Books

We found the library! They all had to pose with the books. M&M will have them all read within 2 weeks. ;) 

1st test block down..how many more?

We all survived the first test block! This means that James had a test in all of his classes spread out over 2 days. I think the count was 10 tests. Kill me now. I'm glad I'm not the one going to school. This mommy-brain would not be able to handle the pressure! After he's finished James is ready to get away and de-pressurize. heh. We explored a near-by city called Naches. Found a yummy place to eat! 

Originally we were going to camp, but it had been raining a bit and we didn't want to get soaked. We decided on a evening trip to a lake instead. It turned out to be so pretty! We went to Rimrock Lake, threw rocks, ate golden graham smores, got muddy, watched the sun set, and enjoyed the time together. It's these kind of weekends that will get all of us through medical school!

School

We have officially started! 

This was the real first day for the girls. Excited and nervous to start a new school! 

CJ started a couple days later with much anticipation. They all ride the bus and I've never seen him eat his breakfast so good to not miss the bus. He of course had 30 mins to kill he was so quick. After school he asked "do we get recess everyday?" We told him yes, and that made his day. I guess we know what he really enjoyed at school. 

We had to do a do-over for the sake of CJ's first day. So far the girls hate riding the bus home. It is really hot and they "sweat and stick to each other". Sounds pleasant. 

I have not missed school papers. Bring on the mess! Bleh. 

Fruit picking

I've been anxious to go pick some fruit since we moved here. All I heard before we moved was you're going to love all the fruit! So where is it all?? Well my friend clued us in to a place where we could go and pick as many blueberries as we wanted. Score! My kids had the best time and got along the best yet! They each had their own bucket to fill and it seemed like a race who could pick the most. We went right as the sun was coming down so temperatures were perfect! We picked for about 45 minutes and succeeded in picking 8 pounds! At $1.25/pound, that was a steal. Only one biff from CJ that resulted in a spilled bucket. Luckily he was more into running at full speed pointing out blueberries than actually picking so not a big loss. We will definitely go back! Hoping James can join  us next time. Now I know most the fruit is on the west side. It's everywhere!

PNWU White Coat Ceremony

While Charise was off to a wedding I was busy at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima, WA going to orientation for medical school.  At the end of the week was our white coat ceremony. You can read about the origin of the white coat ceremony here.  We were cloaked with the white coat as entrance to the medical profession along with a creed to act professionally at all times, and to respect the role as a doctor, accepting all who are in need of care without judgement.  It was a good way to have closure to the previous chapter of my life and begin a new one.

Here is a picture captured by the Yakima Herald of the cloaking of my coat.

Here is a picture from PNWU on flickr with the president of the university Dr. Keith Watson and a member of the board of trustees Dr. Mike Maples. Here we go!

He's alive!

I actually got to spend an evening out with the hubs! No studying for him. A great friend watched all kiddos for us and we went for an evening jaunt. An exciting way to end a long week. I think I chanted "I love my kids...I love my kids" at least 50 times today. :)

We rode along a path by the Yakima river and up into some hills with orchards. So pretty to see all different kinds of fruit growing around us. My back tire finally bit the dust (I've been babysitting a very slow leak for months) so we had to deal with a flat. No biggie.  Surprised it lasted this long. Until our next date night...!

School Shopping

I'm reminded how much I really don't like school shopping. School shopping with 4 kids tops it! ;) At least I avoided the "ghetto" Walmart and went to the "high class" Walmart. Now we're talking. So much more enjoyable as far as Walmart experiences go. I'll take the 20 minute drive to have someone talk to me in english. Eeek, a little harsh...but so true.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy anniversary to me! We had the privilege of having Dad home for dinner so we took advantage of it. OK, we get him home for dinner most days but had to make it a little extra special. A nice table set by Little A, salad & dessert prepared by M&M, and the corn was shucked by CJ & Little A. There was a huge bawl fest (CJ) after the peeling of the corn was over because CJ didn't get to touch the last ear of corn. He failed to mention it to Little A though that he wanted to. Great.

He set the tone for dinner. I'll leave it at that. :) 

Scrumptious steak with sautéed onions and mushrooms, topped with Gorgonzola cheese. Dessert was baked peaches with oatmeal crisp on top and ice cream. I think I need to lay down now.

Miss L was loving her dessert. She couldn't even look up to smile. This was her "smile". Too involved in the goods.

Happy 13 years to us! 

I'm going to go fold laundry and eat some of this.  

Exploring

Moving to a new town is always fun in regards to learning where things are. I liked my little life before. I knew where just about everything was! I'm having to learn where the best place to grocery shop, safest parks, and where to go for rides and a run. I haven't ventured into riding much yet due to not knowing where to even go and having to arrange a place for my kids. I have nightmares where all the stars align, I'm able to head out and then I venture into ghetto territory get a flat, accompanied by being mugged and then stuck. Hah, I know a little extreme, but I'll eventually get out. Any cyclists out there in yakima?!? 

For now I'm running the hills around our house (those are gonna kill me) and sticking to burpees. If you don't know what that is, look it up and do 100 in 10 minutes. You'll thank me. :) 

Anyway, to let you all know we made it to Costco. Yeah for having a Costco! Oh, and Target. I will survive this town. We found a cool park too. 

We moved!

So I didn't reach my goal in playing "catch up" before we moved! Onto the present so you all can keep tabs on us. We have had a whirlwind last few months. We put our house on the market in April and had an offer the first weekend! A big surprise, and seemed too good to be true. Turned out we had a 2nd offer on our house a couple days later. Crazy! We accepted the best of the two offers and prepared to move the end of May. Inspection day on the house didn't fair so well. He found water in our crawl space due to the hose bib cracking over the winter and now was leaking water down in there. Not good. :( We jumped on it, contacted a restoration crew to clean it all, and dry it up. Crisis averted. Not so much, the buyers bailed and so we were back to square one with listing our house again. We listed again and had another buyer put an offer in within a few days The second people also came back and offered again. We accepted the better of the two and now our move date was towards the end of June. Even better for us! Except we still didn't have a place to move to in Yakima. I'd been checking everyday for new rentals or places we could live. Nothing was panning out. Out of the blue someone I had contacted earlier messaged me and said their place was still available. We just about took it on the spot! We hadn't even seen the place, but knew we had to get it. The timing of it all was perfect and we were truly blessed in how it all went down.

The mini "pods" that we loaded up (7 total)

Since our house sold a little early we still had to find a place to live for 1.5 months. We have awesome family and friends who offered their places to stay which we took advantage of. We stayed with my brother and his family and also James' parents. We also took a vacation to Canada for a family reunion, stopped in Spokane for a few days, and then finally moved our things to our new house.

No beds for this crew! We sold all their furniture before moving. They thought it was fun to sleep on the floor for about a day. 

Our little helper!

Can you see someone in there? 

Our home!

The family room

Kitchen/office/family room :)

This will all be such a new adventure for us. James has started his classes full force and we have seen him for a total of  5 hours in the past 3 days. Oy vey. This is only the beginning. Hopefully we can all survive each other. James is hoping he doesn't come home some day and find that I shipped off CJ to boarding school. It's a joke.