Hollister Happenings

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The Carving of the Pumpkins

Magen is a true teenager with a phone attached to her ear.
(I have been trying to learn more about my camera. I used a feature on a few of these pictures that makes everything black and white except for a certain color. In this case I chose orange. I think it looks neat.)

Mackenzie worked hard to make sure her pumpkins was perfectly clean inside.

Ryan was less concerned about cleaning the pumpkin out, he got all the big stuff out and then got to work carving the face.
Ryan's goal was a scary looking jack'o lantern

Mackenie was going for a nicer look.


When we were done we all had a carmelled apple, yumm!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Pumpkin Patch

For some reason the timing of Halloween just doesn't seem to work into the Hollister schedule. With the rigors of multiple children in multiple sports we never seem to find a good time to go to the pumpkin patch. Our tradition has been to go to the Winco pumpkin patch.
We joke about getting our pumpkins from Winco but you can't beat the price and it only takes a few minutes, no slogging through a muddy field.
Magen had a volleball game, Mackenzie had soccer practice and although we were starving we stopped on the way home for pumpkins.
The kids thought I was crazy for bringing the camera to the grocery store but everyone else takes pictures of their kids at the pumpkin patch why shouldn't I?
So many to choose from. Just five minutes later everyone had made their selection and we headed inside for some chicken and jo jo's.
Now we need to carve!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Moving day

We drove up to Longview to help Trevor move into his studio apartment. It is located above a business in a historic building. Yeah it's old but it has character. The carpet and vinyl were replaced prior to Trevor moving in so it looks and feels nice and clean. Oh yeah, the Pet/Pawn shop just across the street makes the location so convenient. The location of this apartment is actually great because it is within walking distance to school. It beats driving 45 minutes each way, everyday.
This little kitchen unit is a gem. I have never seen anything like it, the stove and oven are on the left with a sink in the middle. On the right is a small counter space with a refrigerator below. Fortunately there is a regular refrigerator.
The view!
We all helped Trevor unpack his kitchen. It took about 3 minutes. He has a small saucepan to make his favorite food, Top Ramen and a little set of dishes given to him by his aunt Alisha for his birthday. She also gave him a sponge, dish cloths and soap with hopes that he will actually wash the dishes.
We were having a great time but all good things must come to an end. Trevor thought he might go down to the Goodwill (which is also conveniently located within walking distance) to find some home decor. Next time we visit we will see how that went.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Volleyball


This has been a volleyball week for us. Magen is playing on two volleyball teams, one at school and the other at church. In the past four days she has played in four volleyball games.
As a spectator I love it because the games are inside out of the rain and cold.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Piano Practice


Last Spring, with some encouragement, Mackenzie began piano lessons. She began, as most new students to this amazing instrument, with a great deal of frustration. Though I am no pianist I would pull up a chair or sit next to her on the bench with hopes that I could help. If a note was played incorrectly I would kindly point it out only to find tears rolling down her cheeks and frustration building. If I said nothing and just listened she would say "Why aren't you helping me?" I looked forward to the day when she could go practice the piano by herself and I could fold laundry or fix dinner and avoid the frustration that we were both feeling towards eachother.


Practice after practice we sat at that piano and I learned about my girl.


I learned when she just needed me to be a cheerleader

When she was feeling confident enough for correction.

Some days I could push for perfection and she would eagerly work harder

other days we needed to ignore the flaws knowing tomorrow would be better


And now.....,,,,,,,,

I look forward to our piano practice sessions and the time we get to share.

Mackenzie I hope there will always be room for me on the bench.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Bear Encounter


This weekend I went to Reno with Steve; he was there on business but we thought it would be a good chance for us to spend some time together. We decided to take a little trip to Lake Tahoe for some sight seeing. We stopped at Harvey's in South Lake Tahoe and had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and then continued around the lake.
Soon we entered the small town of Camp Richardson, we noticed a lot of people and cars parked along the side of the road and so we pulled over and went to see what was going on. As we looked into the water below the bridge this is what we saw
hundreds of Kokanee Salmon were in the stream spawning, it was amazing. I had never seen that many fish at one time. A few moments later someone said look, there's a bear. Sure enough there was a brown bear in the middle of the stream fishing for his dinner. We decided we wanted a closer look and so we took a trail that ran beside the stream. Along the way we encountered a lady that had spotted another bear and so we followed her. Just around the corner was another bear, he was just walking along and we quietly watched. He saw us and looked directly at us, he was probably only 10 yards away. He then turned and lumbered away crossing the path that we were on. It was very exciting. We went back to the creek and watched the other bear fish, he wasn't having much luck so he headed up stream to where the fish were more concentrated. The most frustrating thing was that we didn't have our camera. I found the picture of the Salmon on the Camp Richardson web site and the picture of the bear just depicts what we saw.