Congratulations!

Julie and Sam are engaged!! We are very excited to welcome Sam into the family!

Unexpected Events

A week ago we went to Montana for the weekend to see our friends Rob and Mandy. The boys had lots of fun at their house!

On the way, we stopped at Banks Lake and slid on the ice.

Tristan and his buddy, Mandy.

Getting a fire going.

After playing outside, the boys enjoyed a nice warm cup of cocoa.

Sorry this got messed up. Rob built a new pond since we'd last been there. He stocked it with fish, which we were unable to catch. Wade really liked their new kitten, Posey. He kept wanting to hold it. She was very tolerant! On our way home from Montana we heard that Jason's grandfather passed away. So, instead of going home, we continued on to Sequim to be with the family. We spent the whole week there, trying our best to be helpful so that arrangements could be made.

Jason's cousin, Donnie, is a police officer. The boys enjoyed checking out his truck. They got to turn on the lights!

Tristan the lion.

Yum! Chocolate Cake!

It was good to be with family for the week, even though it was in undesirable circumstances. The funeral was on Saturday and the girls had made pies to serve to family and guests. When we got home, however, the 5 sister workers were all digging in! :)

I don't think Wade really enjoys drinking Lisa's matte, but he sure enjoys the novelty of the whole thing!

35 weeks.

Julie and Sam "practicing" :)

Wade's ABC's

Sledding

We went up to a really steep, fast hill to sled. Wade thought it was a little too dangerous, so he kept saying, "I want back to van, I want back to van."

Tristan didn't like going the whole way down, so we just used the bottom quarter of the hill to sled on.

Snow angel!

Jason hauled kids and sled up and down the hill! :)

Holidays 2009-2010

For the holidays this year, the Sandersons rented a house down in Gold Beach, OR. The whole family was able to make it, and we had a GREAT time! We spent Wed. night at the Boring convention grounds where Leah and Julie live. The next morning we caravaned down the Oregon coast to Gold Beach which is only about 30 miles north of the California border.

Depoe Bay, one of our many stops on the way down the coast.

We stopped at the sand dunes.

We saw the best sunset I've ever seen!!! My camera has a pretty good sunset setting, so I had lots of fun snapping a few shots....ok, so I had about 30 pictures, but I narrowed it down to about 25 or so for you to look at. :)

Gold Beach is where the Rogue River runs into the Pacific Ocean. It was fun watching the currents collide there! The house we were staying in was on top of a huge hill overlooking both the ocean and the river! It was beautiful! And big....very big!

We got there Christmas Eve and enjoyed a dip in the hot tub. We were still missing a few who hadn't gotten there yet.

We haven't gotten the kids Christmas gifts in the past, but to keep up with Jones', we got them each one small gift that they could open. Tristan got a play-doh set. Wade got a soccer ball!

Grandpa and Grandma got all 4 of their grandsons a remote control car! They were a big hit!

Christmas afternoon we went down to the beach. Jason and Eric were the only ones brave (dumb) enough to go in. It was about 53 degrees outside, but felt cooler because of the wind off of the ocean. The water was much colder than that!

The Oregon coast is some of the most beautiful coastline I have ever seen!

For some reason, little boys picking rocks out of the sand is just SO cute! I can't resist pictures!

Eric and Aura with their pups, Huck and Oliver.

Julie with her boyfriend Sam. (We really like him!)

I was pretending to be sad that Wade wasn't going to be my little baby anymore. He was pretty sad about it too!

The whole gang except for Sam who must have been taking a turn behind the camera.

Stan, the worker in that field, came and spent the afternoon and evening with us.

I was very impressed with how well the boys got along. Tristan and Caleb especially are pretty good buddies. Here are Tristan, Caleb, and Wade wrestling in their underwear.

We celebrated Jason's 26th and Tristan's 3rd birthdays on Sunday. Jason barbecued tri-tip, and it was delicious!

Tristan had been talking about wanting a train cake for his birthday, so here it is!

This is why we say "cheese" when we take a picture of Tristan, they always look a little cheesy! :)

Tristan learning how to make 3 fingers stand up.

"I did it! 3!"

Presents for Daddy and Tristan

Monday we went down to California to see the redwoods! They were pretty amazing! This is the "Big Tree". We almost got all the way around it! If Sam would have been there, and maybe if our baby were born, we could have made it!

Sunbeams through the redwoods.

I had this picture taken so that as I get even bigger over the next month and a half, I can be comforted in the fact that I'm nowhere near as big as the redwood.

Jason and his boys in the "Bear Cave."

Hugs for Uncle Eric.

On Tristan's actual birthday we reused the candle for his pancake.

Mom and Dad walking the beach.

Collecting firewood

Before we left we all shared memory sticks from our cameras and uploaded each others pictures. I ended up with a total of over 1900 pictures!!! Yowzers! I've been trying to pick and choose some of my favorites for this post. Probably about 1/2 of the pictures were ones like this one. Beautiful ocean/waves/rocks pictures. Hard to know which to keep!

Carolyn and Leah's dinner of Hawaiian Haystacks

DeAnne drew a heart for her and Shawn to stand in. Then the boys used it. :)

Ashlyn got a new camera for her birthday last month, and she has obviously picked up her mother's photography skills! She had Tristan posing all over the yard and she was snapping pictures of him! He of course listens so nicely to her and smiles just right! I wonder how much I owe her for Tristan's 3 year photo session! :)

We spent 9 nights there and had a great time! We would love to go back, but I'm sure that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. A vacation that we will never forget!!