Hollywood!

We took Jack to Seattle last month for a big audition,

There were 100's of kids there.

Jack did great, Jeff and I were really impressed.

For the past 4 weeks we having been waiting (not so patiently) to hear if Jack made it.

Well, we got the call back yesterday!

Tears of joy in our house. It's so fun to see your kid shoot for big dreams. 

This boy is headed to Hollywood!

Details soon.... 

Prom

Last Saturday was Prom.

I had big ideas for taking photos this year again on the school campus, but we were unable to do so.  We ended up taking photos here in the backyard.  

This was Jennifer's (our exchange student) first prom, she loved it, everything from dress shopping, getting ready and the main event. 

Olivia and I waited until the last minute to find a dress...

Prom was less than 2 weeks away and we were at the dress shop.

Olivia had gone into the dressing room with approximately 10 dresses.

I see a girl a few rooms down, wearing a gorgeous pale pink dress.

I asked our attendant if they had another dress like that one for Olivia to try on, she said, no it's the only one.

A few minutes later the attendant brings us the dress and tells us the girl left and did not purchase the dress.

I think "great"  :)  Olivia tries it on and it's amazing.. it's THE dress.

Long story short, Olivia is in the dressing room taking the dress off, when the girl comes back to the shop to purchase the dress.  

The attendant asks us if we are wanting the dress...???

I told her yes, but I wanted to purchase it and walk out the back door.  LOL

We ended up at the counter with the girl and her mother as they are trying to figure out how to order this girl another dress and ringing up ours.  Awkward to say the least... 

I felt awful, but they could have placed a 2 hour hold and they did not.

I guess you can say lessons were learned that day. 

Who knew prom dress shopping could be so crazy?

April 365

Whew... I still going strong on my 365 project.

Here's a look at April...

My new macro lens arrived the 2nd week of April and it's really helped with my creative rut.

Seventeen!

Olivia turned 17.  I can hardly believe it!

Olivia has THE best group of friends ever.

They texted me the day before her birthday and said that they wanted to surprise Olivia before school.  They showed up at our house a 6am with cupcakes, flowers, balloons and of course, Starbucks.  

They even decorated her car.

They got everything in order and then woke her up singing Happy Birthday.

Olivia was so surprised.

Olivia's boyfriend, Craig was in on the surprise too. 

This was the photo taken after our family dinner.  

I made a cake and bought Olivia her own Marionberry pie.  :)

Olivia and Craig

Olivia and her sweet friends getting ready to leave for school.  

Best group of kids ever... You will see more of them next week when I post prom pics.

Wait until you hear the story of Olivia's prom dress.. it's absolutely crazy.  

I will be posting about it next week. 

Spring Break..

Spring Break...

We had an uneventful, busy spring break...

Olivia had to have her wisdom teeth removed, so we ended up having a "staycation" right here at home. 

Jeff took a few days off and he and Jack went fishing and worked on some house projects.

Olivia was down most of the week and unable to eat solid foods.

Lucy took a sewing class and loved it.

We celebrated Easter, but I just enjoyed the day and didn't take any photos. 

The kids still colored eggs and we had an egg hunt Easter morning. 

Here's some iphone pics documenting our week.

Jeff and Jack have been fishing a few times in recent weeks.

They are enjoying catching trout.

It's nice when they go fishing and bring home dinner.  :)

The first day of spring break it snowed... Luckily it didn't last long and turned to rain.

This photo was taken out our backdoor.

I really love this view!

 Jeff has been teaching Jack how to be a "handyman."  Here is a photo of Jeff and Jack working on installing new deck stairs.

 I took this photo of Olivia after her surgery... she was cracking me up.

She asked me to go buy a marionberry pie and put it in the blender so she could it.

She also refused to take the sunglasses off and was talking about how sad it was that people are mean to chickens.  She watched a recent documentary on Netflix about chickens.  LOL!

 Besides reconfiguring our deck, we are also installing new interior doors.

Here's a side by side of the ugly 80's door and the new door.  The new door has yet to be painted, but you can see the dramatic change.  

Here's Lucy in here sewing class.

She has been waiting a long time to learn to sew. 

She attended class everyday from 9-12 and made a beautiful pillow case and flannel pajama pants.

Our little fashion designer was in her element. :)

Jennifer (our exchange student) returned home to Beijing over spring break, but is returning tomorrow to finish out the school year.  Jennifer will go back home for summer break and will join our family again in the fall. 

We are really enjoying her and missed over spring break.