What do you want to be when you grow up?

I often ask myself that same question. Then I have to remind myself,  well first I would have to grow up. Now that does not sound like much fun so here I still sit asking myself, "what do I want to do when I grow up?" This post is not really about me so moving on....

Last week the kids were asked to dress like what they wanted to be when they grow up. I thought I would share with you their professional goals. ; )

Bodie-- our small little 11 going on 13 year old is convinced that he is going to play in the NFL. Its nice to have a dream right.

Ashlyn-- Is our little actress. I still have high hopes that we will see her on Broadway someday. Or I would settle for Glee ; )

 Brenton--The Soccer player. Watch out Timbers in about 13 years. We have to leave time for his mission of course.

Brooke--Our sweet little Brooke. She is the artiest in the family. By far she is the best little 5 year old artiest around! She did just inform me that she also wants to be an ear doctor too. Don't have a photo for that so we will just go with artiest for this stage in her life. ; )

Quick shout out to pinterest.

For snack today we had "painted toast" At first the kids looked at me rather strange when I told them that they were going to paint their toast and then they could eat it. Very cute idea and the kids had fun doing it. A craft and a snack all in one. Life does not get much better then that for a young one!

But mom its FREE!

During quiet time last week I happened to look up at the clock and realized that the word quite was soon to be a word of the past, it was 2:30 SCHOOLS  OUT! As I expected it did not take long before I could hear the laughing, screaming, yelling, and a.... ?dragging noise? coming from just outside our front door.  I looked out the kitchen window  to see ALL four kids were dragging what looked to be like a desk down the side walk to our house. My first thought was, "oh look at that great team work, they are helping someone move a desk into the neighbors house." WRONG! well right on the team work part but wrong on the NEIGHBORS house! Just what we need, more junk in the house. I took a deep breath opened the front door with a huge smile on my face and of course said, "dear little ones what might that be." Ok maybe that was not exactly how it went down but I always wanted to be like the mom on Leave it to Beaver.  Bodie had a huge smile on his face and said, " mom look what I scored a "new" desk for my room and it was FREE.

 I did not have the heart to tell him that someone was getting rid of it because, well.... it was JUNK! Heck and if anyone knows me free is a good word in my world. So now Bodie has a desk and all is happy at the Zollinger house.

San Francisco

This last week end Ryan and I got a little get away to San Francisco. Although it was to work we were excited to be able to play tourist for at least one day.  That day was cut very short due to the fog that San Fran is known for and freezing fog in Portland. upon boarding the plane we were told that we were going to have to wait in the plane for an HR because of weather in San Fran. At this point I was Sooo happy that I made sure I got up at 3:30am so we could be to the airport 2 hrs before our flight.

 Any who after two shots of deicer we were on our way. After arriving in San Fran almost 3 hrs late after all said in done I thought for sure that our trip to Alcatraz was NOT going to happen. In big bold letters it says, basically you don't show up for the time that you you paid for you will not go. Lucky for us they felt sorry for us and let us on.

                             Ryan could not make out what that bright round thing was in the sky.

                                                               We had beautiful weather! 

                                                  This was a photo of Alcatraz from the plane.

                                                                Very dangerous man!
         It was almost all worth it because this really cool guy gave us a tour that not many get to go on.

                                                        San Francisco treat! *DING*

                         Really cool street. Ryan would not go slow enough so I could take photos : (

                       Golden gate bridge. the lanes were VERY narrow. Made me a little nervous.

All in all it was a really fun time and a  nice get away.

Things I learned about flying in a  airplane.

1. If the deicer sits on the wings for more then 20min before take off you must reapply it.
2. One ding in the cabin shortly after take off means you can now turn on your electrical devices. One ding    as you are getting close to landing means turn them back off.
3. Two dings means that the captain needs to speak with the flight attended.
4  And that you NEVER want to hear BRACE, BRACE, BRACE, when you are on an airplane!

We have another swimmer in the family!

I know that you always hear people say, oh kids just grow up way to fast. My reply to that is usually, some days yes and somedays NOT FAST ENOUGH. I know, I know how bad is that, but come on get real as moms we ALL have days like that. Well the other day I had a, they grow up way to fast moment. Brenton our #3 has been working very hard on his swimming ability's so he can take his flying leap off the diving board into the 12 FOOT DEEP WATER. Needless to say this was freaking me out a little. Ryan has been working with him as I am in my own little world swimming laps. On Friday night Brenton walked up to me sooo proudly and said, "mom I am ready to take the swim test." I looked at him and looked at Ryan and said, "I'm not sure about that, lets see." At this point he started to physically pull me out of the hot tub and said, "come on mom I will show you!" I was NOT looking forward to getting out of the nice hot tub and getting back into the cold pool but at this point if I did not I am sure he would have grown super human strength and  thrown me in the pool because he was so excited. That little man blew my mind he may even be a better swimmer then me! There was no way I was going to tell him that though! I still asked if it would be ok if I swam next to him during the test because I still could not believe that he was doing so well. of course he passed with flying colors, and he is a rope climbing, diving board, crazy man! So yes they are right, kids do grow up to fast!

We survived snowshoeing.

Well I guess I should use the word "snow shoeing" a little loosely. Well let me back track. The snow arrived a little sooner then we thought it might and after much thought we decided to get chains for the car with the thought that "now that we have them we will not need to use them." Also I was told by more then one person that if you don't use the chains you can just take them back. Well they did forget the part about not being able to take them back until APRIL! So even before we have left the church parking lot I have already spent $100 that I did not plan on... oh well that is another story.  Ok back to the snowshoeing. After strapping snowshoes on 18 excited feet we were ready to set out for our 1 1/2 mile walk around frog lake.  After about 1/4 mile, and that may even be stretching the distance a little, we RAN OUT OF SNOW! Well it was about 1:00 at this time so we decided that we would settle down in this big open area and have some lunch instead. On the menu dehydrated pad Thai. I know you are all thinking DELISH how can I get my hands on some of that??? Really it was not as bad as it sounds, don't recommend that you try and reheat it and finish later though.  Well to make a long story short this is where the snowshoeing ended and the memories began. After a almost two hr snow ball fight we packed up and returned home safe and sound. Good thing we did not have to use the chains because I would have had no idea on how to put them on anyways.  But a scout is always prepared so I made sure that I put extra mascara on just in case I needed to bat my eyes at someone so they could help me. ; )

Duck fans for a Day

As most of you know we are loyal Beaver fans except for our oldest Bodie, not sure what happened to him he must have been dropped when he was a baby or something. I might need to check with Ryan on that one. Anyways Since our beloved Beavers once again did not make it into the Rose Bowl even though they were oh so close.... did you like that I just made a funny.  We thought that we would make our sons day, since we are the coolest parents around,  and support the ducks during the Rose Bowl. We invited some good friends over even though they are duck fans, I know don't judge me, and had a great time watching the game and followed up with some excellent burgers made by the hottest bald headed man around!