Vocab a la Caley #2

What's this?

Anyone?
Anyone?

According to Caley, it's a "staircastle." Pretty creative eh?

Run-A-Muk

Today I ran my first race, a 10K, which was really exciting for me. It was the Run-A-Muk which is part of the Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival, check it out here. The race took me and maybe 150 other runners doing the 5 and 10K from the Rosehill Community Center north on 5th/Mukilteo Boulevard, to Harbourview Park (actually part of Everett) and back on the boulevard, through some neighborhoods and back to the community center. It was a fun race! In the last mile or so this lady passed me and I made it my goal to beat her to the finish line so I booked it to the end. It was a lot harder than my normal runs because I sprinted in the first half mile out of excitement and it wore me out. I am looking forward to doing more competitive runs and learning how to compete, not just run for fun and exercise.

I like living in a small town and getting involved in local events. I hope to run this race again for many years to come!

VBS

Last week we did VBS with Mars Hill Shoreline. I wanted to blog about it on here, but I think what was written on the Shoreline Blog is much better. Check it out here.

I worked in Caley's class, the 3s (and many 2s). It was like herding cats, but the kids had fun playing with the texture tub, going on a pretend picnic, and hearing the Bible stories. We also got a CD with all the VBS songs. After hearing them every day for a week I got a little sick of them, but they're actually good songs that Caley loves to sing to in the car now. I don't mind it too much either. Amelia was in the baby room and did great, I just visited her to change her diaper and nurse every so often.

We're already looking forward to next year's VBS, and hopefully it'll go a little smoother now that we know what to expect.

Yearbook Yourself

I found this cool website that lets you put your face (or someone elses face!) on a yearbook photo from the past. It didn't work quite the way I wanted (I look a little freaky) but you get the idea. Or maybe it's just my face that looks freaky...

Here's what I would have looked like in 1974. It's spooky how much this picture looks like my mom's senior picture.
1992 me
And lastly, here's me if I'd graduated in 2000. Wait, that's actually the year I graduated! But this doesn't look anything like my senior year picture. I must have been behind the times.

Caley the Cutie PIe

Caley's a Mukilteo Cutie Pie! She's a finalist in the 2nd annual Mukilteo Cutie Pie contest sponsored by Vicki Derks Photography. I entered both the girls, and this year Caley's in the top 10. If you want to vote for her, go to http://vickiderksphotography.com/, go to Galleries, then Mukilteo Cutie Pies, then 2008 finalists, and she's #9. The winner will be announced at the Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival and we'll get to march in the Lighthouse festival parade!

Here's the photo I entered, thanks for taking it at our tea party Rachael!

Caley's in Disneyland

Okay, not really Disneyland, but for a three-year-old visiting Grama and Papa, it's pretty close. Caley's spending the week with my parents in Astoria, "Cousin Camp minus the cousins." When I was a kid we would visit Grandpa Bob and Grandma Ev for a week in the summer with our cousins, so this is reminiscent of that, there just aren't any cousins yet! Unless my parents want to watch our eleven Gerlach neices and nephews...
They will come home and stay the weekend with Amelia while we go to Lake Chelan. My mom's been sending pictures and Caley looks like she's having so much fun, she probably doesn't even miss us. It's been a nice, quiet week for us here and Amelia is enjoying the extra attention. Enjoy these pictures!

Happy Birthday Amelia!

Dear Amelia,
Today you are 1 year old. We are so blessed to have you in our lives. Your little personality is shining through and we look forward to the future years with you. Thank you for being a part of our family.
Love, Mommy, Daddy, and Caley

Part 1 finished

The first half of the summer project is done. Yay! It took less time than we thought, and we're glad that it's over. Now we just need to get the house painted and it'll look ship-shape.

lookin good...

The siding guys are working their butts off and doing a great job! So far they've replaced the entire back and west side of the house, and the bottom half of the front. Not much dry rot has been found, thankfully, but on the west side they found some ants. Yay! We kind of expected that, since we regularly see ants on that side of the house and in our bedroom. They just treated the areas with some ant killer and if we continue to see ants we'll just get an exterminator. And thankfully they're not carpenter ants as far as we know.


The dirt outline around the door is where the decorative trim was, it will be replaced.

I love how the flowers shine in all their glory amidst debris.

They forgot to put the doorbell back on!

Wood

Rad title huh. That's the contemporary or modern 6th wedding anniversary present. While I didn't actually get Addie a gift made out of wood that I recall for our 6th, I did take her to a great lodge where we discovered really nice old world style hardwood floors, and a practically empty long stretch of beach with more than enough driftwood. Ok, I'm stretching it a bit, but I could make a pretty good case for keeping with that theme.

But what a great place to enjoy God's creation and each other's company for our anniversary. We had a nice time to forget about everything and just relax in Oregon at Cannon Beach. For a while I had that feeling like I forgot my pants or something, as the kids were at their grandparents for over a day, and it's always a bit weird and scary for a second when Addie and I are both together and the kids are not with us. JUST like when I forget my pants.

So we goofed off on the beach and saw some large clusters of starfish and other sea life, and once almost got trapped on the wrong side when the tide came in.




more to come.....

July 4th part duece

Just a few photos from Phil's boat on July 4th out on Lake Washington. Would have taken actual fireworks shots but on a moving boat, well...they'd be blurry. Thanks Phil and Ann for taking us out and for our friends who came along.