More snow

We just finished spring break.  Like usual, it rained almost the whole week.  We watched a few high school baseball games in the rain.  Luckily the stadium has covered seating, so while we were freezing, but at least we were dry.  The best part of the week was when our family went on a snow outing up on Mount Hood.  Ann-Elise was invited to a very creative birthday party for one of her oldest friends.  Our whole family was invited up to Tyee Lodge on Mt. Hood.  We'd known about the outing for about a month, but I didn't commit until about 2 days before we were supposed to be there.  And boy, am I glad we decided to go.  The mountain had a ton of snow and it was a beautiful winter spring wonderland.  We hiked in about .5 mile to the cabin and unloaded.  We spent 24 hours playing in feet of snow, sipping hot cocoa, warming by the fire, eating amazing food, and playing games.  What an awesome end to spring break!

 Watching the birthday girl open gifts.  Look at the snow out that window!

The kids playing Headbands, a new birthday gift.

Welcoming Spring!

Well, no one can say that the weather in the Willamette Valley is boring this year!  We have had a fairly mild, albeit wet, winter.  Although other areas in the valley have seen snow, Hubbard has been immune.  To the dismay of all of my children.  However, over the past few weeks we've had snow every tuesday morning when we wake up.  It doesn't stay past a few hours and it's usually just a light dusting, and school has been on schedule.  This week, the welcoming of a new spring, has proven different.  We had snow on Monday this week instead of Tuesday.  School as usual.  It melted and we went on our way.  Yesterday (Wednesday), Salem and south had a dumping of snow, we just had some flurries, until last night.  It started to stick.  Conner had a scout board of review and then baseball practice and by the time we left the church at 8:15, the roads were covered.  When we left the field house around 9, this is what it looked like...

Then we got home and were unable to park the suburban in the garage because we couldn't get up the driveway and I was afraid if I tried too hard, I might slide back and hit Mike's car.  This is what it looked like out my car window...

This morning I woke up to the phone at 5:45 with a message that the kids' school was on a 2 hour delay.  So of course, I woke up the kids and told them to go play :)  Here are a few pics of the spring time adventure at the Lader's house...

And this is the view from my house.  I love living in town and seeing this!  Beautiful!

I hope your spring is filled with as much fun and surprise as ours!

another catch-up *sigh...

I just spent some time looking through some old posts from the past years.  I really need to update more often!  I'm going to try again.  and again...

Conner:  He's 13 and finishing up his 8th grade year at St. Luke Catholic School (yes, I know we're Mormon).  He is so ready to be done with school right now, but in my experience, 3rd quarter is always the hardest!  He has decided to attend North Marion High School and has filled out his forecasting sheet for classes for next year.  He has made the Senior American baseball team again this year and is excited to be working with the HS coach as his team coach this year.  Well, he may not be super excited, but Mike and I are!  He is still only about 4'11" and weighs about 90lbs (that may be a bit of a stretch, but I'll give him a couple extra).  He broke his hand by punching a brick wall during PE the week of Valentines day and that cut his basketball season short by a few days, and made baseball tryouts a little tricky, but he got his cast off 2 days ago and is back to cause all kinds of ruckus (not that he ever really stopped).  He is finishing up his requirements to earn his Life Scout rank in Boy Scouts.  He has one more merit badge that he needs to earn and then his Eagle Project and his goal is to earn the rank of Eagle Scout by the end of the year.

Alia:  She's 12 and in 7th grade at St. Luke.  She is quite the social butterfly and has made some great friends in her few years there.  She is loving being in Young Women's at church and it's fun for me to be able to see her branch out and be herself in front of groups of people.  She is excited to attend her second year of Girl's Camp this year.  She is reading "The Hunger Games" and is so excited to see the movie next week, she can hardly see straight!  She is an honor roll student and is a beautiful girl!

Ann-Elise: She's 11 and is playing softball this year.  She actually made the "B" team, which is the competitive team.  I think that's pretty amazing because she didn't play last year.  However, she opted out and is playing on the "C" team with her best friend.  I think she's pretty darn excited about that!  She is also a great student.  She's in 5th grade at St. Luke.  She is such a love and is always coming to give me hugs when I'm not having a great day.  She is such a sweet heart and I'm proud of the young woman she is becoming.

Adrie:  She's 6 and in 1st grade at St. Luke.  She LOVES school!  She has a wonderful teacher who appreciates her.  She is silly and goofy.  She has her ups and downs, but mostly she's up.  She LOVES to talk and tell stories.  It's not always easy for me to stop and listen because I just want her to get to the point, but I'm trying!  She loves to play soccer and can't wait for fall soccer to start so she can play with most of the kids in her class.  She also plays most days at recess.

Caile:  She's 5 and in kindergarten at St. Luke.  She's a silly girl.  She loves school and her friends.  She is a very determined little girl.  She always makes her voice heard.  She has beautiful long hair and loves to have her hair done in the mornings, even if it's just in a ponytail.  She likes to wear skirts and dresses and is a girlie girl.  She still loves to snuggle with me and I enjoy that time with her.  She likes to play with her friends and her and Adrie have made a good friend in a girl their age down our street.  They spend endless hours with Melanie and they are enjoying having someone so close to play with.

Mike:  Mike is traveling much more than usual.  He takes 6-9 trips a year.  Twice a year he goes to India for a couple weeks and twice a year he goes to Costa Rica for a week.  Throw in some trips to Atlanta and some trips for various meetings and he's gone a lot (for us!).  I'm finally figuring out how to do it all by myself.  It helps that the kids are older and self sustaining, for the most part.  He is still the ward mission leader and I think he has a love/hate relationship with his calling.  He loves the work, but hates the time commitment and the time away from us.  He is an amazing husband and loves to be with us.  We're looking forward to a fun family vacation in January to Disneyland.  I'm looking forward to watching Adrie and Caile experience it!

Me:  well...  I cook lunch for the kids at the school twice a week.  Between those 2 days, creating the menu's and shopping for the food, it's almost a part time job.  But I love it.  I am also the Laurel advisor at church and LOVE my girls!  They are so great.  They make me laugh and smile and they are so inspiring.  I also am the camp director and go to camp with my stake in the summer.  This will be my 5th year.  Should be fun.  I am blessed by wonderful friends and they make me smile :)  I am blessed to live such a charmed life and am thankful for the blessings that I have.

This is very long.  And I'm sure I could add a million more things, but I'm hoping to keep this up, just so I have my own journal of my life.

There's a new sport in town

I have been having a blast watching Conner wrestle! He's always been very athletic and I've always been involved in whatever he's doing at the moment. He wrestled way back in 2nd grade, but I don't know if you can really count that :) I talked him into signing up for the local public school's middle school wrestling team. It's actually the same coach that he had way back in the day. He's been practicing for about a month and has gone to 2 meets so far. He has wrestled 4 opponents all and a higher weight level. He's won all 4 matches!

Here's some video of his first match. He's the kid in the red shorts and black shirt.