Update on our family

I haven't put any pictures of us up here for a long time. A couple of weeks ago, Jo took Joseph down to the river front in downtown Corvallis. There is a fountain there that kids love to play in. Joseph had a blast! He loves water!

Joseph has also been working on his social skills...

He's also been doing some some good work around the house that requires the use of some personal protective equipment...

And some decontamination afterward...

Hey, guys, I tried to post some video, but it took a long-long time, and I was impatient. Does anyone know the deal with publishing video?

Happiness is Family

This is me teaching Missy how to post. Yes, Rand, even the younger generation needs a little technological guidence now and then.

Hi everyone! I was looking at our family blogspot, and it didn't have enough pictures, so I decided to show you some pictures from our Oregon trip! The people in the above picture look somewhat. . . troubled.

He he. Bet those guys never thought they'd end up in THIS situation!

A seafood feast

Be still my racing heart!

This is the skunk cabbage plant I made Missy get in. Doesn't she look like a cabbage patch kid?

Brian, Hilary, Dad

Woops! Of course I forgot to flip this picture. Here we are clamming.

The disappointment on our faces tells the story that this clam was much too small :(

I had a hard time finding pictures of Joseph on this trip, but you can kind of see him in this one. Also, I had a great picture of everyone fleeing the ocean in front of the Tsunami evacuation route sign, and now I can't find it. It might be on Brian's computer with my Joseph pictures!

This was before the crabs started pinching each other's legs off

Here is a picture of Joseph climbing the fence

A messy little Enoch

I call this one "Unattractive Farrer Children"

Fish anyone?

So, there you go. I hope someone can find the Tsunami Evacuation Route picture. It is REALLY funny! I am still waiting around for authorization to take my nursing boards. That's why I have all this time to blog. Thanks for the latest posts. It's so fun to hear about what everyone's doing!

Oh, maybe I'll add this. . . Labor Day weekend my band played in the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival which was very fun. We have many new songs and also we've been writing many originals. We are playing in the Vernal Storytelling Festival September 22nd. Dad is coming with me since Carl will be in play rehearsal.

Carl has been cast as Ichabod Crane in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow again this year (a role he practically invented he's so good at it). You can go to the website at sleepyhollowshow.com. I think there are pictures of Carl on there.

Here's some more news. . . I've been hired on the Bone Marrow Transplant unit at the University Hospital as a full-time RN. I have also been hired as an on-call nurse at the Birth and Family Place, a birth center that does only natural births! I am excited about these opportunities because the BMT unit is a 10-bed step-down ICU, so it's very acute and I really like oncology. Plus I have my foot in the door for when the birth center needs full-time nurses which is really what I want to do. That was confusing to read. . . sorry. Carl is still working in the Progressive Care Unit (also a step-down ICU) at St. Mark's Hospital. He just started a 6-week Advanced Cardiac Life Support Class. He is SO GOOD at reading EKG's! He rattles off all kinds of abnormal rhythms like it's nothing. I kind of know what normal sinus rhythm looks like. Anyway, hopefully I will be authorized, scheduled, and done with my N-CLEX by the end of September so I can start working. Have a lovely day everyone!

At Last!

Well, I finally figured out how to post a blog! When each of you turn 60 I want you to recall that Dad was able to learn something new and actually do it at this age. From that perspective I will become a giant in your eyes!

My next project is to figure out how to set up pictures on the blog.

I'm loving this blog--I want more pictures from all of you!

Also, Brian, what has happened to you? We haven't heard a peep from you in ages.

I talked to Grandpa yesterday--they are doing okay. They love your phone calls--it's all they talk about!

Lots of love to you--Next time I'll be back with photos!

Impatient

Hey everyone! I thought I would post here instead of do my work. We had an awesome Saturday at Honeyman State Park near Florence, OR. I remember Dad saying that they took me there a lot when I was little and we lived in Eugene. It was very pretty. I don't have any pictures ready to go, but there is basically a lot of huge sand dunes that terminate in a freshwater lake about mile inland from the sea. We were there with Uncle Richard's family minus Paul and Kelly and Kerianne. They rented sand boards to ride down the dunes. It was pretty fun! Joseph swam in the Lake. I thought he would have a seizure he was so excited! He was shivering from cold and excitement, but I couldn't keep him out of the water.

Before the visit, Mark had told me that they were all really interested in crabbing, so I found a place to rent rings and buy bait near their campsite. Once we got out to the bait shop, it came out that no one in their family likes crab, and none of them wanted to spend the $9.00 on an out-of-state shellfish licesnce. So, I rented one ring, and went out to the end of the pier with about 20 Idaho Kartchners following me and asking questions. Let me tell you that 15 minutes is a LOOOONG time to wait in between pulls for 5-8 year old kids. I was asked "Can we pull it up now?" at least once during each of those 15 minutes. There were some more experienced crabbers on lawn chairs out there with about 6 rings down and a few cages. They had to keep moving the 20 Kartchners around the pier so that they could have room to pull up and check their stuff. They were also peppered with questions like, "What are you doing?" "Why are you doing that?" "Can you keep any of those crabs?" "Why not?" "Are you afraid you'll get pinched?" "What's your name?" All in all, I think it was a little bit less peaceful than crabbing usually is, but it was fun.

I didn't get any keepers, but I was impressed that Winchester Bay had 0 redrock crabs. Every pull brought in 5 or 6 Dungeness that were the wrong gender or too small. The pier was crowded too, and it wasn't only because of Labor Day Weekend. Every year, a bunch of the local bait shops get together and put tags on about 100 crabs and release them into the bay. If you catch one of the tagged crabs, you can turn the tag in to one of the stores, and they give you $1000.00. It's sort of like a lottery for the crabbers, and for the bait shops it's a way to get a bunch of people buying and renting rings, traps, and boats. That's why Rob, the guy the Kartchners were pestering, was out there. He'd been out for 5 hours and only had 2 keepers, neither of which had a tag. He seemed to be answering some of the Kartchners' questions about how many he'd caught and how long he'd been out through gritted teeth.

After crabbing, we watched the sun sink into the Pacific from the top of a cool dune. Joseph had a great time, and Jo and I were exhausted. So we have more cool places we can take family when they come visit. Another fun place to swim that the Kartchners discovered for us is at Triangle Lake. It is only 37 miles from Corvallis and has a natural rock waterslide in one of the inlets to the lake. The report was that it was a blast.

Monday, I tried my hand at pressure canning some beans from our garden. I got one out of 7 jars to seal. I was very frustrated. On the other had, we also bought a 7 cubic foot chest freezer for the garage on Monday too, so I guess I can just freeze the beans that didn't seal now. I was amazed at how much stuff had been in our little freezer. It will be nice to have the extra space. There's actually room for our ice maker to work again!

I still have an interview scheduled for a job in Eugene and am waiting to hear back from an application I put in for a job in Portland. Right now I would prefer the Portland job because it is close to the temple and Robin and Briton. There's also a bigger support network for the churches adoption agency there than in Eugene. Also, it's close to the airport, and flights in and out of PDX tend to be cheaper than into Eugene or Salem.

That's the news from Corvallis.

Misc

Hey everybody,
I just thought I'd give an update on what's going on in Burlington. I am well into my second course, Cell and Molecular Biology, which is luckily a lot of review with a few different spins and details for me. It has still taken a great deal of reviewing however, which ended up consuming a good portion of our labor day weekend. We did however, visit the Champlain Valley Fair which was great. Enoch loved all of the animals and especially the sounds we would make when we introduced him to them. He is getting his 5th tooth, so the teething trials have resumed. He is also becoming more adventurous and has even started taking a few steps on his own before he pulls a Peter and looses faith. Missy has won my vote for homemaker of the year with all the gourmet dinners she has ever ready when I come home, not to mention the doting lunches that have my classmates all jealous. Also, today we went with the inspector and looked through our soon-to-be house from top to bottom. I learned a ton from him; very practical advice. We also met the children of the previous owner who grew up in that house (now in their 50's) and now live down the street. We are so excited. There is a lot of potential in that house.
Hope all's well with everybody.

Love the Petersens,

P.S. great pics Hilary.
P.P.S. Ellen, we are planning impaired and can't foresee what we will be doing next summer yet. We'll have to get back with you on the Shakespeare Festival.

Woops!

Okay. Here are some pictures from the Tetons. Maybe this will look better.

A Small Update On Our Lives

I am learning some things about the order in which you're supposed to upload images. Anyway, I found these old pictures from our Teton Trip in the summer of 2006. I hope you enjoy them!



Here are some vegetables we grew in our garden. How lovely!

One of Carl's mission companions comes from Oaxaca, Mexico where dried grasshoppers are a delicacy. He sent us a jar of them, and we have been enjoying the taste of dried grasshoppers ever since. They kind of just taste like grass.
Here is a typical scene in front of our apartment. This one happened because some guy broke into another guy's apartment next door, demanded his wallet, and slashed his forearm open with a knife. Our building is more secure than the one next door, and also we don't have sketchy people living here.
Here is Carl's birthday cake. Missy did most of it, and I think it turned out pretty dern awesome!


Hello Family! I thought you might enjoy some kind of recent pictures from our lives. Let's see what I've got here. . .

In early August, Carl and I went to Yosemite National Park with the Barlow clan. This is a picture of Carl and I at the top of Half-Dome. It was a big hike. Claire, Ethan, Carl, me, and Carl's brother Tom went on the hike. These cables at the end were a lot scarier than I was anticipating, but the intensity made it fun.