Grandpa's here!

Just so everyone knows, Grandpa arrived here safely about midnight last night. He'll be heading off to Trina's first thing tomorrow morning. It was fun having him here for Family Home Evening.

immigration update

So everyone knows, my permanent residence application was mailed off yesterday. We got everything done, so they shouldn't have to contact me for more information, which slows things up. Now I just have to wait six months for processing, and then I'll get to do exciting things - like leave the country, or look for a job. We're glad to have it done, and out of our hands.

plans?

We had plans for Aaron to play ball this week - practice tomorrow and the first official game of the season on Saturday morning. We'll see if that happens at all, with all the snow on the ground. Forecast calls for more rain and snow for the rest of the weekend.

We bought tickets for a Hitmen game (same league as the Portland Winterhawks) for Friday. It's for game five of the series. The final series against Tri-Cities. Our team has won the first three, with game four tonight. I'm pretty sure they refund tickets for unplayed games. [UPDATE:] Wednesday night the Tri-City Americans pulled off a 4-2 win, making it 3-1 for the series. We DO get to see game five!

With the weekend opening up, Aaron will have the chance to have a few friends over to keep working on Otafest - the local anime festival that happens every spring. Aaron is in charge of gameshows, that he plans, creates, and carries out over the weekend. This includes a game of Jeopardy, so they need lots of questions! Lots of planning.

The last of our weekend includes going to a friend's wedding (anyone remember Jason's friend Jon that came to our wedding back in 2003?), and then having Aaron's family over for a Mother's Day dinner on Sunday.

As for more exciting adventures, we don't have much planned for the summer. Little day trips here and there, most likely, but nothing big. We'll enjoy the outdoors, and work towards getting my residency, so I we can take grander vacations in the future. I think a trip to Disneyland is in order.

summer plans

Since I've posted on the other 3 blogs today (my personal one, the recipe one, and the sisters blog), I thought I'd say hello here as well. (Also, the politics blog is dead. I don't think I'm going to revive it at all - it just takes too much time and attention away from my kiddos.)

Adam took Summer and Marnie swimming for a little bit today - first time in the pool for the year! (Mom, don't forget your swimsuit and bring a pool towel because we don't have extras for that. Jared, same for your family when you come in a few weeks - swimsuits and pool towels.) We've got a pretty busy summer ahead - Mom will be here on Monday for 3 weeks, and Dad will be here for the last week. Jared and family are coming for Memorial Day weekend for Jenna's baby blessing. If anyone else wants to come then, speak up quick!

In June, I'm going to Girls' Camp again - Jenna will go with me. The first week of July, we're going to Nauvoo for youth conference - I'm one of the chaperones for our ward, but our whole family is going. I'm really excited for Adam to see the Church history sites - we're planning on going to the Missouri sites as well. We're also going to see one of the guys who served his mission in our ward in DC - he's out there for the summer as one of the performers.

At the end of July, Adam is going to Chicago for work for a few days. *sigh* We don't get to go on this trip with him like we did last year ... but it's shorter. If it were for 2 full weeks again, I'd probably be more inclined to haul everyone along but it's only 4 or 5 days. In August, we're planning to go to Texas for Bryan's baptism (Jared, I need to talk to you about a tentative date for that because of my YW planning), and maybe another weekend of camping up in Arkansas. Apparently, it's a pretty outdoorsy state with lots of lakes and stuff.

Sadly, because of the stupid oil spill in the Gulf, we will not be going to the beach this year. That's a real bummer, because we really like the beach! The beach we went to last year in Pensacola was really great, and it was close enough (5 hours) to do a weekend trip! That area is probably going to get hit with the spill in the next week or 2. And the well that's spewing all the oil still hasn't been capped, or even slowed. Argh! We're wondering if it's going to swoop around Florida and work its way up the Atlantic side. If that stays clear, maybe next year we'll go all the way across Florida to visit some friends in St. Augustine and go to the beach there.

Any big plans from anyone else?