February News

Daddy and Tristan putting together a race car from the erector set. Tristan looks puzzled.

We love when Dakota comes to visit!

Daddy used all the track pieces for a giant train track! (This picture was taken while construction was still underway.)

Daddy has been home a lot lately, and the boys are loving it!!!!

Decorating Valentine cupcakes! They were almost decorated before they were eaten. :)

I had to do the rest myself so that we would actually have some to give away as Valentines! Auntie Leah came to town, and she watched the boys so that Jason and I could go out for dinner. Thank you Leah!!!!

This picture is for you, Danika! :) 38 weeks 2 days pregnant. And it surely doesn't qualify as a baby "bump" anymore. This thing is a monstrosity!!!

We hiked down into the gorge behind our house. There is a dam coming off of Lake Chelan that feeds into this river that runs into the Columbia River a couple of miles away. There is not really a good way to get down into the gorge, because it is sooo steep. Last week, though, Jason found a place with guide wires that you can hold on to and work your way down. We went down it on Saturday to throw rocks in the water and get a little exercise. On the way down, a small (maybe 3 inches in diameter) rock was kicked loose and tumbled down and hit me in the ankle. The force of it was enough to sit me down, swell up my ankle, and leave a bruise. I'm just telling you this so that you know how steep this gorge was! On the way back up, there were some kids at the top. I don't know if they didn't see us climbing back up or if they didn't think about what they were doing, but they sprung a huge rock loose and sent it down at us. It was about 1.5-2 feet in diameter. The rock passed Wade and Jason on the right and was headed straight down at me at about 40 mph. My instinct was focused on Tristan right behind me. The boulder was headed down on my right, but then got caught in a rut that started sending it over to my left side. Of course all of this is happening in a split second! I was going to jump left then I was going to jump right. Also going through my head was somehow pushing it off course to protect Tristan and Leah behind me (obviously that would not have worked.) It was coming fast enough and it was heavy enough it would have blasted through our legs like toothpicks. And hitting another part of our body would probably have killed us. Somehow the rut brought the rock far enough to my left that it missed me by inches. We were pretty shaken up after that. The kids of course took off running when they saw what they had almost done. We made it the rest of the way up just fine, and were very glad to all be ok. I'm not sure we'll be making anymore trips into the gorge, especially on days when those kids aren't in school!!

Nice rack, Leah!

On Valentine's Day Jason surprised me with a nice card and chocolate bar. We have always gotten each other more humorous cards...nothing too sappy...and then written our own thoughtful message in them. So, I wasn't too surprised when I opened the envelope and saw that the card was written in Spanish. We laughed about that and I read the nice message that he wrote and everyone had warm fuzzies. Leah was looking at the card and noticed on the back there was an English translation, so she read it out-loud to us. When she was done, we couldn't stop laughing for 15 minutes!!!! I guess Jason's Spanish is not what it used to be! :) Here's what the card said:

The gift of time,

The gift of listening,

The gift of love....

These are the most

valuable gifts

a father can give.

Thank you so much.

Happy Valentine's Day!

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA (ok, so maybe you had to have been there)

Another funny story this week.... I was a substitute teacher on Wednesday in the preschool. There was an aide in there as well, so when I got there I introduced myself. When the kids started coming, one asked me my name. I turned to the aide and asked her whether the kids call their teacher by first name or last name.

"Should they call me Sarah or Mrs. Sanderson," I asked.

"Ummm...how about Mrs. Duos," she responded.

.....ok...I don't know where that came from. The whole class spoke Spanish, so I thought maybe Duos had a Spanish meaning that I didn't know. Maybe it meant teacher or something. So she kept referring to me as Mrs. Duos all day. I wasn't sure whether to correct her or ask her what it meant or what. At one point, a student was calling "Mrs. Duos, Mrs. Duos, Mrs. Duos." And of course I wasn't recognizing my new name, so I wasn't responding. Finally I turned just because of the insistence in the child's voice and realized that she was talking to me! I was still very confused and wasn't sure if I should tell the aide again what my name was.

Later the aide came up to me and asked me what my husband's name was.
"Jason Sanderson," I said.

"Hmm..I guess I don't know him," she replied.

Still later she came up and said, "Are you related to Richard Duos? I've been trying to think all morning which Duos I know."

"No, I'm not related to Richard Duos," I said, deciding it was too late in the day to correct her once again. So, I left it at that. Just don't expect me to start responding to Mrs. Duos anytime soon!