PTO Silent Auction

Every year the Parent Teacher Organization (PTA everywhere else) at Adah's elementary school hosts a silent auction to raise money for school assemblies, materials, playground equipment, and all kinds of other things that the PTO does to supplement the district programs and budget.

Local businesses and citizens donate merchandise, gift certificates, and services that are displayed for bidding at the Friday-night event that is open to the whole community. I was involved with donation procurement, making calls to about 40 businesses. I also put together and donated this "Apple Box" full of some home preserves and dried apples from my favorite local orchard.

My other job was gift certificate display. Basically I got to use my scrapbooking skills to jazz up the simple papers that described all the donations that were not physical items at the auction. I had no idea what a commitment that would turn out to be. I was up until 2 am Friday morning and then spent about 6 hours setting up at the school on Friday.

Here are Maggie and Adah just after entering the gym as the auction began. The tables and walls were full of items up for bidding. Each person at the auction registered for a bidder number and then put their number and dollar bid on the bid sheet next to the item they wanted.

It was A LOT of work, but well worth the effort. Early reports indicate that the auction raised $13,000 for the school!!

Adah's Faceplant Recovery

For those who have been wondering about the healing of Adah's face after her fall last week, here are some photos of how it's coming along. It has been the source of many questions for Adah from friends and strangers alike. She's handling it with grace.

The next morning:

Today (4 days later):

Spring is in the Air

Without even trying, I tricked my neighbor into taking 4 extra kids this afternoon! We had two extras after school and when the neighbor boy came over to invite my girls to jump on the trampoline, I got to send all four! Now Gunnar is napping and, other than the squeals and yells I can hear coming from the neighbor's yard, it is very quiet around here. I decided to take the opportunity to catch up on blogs--reading others and posting on my own.

Springtime has finally come to White Salmon with daffodils now nearly on the way out, tulips up, and the first blooming dogwood sighted just today! I missed a bit of all the lovely weather when I flew to Denver last weekend, arriving just a few hours before a snow storm. Luckily it warmed up before I left and my visit to my brother Jed and his family ended on a sunny note. Many thanks go to my wonderful husband for taking over in full here at home so that I could make the 4-day solo trip to Colorado.

With all of this sunnier and warmer weather has come lots of outside time for my kids. Maggie and Gunnar enjoyed the new patio just after our visit to Utah.

While I was gone, Damon hung a swing from one of our front-yard trees. This tree was host to one end of our zipline last year. The zipline will need some redesigning this year since the other end was attached to our shed which will finally get siding; we'll need a new anchor. Maybe I can "trick" my neighbor into taking that to his house, too!

Adah's Cirque du Soleil routine. Neighbor Claire looks on. Gunnar is unimpressed.

Maggie loves swinging, dislikes wearing shoes.

Yesterday after picking up Adah from school, we decided to stay and play on the school playground. Gunnar loves going down this tunnel slide . . .

... head first! (We have to catch him. It's really fast.)

Kid Update: Before I was able to finish composing this post, all 4 kids returned, Adah in tears. She tripped and landed face-first in the gravel driveway! She got some nice scratches near her left eye and on the bridge of her nose, and may end up with a nice bruise above her eyebrow tomorrow. Poor kid.

Good Truck Karma

Since we bought this house and have become the home improvement addicts that we now are, Damon and I have wished that we had chosen a pick-up truck when we purchased a second car, instead of a Honda Accord. Well, while I was in Utah, Damon found a truck and bought it! (Lest you think he was the crazy husband having fun while the wife was out of town, we had been looking for one together for several weeks, so his actions were fully authorized.)

We are now the happy owners of a red Nissan Frontier. It's a small pick-up with an extended cab, so we can take one or two kids along, if necessary.

Last night our truck performed its first real "truck" duty by moving a bunkbed for some friends. As I thought about all the times that we have relied on the kindness of our friends and their trucks to help us in our remodeling, moving, and hauling jobs, I was glad that our truck's first job was actually an act of service. It seemed fitting to somehow pay back all those other trucks by using our truck for others before we used it for ourselves. (I suppose we really do have more to do to really pay our truck karma debt, but we're on the way now.)

P.S. Anyone out there looking for a Honda Accord?

Spring Break in Salt Lake City

Adah had a week off school, so I bravely decided to take my 3 kids on the 700-mile trip to visit my parents in Salt Lake City, Utah. I brought along one of the Young Women from church who was going to visit her dad; she acted as company for me and snack dispenser for the backseat passengers. The kids did wonderfully on the drive there and back. We only made THREE stops each way, which was a big improvement over the same attempt last August. (On the way to Utah one of those stops was overnight at a hotel in Boise; we came home in a single day, though.) We had a great time visiting Nana and Gumpin (my parents) in their condo in downtown SLC.

My mom works for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in offices next to Temple Square, so we went to visit her one afternoon to see where Nana works. We spent time with sister missionaries from Michigan and Israel (really) on Temple Square and then my dad stayed with Gunnar so the girls and I could see the new movie playing in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It is called Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration and was a moving portrayal of the prophet's life and the trials he and his family faced as he followed God's commandments to restore the gospel. I recommend it to anyone who can go see it.

One morning my dad and I took the kids swimming at one of the local indoor pools. This place was amazing! Check out that waterslide! Adah went down twice. My dad and I each took 4 or 5 trips--my first time on a real waterslide in at least a decade. (Maggie is at the bottom right of the photo below.)

Other highlights of our trip included shopping with my mom at the Park City outlets and multiple trips to Target (I love that store) where the girls entertained themselves with some accessories while my mom and I looked at bags:

We also visited the Utah Museum of Natural History where Maggie, Gunnar, and Nana helped uncover some dinosaur fossils!

I also got to catch up with some of my Centerville friends--one of whom I hadn't seen for 10 years!--watched lots of NCAA basketball with my parents, and very much enjoyed letting them do all the cooking and dishes. Thanks for a fun trip, Mom/Nana & Dad/Gumpin!

Nurse and Patient

When Maggie was sick with a fever, Adah kindly made up a little bed in front of our wall heater (favorite cozy spot in the house) and read a story to her little sister. It was very sweet.