USS McClusky

We made it to Portland, OR. The Rose Festal is in town. Yeah! I love the Rose Festival!


I took the boys to see the navy ships that made it into town. The river was running high so not all the ships were able to come into Portland (couldn't fit under the bridges). They were still giving free tours of the ships only after you signed in with photo ID and names of all the children. After waiting in line, you had to go though security. We were able to take a tour of the USS McClusky. The boys loved being on the ship.




Here is the boys and our tour guide.

Temple Square

The boys and I started our road trip with a stop to see my sister, Jessica, and her family in Salt Lake City. This was the first stop on our road trip from Chandler, Arizona to State College, Pennsylvania with a "brief" detour to Portland, OR. We toured Temple Square, the conference center and the Beehive House. Tylor was the only one that remembered the area at all, but he was 8 years old when we left and Kyle was 3 and Ryan was 18 months so yeah neither one of them remember UT at all. I don't remember the last time we took the kids to Temple Square before we left Provo. The boys were surprised to see how big the conference center was. Since Ryan doesn't like hights, he was not excited to go on the roof of the building. I told him, he could stay next to me. But then we got up there and you cannot really tell you're on the roof so he didn't mind it as much as he though he was going to...

Last Day at Tarwater

Wow what a year... Last July had you told me that we'd be moving out by the end of the year and headed to Pennsylvania I'd have had trouble believing it... So the boys are done with another year of school. Ty is now headed to high school (where has the time gone?) Kyle and Ryan have really enjoyed this year at Tarwater, it's a great school with great teachers and a good principal. We'll miss them.

The boys with principal Hensley

Kyle with Ms. Meyers

Ryan with Ms. Michael

Birthday Golf

James flew home this weekend for his, Tylor's and Kyle's birthdays... And Nana and Poppie made a surprise visit as Ty is turning 14 and getting ordained to be a teacher tomorrow.

As both Ty and Kyle had opted to get a crisp $100 bill as opposed to having a birthday party like Ryan did, we didn't have parties with friends... however we cannot have dad home for the weekend and have Nana and Poppie here and not do SOMETHING. So we went up to golfland and played 18 holes, and watched people sliding down the water slides as we had frozen lemonades...

Here's dad overseeing the shot on the ??? -I don't remember which -"tee"...


You go... no you go... no you... Ok it was really more like, "I'm NEXT"... Nana is so impatient at games...


Poppie can you get your ball out of my way?


Reading the "green"


Lead with the hips...


Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac... It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!


Why no pictures of mom? well I had the camera... so Ha!

Pine Wood Derby

In true Chatterley tradition we spent way longer on making the car look right, then on making the car fast... But Kyle loves his car and it did alright for itself. Not so fast as to be first but fast enough to win more than half the heats it was in...

Driver with his vehicle...


All lined up on the starting grid...


Wait it's over already?


Over the years one thing that I've noticed about pine wood derby's is, there are two types of dads... those who are their for their boys and those who are there in front of their boys. What I mean is, there are dads who take the race way too seriously and get a little too miffed when their boy plays with the car like he will do, so they hold the car, they take care of the car... it's like it's THEIR midlife crisis car not their SON'S pinewood derby car... you know who you are. I appreciate that James is NOT one of those dads... if Kyle or Ty before him, played with his car at or before the pinewood derby James would let them but remind them to be careful, he'd also let them handle it and place it on the track, you know like it was their race and not his... sorry just a pet peeve of mine.

Anyway we had a great time, although I think it'd be a lot more fun if the ward had it's own track and we could run some dad races, little brother races... heck maybe even a mom mini-van class...

And as far as the effort on building the car... well I'll say this, it's 4 different pieces of wood each individually cut, sanded and then glued together... followed by body putty (you know like the stuff they use at an auto body shop) then, sanding... sanding... sanding... until both father and son are tired of sanding. Then primer and more sanding... then finally the color goes one, I don't know how many coats with "wet" sanding in between. And because Kyle wanted a candy apple finish there was the candy coat that had to go on at "exactly" (according to James) four hours after the last coat of silver. When it was done it looked like a shiny red car... Why'd you put so much time into the silver if you were going to paint it red James? -crickets- and a dirty look from him is all I'm getting in response to that question...

Ryan's Birthday

Happy Birthday, Ryan. He turned 7 years old... Where has the time gone.


Ryan had his party at Peter Piper's Pizza (An Arizona local version of Chuck-E-Cheese) and he was able to make his own pie. A cheese only pizza, his current favorite (not that long ago he was all about the pepperoni pizza but now it's cheese only please...)



We did a party package. It included pizza, cake and ice-cream, and tokens for all the guests to burn in the arcade. It was a good time, and they were pretty accommodating when we had a few siblings stay who weren't technically invited, so not a bad deal. Although it did feel kind of strange as they took care of EVERYTHING... I guess I'm used to having to manage the whole thing...

Santa Picture

Here are the boys at the ward Christmas Party with Santa.