4th Grade Egg Drop

The 4th graders competed in the annual Egg Drop competition. They could build their Egg Shuttle using only 20 straws and 1" wide masking tape. Mark's egg broke, and so did Noah Gordon's, but the kids had a lot of fun making their contraptions.
Gianluca Allesina, Andrew Sanchez, Mark and Noah Gordon show off their egg contraptions!
Rachel Silverman and Hamilton Sparks with their eggs. Rachel's egg was indestructible with all the protective spears she placed around it. Way to go Rachel!!
Blake in front of his kindergarten backpack. This is his last week as a Kindergartener! He is so excited to start 1st grade!

Mark's NASCAR Fundraising Race

Mark devised a fun plan to earn money to buy the new iPhone software for his iPod Touch - hold his own mini-NASCAR race! Mark, Blake and Jocelyn sold tickets to the race, prepared water & popcorn bags to sell as refreshments, and then set up the race route as a circle around our house.
Jocelyn worked as the race announcer working out of the Jeep's car window. Mark and Boyd raced the remote-control cars around the mini-NASCAR circuit for two long laps.

Mark put together a music playlist on his computer to provide an exciting sound track to the race. Songs included "Real Gone" from the movie "Cars," "Around the Bend" Mark's favorite Apple theme song, and a few fun songs from Shrek.

Here are the refreshments for sale on the back of the car.

Boyd successfully drove his car to victory in a fast-paced, thrilling race full of many hair-raising turns and lots of retrievals from the ditches of our weed-filled, much-work-to-be-done front yard.

Mark actually earned $2.60 from sales of popcorn and priority seating tickets for Boyd (who got to sit in a seat in front of Wendy's low-budget seats.)

Thank you to Mark, Jocelyn, Blake and Brent for once again using their creativity and energy to put zest into our lives and remind us of how fun childhood should be! They make life entertaining for our family!

As for other car news...they fit! Yes, we now have both Yukons in our garage! Boyd managed to move the freezer into the middle of the garage so both cars could fit. Hallelujah! Now both will be safe from theft and weather damage. Plus, I feel much better getting in and out of my car inside the privacy of our garage. We are one of the only families in our neighborhood who can park both cars in the garage because we don't have junk stored there!

First Swim Meet of the Summer Season

Mark, Jocelyn and Blake are all participating on the Woodbury Waves swim team this summer. Practices started Monday, June 1st and continue daily through the middle of August. The children will compete in 6 swim meets, which are a lot of fun to be a part of, especially for me since I get to work the Ready Bench where all the fun action happens lining up all the children for their swim events.

Blake's very first swim meet. He is still learning how to swim, so the only event he would swim was the freestyle. He was too nervous to dive off the blocks, so he dove in from the side of the pool. But he swam the whole lap without resting on the lane lines, so we were proud of him! He needs to learn how to do full-motion arm strokes because right now he slaps at the water, but his kicking has improved. Coach Katie gives the 5- 6 year old boys last minute encouragement. Blake is standing on the edge and does not want to get into the cold water. It was a VERY cold day for a June in California. Black clouds and cold breezes chilled out the children, but they were such troopers to still line up for each of their swim heats.

Blake is ready to swim!

Here is Blake getting ready for his freestyle lap!

Come on Blake, you can do it!!

Jocelyn sitting with the 7-8 year old girls on the Ready Bench! Wendy works on the Ready Bench committe with Deepak and Libby Anderson. They are terrific to work with and extremely organized. We worked together last year as 3 newbies and became so comfortable with the chaos of the Ready Bench that we all requested to work together again. It is one of the busiest jobs of a swim meet but helps the time pass quickly. As Libby said, "I couldn't imagine just sitting on the sidelines during a long swim meet. I would be so bored!" Deepak lives in Northpark Square and we live in West Irvine, but Woodbury allowed us to join their swim team and it has been a great joy and blessing to us!

Here are some of the swimmers doing warm-up laps in the ice cold water.

Mark getting ready for one of his swim events. He loves to compete in the swim meets and is getting faster at each practice. We are very proud of his progress!

Mark on the starting blocks getting ready for a swim event. Michelle O'Neill is standing behind him. She is one of the timers.

Jocelyn on the starting blocks getting ready to swim Breast Stroke. Deepak is behind her. He works with Wendy in the Ready Bench area.

My sweet Blake gives his very best at each practice. We are proud of his efforts and will be praying that he develops into a strong swimmer with good strokes.

It's going to be a fun summer (that is, if the sun will ever come out! This June Gloom is getting old and cold!!!)

Brent's Slip 'N Slide birthday present

Brent has been looking forward to his 4th birthday since his LAST birthday! This year he compiled a list of the perfect birthday presents that he wanted: A new, blue bicycle (without training wheels, although he doesn't even know how to ride without training wheels!), a blue scooter, and a slip 'n slide. He used $25 he received from Grandma & Grandpa Woodward to buy his very own slip n' slide at Toys R Us. Here is the proud new slip n' slide owner all decked out (complete with swim goggles) and ready for slippery action (editor's note: it is cloudy, 65 degrees and very cold for a California June, but that in no way dampens his enthusiasm for the joy of getting soaking wet!). When Mark and Jocelyn came home from school, they had to get into the Slip N' Slide action as well. Pretty soon all four kids were shivering in the cold water and cold weather, but none seemed to care!

Blake and Brent invented a game where they had to race to the end of the Slip N' Slide to grade the blow-up flag. Surprisingly, they did not even fight or tackle each other in the attempt, behavior very uncommon for these highly competitive, highly physical Irish twins (born 2 1/2 years apart, although it feels like 2 1/2 minutes!). Brent developed great flair with his running dives and slides down the Slip N' Slide. Even Mark could not duplicate his brother's artistry on the slide!

Happy 4th birthday Brent! We are so glad you came to our family and have brought your enthusiasm for life with you. You always have a happy smile on your face and are always up for a great wrestle, tackle, run or bounce. You are a true delight to be with and bring joy to our lives every second! We love you!!!

Blake's happy week

Blake and Brent go scootering with their RED (Blake) and BLUE (Brent) scooters (or "Gooters" as Brent calls it). Brent had a list of toys he wanted for his birthday: (1) Blue bike, (2) Blue Gooter, (3) Slip 'n Slide, and (4) Blue airplane. So far he received enough birthday money from Grandma Hill and Grandma Woodward to buy the Slip 'n Slide and Blue Scooter. Blake also contributed $10 of his own saved money to help pay for Brent's scooter. Blake was actually the one who insisted we take Brent to Toys R' Us to buy him the blue scooter. I was so proud of Blake's generosity. He went to his room, pulled out his well hidden bag of saved birthday and Christmas money, and took the money with him to the toy store. Then he insisted on putting in $10 with Grandma Hill's $20 birthday money to buy the scooter. Blake and Clayton have enjoyed swim practices, baseball practices and soccer practices together. Tonight they rode their scooters and played at the park together. Then they came back to our house for a jump on the trampoline. Clayton's parents hope to buy a trampoline the same size as soon as they can find a good deal. Then we'll both have boys jump, jump, jumping each night during the summer!

Blake received his Kindergarten Graduation emblems today - his Kindergarten Memories scrapbook made with love by his teacher Joanne Hayden and his ABC book that he worked on all year. He was so proud of his hard work. Jocelyn loved flipping through both books to see how Blake decorated each page. Blake always added something creative to each page, including a lot of bones and pirate symbols!

Blake along with Lauren Bays and Rachel Fairbanks getting ready to perform "Take me out to the ballgame" during their Kindergarten graduation program. My sweet newly-birthday'd 4 year old Brent! He has my freckles and blue eyes. He has a darling, funny personality. As cuddily as he gets at night and in the mornings, he can also be extremely demanding and unrelenting in his need for attention. He is my Best Friend all day long. He still asks me to carry him to school each morning, which I don't mind because then I can smother him with kisses. He goes everywhere with me and talks to me all day. He has stories and comments about everything. I am so glad that I have one more precious year to enjoy Brent all day to myself before he starts kindergarten. He is my perfect last child!

Jeep is for sale!

After 9 1/2 years and 119,500 miles, we are saying "Adieu" to our Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. We got the car in December 1999 when Mark was just 7 months old, so he is the most upset about losing his beloved SUV. But after spending ridiculous amounts of precious dollars on unnecessary repairs and constant maintenance, we finally realized it was time to replace the Jeep so we bought Boyd his loaded (and beautiful!) 2004 GMC Yukon. This car served our family well through 4 children, including bringing home Jocelyn and Blake as newborn babies. Wendy originally drove it as an Intel work car, but then we bought it out from Intel when she quit in July, 2001. Our total purchase price (including the upgrade costs and the lease buy-out) was about $30K. Today we are selling it for $6500!

The car has a beautiful color scheme and drives really well. Its V-8 engine gets 14-17 mpg and has been very safe and powerful on mountain roads and even in treacherous snow storms in Utah.

Leather seats are a must with children. These seats are still in excellent condition after 10 years because Wendy was meticulous about cleaning and vacuuming the car weekly.

Wood trimmed interior and steering wheel controls made the interior very nice and comfortable.

We hope we sell the car quickly, otherwise, Mark may inherit it when he turns 17! (But do we really want a Jeep sitting in our drive-way another 7 years?! ) Happy car sales to us!

Boyd's New Car! 2004 Yukon Denali

This is Boyd's new (used) 2004 Yukon Denali! We bought it Tuesday night, June 2nd from a fellow who had to sell to reduce his debt-load so he could refinance his house. We paid him $13,900 cash and actually wrote the check to his lender so he could pay off his car loan. He had a 6 year car loan of $58K at 0.9% financing, so his pay-off was $14000 even. We did take it to the dealer and had them check it over for repairs and maintenance. We spent $1700 doing all the needed service, replacing the battery, replacing the rear brake lights, and replacing the driver-side mirror which was broken to smithereens when the owner backed out of his garage and whacked it hard! Other than the needed service and repairs, the car is in pristine condition and looks gorgeous. The color is charcoal grey, so it is not black but a dark grey with lots of flickers in the paint.
The owner upgraded the exterior lights on the car ... very bling-bling!

Here is the upgraded interior, including wood paneling instrumentation and wood steering wheel that normally goes on a Cadillac Escalade.

The middle two seats are captains chairs and are heated, just like the front driver & passenger chairs. The leather seats are two-toned beige and cashmere (doesn't that sound posh? Ha Ha!).

Here is the 3rd row bench seat. The seats are split, so either one can be pushed forward for storage. Both seats can also easily be removed for storage behind the middle captains chairs. So now this car comfortably seats 7 passengers, just like our Yukon XL seats 7 passengers.

Here is the kids favorite feature of the car! The 17" DVD/entertainment system complete with wireless speakers, game console & video player connections. So if we had a Wii or a Nintendo system (which we never plan to buy ever, ever, ever, ever, ever....), we could bring along the game systems on a family trip and the kids could play in the car. For now, we're sticking with Brent's movies "Bolt" and "Cars" that he carried with him the past two days waiting to watch in Daddy's new car!

This is the front instrumentation panel again showing the wood grain trim and the in-dash navigation system. The navigation screen actually plays DVD movies as well, and it can receive TV signals to watch TV. You can play a movie on both the front & flip-down screens or you can watch two different movies at the same time. So the kids can watch "Bolt" while Mommy enjoys a historical movie or anything else with a little more intellectual stimulation. The navigation screen works very well...meaning it already distracted me when I drove the car to fill up the gas tank.

Here is the AC 110 V. outlet and the video game input jack. So now Boyd or Mark can plug in their computers while driving in the car! This helps you recharge your computer battery or just do computer work on the road.

The back hatch open. Not super roomy like our XL when the rear seats up but just fine for Boyd and the stuff he needs to carry with him to work and practices. He can always fold the seats forward to create more cargo area.

The happy driver looking in his new driver side mirror -- a mere $600 replacement after the previous owner smashed the mirror backing out of his garage a little too hastily!

As the scriptures say to be grateful for "all things", in this case we are very grateful for a cracked mirror on the Yukon and the Jeep's radiator leaking again. The cracked mirror on the Yukon made the owner realize he had to sell the car for below blue book pricing if he wanted to sell it quickly to pay off his loan. The leaking radiator made us realize it was time to buy a new car for Boyd. Lindsey had told me last March to promise ourselves "at the next repair, we buy a new car". So when the NEW radiator leaked again on the garage last Tuesday, I moved our car savings out of HSBC and into Wells Fargo. I also happened to read the June issue of the Ensign where it focused on staying out of debt (the other miracle here is that I read the Ensign cover-to-cover as soon it came....almost never happens, I hate to admit). Boyd and I fasted and prayed about whether we should buy new "new" or stick to our budget of what we had in car savings. We felt strongly we should follow the counsel of the Ensign and avoid a car payment. So after Boyd test drove the Escalade and realized how much he really liked the larger SUV (and argued that we needed a big car with 4 kids and all their stuff), I looked in AutoTrader and CarMax for Escalades and Yukon Denalis (same cars) within our price range. Lo and behold, this car ad showed up but the photo was so poor, the ad did not get a lot of traffic. I e-mailed the owner on Friday, didn't hear from him all weekend, but then he called me on Monday and asked if we could look at the car that night. Boyd was thrilled since he had "lost" the Escalade over the weekend because it was sold to another customer for the same price the dealer offered it to us while Boyd took Jocelyn on the Indian Princesses camp-out instead of car shopping. It is amazing how things truly do work out for the best. We got a better car than the Cadillac Escalade for $10K less, and Boyd was blessed for putting his family first. This has been a true miracle!

P.S. This morning Boyd commented, "You know, that Jeep is running GREAT now! Maybe we should keep it for running errands around town." I said, "Well, I think it is time to sell it while it is still running "GREAT" and put the money into our car savings account!" So the Jeep goes up for sale next week in the AutoTrader. Mark Lee is crying over the prospects of saying good-bye to the Jeep. It was his car since he was a little baby. I just look forward to never talking/arguing with the Tustin Jeep Service reps for the rest of my life. No wonder Chrysler is in chapter 11.