I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet

I knew it would happen eventually, we have lived here over a year now and sooner or later this state is bound to have an earthquake and fall into the ocean, right?

The girls experienced their first ground shaking earthquake, too bad Jason was out of town to feel a real quake.  It's epicenter was about 15 miles from our house, so we got a good rumble.

It remeimded me of the 1987 quake, but didn't last as long. Addie was, as she put it, "freaked out."  She thought a car was crashing into the house.  Elli said she felt like she was in a snow globe that was being shaken.  Amelia didn't say anything because she is a little behind in speech, and words like earthquake and magnitude and structural damage are not in her vocabulary.

Here are our pictures for the insurance company of our vast damage.  (If we have earthquake insurance, which I am not really sure about.)

What you are looking at here is a book, a frame, and a wooden flower thrown from Amelia's changing table, unbelievable!

And here are 3 wooden letters and a candle, not quite thrown, more like tumbled.  Are you as speechless as I am?

And the last evidence of damage is a fallen bottle of generic Pledge, if I hadn't been so cheap and bought generic, the real Pledge probably would have been able to withstand the 5.4 tremor.

Live and learn.

(This is how the bookshelf is supposed to look, which now that I look at it, a little cluttered I think.  Maybe this earthquake was a good thing, making me step back and re-evaluate things, you know?)

Thank Heavens for Little Girls

My brother Blair, his wife Allison, and their 20 month old son Brody welcomed to their family my newest niece, Lily Jeanne Diamond.  We can't wait to meet her, but for now we will just look forward to more cute pictures!

Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?

Do you play with water balloons in the backyard?

Or build a "chalet" with your dad? 

(He said it was too nice to be called a fort.)

And paint it with red flowers and stripes?

Is that what you do?  So do I!

(I know it doesn't rhyme, I am not a poet and I know it.)

Out with the Old

Addie loved her watermelon bikini.  It didn't start off as hers, first it was Elli's.  She was sooo excited to get this hand-me-down, being used didn't tarnish the beauty of the watermelon bikini.  Her little friend Sydney also had this same Old Navy suit, which Addie thought was extra cool.  She wanted to wear it every time an occasion called for a swim suit.  Even though she only was allowed to wear it every other time, she still wore the crap out of this suit.  The black seeds on the top were faded and cracking, the red and green lycra suit was balled and thinning, and the thick elastic waist band was not so stretchy anymore, it hardly stayed up.  After 3 years it was time to retire the watermelon bikini, which I had been telling Addie since summer started.  When we went to the lake and her suit wouldn't stay up, I told her it was her last time wearing it.  I threw it out, it was in no shape to go to D.I. Fast forward 2 days later, Addie asks where her watermelon bikini is, I stated the facts of the situation.  Fast forward 5 minutes later and my sister walks in carrying a sobbing 6 year old devastated about her favorite swim suit, you would have thought we cancelled Christmas.  To console her I told her we would look for another watermelon swimsuit, knowing that finding a suit like that would be like finding a Jonas Brothers fan over the age of 13.  Every store we went in Addie would remind me to look at swimsuits, and low and behold, at Target they had a red with white polka dots skirted bikini with a thick elastic waist band.  She loves it, mom is out of the dog house, case closed.

Wonder Twin Powers: Activate!!

My mom was never asked when we were little whether we were twins.  We had our own looks; Andra had the chubby cheeks, the strong shortish body, darker eyebrows.  I had the freckles, skinny frog legs, translucent eyebrows.  (Did I forget to mention Andra's shiny, long, black, almost unreal hair and my awesome smile?)

As we have grown up, we have grown much more alike in our appearance to the point that whenever we get together people are asking us if we are twins.  I attribute this to Andra finally loosing her chubby cheeks and learning how tweezers work.  (Just kidding Andra, at your expense. I also learned how to make blonde eyebrows brown.)
Not only did at least 3 people last week ask the twin question, someone in my church came up to Andra and asked if her sister was in town visiting, she replied yes, and that she was the sister.  Her neighbor also thought for a moment I was Andra.

At the cabin my dad asked her a question thinking he was talking to me, he is getting old, poor guy.  But the icing on the cake is when Andra's Trevor (I told you she likes him to be called that) put his hand on my knee, AWKWARD!  (In his defense we were all sitting close together.)

I have to say, I take it as a compliment when asked, she is not only my sister but my best friend.  Why else would I have 3 girls just like her?

I Heart the Mountains

I love the mountains,

I love the rolling hills;

I love 100 degress with no air conditioning,

And 6 high-pitched little girls;

Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da

Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da!

Thanks Pa (poppa) for bringing back childhood memories and creating new ones for our girls!

We canoed and rock jumped on Alpine lake, Jason told the girls Greg Stott would be proud.  And the girls were proud of mom for jumping and getting her hair wet.

Good times with Uncle Randy, we especially enjoyed the Connect 4 tournament, shout out to Maddy J. for taking the title.

At Blue Lake Springs the girls liked jumping off the dock over and over.  This pose of Addie's was named "Statue of Liberty".

Our cabin had a revolving door, between my dad (poppa), Jason, Andra's Trevor (she likes him to be called that), my brother Randy (uncle poo-poo), and last but not least, my mom (grammi).