Torrin's 5th Birthday Party

Saturday we celebrated Torrin's 5th birthday. Kevin, Kimberly and I took Jordan and Torrin to the Family Fun Center. The girls had a blast playing outside in the nice warm sun. Here are some pictures of the girls playing on the rides.

Jordan on the bumper boats. She got soaked!

Jordan and Torrin on the swing ride. Jordan discovered this ride is a little too young for her. Torrin still likes it.

We took the girls on the race cars. Torrin kept telling me to go faster!

Here is Kevin in his own car. Some kid passed him and said "You got crushed" as he flew by. I guess weight matters.

The girls were hilarious on the trampoline. They were trying so hard to do flips. They would get frog legs and lean their heads back but no flipping. They both finally were able to flip over.

This was about as far as they would get and then flop back down. Tory flipped over and landed on her head once.

Here is the lovely cake I made for Torrin. I made it with rolled fondant. It was not as easy as it looks on the cake show.

Happy Birthday Torrin!

Here is Torrin opening the present from Angelita and Ashley. It was a box with makeup and Hanna Montana tattoos. Torrin got so excited she ran outside and then came back in a few minutes later and said "I had to go outside to calm down!" It was very funny. I guess the cake put her into sugar over load.

Kevin and I gave her a 3 story Barbie condo with an elevator. Kevin spent the next hour putting it together.

While Kevin worked on the condo Kim, Ashley and I worked on sewing the build-a-bear animals. That was way more work than we wanted to do.

Here is Torrin's build-a-bear.

Here is the finished Condo.

4 Mile Marathon

Yes that's right. 4 miles. A couple of weeks ago, I know I am slow to post, I walked with my bothers and sisters in a grueling 4 mile marathon. We braved the freezing 35F temperatures and horrible hang-overs to participate in the MS walk-a-thone in the Tri Cities. The weekend started with a road trip from western Washington with me at the wheel, Maggi buried in her IPhone and Davey grinding through a crossword puzzle. Poor Susan had to miss our adventure because of a family illness.

The first order of business was to get Maggi there in time to go on a lunch date with an old high school friend. After some primping and more IPhoning she was off and Jan, Davey and I set out for Jimmy's house.

Somewhere along the line we hooked back up with Maggi and began consuming large quantities of wine. Eventually we stumbled back to our hotel with Jan in tow and crawled to our room laughing until we peed. Maggi wat on the edge of the hide-a-bed and fell through to the floor.

The next morning came all to early as we prepared for our big walk. It was freezing cold! We sat in the car to stay warm while we waited for the race to start. Here is Jan and Davey IPhoning.

We named our team after a saying our dear mother used to always say to us. Pog Mahone, It means kiss my arse. Hard to believe that sweet little woman would use such language with her little angels.

We managed to make it the entire way with Jan and Maggi running half of the distance. They fed us hot dogs at the end making it all worth while. It was definitely something different to do while visiting the Tri Cities.

Later we spent a relaxing afternoon sitting on Jan and Chris' boat. Very nice.

Easter With the Girls

Week had a great Easter weekend with the girls. We started it out by going to see "How to Train Your Dragon" in 3D IMAX. We took Angelita with us. It was a very good movie. Here is a kind of blurry picture of the girls at the movie with their 3D glasses on.

We boiled a bunch of eggs to color. This is before...

...and this is after.

Sunday morning the girls and Kimberly and I went to church. Here is a picture of Jordan and Torrin in thier Easter dresses. They went straight to the back yard where Kevin had hid all the eggs. Fortunately he made a map of where he hid them all so we could find the last few eggs.

I made a carrot cake for dessert. Torrin only wanted to eat the frosting.

The end of a long Easter weekend.

Little Girl and Dog Sitting

This weekend I spent most of my time looking and chasing after two little girls and a labrador puppy. My friend Angelita needed someone to watch "her" dog while she was out of town for the weekend. I agreed to watch little Jack for her. He is very darling but full of mischief.

Torrin loves popsicles.

Jordan is quite stylish in her bellbottom jeans and fringy top.

Here the girls are gobbling down their pizza so they can get outside to ride on the bikes I bought them to ride when they are at my house. Yes, Torrin is in her Supergirl costume.

This is Supergirl on her bike. We are leaving the training wheels on until she is used to the bigger bike size.

Jordan getting ready to race off down the road.

Here is Jack.

Jack agreed to help me get the garden ready for the seeds I bought.

Jack was a good digger.

The girls wanted to help with the garden too. Supergirl was really getting into it.

Here are Emma and Sadie modeling in front of the freshly planted garden. I am trying seeds this year instead of starts. We will see how successful I am. I only put carrots, cucumbers, and spinach in this box. I bought three kinds of pumpkins to plant somewhere with more room. I also need to put the zucchini in a roomier spot.

Jack wore himself out with all the digging and ankle biting. He went home this morning. It is very calm here now.

Dealing with Dogs

Some times dogs can be a pain to live with. After years of struggling with naughty dogs jumping over the broken down old fence, we finally got a new 6 foot chain link fence put in the back yard. That was just before Thanksgiving. The dogs immediately figured out how to squeeze under the fence to escape. With each new hole I would try to block their exit with boards but they would always find another spot to escape. Finally this weekend I had enough so I got some stakes and went all around the fence with boards hammering in the stakes to hold them in place.

With the fence all secure ( I hope) we decide to put in a doggy door so Emma and Sadie could let themselves out. Hopefully this would end Emma's peeing in the house. Kevin put it in the bathroom door that leads to the back patio.

They quickly learned how to use it, going in and out when ever they felt like it.

I believe that the dogs also need daily walks but they are to difficult to walk on the lease because they pull so hard. So I decided to get a training collar. This is me putting it on an suspicious Emma. It works great but she keeps flipping her head around trying to get it off. I have a spikey collar for Sadie. Now I can walk them both with ease.

When Jimmy was here last week Sadie let him know how she likes to relax and watch TV.

As big a pain as these two can be, they are also very cute puppies, sometimes.

Visit to France

Last week I went to France for work. I spent the first weekend in Toulouse before I had to go to Pamier to visit a paint vendor. Toulouse was an interesting place with narrow brick streets and lots of people. I visited a castle in an old 12th century Medieval town called Carcassonne. I told Tory that I saw where Donkey met Dragon.

This is one of the streets inside the castle walls. There were lots of shops.

Here I am outside the castle.

This is the train I took to go to Carcassonne. I was surprised how much graffiti there is in France.

I stayed in a 13th or 14th century hotel in Mirepoix for the week I was working. I told Tory that this is where Shrek and Fiona went on their honeymoon. The hotel was very old world but had modern comforts (except English speaking TV).

My room was on the 3rd floor up these windy stairs.

Every morning we had fresh bread and coffee. That is Alex. I was traveling with him for work.

I ate so many different foods. This is cassolet. Or bean stew with a duck wing and pork sausage in it. They love to eat duck and cassoulet in the Toulouse region.

They have the most ornate desserts. This is a chocolate something. Yummy.

On my way home I stopped in Paris but only got to see the Eiffel tower before I got sick and spent the rest of my visit in my room. I will have to go back to check it out more.