This video is a little experiement. It seems to have worked out well, so you'll be able to enjoy more movies from our brilliant little family!

Snow Time Fun

Today we were snowed in even more than yesterday because of all of the ice on top of the snow!! The news said this is the biggest snow storm the Northwest has seen since the early 90's! The girls made snow chairs today and Chase, Ian, and Abbie went out tonight to play around a bit in the snow!! Chase decided to wear a pair of old boots Great grandpa Parker gave him which was perfect because the soles of the shoe were completely smooth...ideal for sliding!! Just watch the video to see how well that turned out!!! (You can't really see very well but it was hilarious!!) We all are really enjoying the snow because after this winter we won't see it again for another 5 years!

Snow and Decorating for Christmas

Today it is officially winter! We got our first (and hopefully not last) dusting of snow. We also decorated our Christmas Tree today. It looks really good! We got a lot of new ornaments to put on to it this year. Dad decided to get new lights for the tree. I think this is the first year we've ever had colored lights instead of the regular white ones. They look really pretty! We're all really excited for Christmas!

Ian's Wrestling Tournament

Ian went to a wrestling match yesterday. He wrestled five people and took 3rd place in the tournament. It was really exciting to watch him do so well. He made varsity last year, and this year we hope he continues to improve his skill.

Caitlin finished her quilt for Grandma Jackson. She did a GREAT job on her first quilt!



Ian shows off his project for the Culture Fair at school about Robert LeRoy Parker, a distant relative also known as Butch Cassidy.

This is our thanksgiving meal. Grandma Sunshine came up from Utah. We call her Grandma Sunshine because it never rains and is always sunny when she comes. You know the reputation of the Great Northwet. It's not true when Grandma Sunshine comes to town.

Poor Abbie! We promised her she could eat with us before the great Thanksgiving Movie work day. Unfortunately, Tom Turkey didn't cooperate and she had to go to work before everything was ready (we didn't feel like eating raw turkey). She wasn't very happy about it and we were sad she wasn't with us. We did think of her for a while, then we got down to business of stuffing ourselves and listing a few things we were grateful for. Abbie had to eat by herself after she got home, but we did share some pie with her afterward.

Chase is holding the Skyview High Cross Country team District 1st place tropy between his two very fine coaches, Chris Erdman and Bob Brands. Chase did well during the CrossCountry season this year. We have high hopes for him next year. He was 1st place runner at the District meet in Kelso, Washington, then he went to Regionals at Seattle and was 9th fastest runner, which qualified him for State with a time of 16:08. He had a great first run at State with a time of 16:11 coming in at #29. He earned the following awards:

Certificate of Participation at State
Distinquished Scholar Award
Varsity Award

Scholar Athlete Award

1st Team All-League

Runner of the Year

Chase was also asked to be the team captain for the 2009 season and was voted most valuable athlete for 2008 by his teammates. GO CHASE!!!!

Fall Family Pictures

Family Pictures

We took family pictures today. It was incredibly sunny so that's why everyone looks so squinty. I think we're going to take more pictures later on today. If we do I'll post them.

Chase's First Place District Race

This week Chase won 1st place in Cross Country Districts. On Halloween he is going to regionals in Seattle. It was really awesome because we got to Kelso High School right as Chase was sprinting the last 100 yards his race! It was really awesome!!! Turns out he was interviewed by a reporter and the next day there was a big article in the paper about him. It was really cool.

Camp Fire!

Grandma Pat came up this week to visit and also to watch Chase race. It's been a lot of fun! On Sunday we decided to build a fire in our backyard and roast hot doggies and make S'mores. I love s'mores. They are so delicious! It was a really nice night except for all of the mosquitoes. The fire was really hot because the wood was so dry, but it was cool because by the end of the night the fire had started glowing blue. It was cool! The sky was clear so when it got dark you could see the stars pretty well too! All in all, it was a fun night! By the way, don't you just love Chase's Sunday outfit?

Back to School Update

I'm the last person to go back to school so here I am. This is my first "official" day of college, even though I've been going for the last year or so. I guess it was pretty fun, but it doesn't even feel like I've had a summer vacation. It was good to see my friends.

Cute Dog

Here is a cute picture of Lala. I've been meaning to put this one up for a while, but I just haven't gotten around to it till now. She's just the stupidest dog, but she's so stinking cute!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Here is a birthday card that I drew for Grandpa. (I, meaning Abbie...). What can I say? I'm a girl of many talents! ; ) Looks pretty good I think. I used a plethora of languages on this card. There is Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Swedish, Italian, German, Dutch and Romanian...and English of course... : ) Thank goodness for google translate. I'm satisfied with that card. I think it's the best I've ever done. (^o^).

Back to School

Ahh....time to go back to school. :0 Everybody went school shopping so here are some of their outfits. I think they are all pretty cute, but Ian's shirt looks like Neopolatin Ice cream. Gross!

A day at the beach

Sorry, Abbie. You had to work, but we had FUN!

Chase's Portland-To_Coast Run

Chase ran a good race. He was car sick on the last leg, but ran anyway. Endure to the end? His team took 1st place in the High School Portland-To-Coast Challenge. There were 50 High School teams! Needless to say, he was a little spent when it was over. He crossed the finish line around 8:00 a.m. then spent the day at the beach. The race took 14 hours to complete a distance of 126 miles. His mile average pace was under 6 minutes, the team pace was 6:36 per mile. GOOD JOB!

Garden Update!

Just so you all can see...here are the fruits of my brother's labors! We are actually getting a lot of stuff from our garden this year. And our trees are starting to produce fruit. In fact, just the other day, my dad had me try this stuff that was like an odd, small, watermelon tasting thing...it turned out to be a fig from our fig tree. Real figs taste much better than fig newtons, that's for sure.

Portland to Coast

Today is the day! Chase and some members from his cross country team are running the Portland to Coast marathon. He left today at 4:00 pm and will arrive in Seaside sometime tomorrow. He really does enjoy running and is really quite good at it. This will be the second time he has participated in this run. Last year his team took 6th out of the whole race, which is really good considering they had one team member who had the stomach flu the whole time they were racing. He runs the last leg of the race so everyone is going to Seaside to watch him cross the finish line...except me because I only found out three days ago and now I have to work. : ( Not fair. But I hope they take first place! This is a picture of them before they left for their race...we'll see how it turns out afterwards....

Sugamo Girls

Well our friends Tomone and Moemi left on Monday. It was very sad because we had become very good friends over these last couple of weeks. We have their addresses and stuff though so we'll be able to stay in touch. They are in Disneyland right now and then tomorrow they go to Universal Studios and then on Wednesday they go back to Japan. We had a really good time with them.

Ian's Broken Arms

Well...we must say Ian is sure a big dork!!! This week he was running through a field at night, and then tripped over a curb and ran into a wall...breaking both of his arms. And nobody felt bad for him at all because he had just been making fun of a boy we know who broke both of his arms on a bike. He said, "How could he break both of his arms on a bike?". And we said, "How could you break both your arms running into a wall on your feet?". We don't feel bad for him at all. : )

Caitlin's Birthday

Yesterday was also Caitlin's birthday. She turned the big 12! Now she gets to go to Young Women and all those fun things and even is going to be in middle school!! (Scary!) We got her cake from Costco. It was chocolate with cheesecake icing in the middle and chocolate frosting on the outside. We also had Tillamook mint chocolate chip ice cream!!! Yummy!!! : ) She got a lot of clothes and money for her birthday.

Sugamo Girls

Our exchange student girls arrived safely yesterday from Tokyo. We are so happy to have them here, but really, I'm probably the most excited because I get to practice my Japanese with them. They barely speak any English at all, but they do alright communicating. Their names are Tomone and Moemi. (Moemi is the one with glasses.) They spend most of their day participating in English conversation classes and field trips. Then at five in the evening, we pick them up from school. We get the weekends with them though, so we're going to do some pretty fun things these next couple of weekends. Anyway, they are really nice girls and are really funny!!