Mom's on!

Hey all! This is Rachael typing for Mom right now, but hopefully she'll get the idea soon enough to do this herself. :-) April - you need to invite Mom to your blog. Love you all! This is a link to Mom's wish list: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/ref=cm_gift_gno_wl_hp

Particularly for April . . .

You'll probably get to see Kate in this outfit yourself, but for everyone else too. This is a 6 month outfit. Doesn't she look so adorable and fancy? Man I wish everyone were coming home for Christmas so you could all see her . . . she's just insanely cute!

Sweet Pea Smiling

This one is particularly for Angela. You'll probably get to see Kate in this outfit when we come home for Christmas, but I accidentally got smiling pictures while I was shooting! So I had to share it.

November 4th--Election Day!

"Couple names"

On my blog I recently had a poll to help decide what mine and Dave's couple name should be. Like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been dubbed 'Brangelina'. Votes favored 'Ravid' for us. I had fun coming up with couple name possibilities for all of my married siblings. Here's what I've got:

Raylie or Julaymond

Angelarrin or Darrangela

Nathamy or Amathan

Sarim or Timrah

Aprichael or Michapril

How about some for Mom and Dad . . . Rayresa, Teray, Teresay, Raysa - man this is fun! Ha! Have you got other ideas? Pick your favorites!

For Charity in particular

Had to get a pic of the bum ruffle. :-)

Our snowy Sunday

Dietrich had so much fun - he played in it for three hours. And over an hour the next day! We had over 1 1/2 feet of snow. Branches broke all over Billings and the power was out more than once. But it was beautiful.

I forgot to mention in the last post that Dietrich calls Kate "cake." Isn't that a hoot?

Some random things . . .

Just wanted to share some fun things that have happened recently:

• Dietrich said the first full sentence that I remember hearing him say yesterday. I went to a baby shower and as I was buckling him in he said, "Where are we going?" He does speak English!
  
• Kate has slept the night through, not once, but twice during the past week! Isn't she amazing?
• I don't know how much she weighs, but Kate fits more comfortably in Stage 2 diapers and many of her 3-6 months clothes. She's growing so fast!
• We're halfway through this semester! It's horrendous - Dave is never home and when he is he needs to be working on something for school. I really haven't liked this semester so far.
• I discovered that Kate shares her birth date with Davy Crockett! Isn't that funny?
  

I'll have/make the time/patience to post some pictures soon. It just takes so long with dial-up. But we have some fun pictures of Dietrich playing in the snow after we got a foot and a half of it last weekend. He loved it!

Our Blog is updated... click here

Hola Everyone!
We have recently updated the old blog -- with new pics of our new place and some of our travels. Just click on the title above and it will lead you there...

Isn't she precious?

Thanks April for the cute outfit! Cute huh. Let me know if you'd like a hard copy - I'd be happy to print it off and send it to you.

September morn

Hello all! We are back home and settling into those lovely September
rhythms. I love this beautiful time of year. It is a time of
revisiting familiar routines, while setting new goals for the coming
school year.

After Nauvoo we enjoyed a quick trip out to Utah. And it was quick,
too quick. But I realize the children don't necessarily need a lot of
time--any time is good time for them. They have been recounting their
adventures ever since (remember when we went swimming at Gwamma's? I
like swimming...remember when Uncle Tim let me drive the
boat?...remember when we were laughing with Andrew under the
tree?...) It's amazing what even a few days will do for them to help
them remember who their relatives really are.

It's been nice to come back home too. It's been a couple weeks of
unpacking, cleaning off cobwebs, paying bills, planning the year's
schedule of kids' activities, getting back into jobs and callings,
etc. After almost three years in the Young Women, I was released and
called as the Single Adult Supervisor. I get to try and keep track of
the singles in our ward and help them feel a place in our ward and
church. I'm excited about the calling.

Despite the time it takes to get settled, we've enjoyed having a
couple weeks left of summer. Besides remembering what it's like to
have daily summer chores and piano practicing :), we've been having
fun too--playing out in our beautiful backyard, feeding apples to the
horses, swimming, berry picking, and visiting Greenfield Village (my
kids rode the carousel a total of 8 times--that's over 1.5 hours!).
This past weekend we had a family camp-out in our backyard, giving our
old tent and new camp stove a whirl. Our friends, the Jonutzes,
joined us, and we had fun roasting s'mores and telling ghost stories.
We finally gave Ray his birthday present--a volleyball set-up--and we
found our backyard to be a great place for it!

But summer is officially over now. Tia and Susan's first week of
school, and they were both so excited! They have good teachers and
classmates, and I'm glad they love school like they do. I've had fun
already homeschooling my boys with stories and songs and activities.
It should be a fun year.

Enjoy your September and know that we love you and miss you all!
Love, Julie and co.

Here's some pics since we got home. I unfortunately didn't bring my
camera to Idaho, so here's some pictures of time since...

It's a great day!

Kate's blessing day

In case you haven't heard and still wonder . . .

We for sure will not be attending this year's reunion. You may not hear the announcement of a new arrival at our house until the reunion starts. :-) In fact, I'm planning on it. I don't have date set for inducement, but I have a morning appointment on Thursday the 14th. Since Saturday marks week 42 I expect it to be done before the weekend's completely over. Since I made the effort of finding and learning a song for the talent show Dave and I recorded it last night, I made it into a video this morning and rode my bike to the post office to mail it off. It should get there by Friday, but if not WATCH IT ANYWAY! It would for sure arrive by Saturday unless something goes terribly wrong with the mail system. :-) Love you all . . . I'm so sad that I can't be there to show off my new baby and see all of you. Oh! And I know it is impossible for most of you to attend the blessing no matter when I have it, but for those who may be able to we are planning for Kate's blessing to take place Labor Day weekend (which is not a Fast Sunday this year). Naturally, it will be held in Billings and you're all invited regardless of your ability to come. haha I'll take pictures of course, so you'll all be able to see.

Lest you think I am negligent . . .

in keeping you all informed about this baby, I have decided to post what I know. She's still in the oven. Unbelievable. I had an appointment this morning and while things still appear to be going well, there has been no progression. And that is in spite of more than an hour of for real labor yesterday morning. We were even headed to the hospital! After we got in the car I suggested that we drive around a bit to make sure it would keep going. It stopped. And there have been no significant contractions since then. Needless to say, I was a bit discouraged by the news at my appointment this morning, but what can I do? Nothing really. So I'll keep on waiting. We were planning to travel to Preston for a family reunion next Wednesday, but if she stays in much longer I don't think those plans will be followed. Anyway, we will be keeping you posted. If you hear nothing, it is perfectly safe to assume that nothing has happened. :-)

This is not a hint!

I repeat this is not a hint! I just wanted to let you know that if you are planning on purchasing a gift for baby Kate I am registered at Target. It wouldn't have occurred to me to tell everyone except for that Mom was interested in knowing. So I thought it might be helpful information for other family and friends. But it's totally okay if you weren't planning on getting a gift for the baby at all. Really truly. That's all for now. :-) Oh, appointment today informed me that I am dilated between 1-2, 50% effaced, and Kate's head is between station -1/0.

Woohoo!

Dietrich has started to go potty on the toilet! He did it for the first time last night, and continues to do so willingly when we ask him about it. Hooray! Now we just need to convince him that #2 is supposed to go in the toilet as well . . . and to tell us when he needs to go. But this is a great start right?!

Dietrich in his pool

There was a serious discount on this pool when we bought it in anticipation of the hot days that hadn't yet come. They're certainly here now! Dietrich loved playing in it . . . and Mom and Dad enjoyed it, too. :-)
Funny story - yesterday while we were eating dinner Dietrich was doing something that he shouldn't have (I don't recall what it was) and his Dad started the "you're-in-trouble-if-I-get-to-three" countdown. Dave said, "One," and Dietrich piped in, "two." haha I just exploded - how can you stay upset with that? Oh my goodness, aren't kids crazy fun?!

More San Diego

We sure loved having Grandma and Grandpa and Andrew and Charity here! We played until we dropped... it was fun every minute. Thanks for the fun.
Oh... and by the way, if you haven't heard: We're expecting baby #3! More details when we have them!

An intriguing survey

A friend of mine emailed me a link to a survey being conducted by her brother-in-law. It's about a chocolate shop idea (yes, the word chocolate caught my interest) he's been thinking of and wants to know if his idea is good pretty much. It's optional of course - I preferred posting it on a blog to forwarding the email to everyone I know. Here's the link:

http://new.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9oTxX8LBGBQlXU0&SVID=Prod

It takes about 10-15 minutes. I thought his idea was very nice. I'd want to visit a shop like that. That's all for now!

Travelog and Independence Day

Well, we are once again back home in Japan. We had a good trip to the states. It was fun to be there with all of Mike's family. With all nine kids together for the first time in six and a half years it was a big event and we were very grateful we could be there for all the weddings this year. The girls loved playing with their cousins and picking strawberries with Grandma. Emma cracked her chin on the side of the pool and had to have stitches a few days before we left, but other than that everything went pretty well! We got the stitches out the day we got back. We figured we planned our leave well this time because we came back to a long holiday weekend for the 4th of July so Mike goes back to work tomorrow, Monday. We got to go to the big 4th of July party on base for the first time. I painted festive fingernails and toenails before we went and got the girls are dressed up. :)


There was a barbecue and entertainment and there were a lot of fun things for the girls to do. Everything was free. The evening ended in disappointment, though because and evening thunderstorm prevented the fireworks display.

There was painting of ceramic magnets and beads and those cute white hats they are wearing (but they left the hats white).

They loved driving the go-carts.

I wasn't fast enough with the camera to catch Mike on the bull :)

We decided not to waste the rest of our weekend and took a trip to a cave on Saturday. It was on a very scary narrow, winding, mountain road and all of us girls got carsick. Jane and Hana threw up and we had no extra clothes or anything. Luckily we parked by a river so we washed them , their clothes, and their carseats and just let them wear wet clothes while we went cave exploring.

This is called Nippara Cavern and used to be used by Buddhist monks before they opened them to the public. Here Emma is standing by a cleansing place.

Here is another shrine area. The shining metal in the photo are coins stuck to the rock. People have stuck them on the walls and ceiling all through the caverns.