of our prayers. He is married...his wife is pregnant..I think Mali said she is due in four weeks. They are out of Ft Bragg.

Love to all,

Mom

Well I certainly don't envy all you who are dealing with the snow and cold. I am whiny enough for how cold it has been down here in the last week. Now I know that it is not as cold as it is in Idaho or Washington but it is unusually cold for San Diego and we are just not made for that. Nothing down here is. Our houses are not as insulated, our clothes are warm enough...it has been 30 degrees outside for the past few days when I have left my house in the morning. Crazy! I did discover though that my car has a 'ding' when the outside temperature goes below 36-37 degrees...took me a while to realize what the noise meant!

I went to the Justin Timberlake concert last night, thus the title. I am completely exhausted right now and I can't wait for the next 40 minutes so pass so I can drive home and go to sleep. The concert was fun although he did a weird thing with the jumbo screen so you could barely see him most of the time. But his songs were good. I really like FutureSexLoveSounds, SexyBack, and Cry Me a River (my fav). We got there sorta late so only saw the end of Pink performing Get this Party Started but it was really cool. She was spinning around on a ribbon while singing like Cirque De' Soleil. Very impressive. We got to be in a private suite which makes for a very different concert going experience. Most of the people there were in their mid to late 30s but very nice. Definitely quieter than it would have been had we been sitting with all the fangirls.

I stayed in LA last night (which meant a late late night) so that I could attend a meeting for the Yahoo search marketing that my company uses that I am in charge of. I was totally exhausted and the meeting was pretty disorganized but I still got some stuff out of it. And I got some free SWAG which is always fun. :)

So after I recuperate from my last couple days I will be getting super serious about studying for next Friday's audition for the VH1 WSOPC. While we were in LA yesterday we got our costumes together. We are gonna look pretty cool. I will be sure to post a picture when everything is ready.

Anyway, I wanted to post a little update on what is going on down here. Oh yeah and I saw a 'celebrity' yesterday - anyone remember Jonathan Silverman? the brown haired guy from Weekend at Bernie's? We saw him when we were going to dinner at the famous Pink's Hot Dogs on LaBrea and Melrose. We also went to the new super trendy place in LA called Pinkberry...frozen yogurt with fresh fruit...groudbreaking, I know.

--
marnie

Another snow day - the novelty of the kids being home from school and having snow on the ground is wearing off. Especially after a three-day weekend and two snow days last week. The kids are thoroughly enjoying the snow (and the time off from school)- but I am getting nothing done.
Oh well - it is good family time. We spent the day yesterday at OMSI and saw Happy Feet on the OmniMax while we were there. We also saw Night at the Museum this weekend with Buffy - I really like that movie. Today I think we will conquer haircuts and other errands, if the snow lets up.

Anyway - we are working on our calendar this year - scheduling vacations and conferences - and we have spoken with Paige & Brian - who would love to join the Disneyland trip. We are thinking October. I told her I would get back to her, since they are likely planning out their year, too.

Mike - we found Lost Cities and also picked up Tally Ho - it is made by the same company and is another fun 2-person game. Thanks for the recommendations.

I'm off - the kids want to go out and play, so I need to get in the shower before half the neighborhood is over here, tracking snow through the house and leaving my front door wide open.

Adina

For anyone that will be in the San Diego/LA area or would come down for it - the registration for this year's Disneyland 5K and Half Marathon is open! The 5K will be on Sunday Sept. 2nd and the Half Marathon is on Monday Sept. 3rd.

This year capacity is only 4,000 people so if you want to enter make sure to do it soon!!! The registration fee is $30 for the 5K and I am not sure for the Half Marathon.
Register here!

(I am doing the 5K!!)

--
marnie

I need all of your preferences for pictures...

I have D & A's, T & K's, Marnie's-----I need M & B's, P & A's and T & T's. ( We can just get B & B to do it here tonight) Please send me the picture # that you want.

Thanks,

Mom

Well everyone, since you haven't figured it out, we stole Bully and took him home with us. Andrew liked him so much that we took him. Anyways, this is a picture of a famous Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan who also has the same thing as Andrew. You can see it really well in this picture. I found out from the lady that is going to babysit Andrew that there was a famous bollywood actor that had three thumbs too so I decided to look it up.

By the way Mike, We went out and bought Power Grid and the German Ticket to Ride today. Peter thought you would be excited.

Love you all,
Anne