Our new electronic friend...

Yes, after much research and pondering, we recently acquired a TomTom portable GPS unit. Since Shawn and I are getting older and are finding that we can't remember stuff more and lose things more frequently than we used to that we better get this new gadget before we lose ourselves! Since I have always been the "navigator" when we travel we were surprised and amused to find that our new GPS has a navigational voice named, yes, you guessed it, "Lori"! Ha Ha Ha! Very fitting! Kind of even sounds like me, but to Shawn's thankfulness, GPS Lori tells him where to go without any attitude. That's okay, I have enough attitude for both of us!

Anyway...not only does GPS Lori help us when we travel, but we have found that she can also help us with a new hobby we have heard about but never tried until this weekend! We decided to try "geocaching" this past weekend with our longtime pals, the McDowell family.

For those of you who don't know, geocaching is kind of like a treasure hunt using a GPS unit. All sorts of folks go out and hide these little treasure "caches" all over and then enter the latitude and longitude coordinates and other information about their "cache" on a very cool website called http://www.geocaching.com/ for other people to go out and find. We have found that cache etiquette allows you to add to the treasure (as space allows) and even take a little momento from the cache if you choose.

Our first excursion led us to an old cemetery near Tumalo where we had to look for clues on headstones to get the final coordinates to lead us to the hiding spot of the cache hidden in the cemetery. Very clever! It took us a little bit to get the hang of how the GPS works, but what great fun!! We are hooked!

Today we decided to try it again on our own after the McDowells took off for home and were able to locate another cache near the Deschutes River just outside of Tumalo.

We think it will be a great summertime hobby and help us and GPS Lori get to know each other better! Happy Hunting!

Happy 11th Birthday, Alyssa Rae!

Can you believe it?!? We sure can't! How can it be that our very own Miss Alyssa has turned 11 already!?! She's our baby! But a baby no longer - she is turning into quite a young lady and will be off to middle school come fall! She is quite excited at the prospect. It has been a challenge for her to wait and watch her big sis gain her independence and get to do all sorts of new things while little sis watches from the sidelines. She is so ready to spread her wings...sigh...as mom and dad watch from the sidelines as now our two "goosers" become more and more grown up before our eyes! Ah....snap yourself out of it, Mom!

Like everything she does, Miss Alyssa likes to party dramatically as well, and this year was no exception. So, her dad and I were most brave and allowed her to invite a few of her most special friends for a sleepover to help her celebrate being a decade plus one! Six pre-adolescent girls in one house! Whew! But, being the smart mom that I am, I acquiesced when Alyssa suggested the girls go to open gym at one of our local gymnastics locations for a couple of hours. Yep, let's just say that by the time we got home at 9:00 and they hopped into the hot tub for a little soak and some ghost stories, all was quiet by no later than 12:30 a.m. Thankfully, no bad dreams or bouts of homesickness!

So here's to a new year of memories with the youngest member of the Crawford clan...our "Sissa Rae"!

The Crawja 4000

Watch out Baja 1000 racers, it's the Crawja 4000! We may be small, but we're spunky! One of the Crawford family's favorite activities is taking our little "be-bop" 90cc ATV's and Shawn's "antique" 1980 Yahama Enduro 175 (no laughing please!) out to one of our local OHV trail areas and tearing around the sagebrush and kicking up the dust! And I would just like to say, it's not the size of the machine, but the amount of fun you can have with it!!

We recently went out and had our first ride of the season. We're hoping to get a little more riding in this year than last year which amounted to no more than two trips! Pitiful!! Too busy doing basketball stuff and pageant-y stuff, I guess. But I think we have successfully reprioritized ourselves, thankfully!

So, let's introduce our racers....!

Here comes "Atomic" Alyssa......!

Next is "Ass-kickin" Ashley.....!

And here is the mutha' of all riders...."Leadfoot" Lori!

And last in the lineup, but definitely not least ~ "Speed Racer" Shawn!

The "Masters" Birthday!

Augusta, GA - the birthplace of The Masters golf tournament, but most importantly, Christopher Shawn Crawford, who was born the day after the The Masters tournament concluded 42 years ago! His mom remembers there was quite a traffic jam trying to get to the hospital! Yes, they were definitely lining the streets in Augusta heralding the pending birth of our Shawn! LOL!! No traffic jams this past weekend (at least not in ol' Bend, OR) - Shawn got to spend his birthday weekend doing some of the things he likes best - eating BBQ steak and birthday cake with lots of frosting and watching The Masters on television in HD! Not a lot of fanfare for our Shawn-boy! He prefers it that way! I am trying to convince him that we should get our name on the waiting list and start saving now so we could get tickets to see The Masters tournament in person in honor of his 50th birthday! I think that would be so cool! But he says that he prefers to watch it from the comfort of his own home and watching it in HD is just like being there without dealing with all the crowds. We'll see......

Ahhh.....Spring Break!

So, it was off to the Oregon coast for Spring Break. The girls and I decided to brave the snow on Santiam Pass....Snow?!?! Isn't it supposed to be "Spring Break" not "Snow Break"?!

It was probably the worst snow driving conditions I have ever encountered since we moved over the mountain almost 11 years ago! (Photos courtesy of Ashley, by the way! Are you kidding? I had both white-knuckled hands on the wheel the whole way, thank you very much!). We headed over midweek so we would have time to go to the beach. Thankfully, the weather cooperated there and we had one good day to enjoy the beach and do a little kite flying at Bastendorff! As a former coastie, I am very thankful that we got that one good day - I was fully expecting it to rain the whole time we were there! Shawn and his folks headed over on Friday and we spent the rest of the weekend visiting Shawn's grandma in Coquille for her 89th birthday, and his aunt, Kathleen, who was out visiting from Nebraska. I also got to visit with one of my long time friends, Leah, who I have known since we were just 7th graders! My how time flies! (sorry Leah, I just had to do it! It was just too funny!) We still get to giggling, no matter how old we get! We entertained the girls with tales from our youth! Well, I think I have figured out how to add a video to my blog, so here is a slideshow I created from some of the pictures I took while we were at the coast. Enjoy!

Teen Driver Alert!

Yep, it's true! Watch out everyone - Our own Ashley Rose Crawford passed her driver's test today and is now a bona-fide Oregon driver! She took her test this morning and had a few minor errors: apparently she bumped the curb when parallel parking, signalled too early, didn't turn into the closest lane, didn't check her blind spots enough, and stopped too far forward at a stop sign and crosswalk. Wait a minute, that's stuff I do every day!! But despite all that, the instructor decided that she was a safe enough driver! She's spent a lot of time driving with us over the past year (my accumulation of grey hair and arthritis from gripping the door handle prove it!), but we know she's a responsible girl! It's one of those milestones that we are excited for but also dread! We worry more about those other crazies out there than we do her! So watch out everyone, she may be on the road in a city near you soon!

Skiing!!

Yes, the Crawdorks are at it again! Thanks to Ashley's new digital camera we were able to catch them riding the ski lift at Hoodoo over President's Day Weekend. It was a glorious day, but a little breezy at the summit! Those Crawford girls are improving in their skiing skills - they have surpassed their poor Mama which doesn't take much - she's much more of a ski bunny than anything else!






"Am I doing this right?"

Hmmm..do I detect a little attitude to the left....maybe it's the sunglasses....they tend to bring out the Paris in her... Watch out...we're hunting wabbits - hehehehehe!

Orthodontia...it's a wonderful thing!!