"These are few of my Favorite things..."

Happy Father's Day Chris!!

Yay for nice weather for Fathers Day - trust me - I prayed for it too!! ALL Chris wanted for Fathers day was Ruffles regular potato chips, French Onion dip, Curve Ball & Sun - Yes, this man is easy to please!! Oh - and don't forget whiffle ball - another game that the "boys" have made up that makes no sense (much like the beach house games...). Here are some pics of our relaxing day.

This is the kids' gift to Chris

And He's Off...

So, it's been almost a week since saying goodbye to my brother, and I'm just now sitting down to write about it. I'm not sure why - I think a big part of me doesn't even know what to say, and the other part of me doesn't fully want to accept the fact he's really gone. To say saying goodbye was hard would be a total understatement. I tried to play out in my head beforehand what it was going to be like, just to be prepared...I thought Haley and Tanner would have a difficult time and Carter wouldn't totally get it - well I was wrong - Tanner dealt with it by going the opposite way everyone else was feeling and was acting supper goofy - Carters the one that surprised me the most - he fell apart - like really fell apart. Watching that was heart-wrenching. What pulled him together...? Michael told him he could sleep in his bed whenever he wanted (saying this to the kid that asked him the other day "Uncle Michael - when you die, can I have your room?") I knew Haley was going to have a hard time too - and she did. Michael's girlfriend Krysta was over that night too, she could barely talk about it - I remember all too well of having to say goodbye to your boyfriend - there is nothing anyone can say that will make you feel better.
We got two quick calls from him, one at the airport, and another I think when he got to the base, he said he'd call in two weeks. He is having to have his wisdom teeth pulled and his cavities filled right away - I'm assuming they did it this past weekend. Mom, Sadie, Krysta and I are going to go to his graduation in August, so that is something to look forward too.
Moms doing ok, I think better than I thought she'd be doing. I think it helped that he was hardly home to begin with!
We miss you little bro - I know you'll do your best! We're very proud of you too!!!

"My Dream Room Is Spectacular!"

Alright, I've got a follow-up from some of the comments from my last post. Haley brought home yesterday a bunch of school work that has been put in a book from over the year (we're closing in on the end of the year) This is TOO good! I was just looking through it this morning...

My dream room is spectacular!

The walls are bright blue, with white cool clouds. And the floor is bright purple and as I look around my room I see my dog on the beanbags! I also see the flower carpet because I love, love, love flowers. I also see my drink stand with lots and lots of drink's and as I look around more I see my dogs dog bed and her food and water by my bed. My closet is big it has my jackets and my dresses and some of my nice shirts. Then I see my goldfish tank and my dresser with my, shirts, pants, shorts, skirts, and tanktops. My bed is so awesome it has a sky pillow and the sheets are striped!
My dream room is awesome!

Writinn by
Haley Avery (3rd grade)

In her own words! (and typos :)
Well - that should give us some good starting points to how to do her new room!!
**Oh, she aslo got a Wonderful! from her teacher!**

My Favorite Souvenir

We went to Disney World (along with various other place too!) in April with 14 of the 18 Avery family members. I know, I thought we’d loose at least one kid too - NOPE! Boy did we luck out! So anyway, we were shopping around Downtown Disney one night and I saw this guy - I actually thought he drew out the profile then cut it out. I figured the boys were off shopping in the pin store - and that was way more their thing. I wanted Haley to have it done. It was SO cool to watch - the guy just picked up a tiny pair of scissors and whipped it out in less than a minute!

By far my favorite souvenir. It may sound lame, but I hope this is something she keeps forever.

…And yes, her room is bright pink - thank you Auntie Sadie ;) The next room wont be as bright so she'll hopefully sleep in longer than when the sunrises!! :)

THE Brush

So here's the deal...my husband has OCD - it could be worse, way worse I know - but this one cracks me up everyday - literally.

Here's how it goes: Every night before we get into bed Chris first has to FLING back the sheets (like ALL the way), and do the brush. Brushing out any crumbs - how did he know I sit in bed all day eating bon bon's while watching soaps, brushing out spiders, wrinkles, aw you name it. He lifts his pillow, brushes it out there too. Even when I JUST put clean sheets on - which by the time I get around to it its right before we go to bed anyway - It doesn't matter he still does it.

So, when we were in Hawaii - knowing full well he'd do the brush, I bought a little realistic gecko, and before he came to bed put it alongside his pillow under the sheets. I had to roll over, I couldn't even look at him - I've never been able to pull one over on him, so I was biting my cheeks so I wouldn't laugh. Yup, sure enough, he pulled back the sheets to do the brush and quickly slammed the sheets back down "Carlee get out of the bed - get OUT of the bed NOW" "Why? Whats wrong?" By this time I had rolled out of the bed laughing so hard - he still was trying to figure out what happened.
He was so mad at me - why? Because I got him - that's why!

God has a great sence of humor!

After looking for awhile now (by awhile, I mean a couple of years) to find the perfect house for our family - Monroe, Duvall, Woodinville...Ellensburge (ok, not there) And with so many "this is it - this is the house" houses - we have FINALLY found the "one".

Mind you we came back here from living in the south - where you can get an enormous house on 6 acres for $200k - ok that might be a small exaggeration, but very small. Chris and I were even talking a couple weeks ago that we hated the fact that we moved back to Kirkland - we love it here, like REALLY love it here. We love our neighbors and amazing cul-de-sac (ok, so part of us was hoping a neighbor would move or.......) and we love the kids school, our friends, Chris is like 4 miles from work (k-I love that because he drives a gas guzzling suburban) our church is nice and close - and also my work, the beaches are supper close, love the community and environment...do I need to go on, we love Kirkland. So why couldn't we have moved back to Kent - and that way our expectations would have been lower. We would have been able to make our life great there. Used to it - oh and the best part - we'd be able to afford it there!

Ok, so where is it... Well, to be exact, its 10 houses away. God must get a kick out of our family - cause sure enough as SOON as you say "Ok God, you win - we'll stop looking, and we'll be content with where were at until YOU show us what you want for us" I'm pretty sure I've prayed that before, but apparently I didn't fully let it go. So here it is 10 houses away in the next cul-de-sac up - my kids wont even have to cross the street to get to Grammies house. Oh - did I not mention that we've been living with my mom for the past 3 1/2 years? Yep, we have. All five of us and our yellow lab (in which my moms cat HATES - Just one bark is all it would take Ellie!)

The crazy thing about this whole thing is that is was our friends house, yeah, I thought it would be weird too. In fact I still think about it, and wonder what its going to be like to have them over, hmmm. Actually, I'm mostly sad because they bought a house in Woodinville, so not to another state, but still they wont be just around the corner anymore.

God has blessed us, in such a huge way. We are stoked and so excited! Stay tuned for our new address. FYI, we havent told our kids yet, we still have about a month yet before the big move, so rather than get the excitement going now - and the "I dont want to leave my friends and Grammie" bit, we're keeping it under wraps for the time being.

Oh - and we figured instead of getting a moving truck we figured we'd just have all our friends over and make a long chain to pass our stuff from one house to the other :) So if your not busy!

And if you havent figured it out yet, that is not our house - ha! I wish!!

C

Bon Voyage, Michael...

Wow! I have to say... I think I'm in a bit of denial over the fact my little brother has joined the Navy and will be gone in 10 days. Yes, 10 days and our family will change - in a way - forever. It'll be good for him, I know - but hard for us. He has such a presents in our family and our lives that Birthday's, Christmases and everyday life will have a huge hole. Not to mention where now are we going to get our fill of unbelievable stories of Festivas - and rivers - and snow... not to mention who are we going to watch jump those Festivas into an empty pond. Wait - who's going to wear the Speedo next time we go to Hawaii??

My kids are going to be devastated - they love him, no they adore him. Especially the boys. Carter was just shining Grammies wheels with him the other day. Who is going to pick on them the way he does, or mess with their heads? It's going to be good for him - that's what I'll just keep telling myself.
My moms going to have a tough time - a really tough time, I almost wish for the sake of her our move out date was later - yeah, I did just say that :)

The question is: what are we going to miss more? Two Festiva's, a Volvo & a Crotch Rocket (non of which run) OR Michael... what do you think!
More to come I'm sure.