On May 5th Jonathan and I celebrated our 8 year anniversary. I made Jonathan breakfast even though he's not a breakfast person and didn't really eat anything, but drank almost a gallon of OJ. We went to an early dinner for once at Azteca so we wouldn't have to fight crowds and wait over two hours for a table. Jon's parents, Emily & Jason, and Bradley & Ruthanne ate dinner with us. We took a nap then went to Fast5 with Jon's parents, watched about an hour of a movie called "Dyllan Dog" which we ended up leaving because it was boring, then headed to the midnight showing of Thor. Was a great day and loved every minute of it!

For Mother's Day Jonathan woke up early with the kids and made me a wonderful breakfast in bed. He took care of everything all day so I could be lazy and lounge around and all the boys in the family made steak, salad, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and rolls for dinner for all the women. The food was great! Jon had to go to work right after dinner so I ate ice cream and drank sparkling cider until he came home.

After many months of working through our dog Snow's issues and her not getting any better, Jonathan and I decided it would be best to take her back to the shelter. We were thinking about trying to find her a new home but since she was deathly afraid of men & strangers and since she snapped at Jon's dad (didn't break any skin but totally freaked out on him) we didn't want to risk giving her to someone else and her end up biting someone. The Humane Society here has a rehab program for dogs like her and since she's not aggressive, just fearful, and hasn't ever broken skin they were able to take her and hopefully she will get better and find a home that is better suited for her. Since we still wanted a dog we decided it would be best to start fresh with a puppy instead of an older dog who may have issues. We talked to the Humane Society and they told us about a litter of puppies who were currently being fostered. We met with the foster mom who introduced us to the puppies. There were six of them and of the six, four were already spoken for. We spoke to the foster mom for over an hour and found out that they were getting spayed/neutered in two days and whoever didn't have a home to go to would go straight to the shelter and have to wait there to get adopted. Jon and I had many discussion about adding another dog when we had Snow but didn't have the room at the time. Since then we've moved and we did want two dogs eventually so we decided to take them both. Two weeks ago we adopted two puppies, a boy and girl and named them Demon and Angel.



Angel is all black with a tiny strip of white on her chest. Demon is black & tan and looks just like a German shepherd. Their mom is a lab/boxer mix and the litter had two dads. Three of the pups looked just like husky pups, Demon had a brother that looked exactly like him and they both look shepherd, but we're not sure about Angel. She was the only one who was pure black and looked more like her mom. I think her dad was the husky because she has a softer more fluffy coat but Jon thinks that she's shepherd like Demon. What do you think?

Jonathan has been gone many weekends doing Ranger Challenge training in ROTC. Sometimes he's gone all weekend and sometimes just for one day. Below is an article telling just a little bit about what they do. Jonathan was misquoted once again...seems like no reporter can quote him correctly, really makes me wonder about the news. What he really said was "What we heard tonight is probably not set in stone. It's possible that they'll change it up on us tomorrow morning...they like making changes." And the motto isn't "Never leave a man behind" it's actually "Never leave a fallen comrade." Even I know that...
(http://www.easterneronline.com/eagle-life/oregon-ranger-challenge-strengthens-cadets-1.1768099) In the picture Jonathan is the one on the far right.

Oregon Ranger Challenge strengthens cadets By Dylan Coil, Staff Writer

"Never leave a man behind." After hiking more than 22 km of grueling terrain from challenge to challenge, this was a motto that the cadets from EWU's ROTC program never forgot.

This weekend, Camp Adaire hosted the 2010 Ranger Challenge, an event designed to place ROTC cadets in situations conducive to team cohesion and leadership development.

The course was a 10 Km logging road that wound into the foothills of the central Oregon Cascades. Cadets did not stick to the logging path, but went up and down the various roads from multiple starting points, extending the actual length of the course to 22 km.

The adventure began Friday morning when the group of cadets, which included nine competing members and two alternates, loaded into government vehicles and road tripped to the Western Oregon Military Academy on Western Oregon University's campus in Monmouth.

Upon arrival, our cadets, along with teams from the University of Washington, Central Washington University and other universities, met for a quick safety briefing. After being given descriptions of Saturday's challenges, team leaders gave a breakdown of the events to the rest of the cadets.

The night before the Ranger Challenge, Cadet Jonathan Plumb said, "What we heard tonight is probably set in stone. It's possible that they change it up on us tomorrow morning ... they like making changes."

We awoke the next morning at 6 a.m. There was a slight drizzle outside, and our cadets were the second team on the course at 8:30 a.m. I realized then that the confusion and inefficiencies of the military were not limited to a real-life war zone.

"War is confusion. War is chaos. Your goal is to make something out of the chaos," Colonel Michael Kirkland said, emphasizing how the Ranger Challenge simulated real combat scenarios.

Before starting, the team weighed their rucksacks, which had to be carried throughout the course, to verify they met the minimum of 25 pounds.

In the first event, four cadets had limited time to throw dummy grenades at targets. Upon completion, the cadets ascended a steep hill, making security checks and safety a top priority.

The second objective was the map-reading challenge. A number of cadets analyzed a map of the area while the other team members secured the perimeter.

Hustling further and nearing the top, we stopped at the land navigation assessment where, as a team, the cadets scoured the area using a compass, protractor and map to locate four pre-determined points. Confusion arose when the team realized the provided map was not the same scale as the maps they had trained with.

After nearly an hour, the points were plotted and the team was moving out. What lay ahead may have been the most anticipated challenge of the day: the rope bridge.

"I always see this [rope bridge] as the most defining challenge … It requires a lot of cohesion and team building," said Lieutenant Jonathan Abshire. "Setting up is as important as the actual technique they use when crossing."

Cadets created a rope bridge between two upright supports measuring 50 feet in distance, simulating a river crossing. After securing sturdy knots on both ends, the team sent cadets one by one down the rope using their arms, legs and a couple karabiners. Some cadets were weighed down with jugs of water.

After the rope bridge, the team hustled through a first aid exercise. Further down the road, a leadership exercise presented an opportunity for the more experienced cadets to take charge. After using wooden spools and boards as viaducts across the land, the cadets continued to the steepest ascent of the trail.

"These events are about learning to think flexibly. You can't prepare someone for everything out there. It's about training them. It's more about the process than the actual event," Abshire said.

The 25-pound rucksacks grew heavier as the trek drug on, but the team pushed through. Throughout the day, the team searched for red cones, known as critical points, to plot on their maps.

After cresting a massive slope, they came to two large topographical maps of the course and were tested on their ability to find the cones scattered throughout the landscape during their challenges.

After plotting these critical points, they finally reached the bottom only to endure a physical fitness evaluation.

Twenty minutes of constant pushups and situps followed by a mile run tested their stamina. The team finished the run strong and only had the "comma dent challenge" left: a spontaneous test of teamwork, requiring the cadets to breakdown and reconstruct a simulated bunker 50 feet from its original location.

The team's time for the event ran a little over five hours after time penalties given for mistakes. EWU finished eigth out of 11 teams despite having the youngest team and the most female cadets.

Despite inefficiencies that exist in any hierarchy, the U.S. Military is doing its best to provide leaders for a new world of warfare.

Every Sunday Jon's family gets together for either Lunch or dinner. The Sunday before Halloween we had some fun food. Grandma Lisa, Auntie Emie, and I got together and helped make the Halloween feast. We had Mummy Dogs, Shrunken Head, Spiders, Fingers, Worms, and Graveyards. I don't have any pictures of it all but here's a link to my mother in-law's blog so you can see pictures, it was a lot of fun!
http://lisaplumb.blogspot.com/2010/10/mummy-dog-shrunken-heads-spiders.html

4 dentist visits, 4 cavities, and 2 mini root canals later Faith is all fixed up and done for 6 months. Two of her cavities were so bad they had to do mini root canals and fill them in with the metal fillings. Her other ones were filled with tooth colored fillings so you can't even tell. Luckily the dentist didn't have to put her out since she did great on the laughing gas. The first time on it she said "Mom, I can see the stars floating!" It was really funny. Everyone that worked on her said she was the best patient they have had in a LONG time, she held still for each of the hour long appointments and didn't complain or try to fight them off once. She was so good that after each appointment they let her pick out 3 toys and each time she picked out rings. Also her two front teeth on the bottom are really wiggly. We're kind of sad that they're the first ones to go because they are the most crooked so her adult teeth will most likely grow in crooked also so she'll either have to get teeth pulled in the next year or two or start braces... Well, at least we're done with the dentist for now and Faith has learned to brush her teeth herself really well and is teaching Logan and Lexi.


Anyhow, school starts soon (September 8th) and the kids are getting really excited about it. Faith can't wait for it to start up again because this year she gets to stay all day and she gets to eat lunch at school, she's very excited for that. Logan is excited for school also. We have him enrolled in early morning Kindergarten so he'll get to ride the bus every morning with Faith. It'll give me some alone time with Lexi and while she's taking a nap (hopefully) I'll be able to work with Logan until Faith comes home. Hoping this new schedule will work out well and won't stress any of us out too much. My only worries are Logan getting excited/stressed about starting school and having a CVS episode. I've already put them on a bedtime/wake up schedule so that will hopefully help with some of the stress/excitement. Also, he gets to meet his teacher in two weeks so that will help out also. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes.


So for those of you who don't know our youngest daughter's name really is Justice Alexia but we have called her Lexi from the day that she was born. Anyway the other day I was talking to her and asking her silly questions about her name like "is your name daddy? Is your name Grandma? ect..." and she was giggling and saying "no" after each one, well after about 10 questions like these I asked her "Is your name Lexi?" she replied "no" so I asked her "Then what is your name?" and she says "Justice!" I laughed and told her that she was right and thought it was really cute. Now she tells everyone that her name is Justice and when we call her Lexi she yells at us and says "I NOT LEXI, I JUSTICE!". What a funny girl, at least she knows her real name.

All three of the kids went to the dentist for the first time yesterday and they actually loved it, all of them except for Faith. I don't think she enjoyed it very much but she didn't complain or anything, the assistant actually said that Faith was the best patient she's had all week. They just put fluoride on Lexi's teeth, Logan got a general x-ray and cleaning and he had a brown spot on each of his "vampire teeth" that the dentist cleaned out and covered in fluoride and they shouldn't become a problem, but Faith has a couple cavities that will need to be filled and her lower teeth are crowded from her thumb sucking and she'll need teeth pulled and/or braces when she's older. So tomorrow Faith has to go back to get her cavities filled and they're going to try to do it without anesthesia. If for some reason they can't do it that way we'll have to go see a specialist and they'll have to put her out. Hopefully everything goes well tomorrow though and there are no complications or issues. I'll let you all know how it goes.