Ballet + Soccer

Lauren has been dancing around the house since she started walking. I never taught her any moves because I don't know any and I am more than awkward when it comes to any kind of dance. As far as I know, Jason has never showed her any moves either. However, one memory does come to mind, which occurred when Lauren was very young, maybe even before she turned one. I caught my mom teaching her a few ballet stances. I don't know the names of them, but I don't think Lauren has ever forgotten my mom's graceful moves...I told my mom to stop and tried interrupting with some basketball moves. So far, my mom's moves have won because Lauren is in....
BALLET and tap.

(More pictures are to come.)

I am excited that Lauren is in ballet. She knows what she is doing and I really enjoy watching her, but I just had to put her into some kind of sport and this is what she got...
SOCCER
Stretch:

Warm-up:

Stand in line:

Go Lauren Go!!

I can't wait to see what she will do as she gets older. I'm just afraid that I am going to be one of those parents that yells because I sure wanted to on the first day of soccer practice (not just at Lauren, but at the other kids too). I never have the desire to yell during ballet. Maybe a more elegant activity such as ballet is the way to go.

Return to Reno

We took a trip over Labor Day weekend to see my sister Anne down in Fallon, Nevada. At first it was just me, Jason, and Lauren that were going. Then, it turned into half the family, with my sister Stephanie and my parents.
Hahaha.
Jason and I were able to return to Reno for a few hours to remember the good ol' days of living there. We walked around UNR. Glad our money went towards improving the campus with new buildings and landscape that we never got to enjoy because Jason graduated before they were all completed. The campus is awesome. We saw a good friend. We drove by all the places we lived. Frightening! We lived in some scary parts of town. It was great to be in Reno. It is amazing how many memories can come to mind when you see things that you haven't thought of since living somewhere.
It was nice to be with family too. We had some good laughs, ate plenty of food and junk, and enjoyed the Boise State/Georgia game.


Wish I knew what we were laughing about here.

It's kind of interesting that we went down there a few weeks before the airplane crashed into the crowd out at the air races at the Reno-Stead Airport. I feel so sorry for those people that were affected by it all. Back when we lived in Reno, I worked for DHL, which is similar to FedEx. I delivered packages around that airport and saw the air races taking place, which was pretty neat. What a tragedy.  

Some Catching Up To Do

Now I know why I don't blog anymore. It takes way too long. It has taken me four months to finally write about our trip to Olympic National Park on Memorial Day Weekend because I knew it would take forever. I'm going to have to get out the map to remember the places we went too.

The first night we camped at Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island. It was beautiful and loud. I say loud because it is right by a Navy Base. It was fun to see and hear the jets and other planes flying over us, but by 10:00 P.M. I had had enough. I am so glad they stopped as we were going to bed.

It is a good thing the jets stopped because then we were able to hear the visitors in our camp and scare them away; otherwise, they would have eaten through all of Lauren's Capri Sun's and that would have been devastating. Darn raccoons! Here is our campsite.

The second day we drove down Whidbey Island to Keystone to catch a ferry to Port Townsend, which is on the Olympic Peninsula.

By the way, the whole reason we went on this trip was to see Glines Canyon Dam and Elwha Dam, which are on the Elwha River, before they are both torn down. Jason had learned about them in one of his classes. This will be the largest dam removal ever in the U.S. Jason had a great idea to climb down into the "Do Not Enter" area to get a closer look at the water spilling out. Dumbly (if that's even a word), I followed. Lauren had no choice.

Anyway, they are tearing down the dams to restore fish habitat and fish population. Before the dams were built, there were 400,000 returning adult salmon over 70 miles of river. Today there are 4,000 adult salmon that are able to return five miles up river.

Glines Canyon Dam:

We drove up to Hurricane Ridge. It was a cloudy day and snowing on top, so we didn't get to see how beautiful it is.

Elwha Dam:

On the third day we continued on to Neah Bay, which is the most western part of Washington. We walked to the point on a nice wooden path. We ended up staying near Ozette. I didn't get any pictures of that.

The fourth day we went to HOH Rain Forest. The pictures don't show how cool it was.

Finally, we stopped at Ruby Beach.

This picture shows the reaction of me when I had just told Lauren not to step in the water. It shows Lauren's reaction too....

Then....she does it again. Go figure. What a great ending to a great trip I suppose!

Preschool or No Preschool...That is the Question...

I have not blogged in a long long time...once again.

Time has gone by............and now Lauren is four. So many children are going to preschool at the age of four, but not Lauren. I sometimes feel like I am not doing the right thing by not sending her off to preschool. I know of one person who would be on my side, and that is Dr. Laura. So I must be definitely doing something right.
I'm not against preschool. In fact, next fall we will most likely put her in preschool, since she won't be going to kindergarten for another year and a half.
But, for now I am her teacher. I have to say, I am a strict, but nice teacher. Maybe a little like my mom, who was a junior high school English teacher in my hometown. Luckily, Lauren hasn't learned to come up with any nicknames for me, like my mom's students did. My mom was known as "Goda", which was very clever because it goes well with the last name, Hale. Goda Hale. Get it?
Whatever the case, at least Lauren seems to like me and I like her.

There are so many positive things about not sending her to preschool yet.

1. I get to spend time with her.

2. She isn't learning more bad behaviors than she already knows.

3. I get to teach her what I want her to learn.

For example, we are working on the Pledge of Allegiance:



So far, Lauren is my best student. She might receive an A+ too.

October Fun

As some of you have noticed, I haven't updated in a long, long time. I am quickly becoming less interested in blogging, but, nevertheless, here I am.
I just wanted to update on some things that I have actually taken pictures of over the last month. I'm definitely not the best photographer. This month has been a little more exciting than most because we tend to be a low key kind of family. I'm going to make this blog as short as possible.

We went down to Caldwell/Boise for the Boise State football game against Oregon State, which was actually the end of September. We had a blast! We woke up early and went down to the stadium for College Game Day. Jason and I got down on the field, waved at the cameras, and watched the ESPN commentators there. Then, that evening we had a tailgating party and headed down to the game.



Jason and Lauren rode the tractor.
And then, Grandpa Brown took Lauren out to pick pumpkins.
Back in Pasco, Lauren went swimming for the last time of the year. It was a hot and beautiful day!
Lauren had a birthday. She is 4! She loves Jessie from Toy Story. She had to get her picture taken in the messiest place of the house...the closet. There are those yellow shorts again. We do dress her in other clothes, I promise! We were unsuccessful in getting any good pictures of her birthday.


Halloween! Lauren was Princess Aurora. I was probably an Indian or something at her age. We are definitely different. Me=tomboy. Lauren=a dainty princess.


Lastly, a trip to the dentist. We all had zero cavities. We left with shiny white teeth. This was Lauren's first dentist experience and she loved it.



There you have it!