Teacher gifts

Well, I have the gifts for the teachers done. Mikes teacher has the lap quilt up top that I crocheted. Mackenzie's teacher is a little older and I thought she might enjoy this shaw I made. It is actually very warm unlike Mike's teacher's lap quilt

Amanda's chick

Jake sure loves Amanda's chick. We were trying after dinner yesterday to get them to share because they were fighting grabbing it from each other. They finally got pretty good about sending it back and forth to each other. Jake still every once in a while would grab it even though it was Amanda's turn but he was so funny Amanda didn't mind. Mike kept trying to get Jake's attention so that Amanda could take it and run but she wanted to share. She loves playing with Jake! (I am so glad and hope it lasts)

Forks for Duane

We found this in someone's yard and immediately thought that Duane would love to have a tree in his yard like this. It took us a minute to see the bear in the yard. Hope you enjoy it Duane!

Easter

Easter here was a very relaxed and lazy day. It was raining hard when we got up and didn't lighten up until about 5 pm so we hunted eggs late. We didn't do a lot for Easter as we are trying to watch money like everyone else and save some so we can start deciding what we might do for getting a house rather than renting forever. They enjoyed hunting the eggs and found them all (yea@!) I don't think raccoons here finding eggs would be a good thing. They would probably come back thinking there was more.

We had a silver and gold egg. Amanda found the silver $5 was in it. Kenzie found the gold $10 was in it. They had fun.

3rd beach hike

3rd beach ended up being a 1 1/2 mile hike. We got about 1/2 way and then we turned around. Darrel was nervous because of the bears and the time of the year. They would be coming out of hibernation and they are known to be seen around here. He had no weapon and 5 noisy kids that kept running ahead aways out of view so we walked a ways and then went back. The kids enjoyed the walk and it wore out Jake and Mandy. I loved walking through the forest! I thought it was so beautiful! There was a huge whole in the ground under an uprooted tree where Kaylin and I wondered if there was a bear that had slept in it. It was pleanty big enough. When Darrel found a walking stick Jake had to have one two. He is starting to watch Darrel very closely and do what he does. Darrel has noticed and is very proud of it. He is doing good at watching what he does and says because of this. Jake is crazy about him@!

FORKS

Well, the household here has been crazy over TWILIGHT - a movie and book series. Forks, WA is where the ficitional story takes place. Because of being so close the kids (girls) really wanted to go there. Darrel and I decided to take them Easter weekend. Good Friday we drove 2 hours to Forks where there is a little town of 3000 people. Actually smaller than where we live now. The drive was long but once we got there the girls liked seeing the places were things were filmed in the movie. We got to go to a couple of stores with TWILIGHT things and the girls loved looking at those items. We got to see some pretty waterfalls but unfortunately not the one in the movie cause it required a hike and the little ones were not up to that. We then went to LaPush and got to see the beach. I picked up some rocks from there and they really are flat with different colors. Not as bright as I was expecting but definately different colors. The ocean was beautiful and the kids loved the beach including the little ones. We got some great pictures from that. The sand was black almost and the drift wood I thought was beautiful. The kids liked climbing on it all. Darrel thought it looked trashy and needed to be cleared out but I liked it. They have three beached named "1st beach, 2nd beach, and 3rd beach". The first is the only one like this. 2nd and 3rd are just flat where they filmed the movie at. The pictures at the bottom are of lake crecent on the way to forks. It is huge and beautiful because of the mountain backdrop and the clouds are always so low here. We even saw deer right here and they must be used to campers because the care was only 15 feet way when we took these.