tag:shfr.us,2011:/blog//2 2008-10-22T16:09:43Z Greetings and welcome to the Shafer Family site. Herein, as we are fancied, members of the family perhaps might chronical events of interest to ourselves. Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. Movable Type 3.35 tag:shfr.us,2008:/blog//2.25 2008-10-22T16:08:32Z 2008-10-22T16:09:43Z

Well, fall is in full swing here. The few sunflowers that survived our two windstorms that were back to back are heavy with seed. So exciting. I'm anxious to be able to put them out in the winter for the birds. :-) Xander's doing well in second grade. He *loves* his teacher and his new classmates (6 new kiddos have joined his class). He now has *3* sets of twins in his class! All fraternal, so it is easy to tell them apart (they really look not much alike). One set of boys, and two sets of girls. Seriously, how often do you get 6 out of 21 kids being twins in a school classroom? He won the limo lunch again this year. He's having a hard time deciding who to take this year. No Madi in class, so it's not easy picking one of the other girls. Apparently, he's decided it has to be a "date", so he can*not* take a guy friend with him. *sigh* He has also learned to ride his two wheeler without training wheels! We're stoked about that, and have gone on a family bike ride already. :-) 4.2 miles. He's loving soccer again this...

Sharalyn Shafer Well, fall is in full swing here. The few sunflowers that survived our two windstorms that were back to back are heavy with seed. So exciting. I'm anxious to be able to put them out in the winter for the birds. :-) Xander's doing well in second grade. He *loves* his teacher and his new classmates (6 new kiddos have joined his class). He now has *3* sets of twins in his class! All fraternal, so it is easy to tell them apart (they really look not much alike). One set of boys, and two sets of girls. Seriously, how often do you get 6 out of 21 kids being twins in a school classroom? He won the limo lunch again this year. He's having a hard time deciding who to take this year. No Madi in class, so it's not easy picking one of the other girls. Apparently, he's decided it has to be a "date", so he can*not* take a guy friend with him. *sigh* He has also learned to ride his two wheeler without training wheels! We're stoked about that, and have gone on a family bike ride already. :-) 4.2 miles. He's loving soccer again this year. 3 more practices, and 4 more games and we'll be done with the season. He's turned into a wonderful defender. :-) He even has 2 goals under his belt. He can't wait until next year when the team will have a goalie (moving up from micro to mod). Guess which position he wants to play? ;-) Gryphon's business is doing well, and he's still loving his commute. He doesn't have as much time to do the fun things he would like to, but he's staying pretty busy. He preached 4 out of the last 5 Sundays at Bremerton Church of God. This last week was rather hilarious. The church is currently meeting at the school district administration building, but this last Sunday, the lady who opens up for us didn't show for whatever reason. The regular pastor was out of town, and she's the one with the contact numbers at the district. So we had no way to get in. 15 of us are standing in the cold, trying to figure out where we can go. Gryphon suggested our home (which was clean at the time, so would have been okay), but most of the people live in Bremerton, so it was deemed "too far away". I then suggested IHOP or Family Pancake House where at least we could fellowship. One of the men piped up, "wait, Denny's let us use their back room one time!" So I called over there and it was open, so we drove over. Of course on arrival, they ask, "Is everyone over 21?" Well, everyone except Alexander. They let us go anyway. So we held church service last Sunday at a Denny's Bar. My husband gave his first sermon in a bar. :-) Hee hee. Then we all ordered lunch and ate together. Alexander did his first scripture reading in service. All the grandma's and grandpa's thought it was adorable of course. He read from Psalm 102. I'm tired, but plugging along. Feeling overwhelmed a lot of the time. I just finished up a huge project for Alexander's teacher. That felt good to get finished. I haven't been working at the hospital much as they keep canceling me. :-P Oh well, I've got a couple of shifts that should be coming up, and I'm going more online again. Speaking of which, I should be doing that right now instead of blogging, but I hadn't blogged in so long.... tag:shfr.us,2008:/blog//2.19 2008-05-05T23:56:37Z 2008-05-06T00:00:08Z

Please pray for one of my best friends and her family. She just found out today that her brother died in a kayaking accident in Costa Rica yesterday. This is out of the blue for everyone. Please pray for Brandy, her husband and three children, her mom and dad, and her other two brothers. Thank you....

Sharalyn Shafer Please pray for one of my best friends and her family. She just found out today that her brother died in a kayaking accident in Costa Rica yesterday. This is out of the blue for everyone. Please pray for Brandy, her husband and three children, her mom and dad, and her other two brothers. Thank you. tag:shfr.us,2008:/blog//2.18 2008-05-05T17:36:23Z 2008-05-05T19:52:14Z

Two weeks ago, Alexander was assigned a poem to memorize and then recite for his class as part of the school Speech Meet. 6 students are then chosen from each class to then recite in front of a panel of parent judges this upcoming Friday, and Alexander was one of them! They ended up with a tie for 6th place, so there are 6 girls from the class and Alexander reciting this Friday. He was so excited to have made it in the top of the class. His poem is: Little Talk by Aileen Fisher Don't you think it's probable that beetles, bugs, and bees talk about a lot of things, you know--such things as these. The kind of weather where they live in jungles tall with grass and earthquakes in their villages whenever people pass. Of course we'll never know if bugs talk very much at all, because our ears are far too big for talk that is so small. He's also made the "100 Club" at school two quarters in a row. They get a coupon for each 15 mintues that they read at home (practicing his poem and when he memorizes his Bible verse each week also...

Sharalyn Shafer so excited to have made it in the top of the class. His poem is: Little Talk by Aileen Fisher Don't you think it's probable that beetles, bugs, and bees talk about a lot of things, you know--such things as these. The kind of weather where they live in jungles tall with grass and earthquakes in their villages whenever people pass. Of course we'll never know if bugs talk very much at all, because our ears are far too big for talk that is so small. He's also made the "100 Club" at school two quarters in a row. They get a coupon for each 15 mintues that they read at home (practicing his poem and when he memorizes his Bible verse each week also counts). The "100 Club" is for those who turned in 100 coupons over the quarter, which means they've read 25 hours outside of school in a period of 10 weeks. We'll keep you updated on any further developments after he recites on Friday!]]> tag:shfr.us,2008:/blog//2.17 2008-05-05T03:42:09Z 2008-05-05T03:47:57Z

Yesterday was a fun day for me. I left the house at 7 a.m. to drive to Lynnwood. I had a Tupperware meeting first on the agenda. I was there at 9 a.m. for the one hour special Managers meeting which I qualified for by becoming a Manager on April 26th! I was so excited about it because I hadn’t planned on becoming a Manager, but it just ended up being a goal of mine at the last minute since my first “in person” party was such a success. After the Manager’s meeting, we moved to the general meeting. There we received our prizes and were awarded tickets for various things which put us in the drawings that were held throughout. I walked out with about $475 worth of free Tupperware for all the achievements I accomplished in the last month. Gotta love a company that gives out free stuff! :) My big score was this: (minus the pasta and tomatoes) After the meeting was over at 12:30, I loaded up all my goodies in the car, then headed back in as I had also earned a free lunch at Bucca di Beppos. I had the chicken parmigiana—yum! We all...

Sharalyn Shafer (minus the pasta and tomatoes) After the meeting was over at 12:30, I loaded up all my goodies in the car, then headed back in as I had also earned a free lunch at Bucca di Beppos. I had the chicken parmigiana—yum! We all talked shop and such, and it was fun. :) At 2 I headed over to my friend, Nona’s house (also in Lynnwood) as it was National Scrapbooking Day, and she was hosting a “Crop till you Drop” at her house. I got 10 cards, 4 layouts, and planned 17 more layouts (have all the parts, just didn’t have the right adhesive with me), and got a really cute kit cut out and ready to put together (Nona’s design): It was so much to get accomplished, and I came home inspired to finish up some other pages. I had mostly completed Xander’s soccer album (well, all 3 years so far), but Nona had a challenge out for a 1 or 2 page layout with journaling using circles, your favorite quote, and a large photo. This is what I came up with: This was his first experience on a team, and he was just turning 5. He looks so little and just so darn cute! :) (products used include paper from Currents’ Times to Cherish®, Stickers I just had lying around, cardstock I bought at Michaels, the pen is a Sharpie®, and the buttons are from ButtonsGalore.com.) I was there until about 8 p.m., and just had a great time getting things done, learning new techniques, and fellowshipping with other Christian ladies. I drove home happy and satisfied with my day. ]]> tag:shfr.us,2008:/blog//2.16 2008-05-01T02:40:55Z 2008-05-05T02:04:22Z

Not long ago, in early April, the Shafer family made a special trip from our temperate but often wet Puget Sound home down to the Deep South. No, not Alabama; this trip was to very southern California. So southern, in fact, that we could see Mexico from our hotel room. We took a trip to Imperial California, departing low 50s for mid 90s and above. This was all to witness the wedding of our cousin Jonathan Dale to his sweetheart Nora Guerrero. What followed was a prank to remember: QuickTime Virual Reality Small QTVR (634k) Large QTVR (3.3m) Of course, there's much more to the story...

Gryphon Shafer QuickTime Virual Reality Small QTVR (634k) Large QTVR (3.3m) These QTVRs are pretty cool, but you need to have Apple's QuickTime (free) installed. To move around in the QTVRs, click anywhere in the image and drag. You can go left and right, up and down. Use the "shift" and "control" keys to zoom in and out.
Following the reception, several of Jonathan’s family helped pack up the wedding presents and transport them to Jonathan and Nora’s new home while the couple left town on their honeymoon. While we were moving the presents inside, someone noticed a handful of folks across the street eying our progress with much interest, and that set off a few alarm bells. Some of the family were worried about the security of the house while Jonathan and Nora were away. So Sharalyn and I volunteered to stay at the house overnight. We had packed light for the trip, so moving from the hotel to the house was pretty easy. That evening after we had settled in, I began running some mental calculations for the following day. After church on Sunday, April 6, many of “the cousins” (those among the second-generation descended from LeRoy and Mary Jackson) congregated at the senior Dale house for lunch. Following a relaxing and enjoyable time, we each slowly migrated to the junior Dale house to begin “Operation Card Carpet”. Those eventually present (and so culpable for the deed) were: Tommy and his wife Rachel, Alyson, Bethany and her boyfriend Taylor, Joshua and his fiancée Lisa, Nate, Jocelyn, Xander, Sharalyn, and myself. We began by constructing semi-square sheets of playing cards, 8 cards across and 5 cards tall. Each of us had a unique way to form these squares, but most would arrange the cards on the floor and carefully tape the edges together. Once several of these sheets were formed, we split into several teams, some continuing to make sheets, others hanging sheets on the walls with plasti-tack, and still others cutting and tacking individual cards along the edges and around corners. Taylor in particular exhibited great card cutting skill and tacking attention to detail as he became responsible for the expert card trim along several corners and archways. About half-way through the tacking, Joshua came up with a fantastic additional twist. Both Jonathan and Nora love the San Diego Chargers. So he began with help from a few others a large heart shape constructed from blue and yellow Uno cards. As day turned to night and night turned to really, really night, the room slowly came into shape. Someone rented a movie, and we all watched and relaxed, our creation wrapped around us as we consumed pop, pizza, and dessert. The following morning, as the early sun burst into the room, Sharalyn captured our team’s success on film (well, digital at least) for posterity. ]]> tag:shfr.us,2008:/blog//2.14 2008-04-27T01:29:46Z 2008-05-01T02:40:28Z

Given events in very southern California earlier this month, Sharalyn and I felt it would be a great idea to post online the images of the playing card prank we pulled while in Imperial. And that got me thinking, “Why not have a Shafer Family web site where we could post stuff that we do as a family?” Instead, I should have asked myself, “What makes you think you can maintain two sites, two blogs, when you can hardly support the one blog you have already?” Well, this time I have an accomplice. Actually, two. Both Sharalyn and Xander are going to be posting to this blog from time to time. Likely Sharalyn and I will be the regulars, but you never know. Xander is getting more computer literate by the hour. Never the less, this new site and blog is new and something of an experiment. We’ll see how things go.

Gryphon Shafer Given events in very southern California earlier this month, Sharalyn and I felt it would be a great idea to post online the images of the playing card prank we pulled while in Imperial. And that got me thinking, “Why not have a Shafer Family web site where we could post stuff that we do as a family?” Instead, I should have asked myself, “What makes you think you can maintain two sites, two blogs, when you can hardly support the one blog you have already?” Well, this time I have an accomplice. Actually, two. Both Sharalyn and Xander are going to be posting to this blog from time to time. Likely Sharalyn and I will be the regulars, but you never know. Xander is getting more computer literate by the hour. Never the less, this new site and blog is new and something of an experiment. We’ll see how things go.