The Heat Is On

So Hermiston is hot, but we have air conditioning so we shouldn't be too bad off right? I think not. Poor Chris is out in the 100 degree weather 6 days a week. He spends a lot of time sitting on the pipeline because it is about 60 degrees, and therefore helps him keep a little cooler. Here at the home front, we stay a little cooler--expecially on the hottest days when Dallon only goes outside for a few minutes at a time. However, Dallon has a horrible habit of leaving the sliding glass door wide open when he goes out. So while my AC is working overtime in the first place because its over 100 outside, it is quickly being undone. I check the door often now, just to try to make sure that it's closed.

I found some great resourses online that I can use to work with Dallon. It's a pre-school site that has great free downloads of printable file folder games to teach ABCs, numbers, shapes, calendar/time, and many other great topics. If you want the address to the site, email me and I'll send it to you!

I am getting a little nervous about Dallon's appointment in Portland. They sent a packet to us with a questionaire relating to his social, self-help, communication, and motor skills. I read through it, and it breaks my heart to have to answer no to the most simple things--like "Does your child answer the following questions: What do you eat when you are hungry? and What do you do when you are tired?" Hopefully I can calm my nerves between now and when we go.

Jace is funny as ever. He's spouting out new words all the time. He's not walking consistently yet, but he does on and off throughout the day now--depending on how fast he wants to get somewhere.

Chris and I will be married for 8 years this August! I can't believe it has been almost a decade since we first started dating. How time flies--and it seems to be going faster all the time. Hope all is well with everyone we love!

Playset Completed

The playset is done! And we had a great time playing on it tonight. The weather was perfect and overcast so we didn't have to worry too much about too much sun. Obviously the slide is a big hit, but the swings and climbing areas have been broken in as well. I'm sure that we'll get plenty of use out of this in the next few weeks/months while the weather is great.

Bathroom Remodel Underway

So we have been slowly working on our master bath remodel. We got the tile down last Saturday, so it will be a week in progress tomorrow. Unfortunately we haven't gotten too far. We've done the grout, and then had to redo a tile, and then regrout it. So we are in the process of sealing the grout, so we can get a toilet in there soon. We have painted 2 coats twice, because the first color was NOT what we thought it was going to be--but we really like the outcome of the second color. We still have to put up trim, and figure out what we are going to do for a vanity/sink. Maybe we'll have it done in the next couple of weeks. We miss being able to shower, our other bathroom only has a tub right now (it will be getting a shower when we remodel it someday).

Grandma Ruth and Aunt Chris stopped in for a brief visit Wednesday night to Thursday morning. We don't get to see them enough! We enjoyed our visit, and the boys had fun playing and showing off for visitors.

All is going well thus far with Chris' inspection job. He is bored out of his mind most of the time, because his job is to mostly just watch and over-see what is going on and not to really participate in the work. It was around 115 degrees one day this week while he was outside working all day. I told him he'll eventually get use to it, but I'm not sure if I even believe that!

The boys are busy and being really great. Dallon has started piecing together his own sentences (usually he just copies or "scripts" exactly what we say). They're short, but they are truly his and it marks a great milestone for his speech development. Jace is talking more and more already. He is also very observant, and is picking up all kinds of skills like blowing bubbles, and wanting to sit on the couch exactly the same way his brother does.

I'll post some more pictures soon!

Independence Day 2007

OK, so this picture is from 2006, but I forgot my camera last night. We had a lovely day beating the heat yesterday for the 4th. We headed up to Dave and Vicki Krumbien's cabin on Tolgate for the yearly BBQ with Charlie and Sally where it was more than 15 degrees cooler than Hermiston. Then we headed back to Hermiston in the late afternoon. Jace was covered from head to toe with dirt from being in the mountains, so we had to do some bathing when we got home. For fireworks we went down to the fairgrounds. They had a nice display, but I personally missed having music to go along with the show. We headed home afterwards where we found our neighbors lighting off their own fireworks show. So we joined in with our 6 year old bottle rockets (we had a couple of bricks we bought in Idaho long ago--maybe 2-3 hundred!) We no longer need to worry about how we are going to use those old bottle rockets! We hope you all had a fabulous holiday--and hopefully it was less than 100 degrees for you!

July 2007 Update

We moved into our new house in April, we love it. It has been a huge relief to be finished with the stress of not knowing where we were going to live. We have an elementary school 3 houses down, and really great neighbors.

Both of our boys love the new house, and the back yard even more. It seems that they can't stay in even when its raining out. We have a huge patio, and I'm planning to get Dallon a bike this summer to ride on the patio. We'll be making a few changes to the yard in the future, but generally its almost perfect for what we need.

Dallon was diagnosed with autism in June. We are seeking a second opinion at a center in Portland, our appointment isn't until August.

The bright red pickup in the picture of our house is not ours. Its Chris' work truck for his inspection project coming up soon. It is pretty, but we don't need a new pickup any time soon. (Sorry Chris).

We're Finally Bloggers!

Ok, so we are finally joining the cool crowd with our own blog. I know we probably won't keep it updated as much as we should, but...we'll give it a go.