Welcome to the Parks Family Updater! I will try to get on here as often as possible with our fun and exciting adventures we do together as a family to keep all you wonderful friends and family members informed.
Today is the day of the annual Parks/Hodge cookie baking day. A tradition that has been going on since Tami and Cindy were first married. This year was a bit of crazy year but it all ran so smoothly. Jake, I, and the kids all participated in Walk 4 Water early that morning and weren't able to show up till around 2. Luckily this was a year that we did some prebaking and everything went off smoothly. Well except for the peanut butter balls, for some reason we were not thinking right and did them a different way, but have decided that it was actually a good accident to make. I love those kinds of accidents. I love having Amity around, that girls sat for hours decorating all the sugar cookies, except for what the kids did, and LOVED it. She has a very creative artistic side that comes out at cookie baking time.
Funny stories from the day:
Auntie and I were making the peanut butter ball dough. Got it all done and it looked yummy. Auntie was getting ready to take the mixer off the machine but accidentally turned the machine on instead and we had a good laugh as the dough on the mixer went fling onto the floor, counter, and cabinets. It made for a good laugh. Although I don't know if Auntie found it very funny.
Greg and Russell came at two different times and from two different houses yet both showed up in the same exact shirt, that was entertaining for all of us.
Overall, it was an easy and great cookie baking year for everyone.
Here are some photos from the day...ENJOY Cookie Baking Day 2014
This year our family decided to participate in Walk 4 Water. There is an organization that our Church works with call Walk In The Light International (witli.com) that puts on this event each year. Through the last couple of years Jake and I have seen first hand the good work that they are doing, so we decided this was the year we were getting on board to help make a difference. Here is a little bit of information so you know what we were doing.
What is the Walk 4 Water? It is people walking in the shoes of the people in Africa for one day while raising money and awareness to end this epidemic! Walkers will raise or contribute a minimum of $100 to participate. They walk 2.5 miles to get a 5-gallon jug of water and carry it back 2.5 miles
Why walk for water? Because 1.1 billion people in the world don’t have access to clean water. In Burkina Faso alone 3.4 million of the population don’t have access to clean water! Over 20,000 children under 5 die each year in Burkina Faso! The average sub-Sahara African walks up to five miles a day to get to water clean or not. The good news about these statistics is we have the power to change this!
Last year we raised enough to put in 3 wells this year are goal is to more than double this! Each well’s complete cost is $13,000 and will provide water to more than 2,000 people each!
This event was an amazing experience and we are so glad we were able to participate. We want to give a big shout out to our family and friends who helped sponsor us on this event. Together as a family we raised almost $2,000!! PRAISE JESUS...GOD IS GOOD! We started at 9am at Lions Park, walked down Lebo Ave, over Warren Ave. Bridge, through downtown Bremerton, and stopped at the Ferry Terminal where we grabbed our water jugs and then headed back. It was a 2.5 mile walk down and then 2.5 miles back. The kids did so good. Blake carried his one gallon jug all but a half mile back, I was super proud! Ayden carried hers for a little bit but ended up giving it to Mom to carry. Jake was a great trooper and carried his full 5 gallons all the way back. I couldn't have been more proud of him. We lucked out with the weather, which we were super glad of..made the walking go much smoother. Overall, it was a great experience and nice to put yourself in someones shoes every now and then to help you understand a different way of life.
This Thanksgiving we headed down to the Huffman House! We waiting till Thanksgiving Day to travel because Jake was busy with work and Mom was seriously busy with her bread orders! Bakerchic is taking off like a rocket and we couldn't be more proud of Mom and all her success. We made it down by lunch time, which I thought was great timing considering we were traveling on a big Holiday. Jesus must really love us! It was perfect time to arrive, cooking time. Plus, all the awesome lunch snacks that are a must have on Thanksgiving. Jamie did an awesome job with the snacks this year! We had a great veggie spread, fruit platter with this awesome chocolate dip, and homemade artichoke dip.
We never go hungry at Moms that is for sure!
We did our usual play games, drink wine, eat lots of food, laugh a lot, watch the parade, go through the adds for Black Friday shopping. Then of course this year we had to have the football game on to make sure we could watch the SEAHAWKS!! Got to support our team when they are doing good right?!?
This turkey, oh man, wish you could have a scratch and sniff...it was so BOMB!! So much good food for dinner of course, wouldn't expect anything less. Although we should erase my green bean casserole that I made. It was a total FLOP, go figure.
Well 5 o'clock came quick that is for sure, but it was totally worth it. We made our first traditional stop at Fred Meyer, which really is an all in one shop. Always get some many of our good deals there. I think we started the morning our embarrassing Mom and Dad with all of us getting our own short carts (so you can get through everyone) and following behind them like little chicks following the mother hen because they instantly ditched us. :) Oh well, after getting coffee and donuts we were off! Almost two hours later we were all checked out and heading out for the next stop. After following along with us ladies all morning it finally paid off for Dad once we made it to Home Depot. He got to play with MAN TOYS, which was super cute to watch.
Well, we finally finished up and stopped for our annul Shari's breakfast, which always tastes so good after a long morning of shopping.
I think Jake and the kids were excited for us to come back home finally. Both kiddos and Jake were not feeling so good. So what better way to make yourself feel better than play BINGO and win TIC-TACS? And then of course just take naps with your Auntie or maybe I should say just sit with Auntie so she doesn't feel weird about napping.
We were pleasantly surprised to hear that my Grandparents were going to be planning a trip up. They had to use up their flight voucher, what a great excuse to come up for a visit! It just so happened to be right around Moms birthday as well. This was turning out to be a great weekend visit. Plans fell through a little bit. Grandma and Grandpa had to make an unplanned trip for a death in the family. So we ended up only being able to come down for a day, which looking back now I am SOOOO glad we had this day. As I am writing this weeks past this trip happened Grandpa has passes away since. So what was already an amazing day as turned into my last visit with my Grandfather that I am so thankful for and will never forget.
We were able to play some great games together, of course some how both Grandma and Grandpa won the games the we played. Still not sure how they do it. :) We sat together and got to watch Mom open her presents from all us girls. Then of course have some BOMB cake for dessert. I am so glad this day happened and can't think of a better memory to keep in my head forever.
Well it happened again, my youngest baby got another year older! She isn't listening to me when when I say to stop growing. This year she decided she wanted to have a sleep over with a bunch of her girlfriends. I have come to like these sleepover parties. I find that I don't have to do as much work compared to normal parties.
Ayden decided to have a CAMP THEME, but since it is November and we can't really camp outside it was all indoors. Still super fun I think. We named it CAMP AYDEN and she made her own sign for it, which was super cute!
We had all the major requirements set up; SMORES BAR, EMERGENCY PACKS, PILLOW CASE DECORATING, and PITTA PIZZAS! The only thing that failed was my awesome pinterest idea. I think it was too warm in the house and the frosting kept falling over instead of staying up nicely.
Well, they still tasted good...or at least I think they did. The girls were already seriously sweeted out by the time they got to cake for the night and most of them went uneaten.
*side note girls chow down more than boys!!!
We did all the usual, eat lots of junk food, made individual pizzas, played, toasted marshmellows, presents, decorated pillow cases, etc. Finally it was jammie time and I sent them all downstairs. They got their beds all put together and then proceeded to watch movies, play the dance game on the wii, and decided it would be really cool to play school in my school room. WHO KNEW that a bunch of homeschool girls would enjoy playing pretend school on their free time?
They were up until a ridiculous hour and on top of that up early. OMG!!! It played well for us though to get them a good breakfast before being picked up and us heading out to Cindy's house to do Ayden's family party. I can't be done though without explain just how much girls eat. We had 5 girls here and we almost polished off 2 dozen hard boiled eggs, a whole box of pancake mix, and two pounds of bacon!!! No Jake and I didn't eat much of it at all. I was blown away. :D
Here is a video of the whole night...hope you enjoy!
We then headed out to Cindy and Charlie's house to celebrate with the Parks family. It worked out perfectly for us to be able to bring Bianca back home too. I honestly thought these girls would fall asleep on the way out...but NO!
Then last but not least for at least this part of her party celebration we did our traditional RED ROBIN birthday dinner on her actual day of birth! This has become a nice family tradition that we all look forward too. She always has to sit by her Daddy, whom she is in love with! You have to get the tower of onion rings and of course the best part FREE ICE CREAM!!!
We never go hungry at Moms that is for sure!
