Ramsdell Family Blog

Merry Christmas to everyone! (OK a day late) So happy New Years!!  Jake was a great Christmas gift.  Santa brought Jenna a new camera. I have to say I am pretty jealous of it.  Now I want one too! I was lucky and did get a new Kindle!! Jenna wanted a real rabbit from Santa. I really glad he gave her a camera instead!  I got the kids this Headbandz game thinking it would lots of fun. I was horrible at it!! Scissors?? Really?? Jake got a Lego Mindstorms Robot from Santa  (he must have been really good this year) The robot is pretty cool and it keeps Jake busy!

Jenna has decided she wants to have a blog of her own. She is just getting the hang of it and having fun. Here is the link to her blog http://12dancingpugs.blogspot.com/

This year our school started a Lego Robotics Club. It was an exciting and stressful adventure. The kids hard work paid off this past Saturday at the First Lego League competition. It was an exhausting fun filled day. Jake's team was named Foodstruction (this years theme of the competition was food related problems). Foodstruction gave a presentation about the listeria outbreak associated with cantaloupe before they got to the robot competition. The kids had to program their robot to accomplish certain tasks on the playing field.  Foodstruction took 13th place out of 28 teams. Here are some pictures and I hope to put the video on here later. Getting their robot ready-competition lasted 2 1/2 minutes. They got 3 rounds to get their best score. Jake and Liam running their program to deliver the groceries onto the table. This was serious business. Lots of rules and regulations. They were also judged on robot design and team work. Jenna missed the whole lego competition to...

For Thanksgiving this year we headed to sunny California to have dinner with George's sister and Mom. It was great seeing all the family we have not seen in so long. We also got to stop and have a short visit my Aunt and Uncle and cousin. Most of Jake and Jenna's cousins on George's side of the family. George and his mom While in CA we went to Legoland, Disneyland and Huntington Beach. We had great weather. We went from 40 degree weather to 80 degrees.

Wow, I can't believe we are coming to the end of November. We have been busy with having George's mom here visiting. Jenna learning to play the flute, Jake going to Lego Robotics club and Cub Scouts. We were so luck to have George's mom who is a veteran be able to go to  Jake's school Veteran's day concert. Jenna and Grandma with the American Girl doll collection .  (we finally have a store here in Seattle) Grandma became Lily's favorite person to hang out with. I think it had to do with all those extra treats Grandma fed her. Jake's cake from last nights cake bake (his is the one on the right) The boys came up with this funny idea of the 5 second rule cake-it got a lot of laughs. Jenna decided she wanted to join band and play the flute. Along with doing dance and Girl Scouts. Lego Robotics club is pretty amazing. The boys are gearing up for their competition the first weekend of December.

Our Annual Halloween party. This year we added a few new games. Eat the donuts off the string and pass the lifesaver with a toothpick in your mouth relay race (the boys won).                             It was a lot of fun watching the kids do this. The Girls! The Boys! The Parents that stayed to hang out! I think next year we definitely have to enforce that the parents must wear a costume or we will provide one for them. The costume contest winners. Jenna got first place-(everyone got to vote for 3 people and then we tallied up all the votes).  Jenna decided she wanted to be a peacock. We used her dance costume from last year, found a peacock tail at the party store and then we made her head piece. Oh and can't forget about the great feather fake eyelashes. Great idea Jenna!  Jake did not put on all of his costume-so I will have to get a picture on Halloween night.

This year George volunteered himself to be the Webelo's den leader. He started the year out with a big den meeting with Tug-of War, Geocaching and a potluck. The boy's decided instead of being Den 8 they are now going to be the Dragon Den. I think George secretly loves to get splatted by whipped cream. I think this is a good start to a fun filled year of scouting. Jenna heads off to girl scout camp today-she is now in her 7th year of scouts.

Jake is one lucky boy going to Lego camp all week with his best friend Jack. Yesterday they built battle vehicles that they battled on a battle track.

This has been a busy month with trips, birthdays and family visiting. My parents arrived late Tuesday night after their very long drive from TX. For my parents birthdays that are coming up I took them on  the Queen of Seattle paddle wheel boat cruise of Lake Union. The cruise was alright but the weather was wonderful. It was so nice to be outside with some actual sunshine.  Waiting for the boat One of the drawbridges we went through. (Seattle has some amazing things) The true houseboats that people actually live on year round.  We also saw the houseboat that was in "Sleepless in Seattle" We also saw the crabbing boat "Wizard" from the TV show The Deadliest Catch. The kids! Next up on our adventures is to take Hunter to Forks, a visit to Pike's Place and to hit some of the good places to eat around here.

A few months ago George and his sister planned for a family reunion in Lake Tahoe. It ended up that only our family and theirs were able to make it. We had such a great time there-we only wish we could have stayed a few more days. The kids had a great time playing with their  California cousins. The kids had a great time in the In room Jacuzzi-they had a Jacuzzi party each night. The jet ski was one of the favorite parts of the trip (too bad we only had it for 1 hour) We also went on the Lake Tahoe Duck Tour-it was a little disappointing. View from our balcony in Bandon Beach, OR-we loved it here. From Lake Tahoe we decided we would go up the Oregon Coast and check out the sites. We stayed in Bandon Beach and Rockaway Beach. We checked out the sand dunes national park and the Sea Lion caves. It was a lot of fun-including our adventure (thanks to the GPS) down a 66 mile road that had a sign saying "Warning You may get stranded and die" lucky for us we survived it. Waterfa...