Johnsons' Journey

I think I am enjoying this spring vacation way too much, and am getting so very lazy. *lol* I need to get better about coming here to post, and I also need to get better about the blog-hopping thing… I don’t want Facebook to take over my blog, but sometimes I fear that is what’s happening! So not a good thing! … It’s just that I get more responses off facebook, than I do here on the blog, so I tend to go there… For the “attention”, I guess. *lol*

We had an OK weekend…

The boys had their bowling league on Saturday morning. They both bowled well, and got over their average in every game… We don’t know if their team won the games or not, because one of their team-mates was gone. We’re assuming that he post-bowled, and we’ll find out how the games went on this Saturday… Up until last Saturday the boys’ team (The Cougars) were in 1st place… I’m hoping that they still are, as it would make the boys SO HAPPY if they finished in 1st.

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Since I jumped back on the weightloss bandwagon, Joe started thinking about it too. I noticed that he stopped ordering sodas and got water instead. He also told me he was cutting back on coffee, and not eating as many sweets… He tries to eat less, but he just can’t seem to do that! *lol* He always seems to need to eat until he’s full… Of course, seeing as he’s got a lot of muscles (you should see his arms!), his body will burn a lot more calories than mine will… Maybe if he used testosterone boosters, he would build up even more muscles so he could burn even more calories a day… Then he wouldn’t have to eat less!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but we have our vacations all figured out for the year… Joe get’s 3 vacations a year now, which is nice for him! He works so much, and so hard, that he really needs the time off!

Anyway, Joe gets a week off in a couple weeks (March 15-19), then he gets a week off in the end of May, and then the week of his birthday (8/26) off too.

For the vacation this month, we have a lot of little things planned. We want to try to get to the beach for a day (maybe spend one night in a motel), and maybe get to the zoo for a day too. We would also like to paint the laundry room… Joe has so many little things he wants to do, there is no way we would be able to get them all done! *lol* … Guess we’ll just take it a day at a time, and see what happens.

As for May, we’re going camping at Beverly Beach… I would have rather gone in the end of June, or some time in July, but all the weeks of vacation were taken, so we had to go with May… We’re hoping it isn’t too cold and rainy… The last time we were at Beverly Beach was in May too (in 2007), and that turned out to be a lovely week. Here’s hoping for repeats!

In August we’re going camping in Prineville. The weather should be awesome then, and we’re really looking forward to it… We also want to take a day trip one of the days and go into Bend to see the High Desert Museum, and we also want to go to MacKensie Pass.

Sometimes I wish we could do something “bigger” for our vacation… Like go so Yellowstone or Mt. Rushmore… Or take the kids to Disneyland, etc in California… Another big dream is an Orlando vacation. We could do the Disneyworld thing, and see the Atlantic ocean for the first time. Maybe it would be interesting to look into an Orlando timeshare… I know Julie, keep dreaming… Keep dreaming!

Thought I’d better come by and check in again. I’ve been doing some digi-scrapping and working on my blog book. That always makes me neglect other things, like this blog. *lol*

The kids and I have another full week of homeschool lessons, and then we’re on a 2 week spring vacation! We can’t wait! It seems like we’ve been so busy lately, it’s going to be nice to have some down time… Then, after spring break is over, there is only something like 3-4 weeks of lessons left, and then their workbooks will be done for the year. It seems hard to believe it’s so close to being that time of year already! … I’ve even already put an order in for the state tests that Alicia and the boys will be doing. (This will be Amanda’s last year of not having to do the CATs. We always start doing them after 1st grade.)

We didn’t do too much over the weekend… We did go to the bowling alley both Friday and Saturday…

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I thought I’d better write a post before ya’ll think I’ve decided to give up on blogging all-together. *lol*

There isn’t too much going on around here. We’ve just been doing the homschool thing. The kids only have a couple weeks until spring vacation, and are getting excited about it. (As is Mommy *lol*)

We got some scary news yesterday … Remember last September-ish when there was a cougar sighting in the woods, right behind the house? … Well, turns out that the cougar is here to stay, because it’s been sighted again… While I like the quiet of this area, I wish we had found a house we could afford in town instead. I think I would feel a bit safer about letting the kids play outside.

I guess now we know why the stray cat population has gone WAY down… Poor kitties.

We’re not letting Buddy go outside right now, because I don’t want him to become Cougar-chow… Since we still don’t really trust him, we’ve set him up an area in the pantry, for when we can’t keep an eye on him… But while he seems to like his “room”, he wants to go outside, and is starting to get whiney about it. *lol*

On Tuesday, Alicia and Amanda had their last class at Dolce Dance… In some ways I think they are regretting their decision… But in the summer months, it will probably be for the best anyway, as we would have had a hard time getting there on time, because of Joe’s schedule… Thier bowling league starts in April… If they end up not liking it, then we’ll take them back to Dolce Dance in September. (The summer bowling league ends at the end of August)

Since the kids were done with school early yesterday, we took them bowling again. This time Joe wouldn’t challenge them… Which is a good thing, because he would have lost again. … Those boys are getting to be such good bowlers!

Joe will be late coming home today… He’s going to get new tires on the Durango. We’ve been needing them for a while now, and it’s going to be nice to have them done! … Then on Thursday a friend of Joe’s (John) will be doing some other work on the Durango… Something with the brakes, I think. Joe wants to get the Durango working well before all our summer camping plans, so he doesn’t have to worry about pulling the trailer. If he pulls the trailer as the Durango is now, we’d end up with a travel emergency! … Of course, the trailer needs some work too. One of the tanks has a leak, and needs to be replaced… Wish we “had a guy” who knew how to do that too, so we could get it done cheaper. *lol*

Joe has got to learn that now that the boys are getting older, he’s got to stop competing with them… Because it’s starting to not go well for him anymore!

Yesterday we took the kids bowling (though the girls decided that they would rather color, and didn’t bowl). Before we left, Joe decided that he wanted to ‘challenge” them. He knew I wouldn’t approve of them betting money on the games, because I don’t approve of gambling… So he and the boys decided that whoever lost the game would be cooking dinner tonight. Joe actually said that the winner wouldn’t have to, and the two that came in 2nd and 3rd place would make it.

I’m sure that Joe was envisioning himself kicking back while Jared and Josh made dinner.

That’s not quite what happened!

They ended up bowling 5 games… Jared’s series total was 564, Josh’s series total was 488, and Joe’s was 462. (Jared kicked some serious booty! *lol*)

Looks like Joe and Josh will be making dinner tonight.

Josh was sure excited though… He bowled his very first turkey (3 strikes in a row)!!! He was SOOOOO happy! And this Mama is SOOOOOO proud! They are getting to be good little bowlers!

Before I go I just wanted to give a quick shout out for eczema natural treatment. I should look into that, as sometimes I wonder if Amanda may have problems with that. During the winter she gets these dry rashy patches on the inside of her arms (opposite the elbows). It always looks like it itches! They always go away when the weather warms up though…

A few weeks ago we promised the kids that we would get them a Wii with our tax returns… Today we learned a valuable lesson… When it comes to Wii… Don’t make promises!

Our Federal tax returns were directly deposited into our checking account this morning, so Joe figured he would pick one up on his way home from work. That way we could get our BIL, Scott, to come over this evening and hook it up… Because Joe and I are electronically challenged *lol*… So he drove into SE Portland, to go to BestBuy.

Sold Out

So then he drove to Wilsonville to try Fry’s.

Sold Out

So then he started calling around (while I looked up phone numbers on the computer and texted them to him *lol*)…

Fred Meyer’s … Out
Walmart … Out
Kmart… Out

So I started looking online…

Amazon … Out (unless you went with a private seller, which we aren’t comforable with)
Circuit City … Out

Joe finally thought of Target, so I looked for their number online and texted it to him, and they ACTUALLY had it in stock. So Joe, who was half way home at the time, turned around and went to Target… Where he saw someone else buying one and almost went into a panic… Luckily she didn’t have the last one. *lol*

So he picked that one up, and then got an extra controller… Having to spend extra on that, as the basic one was out of stock and he had to get a vibrating one. I guess he got something else too… A numchuck or something like that?????

It’s going to drive the kids BATTY, waiting for Uncle Scott to come hook that up tonight! *lol*

But at least they got one, so they can be patient.

Well, what do you know… I am now 39 years old… Only one year left until the dreaded FOUR-OH … OMWord, I so don’t want to turn 40. I really, really, really, really, really, really don’t want to turn 40. It makes my stomach upset just to think about it. *lol*

Despite the fact that I am teetering on the top of the hill, I still managed to have a good weekend.

On Saturday we of course went to the bowling alley for the boys’ league. It was a position round, and their team won 2 out of the 3 games… They could have won all three, but their team-mate, Marshall, was having a REALLY had day. On the game they lost, Marshall only got a 50 (his average is 89). If he had played as well as he normally does, they for sure would have won all three.

Jared and Josh, on the other hand, both bowled really well. I think Jared is out of his slump, much to his happiness. In fact, while he still didn’t beat his top game of 170, he managed to beat his top series (the total of all 3 games together). His top series was 342, but on Saturday he bowled a 390… He also got his first turkey (3 strikes in a row), but sadly it was during practice, so it didn’t count. *lol* Poor Jared! … He almost got a hambone (4 strikes in a row), but he only got 9 down on the 4th one… One pin shy. *lol*

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I can’t believe I haven’t posted on here since Monday… Shame on me! I am getting to be a lazy blogger… Which is something I don’t want to happen! *sigh* … Must get better… I must!

My main problem is that Blurb book I am making, from old blog posts. I would really like to get it done by the end of the month, so that I can buy it with tax returns. Yesterday I got up to page 240, and am up to mid May 1999 … It was then that I noticed a problem…

You see, I started the book a few months ago and got up to page 107, and then stopped working on it until a couple 2-3 weeks ago. Well… I accidently changed the font size, and didn’t notice until last night. *sigh* … I am using Tahoma, and I was using size 10 for the journaling, with size 12 for the titles. I am now making the titles size 10 and making the journaling a size 9… Gah! … I am SO MAD at myself!… I am OCD enough that the change in font size would drive me batty… But do you know how much work it would be to change all the font sizes, and have to reline up pictures to match the journaling. *sigh* … Not to mention that on this old laptop, the Blurb program takes up too much memory and is really sluggish.

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