The Year in Summary

Holy Moley! I was just inspired to look at my blog as I was refreshing my memory in the happenings of a friend's life via her blog and realized that my last post was almost a year ago! WOW!

Well, in a nutshell, how can I sum up the past year...CRAZY!!!!!! Yup, that's about it!

(Since I'm still figuring out how to edit here and put pictures in, this will be out of order based on the pictures I've uploaded...but you get the point!)

First of all, we added to our family, temporarily, for the school year by hosting an exchange student from Sweden. Josefin arrived in September and has become a part of our family that we are all dreading saying goodbye to in June. She has taken on the role of big sister to Morganne very well (she likes that Morganne is smaller than her brother in Sweden, therefore she's better able to harass her). The girls bicker constantly, but it's a loving bickering and we just smile and let them work it out. We spent a great deal of the fall (before weather and swim meets started) visiting as much of Oregon as we could with Josefin. Here's Dave and the girls at the coast (Josefin's first Pacific Ocean experience)

Morganne has continued to swim for the local swim club, and her meets have taken us all over the state. She's getting better with each meet and is loving it, which is truly what's important. Last year she had events at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Eugene, Bend, Forest Grove, and here in McMinnville. I have joined the board of the swim club and have also become an official, so during meets rather than sitting in the stands, I'm on deck watching the swimmers for Stroke and Turn disqualifications. It's good for our club to have more officials to bring to meets, and it's good for me to be doing something besides sitting on my butt in the stands in between events, but it means that I'm not able to photograph (or hover) around Morganne when she's swimming. She doesn't seem to mind, and as her strokes have gotten better (and therefore the chance of her disqualifying minimized), I have actually started working it so I can be officiating her lanes during her events so I HAVE to be watching her :)

Here she is at Smith Rock State Park in Redmond, where we were for the favorite Bend Swim Meet in August.

Everyone loves the Bend meet because it's a big campout for all the families and fun is had by all. Plus - it's Bend! Who doesn't love Eastern Oregon? Luckily we have friends who have moved to the area and not only came to watch Morganne swim, but put us up at their house when, after a very busy summer of camping, our tent pole broke after our first night there.

Here she is doing her Breast Stroke in Eugene, I believe. This was her first competitive Breast Stroke (I think) and she did great!

The day after Josefin arrived, a neighbor found 4 kittens that had been dumped in her yard (or near it). By the time she wandered down the street to "show" the neighborhood kids what was in the box, there were only 3 left (the 4th one, we fear, met his demise on the busy road behind our cul de sac). Well, by the time I was brought into this discussion, it was 5:30pm on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend...all vets and shelters had (conveniently) closed until Tuesday at 5:00, so another neighbor and I decided to split the kittens for the weekend. She took 2 of them (as she has 2 children), and we kept the one. The deal we made the kids was that we would keep them until we could get them checked out on Tuesday and if they were healthy, we'd think about, possibly, maybe keeping them. Yeah, right! So we now have a kitten. Here's Morganne with Keke ("kee kee") the day she came to live with us.

As I said, Morganne and Josefin "fight" constantly...here they are showing their sisterly love while playing Wii

And like I also said, they love each other as well and will often cuddle on the couch together, or do cute things like this

Let's see, what did I miss? OH, I mentioned that the tent got quite a workout last summer - we spent a week traveling the entire Oregon Coast, visiting each of the 11 lighthouses that are along the coast, as well as several fun coastal attractions. Perhaps I can find some time to blog just about that trip as it was amazing (and of course, there are tons of pictures from it). We decided to save money (and up the fun) by camping our way down the coast, which was actually a lot of fun, although travel camping is truly best done with some sort of vehicle, not a tent that needs pitched every night at the new location.

AND, sadly, on January 5, we said goodbye to our beloved Siberian Husky, Pasha. She turned 13 in December and her body was just giving out on her. The decision had to be made, but we put it off until after the holidays. Perhaps a Pasha tribute blog in the future with pix of her...

Well, I think that's the high (and low) lights of the past year. AND, that's about all I have time for right now as my presence is needed in Morganne's classroom to stuff Wednesday folders, then I start my afternoon taxi duties (to/from school/pool).

I won't promise more timely blogging, but I will try and make some more time for it. I know the 2 of you that read this will appreciate that :)