Boat work

David and I spent some time Saturday working on our boat. At this point all the rotten wood has been removed including the floor, rub rails, mast step and centerboard trunk. Now we just have to put it back together!

Here David vacuums out the debris.



Below: Note in the foreground some of the rotten wood we pulled off the centerboard trunk.



We're not quit sure what color we'll paint her but when all the work is done she'll look something like this:

It's feeling like Christmas

This weekend we drove to a Christmas tree farm, picked the perfect tree, and brought it home to join our family for the next few weeks. The kids loved the excitement of decorating the tree and stringing the lights. Miriam closely inspected each ornament, David put up all the upper ornaments, and abigail filled in the middle parts of the tree.

This is the first time we've had Christmas in this house so it took a little extra time deciding where everything should go. But now it looks great and... it feels alot like Christmas time.

Of course we were so busy doing all of this that we didn't have any time to take pictures!

My Kids

This morning the big kids and I were chanting our latin endings "-o. -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt...." and here comes Miriam babbling along with us. She doesn't even speak English yet and is already working on Latin! What a smart girl (hehe). Now the big kids are playing "craig'slist". David is being Craig and Abbie is purchasing books from him with our set of play money. I am just relishing the cuteness of my kids today. Now back to normal life.

-Christina

Some great music!

Laura McGreevey just released her new album which includes the song "The Gift," originally written and performed by Laura for our short film of the same name. Check out the short film, listen to a few clips from Laura's album, check out Laura's MySpace page, or better yet purchase the album.

Congrats Laura!

Knots

We are all learning to tie knots. We got a book from the library that had 5 different knots in it. The kids know all of them now. They have had two knot learning sessions with Dad and they love to practice during the day with their little lengths of rope. David and Abigail both like the "double hitch" best. I still have 4 out of 5 to learn so I hope the kids don't mind teaching Mom!

-Christina



Tying the double hitch





Daddy figuring out the next knot


David captures the dining room chair

Peanut Butter Koalas

The last couple of weeks the kids and I have been learning about Australia. Friday we made Koalas after mixing up peanut-butter clay. They were not very Koala-like, but it was a lot of fun and yummy too!

Miriam goes potty!

Today we put the little potty together. Miriam was quite excited. I sat her on it and she promptly tinkled which made mommy quite excited. Wiping is by far the most fun for her. Let's hope this is the start of great things to come!

Mommy's little helpers

In preparation for some guests this weekend I baked a cake this morning. The girls "helped" by licking the bowl and scrapper.

School Begins

We have been easing into school the last couple of weeks. We did a little math and some writing just to jump start our brains and now we have started our unit study (history, geography, art, music, and Bible all around one theme). This week I am adding in Latin and Formal writing for David. I also got Abigail's handwriting and spelling programs in the mail this week. I am really excited about the spelling program. It isn't just lists of words but really teaches the rules and how to break down a word to spell piece by piece. Who knows, even I may learn to spell!

Finally Home

We spent two weeks living with my parents in Tigard. It was sure a busy time but also nice to be with family and in a place we could relax. The girls got into a little routine with Grandpa, going in to snuggle with him in the mornings. I got to spend a precious day with just my mom doing girl stuff and shopping. It was great.

We have said good-bye to Adriel's parents and brother Sean until next summer. Once again we will miss them greatly but we know the time will fly by. They are now settled back in Germany and Moscow respectively.

We are getting settled into our new home as well. It feels a little more like home everyday. This weekend we hope to find some good sales and get the shelving and cabinets we need for toys and school stuff. Adriel had built in bookcases into our last home so I lost a lot of shelf space and we need to replace that somehow. The other day Adriel made a comment about "to many books". I must have heard him wrong though since that is an oxymoron. I think one more week and we will have things mostly organized and under control. Thanks to adriel's great organizing skills the house is functional and it is just a matter of unpacking. I hope to post pictures soon.

-Christina

Packing

Friday will be our last night in this house. Our storage POD will be picked up sometime on Saturday so it needs to be fully packed Friday night. Saturday will be mostly for cleaning and moving a few things to Dad and Mom's house. We will be staying with them for about two weeks before our new home in Kaiser is available.

It is getting harder to think of leaving this place with each passing day. More boxes get packed and more memories come up. Five years here have seen our big kids grow up so much; and this is the place we brought Miriam home to for the first time. So much life has happened in these years. I know that down the road it will seem like a short time in our lives but right now it is big. Adriel and I have lived here for the great majority of our married life together. David barely remembers anything else, and Abigail not at all. For Miriam our cute little house here in Canby will only be a picture or someone else's memory.

We are thrilled with the home that the Lord is giving us and also a little wistful about the place and the people we are leaving behind. We will miss our neighbors and friends here most of all.

And the packing continues....

-Christina

Ten days and Counting

Our house is under contract now and we will be moving in 10 days. It should be an adventure!

Old is New Again

This week I went through many boxes, resorting, throwing away exc. in preparation for our move. I found many of my old dolls and stuffed animals. Abigail was delighted with these new treasures and here she is with the stuffed cat my Aunt Gwen made for me. She is aptly named "Flower".




-Christina

My baby and her baby

Miriam feeding her baby


Giggles



"Hmmm, how does this work again?"

Loose Teeth

Some of you know that Abigail has been claiming she has a loose tooth on and off for the last few years. This mostly occurs when her big brother loses a tooth. Now it has finally happened. My baby girl has her very own first loose tooth! Look for tooth fairy updates coming soon.

-Christina

Abbie's last reading box

Today Abbie finished her last reading lesson in her fifth and final reading box. We are very proud of all her hard work. Hooked on Phonics is finished so now we will just practice what she has learned. Good job Abbie!

-Christina

Blueberries

The kids and I went blueberry picking today (Thank you Miller Farm!) and we had a great time. We got 20 pounds of berries in a pretty short amount of time. I wish I had thought to bring my camera. Miriam mostly ate but she did get into the picking groove for a while and started throwing berries into Abigail's bowl. If you wondered it is pretty funny to watch a toddler carefully pick one berry at a time and drop it into a bucket. My fingers are still a little blue but we are very happy with our haul for the year. If any of you are interested in picking at the Miller's you drive straight threw Gervis and keep going over the freeway until you see a little sign that says "Blueberries" on your left. Only a dollar a pound, it's a good deal! If you don't know where Gervis is then you live to far away. Come by for berries!

-Christina

A new blog picture

Let's face it, we need a new blog picture. Yes, Miriam is in that one but she is still in utero and we went to great lengths to hide my rather large belly, so you can't even see that. I frankly don't know how to put a new picture up and my dear husband is about as slammed with work as a guy could be. It will have to be enough that I acknowledge that we need a new one and hope we get it before the baby is a two-year-old.

-Christina

Free Ice Cream!!!

Today the kids and I headed to Fred Myer to get a few basics. We are always in need of bananas for some reason. This time it was really essential to go because I was down to about 5 diapers, and that was if I checked the glove compartment of the car and the junk drawer in the kitchen. So off we went to Freddy's with the big kids thinking I am a big "Meanner" for taking them away from their friends. Never-mind that these little neighbor kids were rude to them and made them cry earlier in the day, nope, I was a meanner for making them leave.

Once at Fred Myer what should we see but a big Umpqua trailer. Hmmm, what could this be? FREE ICE CREAM!! woohoo! "Mom how did you know ice cream was my favorite?" For those of you who don't know Abigail, anything she likes at the moment is her favorite. So the kids (even Miriam) get their little sample cones and we head into the store. Things are looking up. After all, I have gone from being a meanner, to allowing ice cream in the middle of the afternoon. Then, you guessed it, disaster strikes. Not but a few licks in and Abbie's hits the floor. A quick scoop with a produce bag saves us from having to call the mop guy but I am afraid ice cream is exempt from the 5 sec. rule. No more ice cream and she had to watch Miriam eat hers, and drip it everywhere too. Never fear, although I made her wait until we were done getting our purchases the nice man at the Umpqua booth let her have another scoop and all was right with the world once more.

-Christina (Who has decided that if I don't sign my posts you won't always know who is writing)

Busy times

Well, I haven't exactly been keeping up this blog lately. Since Christina and I went on our getaway trip to Astoria a few months back life has been pretty much non-stop. Here's what's going on around the Henderson house:

- Miriam is now responding to "yes" and "no" questions with very prominent nods and head shakes. It's fun and we can't help but laugh at her drama as she reinforces that yes, she can in fact tell us what she wants now.

- We are exploring the possibility of buying a home. We've made incredible progress on paying off our out-of-business debt and we're seeing if we can build a home and wrap the remaining debt into the equity. The market in this area continues to climb and we don't want to wait longer than we need to lest we never be able to afford a home. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

- Christina's sister and her kids were here for a few weeks. The kids have enjoyed playing with their cousins and we've enjoyed visiting with Cathie.

- We've all been passing bugs back and forth. It's been quite the winter and spring as far as health goes. Yuck! I'm hoping for healthy summer months.

- My good friend Jeremy and I went on our third annual weekend road trip. This time we drove only 2000 miles, concentrating on eastern Oregon. Again I came back amazed at the diversity of Oregon's landscape.

- At SAIF my team of three is about to be just me. JD left in December and Brigitte is about to have her first baby. We're currently in interviews for JD's replacement, but the summer is definitely looking busy for me while I attempt to hold the fort down and cross-train our new hire. The good news is that the work days are going by fast.

- I'm working on a web site for Western Architectural. A temporary home page based on the new design is up, the full site will take a few more months of work.

I'm sure there is more that we are doing, but hope this summarizes the important parts that are keeping us busy!

- Adriel

The End of the Year is Near

The end of the school year that is. Math and reading will continue through the summer and I plan to sneak in the occasional history movie. What could be more exciting than the history of Britain on a 4 disk set?! Some of you are well aware that I really do find that entertaining. In fact I did find a nice set made by the BBC. It sure was dangerous to be the king of England!

We in fact have finished our books for this year and started in on next years work 2 weeks ago. We will continue for at least 2 more weeks and then jump into our summer schedule. I have made 2 major changes to our curriculum for the coming year. First is with Language arts/ writing. We have started using "Classical Writing" which uses classical Greek methods to teach writing. We also incorporate handwriting, a little spelling analysis and grammar into this program. The second big change is that we are using a "My Father's World" unit study. It is classically based and brings together music, art, history, geography/ culture study and science under one topic. This year we are doing their "Exploring Countries and Cultures" year which is focused on geography and culture study. After this they have a 4-year chronological history cycle. So far we are learning a lot and it is fun too!

Our most exciting news today is that Abigail has finished her first grade reading curriculum. She is doing great and we are very proud of all the effort she has put into her reading.

David went to "The Physics of Baseball" event at the Rose Garden; so look for a note about this from him coming soon.


-Christina

Sisters

View Full Size

Miriam is a walker now

Last week Miriam decided that she definitely could walk, and that has been the theme this week. Here she goes!

Awana Grand Prix

Today was the big race day, the Awana Grand Prix. Yes folks, this is the "Daytona 500" of pine car races! Abbie's car this year is a 57 Chevy, David's is a 67 Ford Mustang. Though they weren't the fastest cars on the track David's pulled 1st place in design, Abbie's 2nd place. Next year we hope to have the kids doing alot more of the building themselves, with just a little bit of help from mom and dad. Click each photo below for a bigger view:




Abbie's '57 Chevy:


David's '67 Mustang:










After the real races the kids got to run extra heats just for the fun of it - Here Abbie (blue track) and David (red track) race against each other. Check out that hummer on the yellow track!

Hard season

I was chatting with Christina this morning about realizing that this has been a hard season. In the last few months we have both been sick three times. The first time was an intense virus that had us all on our knees (excluding Abigail who never seems to get sick). This was immediately followed by a secondary virus. And a few weeks later both Christina and I came down with the same cold that has been hanging onto us for a few weeks. We have realized this last few months that our next door neighbor was a drug addict and was not a capable mother, the arrest and investigation that confirmed this happened a few weeks ago - it is hard to see this happening in our own neighborhood which has been a very positive atmosphere until this point. I tore a tendon in my right hand a few weeks ago which has added a constant pain to my daily interactions. Exercise has been rare due to sickness, my body feels week. My work seems devoid of any opportunity for passion right now. This week we attended the memorial service of a friend who, at 38, died within two weeks of learning he had cancer. He leaves behind a wife and five children who are the same ages as our own and are good friends. Yes, it has been a hard season.

And yet I am so thankful for the friends that I have - family friends, personal friends, work friends, and most of all my wife who experiences almost everything along with me - we bond closer with our friends at these times, and when times are good those bonds allow us to celebrate joy and success together. Without these dear friends hard seasons would simply be impossible.

Flight of the Dimona

Since Christmas I have been putting together my latest RC airplane, the Super Dimona 2400. This 7.5' wingspan RC plane is a scale "powered glider." (Check out the real airplane made by Diamond Aircraft - Beautiful!) This weekend the weather was great and it was the perfect opportunity to get this bird in the air for the maiden flight.



So, here's how successful first flights go: Get the plane in the air, climb as fast as you can, fly around for a few minutes, try some approaches and fly-bys, and figure out how to get the plane down on the ground safely before the battery runs out. My friend and flying buddy, Jeremy, took some video:



See how fast that bird comes in for landing! Gosh, my knees were knocking together by the time the Dimona rolled to a stop. Other than a problem with the nose wheel twisting around on landing, it was a near perfect flight.

Snow Day

Click any of the photos below to enlarge.