Saturday, February 14, 2009

NEWPORT AND OAK HARBOR TRIP

Well, here are some pics and things from our recent road trip to Newport, Oregon and Oak Harbor, Washington. We went to Newport for a Bible Conference. The theme of the conference was "Baptists in America" and the messages focused on the first Baptist Church in America, the Baptists' contribution to religious liberty, the move west, etc. It was a very good conference. Mike preached on the life and ministry of Elder John Leland, and on the subject of Religious Freedom in America.

In Oak Harbor Mike preached at a Men's Rally on Friday night and on Saturday morning, and then again for Sunday Evening Services. The church put us up in a very nice hotel room that had a separate bedroom with a king size bed, a main room with 2 queen size beds, a couch that made into a bed, a kitchen table, and a small kithenette. It was very nice.

On Saturday morning while Mike was at the Rally, the rest of the family met up with the Elam family (who are missionaries to Russia...the father was also preaching at the rally), and went to Fort Casey. The pics from the week are below.
This is Kami and Camille Elam. She used to play on the Canadian National Team, and was in the Atlanta Olympics (they came in 11th out of 12 teams!).

This is Mykaela at a Tea Party the Newport ladies put on. There was a lot of fancy things. She really enjoyed it.
At one of the meals and John and Tilly Kraft's home, where we stayed while at Newport. They have a very nice, large, log home.

Kourage taking at potty break at a rest stop on the way to Oak Harbor.

Below are pictures of Fort Casey:



The McDowell and Elam kids.








Brian and Camille Elam with their 3 sons, Shawn, Matthew, and Joshua.
Mercy was very tired after climbing all the stairs and things at the fort. She couldn't bring herself to smile.

We had a wonderful time on the trip. We left on Monday and saw Grandpa Jack and Gra-Lu at the mall in Bellingham. Tuesday was Kami's grandma's 89th birthday. We enjoyed spending a few hours with them before heading back to Fossil. We got home about 12:30am or so.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Malachi's Faceplant





Well, here are some pics of Malachi's faceplant out in front of the neighbor's house. We took him in to the clinic to make sure that everything was okay, and everything checked out okay. We still haven't figured out how he flipped over his handlebars on his bike. Mykaela said he was riding with his handlebars backwards, and used the wrong brake, Malachi said he though that he might have gotten his foot stuck in the spokes...who knows...knowing Malachi, it was a combination of the two! Anyway, he seems to be doing better. Maybe we can get a pic of some good black eyes tomorrow.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Will these be big enough for a sweet potato casserol?

Here are some yams we bought this week. We got them on a 10 lb. sale. These three gave me my 10 lbs.! They are too big to bake, so we will cut them up, boil them, and mash 'em up. These are so much better than regular potatoes!



Here is Kayson sitting up watching Mama get a bath ready for him.
...and him playing peek-a-boo.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Mercy's tower of logs




Saturday, January 10, 2009

Some More pics

Here are a few more pics of the kids....Kourage on the table using Micah and Malachi's leather working tools, coon skin caps, Lincoln Logs, etc.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Mykaela's poem and the story behind it

Mykaela wrote a poem about some actions of their cousins in Salem (Kaleb, Katjana, and Kalvin). I am going to paste in an email from their mother that tells the story and then has Mykaela's poem:

So last night, Isaak was fussy in the evening, and then I stayed up too late....nearly 2am, and then wouldnt' you know he woke up crying at 3:30am. He kept rubbing his ear and crying and was up for a good 2 hours. I finally got him back to sleep at 5:30am and drifted back to sleep. Well, the night before, the kids had gotten it into their head to try making breakfast using a recipe or two from Katjana's Kids Cookbook that I got her for Christmas. They had not attempted this before, but Katjana mentioned she would be trying to get up early, and then Kaleb asked her to wake him up too, cuz he would like to help. Of course Kalvin wanted to be in on it too.
Katjana was up at 3:30am with Isaak, as he was sleeping upstairs, in the boys' room. She heard him crying and tried to help, but he was inconsolable. She laid down and drifted in and out I think, for at least one hour. I tried putting Isaak back to bed around 4:30 am, but he was up crying again in a few minutes. Well, eventually, all the kids were woken up by his crying, and I kept telling them to lay still and NOT TALK. I took him downstairs and when he finally fell asleep around 5:30am, I just put him in the play yard in the living room, after giving him Tylenol, and he seemed to be sleeping soundly.
Around 7:30, after only about 3 hrs of broken sleep, Kyle and I woke up to the sound of the BLENDER and 3 VERY EXCITED and ANIMATED voices, and the smell of EGGS!!!! Yikes!! Here Isaak is supposed to be sleeping soundly in the living room, and the lights are all on in the kitchen, 3 kids are talking loudly, and the blender is roaring! Kyle and I got up and found that they had already made three "omelettes" and were in the process of making a smoothie.
There were only 5 eggs left in the fridge, and the recipe was for 2 egg omelettes, so there were 2 normal omelettes and one small one, made with one egg. They had them nicely laid out on the table for Kyle and I to each eat one large one, and they were to split the small one, three ways. Well, the omelette recipe called for Cream cheese and fresh parsley or basil inside, and they didn't have those things, so they decided to make it a 'sweet' omelette. They weren't going to "make it all herb-ish and stuff" so they decided to delete the pepper that was called for, but they decided they better leave the salt in. Then, what to put in the omelette?
Well, I think they MUST have been thinking of Kami's peach crepes that we had at your house, because they found some "Whipping Cream" (unwhipped), and a bag of frozen blueberries in the freezer. They poured a nice strip of Whipping Cream down the center of those omelettes, and lined up a nice line of frozen blueberries, and Voila, an omelette. (They insist they KNEW it wasn't a crepe). Their voices and faces were the most animated and thrilled and pleased and excited as I have nearly EVER seen them. Kyle and I could hardly HARDLY keep from laughing and certainly couldnt' keep large smiles off our faces. They were SO logical and serious in their explanations about the salt and pepper, and how they were going to make muffins, but thought it was rather dangerous to use the OVEN unattended (but safe to use 'just the stove'!?) Oh dear!
They were in process of making a smoothie with some peach yogurt and more frozen blueberries. The smoothie was rather tasty, and washed down those salty crepes very handily. I was so tired, that it honestly felt like the very MIDDLE of the night, waking up to eat this strange food. We set them to work on their math, and went straight back to bed. If you can believe it--Isaak stayed asleep for a couple more hours, and I got 2 more hours of sleep. What a funny, funny night it was! I honestly dont' know if any of them slept a wink past 4:30 this morning!
Later this afternoon, I called Kami to tell her about it, and she thought it was great, and told her kids after she got off the phone. They thought it was the most hilarious thing, and Mykaela insisted that it sounded like a Dr. Seuss story, so she sat right down and wrote a poem about it!!!! She called it, Our Om-Crepe, and here it is:
OUR OM-CREPE
by Mykaela McDowell
"Say, let's mix up something for breakfast, you two!"
"Oh my, oh yes, let's do! Let's do!"
So we quietly got up and scrambled downstairs,
And began to cook like great hungry bears!
We first stole a look in Katjana's cookbook, and what we saw there--
"Oh, take a look--take a look!"
It was omelets! (or crepes, whichever you choose...)
So we started to cook-there was NO time to lose!
We looked at the picture-It looked pretty good,
But the recipe didn't sound right...the way a crepe should!
We decided to improvise and change...just a tad--
Oh what a surprise for our mom and our dad!
That pepper, the pepper! It REALLY must go--
But the salt? Oh it could stay , we needed it so...
We mixed and we blended, we scraped and we stirred,
And added or took out all we preferred.
We needed some blueberries--perhaps some whipping cream?
We were ALMOST finished, oh...of what more could you DREAM?
We finally finished--it turned out rather runny,
But our parents thought our om-crepes were very cute and funny!


I personally thought it could have been ended a little better, and I had my version, but Kami didn't think it should be included, so I will add it here:

Our om-crepe was not so great, we really shouldn't boast
I think we'll stick to mom's recipes, like creamed corn over toast.

Well, anyway...there is Mykaela's poem.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Kayson

Here is a video of Kayson's new laugh.