happy birthday mom!

Today I wanted to wish my mom a HAPPY, HAPPY birthday. She is just finishing her 18-month mission to Sao Paulo Brazil & we can't wait to have her home! Her mission has been very rewarding but also had its moments of discouragement. There are no words to express how PROUD I am of her--more proud than I ever thought I could be. I respect her so much for her courage, faith, and especially her hard work. She is the most hard working person I have EVER known. She always pushes herself harder and goes the extra mile when a normal person (i.e. myself) would . . . well, take a nap! Thanks for your amazing example to us all!

I love you Mom. Parabens pelo seu aniversario!

the trip home from redmond

yes. it deserves it's own post. thanks to dan's father's day gift--a garmin nouvie (sp?) gps system--we had quite an adventure. we faithfully followed the garmin's directions through the mt. hood national forest (it must be a shortcut right?) only to get STUCK IN THE SNOW. that's right. in the 3rd week of june. we had to climb through 18" of snow in shorts and flip flops and dig our way out with a couple tree branches and a frisbee! now there's a family adventure we won't soon forget. the moral of this story is: when in doubt, trust your instincts, not the garmin!

trip to redmond, part II

the weather was so gorgeous! we enjoyed our time in the sun. madeline was determined to come home with a tan, but as you can see she ended up not only with a burn, but a "farmer's burn" at that!

trip to redmond, june 2008

this was a fun family trip for emma's soccer tournament. this was our fishing day. some of us fished and some of us waited patiently for said fishers. while waiting, we had an interesting encounter with a very tame swan.