2011 in our household

This is our last family photo taken in 2005.  I think its times for a new pic! Don't you think :) 

This past year was definitely an adventure for the Vastbinder clan.  We moved from Maple Valley to the Maple Valley of the north side of Seattle, Woodinville.  While kelly green, (Woodinville's school color), is not my favorite green, green is a favorite color.  Why did we move?  We moved because I now work for Zumiez and the 90 minute drive, one-way, was not my idea of me-time nor was it a stress-reliever.


I do have some good news to share, we were accepted into the Hill Cumorah Pageant this year.  After being declined for 3 years in a row, we finally wore them down and our persistence paid off.  We most definitely did our happy dances when we found out we were accepted as cast members.  (For EJ and TJ, this was most probably practice for the Lamanite dancer scenes which most teen boys participate in.  Only small pun intended.)  We are headed back to NY for the month of July to participate.  


James

With my job at Zumiez, wearing hoodies and torn jeans to work is a requirement.  I have not tried showing up with torn pajama pants - which was my outer garment of choice during most of my work from home years.  Kari has advised me against an attempt at this.  Yes, the crash on Cyber Monday meant I did not sleep that night and instead spent the evening rebuilding our back-end server so it could handle the number of visitors to the site without crashing.  I do enjoy working for Zumiez and with this role have moved from Sales/Biz Dev back into the software development world.  I am going to start writing for InfoQ.com again in 2012, but they don't allow me the poetic license Kari allows me on her blog. Now I just need to start running again, which is my New Year's resolution for 2012.




Kari

Kari has graduated from Nursing School.  With High Honors no doubt!!  (thats Suma Cum-Laude to some)  She is now an almost licensed RN and we delighted her earlier this year with her favorite sports car, a BMW Z3, as graduation present.  


On the 23rd we also picked up a male kitten, which was really a Christmas present for Kari.  She'd been slowly wearing me down or warming me up to the idea, depending on how you look at it, for the last six months.  Kari is now the First Counselor (if you don't understand what is meant by first  counselor, it part of the leadership over the Young Women.  There's the president, 1st counselor, 2nd counselor, and secretary for each organization of each ward)  in the Young Women's program in our ward and loving working with the girls.  While she is a die-hard lacrosse fan for any team our boys are playing on or I am coaching, she enjoys spending some testosterone free time.


EJ

EJ is just months away from securing his driver's license.  We look forward to this time with both dread and anticipation.  Dread from the amount of increase in our car insurance expense and anticipation to have him drive himself and his brother to early-morning seminary.  EJ is doing very well in school and has A's in all subjects except for science.  This fall's sport was cross country for EJ.  He started off the season with a 22 1/2 minute 5 k and ended the season with a 20 min 15 sec time.  He got an hour glass award by decreasing his time by 2 minutes over the season!  Congrats EJ.   He has decided to follow his father into the computer science field and is learning how to program.  He has also achieved Prestige status on MW3 and had achieved Prestige status twice-over before going back to School on January 2nd.  (I do not know what that means, but I know he has sat in front of the Xbox for quite a long time to achieve it....)


TJ

Kari convinced him to get a haircut after this pic! :)

TJ played on an elite lacrosse team this past summer for 8th graders and was honored with acceptance into an entering freshman camp for promising Lacrosse players in WA state, Elite 80.  He also played inside linebacker for his freshman football team and began his first year of early morning seminary.  He has begun attending the youth LDS dances with his brother and just like his brother, does not view the pain of enduring a 5 minute interview with the Bishop as less so than enduring a 15 minute lecture on standards before each youth dance.  TJ is able to text on his phone many times faster than on a normal computer keyboard.  (I'm not sure of the usefulness of this particular skill, but I would assume his risk for carpal tunnel has been isolated to his thumbs...)

Rae

Against her will, Rae participated in Cross Country this past fall and enjoyed it.  This coming Spring she will be playing Volleyball for Leota.  She also graduated to Young Womens this past year in church and will be attending the LDS dances with her brothers in only one year.  She also began wearing makeup this year, but I still remind her she cannot date until she is 29 years old.  She is scheduled for her sweet 16 birthday only 13 years later than her peers.  I try to convince her that 13 years go by very quickly as it feels like just yesterday to me when she was born - I still get funny looks from her and a random statement expressing dis-belief or sarcasm.  Rae thinks I am joking, I assure you, dear reader, I am not.  In fact, I often look at her and see her mother in her, especially the way her hair falls across her shoulders and in her profile view, which makes her almost a twin with Kari.  Of course, she has me wrapped around her finger, just not as tightly as her mother does.   

CJ

I am so very excited that CJ has chosen to play defense in Lacrosse.  Already as an 11 year old he can catch and throw with a 6-ft long defensive shaft.  I am going to shorten it by 6 inches to make it a little easier for him to use.  CJ is our little engineer and can often be found playing with his Legos.  He and AJ both attended Lego Club this year, which is a special club hosted by Lego Land and is an after-school program for Elementary schools in this area.  He is also our budding video biographer and is often making videos of his Bey Blade battles and super hero shorts with his friends.  Next month he will be participating in a video making club and will most probably show up his father's capabilities within the year.

AJ

AJ's favorite TV show is Myth Busters and his second is Our Universe.  I'm not sure what this says about a 7 year old who favors the antics on Myth Busters over Phineas & Ferb.  It does place him above my IQ range, but I do remember my favorite book at his age to be an Astronomy book given to me one Christmas by my Aunt.  He also has a good sense of humor and often can be found pulling pranks on his mother.  Kari and I both hope this is the year he begins to use his Lacrosse stick for something other than a shovel or a something to lean against on the Lacrosse field.  This remains to be seen, regardless, we'll be the loudest cheering parents from the stand.








All in all, this has been a good year for the Vastbinders.  We do enjoy our new Ward and have made many new friends.  We've slipped right into the Lacrosse community up here and I've even been asked to coach the JV team for Woodinville this Spring.  We certainly miss our friends in Maple Valley, Enumclaw and Kent.  Our focus is still on squeezing the joy out of all the time we have remaining with our children and try to keep from reminding ourselves we only have 3 years left until Ethan leaves for college.  When they begin leaving it will be a sad day indeed.


We look forward with anticipation for 2012 and the many adventures ahead of us.  Happy New Year to all of our friends and family.


(And yes, I did give our new kitten a new name that everyone now mistakenly calls him - "Remis".  While it is still two syllables like "Cinder", it rolls of the tongue easier for me....)


The Vastbinders


Extra pic:

Our New Home!

Kari's Parents, Shawn and Kari in 1976.  We just found this picture a few weeks ago.

My Lacrosse team I coached this past spring.  7/8 Tahoma White.