Easter 2014

This year was a very quiet Easter. Every year for the last 5 or so years Grandma and/or Grandpa Aikele have been with us AND we had not just moved either. So this year our ward did an Easter breakfast ending with an Easter egg hunt for the kids.

 Natalie taking inventory

Corbin hunting

Natalie and Corbin now digging into the candy. The child to the right of Corbin is his friend from the Oregon Joy School....Nolan. They get excited when they see each other at church.

 Then as we were getting ready to leave the Bishop was sitting in one of the chairs in the Foyer making balloon bunnies for all the kids. He even brought some over later in the week when he came to visit and give us our callings (he lives just around the corner from us).

So this year we skipped doing our own hunt and never got to the coloring either. On Sunday morning the kids woke up to their own Easter baskets. They actually had forgotten about the Easter bunny because every year since they were babies they have had to walk past their baskets to get to our room as we were all on separate levels. This year I took them both down and showed them what the Easter bunny brought.

 The kids got an outdoor golf set to play in the yard, Natalie got her travel etch-a-sketch and a new bike helmet (because her other one disappeared and come to find out she left it sitting in a neighbors drive way and it got ran over even after multiple occasions of being told to quit leaving her stuff laying around in other people's yard/driveway), Corbin got his light up light saber and he also got his "new" (it's a hand-me-down) biked fixed (it just needed new tubes for the tires), then of course their chocolate bunnies. So all in all kids were happy.

Then for dinner it was the usual ham, funeral potatoes, and strawberry cottage cheese jell-o OH and for dessert...pie. Overall a quiet but nice Easter. 

Fun weekend with Family in Washington

We had a lot of fun this weekend. We went to Lakewood, WA to see my nephew's welcome home. He just returned from a 2 year mission to Santiago, Chile. We got to Lakewood Saturday afternoon for a family dinner with the Hjelm side (my mom's side of the family) then Sunday was the Johnson side of course Daniel's). It was fun to see cousin's again especially Austin. We were not able to attend his Farwell so it was fun to be at his Welcome Home.

We had a fun weekend. We got to stay at a Mansion on Gravelly Lake. I love old houses and this one was so fun. It was built in 1924. We stayed in on of the rooms that was decorated for a little girl. It had 2 old wardrobe closets, beautiful hand blown pink chandelier (you can the bottom of it in the picture), and 2 beautiful lamps...one on each night stand. You may think this is silly but the shower curtain but it looked like it would belong in a castle...white, elegant, and lacy. It had a big beautiful window that looked over the beautifully landscaped backyard. This home was absolutely beautiful. The colors and carpet of course age the home but still fun to see a "Mansion" right???

 View of the backyard looking at the lake 

The bedroom we stayed in. We told Natalie she was going to sleep in a Princess room.

 She was excited.

 Looking at he back of the home from the corner of the backyard

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Here are just some fun pictures from our weekend.

 Picture of Daniel and his Brothers and Sister

(from left to right...Jared, Jodi, Paul, and Daniel at the top)

 Austin and the Grandparents (Daniel's Mom and Dad)

Fun weekend. Me, Ilene (Mother-in-law), and Jodi (sister-in-law). Now that I live just
over 2 hours away from Lakewood we can have more fun times like this.

 The Hjelm family is whole again for a short time until Jonah leaves

 Natalie and Corbin having light saber battles w/Cousins
 I even caught a video of Corbin having a battle with Daniel.
He had so much fun because some of the light sabers made sounds.

 AND thank you Aunt Jodi for the two castles. The kids on the way home slept for a majority of the ride so by the time we got home they were energized and ready to play. We got home about 6:30pm and bed time is usually 7-7:30. So we went to a park for about 30 minutes to ware them out. Well they still weren't quite ready to fall asleep to Corbin brought this to bed. This castle is the favorite because Kenai has one similar (according to Corbin)

Castle #2

New Adventures

We have had a lot of changes over the past few months. So here is the last few months in review. Please forgive the long post. We have had a lot happen.

Enjoy all the pictures though.

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Natalie got Student of the Month for December and Corbin also got glasses. We are pretty proud of both of our kids and our kids are pretty proud of themselves. Natalie is doing very well in Kindergarten and her teacher says she is ready for first grade. Corbin is also really enjoying Joy School. He loves to go because he gets to see his friends.

Now over the past year (give or take) a friend Daniels he worked with at Coldwater Creek left the company and went to work for Nike. Kurt has been keeping an eye on things at Coldwater. The position Daniel was in allowed him to see the earnings and losses of the company. Well Kurt knew that they were not doing so well and we did too but knew with the collapse of the housing market we couldn't really go anywhere. So we gained to LOVE North Idaho. We made friends, had a group we went to the Temple with monthly, kids were in great schools...we had no plans of leaving anytime soon. We prayed for a job closer to home but never thought that would take us from Idaho. Well, on January 24, 2014 Daniel had an interview with Nike that changed everything. He was flown over to Oregon on Valentines day for an onsite interview and the job offer came in a week later. When things started to become more of a reality I shed MANY a tear. I was so sad that we had to leave such a great ward, great friends, "OUR home". Everything happened so fast. We listed our home. Shortly after that all the chaos began. Nike paid for a trip for the four of us to fly over to Portland and look for homes. The kids were so excited...their first time on a plane and they did AWESOME!! We were so ready to go home after 4 days in a hotel.

Nike set up Chipman United Van Lines to come pack and move us. Nike ALSO set us up in a hotel for two nights so we were not sleeping on boxes.

 

 Boxes stacked to the ceiling in almost every room. *Just a site note...if you ever have a moving company move you...they pack everything for you. So one day to pack and one day to load the truck and a few days to haul.* Coldwater offered the same thing when we moved up to North Idaho. This time I was so impressed (except for the cigarette smoke in my home). The Team Captain this time around was awesome. His name was Brandon Edwards. He kept us up to date throughout the entire process and even left Daniel a message when he got into Oregon and an approximate time of arrival in the morning. He was so professional. OH and they wrap EVERYTHING in paper. This time as part of the service they came and picked up all the boxes and paper and discarded it themselves. I really appreciated that part.     

Furniture was the last to go on the truck

 

Daniel's start date was March 24 so we had to leave our home in Rathdrum to start our new adventure in Oregon. So we had to leave the home vacant. That was very hard. Especially to see it empty. The memories of the house were the hardest.

 The memories inside this home...

 The play set we had to leave behind that my Dad helped put together 

The deck my Dad built...this was the hardest to leave and the yard

We can't forget the friends we left. These two "Best Friends" have not forgotten each other though. They have been introduced to Skype. Now they have their "play dates" by computer. :-) #sillyboys

 

Well, now we have moved to Oregon. Daniel is enjoying his job. He went from having a 45-60 minute commute to a 15-20 minute commute. #wonderful!! The week we moved up here was Spring Break so the kids quickly found out there are kids that live up and down our street. So the kids are adjusting fairly well.

Natalie however has had a harder adjustment. While we were up here about a month ago we found her Elementary School. The school then asked if she could do morning as morning had more room. She was not in any way happy w/us for agreeing. That meant earlier bed time, early mornings...anyone who knows my daughter knows she is not in anyway shape or form a morning person. So this has been a major adjustment for her. We both have seen how hard this is for her. Her attitude has changed, it takes her a while to fall asleep, getting use to a new school, finding new friends...believe me when I say we have seen and felt it. We commented to her tonight that we hope that now that she is acting like a teenager that when she does become a teenager she acts like the sweet innocent little girl she once was. LOL! Corbin is struggling because he always had someone to play with. If Kenai wasn't at our house Corbin was at theirs. Now he has to wait for other kids to come outside in order to play. He is adjusting fairly well though. We even found him a "Joy School" which is exactly what he was doing before we left. Exact same curriculum. He is excited to have his own "school days".

Well, we are getting settled. We are trying to find activities for the kids to get involved in but it seems like everything costs double. on the bright side...there are a lot of parks around us. They also have a fun library where we can walk out back and feed the ducks. So we are finding things to do and finding out way around. We even had the opportunity last weekend to go to a Professional Soccer game...and come to find out it was a "rivals" game. Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers. So the of us went. It was raining off and on but we got to ride the TriMet train. The kids really enjoyed that.  

 

 Waiting for the train

 Riding the train to Portland

 I thought the kids would enjoy it more than they did.

We are however feeling very blessed. In the past week Coldwater Creek has claimed chapter 11 bankruptcy and are closing down. We couldn't be more grateful that the Lord has blessed in so many ways over the past years.

 So here are some pictures of our new home:

 We live on a corner lot and across the street to your left is a private road the kids

enjoy playing and riding their bikes.

 Formal sitting room

 

 dining area & living room

 Kitchen

 Backyard (the yard is very small but makes up for it in house)

 Corbin's room

 Natalie's room

4th bedroom we are using as...A PLAYROOM!! I was so excited. Daniel's parents came

 to stay w/us overnight on their way through to Lakewood, WA so they stayed in the kids' beds

so they had a sleep over in the play room.   

Lastly...the master suite. We love the amount of space this home has to offer. We really miss our yard at home but hopefully over the next few years we can find something with a yard. For now we will be visiting the beach/coast AND parks quite often. We have been told of the many things there are to do near the coast and the coast is only an hour away. So we will stay busy with family just over 2 hours away and the coast.  

 

Fall Soccer 2012

It all started one day at Rathdrum City Park when the two kids and I were playing waiting for Daniel to get home from work when we saw a little soccer team show up with pizza, cupcakes, and trophies for each player. The kids were about Natalie and Corbin's age. When I told Natalie it was for a soccer team and she wasn't in soccer I was in so much trouble. Let me invert something her though. The whole reason we went to the park a lot of the times was because the kids had not had naps and I had to find a way to keep them awake until Daniel got home and this was the only thing that worked. Anyway, she was not very happy and wanted to know why I hadn't signed her up for soccer. I tried to explain that I didn't know about it until it was too late and I had also signed her up for a dance class. So here we were in Fall 2012 and we signed up the kids for soccer. They had a lot of fun. If they scored a goal they got their name in the paper (not sure which paper as our local one went out of business) but each one of them scored at least one goal (it counted even if it was in the other players goal). We were blessed to have great weather for practice and games up until the end of the season. By the end of the season Natalie was done playing and Corbin was ok with being done. They had each team play 2 games and our little team had players that had never played before except for one little player so some of them were there but didn't want to go out on the field. They let the parents go out if needs be but because Natalie and Corbin, among a few others, were sometimes the only ones who wanted to play they got tired really fast especially where each game was 30 minutes long.

 

Coldwater Creek/Inventory Planning Summer Party

Coldwater Creek usually has a summer party but it usually consists of alcohol so we have never gone. This year they did an inventory planning summer party at the beach in Sandpoint. They had sandwiches and all you can eat fruit, drinks, etc. The kids were in heaven however they were also in heaven because they got to play in the water and in the sand. I enjoyed it because I got to play with my kids in the sand, build sandcastles, and watch them play.

 Natalie and I starting to build sandcastles. The sand was the perfect consistency to make sandcastles. Both kids loved it because our sandbox at home you can't exactly make sandcastles with. It is too fine unless of course we take the hose to it then it is just muddy. The kids like that even better.

 Both kids LOVED playing the water. It took Corbin a few minutes but he kept going further and further out. Natalie was the first one in the water. I always tell her she is our little fish. It doesn't matter temperature of the water she will be in it.

 

 The start of our what was supposed to be large sandcastle until Corbin got a hold of it (see below).

 Corbin thought it was fun to wreck the sandcastles once we made them.

 Daniel and Corbin playing in the sand.

When we got there someone had already dug a hold big enough for one of them to sit in. Once Corbin started playing in it Natalie wanted one just as big so she is starting to dig her hole. 

Family Ice Cream Outing

A few weeks ago before it got too cold we went to a local gas station that we have heard has really good ice cream. So we decided we would give them a try. They did have really good ice cream but I have always said you know it is good when it end up all over your face and your face. The kids really enjoyed their ice cream and here is the proof.

 Corbin devoured his ice cream cone and all. Natalie on the other hand didn't like her cone so she would hand it over to Daniel to eat the cone and she would eat the ice cream.