Family & all the Wonderfulness of it!!!!

This past weekend we were lucky to have family in from out of town to attend Eliza's baptism. Britt & Jim, and Grandma & Grandpa Rose came to visit. Grandma & Grandpa Homer arrived back from their summer stay at the cabin. We are blessed to have great family and friends. A lot of friends showed up to share the special day with us also. Paul & Michelle Duchateau came up from Salem, and quite a few wonderful friends from our ward now, as well as our previous ward, showed up. Alan baptized her, first saying the prayer in Japanese and then in English. I think a few people were taken back when he started out in Japanese. She looked beautiful in her white dress. She was given 2 necklaces, a bracelet, a brand new set of scriptures with her name on them, a "Secret Garden" book that she and mom plan on reading together, and an adorable cloth bag she can use as a luch sack, or just to keep goodies in, along with 8 dollars and some yummy fruit leather. After her baptism we had a BBQ at the house. We had friends and family and it was so nice to just sit and visit with adults while the kids played and ran around. Everyone pitched in and helped with clean-up and it was finished lickety split.
Everyone started to leave early Sunday morning, and I took my folks to airport this morning. It is fun to have them come, but a big let-down when everyone leaves.

Catching up on Life

Life at our home has been busy & hectic. Okay can I just use that as my excuse everytime there is a lapse in our blog? Okay, so we got the house painted, some of us turned a bit older (in my case just wiser- I wish), Alan & I walked and ran to the coast, our household downsized by one outgoing freshman BYU-I student, school started, and now we are starting to take on more house guests/previous residents as family arrives for the upcoming baptism of 8 year old Eliza Brooke Homer. We are excited that she is taking this big step to be baptized. We know she is a great girl, and we know that our Heavenly Father is happy with her decision.

This morning Kaitlyn, Brittni & I got up early to go to downtown Portland to run/walk the Race for the Cure. Alan & Eliza went as driver, cheerleaders and the support team (they do a great job!!) They had a new chip timed run, so, of course I had to go for that one. Kaitlyn & Brittni decided walkin was more their style (we know which ones still have the brains in the family). We were all happy to have survived it, and to have done something for the cause. All the added goodies they handed out were pretty fun too!!

FRESHLY PAINTED HOUSE

We finally broke down and had our house painted. This was a stresser for me (Judy). First I had to pick a color I liked. Then I stressed out after picking a color as the color I chose didn't look like what I thought it would when we looked at the little chip at the store, or at a 2'x2' square on the house. The painter's had to push our job back a week due to another job and rain trouble. The week they started it rained for the first 2 1/2 days so not much progress. Then they had forgot to back roll the big tall side of the house. Kaitlyn was also having a garage sale on the fri/sat of that week and I didn't want the painters working on the front of the house then. Plus Alan and I had our PDX/Hood 2 Coast race that weekend. You should have seen our property when we left- looked like white trash lived here- and that was probably giving it too much credit. Took them into the next weekend to get everything finished. The front & back doors took way longer than they thought (about 3 days to sand, stain and urethane). But we finally signed off on Friday along with writing out the check (ouch) to pay for it. But we are pleased!!! Mom, if you read this I know you find it funny that I would paint my house green after hating green when I was younger. Guess it must have been ingrained in me somehow.
BTW- the house actually looks green and not mud colored. The photo does not show the true color.

Where did summer go? Was it ever really here??

So the kids wanted me to blog, but I didn't realize I was suppose to write every day of my life!! Besides not having enough time for that, I really do not live an extremely exciting life.

So August is nearing the halfway mark. It will soon be time for school to start again! : (
But before that gets here we have a million crazy things in August-
-school clothes shopping
-getting the house painted
-birthday shopping for a soon to be 8 year old
-birthday shopping for a soon to be 18 year old college girl
-birthday shopping for a soon to be -ahem- older Mom
-Hood 2 Coast Relay for Alan
-Portland 2 Coast Relay for Judy
-Kaitlyn & McKinna will host a garage sale to raise funds for Garrett's service dog
http://4paws4garrett.com/
-Anniversary shopping **hint*hint**-Alan
-Trip to take McKinna to Rexburg, ID for her first semester at BYU-ID
-Trips for Alan to ALabama, California, and maybe Malaysia or China or somewhere like that (we never know til "tomorrow").
Then September hits with a bamm and 3 birthdays in the first week- CRAZY!!!

Where did the summer go?? It seems we didn't do much but work and hang out at home. One short trip to the beach & quick trip to UT, but not much else. And now it is almost history. Will life ever slow down? More importantly- will I ever get much accomplished??

The Male Parental Unit

I find it amazing that my children are so animated in their writing. I'm not sure why I am so surprised- they are that way in person. I get much enjoyment in reading their blogging.
We have not given the male parental unit the password to blog yet. I (the female parental unit) am fearful of what he might blog. We all know he is lovable, but crazy , and sometimes has a tendancy to embarrass the rest of us. If one thinks that his words are crazy, you ought to see him try to be cool with his kids. (I think I can hear the girls rolling their eyes). Seriously, though, he is a great husband and an outstanding dad. He works hard, plays hard, and watches episodes of House hard.
He enjoys spending time at the family cabin in Island Park Idaho. He loves to play games with the kids. He teaches math by making up games. He loves to embarrass the girls' friends by asking "Do you have your homework done" as soon as they walk in the door. But in spite of it their friends really like him (maybe even better than their own dads).
Alan is one who always wants to help. He would stop and help every stranded motorist he could. He has taught his girls to help others. When we lived in Salem there was flooding in some parts of the city. Alan took Nicole and they went and filled sandbags. He is always ready and willing to clean up after an event we have attended. And he can seem to get any baby to stop crying.
There are alot of other things we could say about the male parental unit at our house, but we wouldn't want to give him too much ammo to use next time we want to pick on him.

Post from your favorite blogger

Yup! I (kaitlyn) am finally giving my imput on this blog. I'm gonna tell it like it is. No messin' aroung here.

First of all, you need the truth about each family member.
DAD- The only boy. dances crazy, but does the BEST sprinkler.
MOM- Can do just about everything. Bike, run, swil, bake, cook, scrapbook, and sooo much more!
NICOLE- She is a princess and gets whatever she wants. She kicks butt at every game. Hmmm, connection?
Brittni- Shes pretty much a computer geek. Has been since she was like twelve or something. She loves turtles and is an AMAZING knitter.
MCKINNA- She does super cool stuff all the time. She can drive and steer a steam engine. She has her ham radio liscense. And she wants to learn to fly a plane.
KAITLYN- She is the most amazing girl ever! One thing she loves to do is watch movies all day. Her most favorite ones to watch over and over and over are : Juno, she's the man, hercules, mulan, and a walk ot remember. But she also lovvvves watching house with her dad, Even though she has to cover her eyes half the time cuz of the blood and needles and intubating. She's also a LAX star!! Well, not really, but she loves it with all her heart, and gets to play lots of different positions. (LAX=lacrosse)
ELIZA- (often known as bean) She is one crazy little bugger. (bugger NOT booger-similar, but different) She loves to look up music videos of her favorite artists- Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus, Taylor swift, and carrie underwood. She is awesome at soccer, but also loves basketball and Kaitlyn is trying to convince her to love lacrosse.
Grandpa Homer- He's always thinkin' about other people and doin' all he can do to help. He loves to laugh, and make poeple laugh. He also loves to tease grandma :)
Grandma Homer- She worrys enough for all of us, but we love her! Shes always working on some project like filing, or getting birthday cards ready, or writing letters.
Brian- Secretly he is spiderman! He also loves racecars, and does anything to make nicole happy.
Jim- (AKA Jimbo) He is a SUPER red socks fan, and loves his turtles.


That is the super condensed bio of each of the family members. Our family is pretty much the best. I mean sure, we fight, but when we are all gettin along and stuff, we are the best bunch around.

And now heres an update on the homer household. This is a whole different section because this is all about whats been goin on and coming up at the homer house. So pretty much Nicol and brian, and brittni and jim, and g-ma and g-pa (thats their gangster names) aren't included cuz none of em' live here right now.
Well, this is a cherry year. Every other year is a cherry year. which means we Actually get cherries. But this year the weather was CRAZY, so we have alot, but they aren't as delicious as the past years. Mom is making jam at this exact moment. Rasberry I believe. Then shes gonna make marion berry I think. Not much else is goin on so I think this is a good time to end this post.

-Kaitlyn Homer,out!

Xtreme w/a Capital X!!

What were we thinking??

We went down to UT this past weekend to go to a friend's (Matt Kirkham) wedding. It was a long drive down, but arrived safely Thursday evening at Judy'd parents in Orem. Friday found Eliza spending the day with G&G Rose, while KD spent the day in SLC with Aunt Janice. Alan & Judy went to Matt's wedding, in the beautful Bountiful Temple, in the afternoon and then Alan, Judy & KD attended the reception that evening at Little America in downtown SLC.

When we decided to go to UT, I, Judy, being of unsound mind, decided that we should do an event while there. I googled the internet and found an 8K trail run. Now we had no plans for Saturday morning and we needed to run 11 miles for our marathon training that day (or so our schedule would dictate). But UT is at a much higher altitude, and the trails were up in the Snowbird ski resort, so I thought that was an even exchange (I already said I wasn't of sound mind). The day before the race I happened on an article in the newspaper that described the run we were planning on doing the next day.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_9701513?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com


Needless to say it did nothing to aleviate my fears that they might have to bring our bodies down from the mountain in bags. With little sleep, but much fear and trepidation we headed for the mountain early in the morning on Saturday. We got our bib numbers, t-shirts, and a look at the map, and headed for the starting line. The first 3/4 of a mile gave a false sense of my ability to enjoy the run. But from then on the whole thing kicked butt- we went from an altitude of 7000 ft to 9000 ft (we train at @ 200 ft). I had jokingly said that it would probably be uphill both ways. No joking it pretty much was. It did a figure 8 so you pretty much knew what pain was coming the second time. Happily we both crossed the finish line without the aid of body bags. It took us both just over an hour to complete. Judy won a hat, and even got her picture on the website (bottom right).

http://www.stridersrunning.com/xterra_snowbird_8k_2008

Now there are those of you out there who might think that insanity has set in at the Homer's- at least in the Parental Unit department. But we are just trying to stay young so we can keep up with our kids.