More Berries

While my Mom and Dad were here in June, we were given some berries, well actually Sean picked them with a fellow car pool partner. I am so grateful we had extra hands!!! We hulled strawberries and then the next day we made 35 jars of jam, a strawberry/rhubarb pie and some strawberry/rhubarb sauce for on top of icecream. It was a very busy day but very productive!!! What a blessing to be able to enjoy berries.

Blueberries = Summer

We were picking blueberries for a local farm last week and have had the last two days off. Alyona will go back to work tomorrow but the younger ones and I will stay at home and continue to get ready to go to Canada. We have enjoyed picking blueberries but have found it more work then originally thought. I think the main reason is that I have not stuck to my 2 hour work schedule and therefore the kids are burned out by the time we leave. Last Friday we arrived at 6:30am (oh my goodness that is early) and we did not leave till 11:30am. It was a very long day! We might have the opportunity to get two more days of picking this week before the weekend and us leaving.

Alyona made us some great tasting blueberry/rhubarb muffins last week!

Why are we Happy?

Well, moving on past my birthday, enjoying life, I was perusing some web sites today and through the rabbit hole I went. After several interesting videos, that I may share later, I came across one that brought a smile to my face after the last post about my birthday, dreams and happiness.

I have shared TED videos in the past and I have another one to share today that will probably put a smile on your face at times and make you think about things as well. It is by Dan Gilbert.

Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

So when you have a chance, take the 22 minutes and watch this video and have a couple of laughs...I do not agree with the 200 Million year old thought, but the ideas are intriguing.

I know it is not a lot of insight on what is happening in the O'Hara life right now, but it is something that I wanted to remember in the future when I look back at this time and realize that it did have impact on me.

Here is a link to another one of his talks: Dan Gilbert on our mistaken expectations

Time...it keeps passing by

Well, it happened, another birthday...I know that they come a lot faster these days as compared to when I was the kids' age. This is kind of a milestone it is the last year that I get to say I am in my 30's...wow how did that happen.

I had the chance to reflect on life this past week and think about where my folks were at this point in my life. Realized some of the things that my dad had been going through at my age and the stress that had been on his shoulders.

For the most part things were going pretty low key. Not much hubbub then I get an email from facebook saying that someone I knew from high school wanted to add me. Remembering the guy, I accepted, though I am pretty limited on facebook I do accept a few folks. He had just gotten on facebook and didn't have hardly any information, but one piece of information initially was his employer. It was a Navy squadron. Well low and behold the guy is living my dream...he is an F/A-18 pilot, has over 2000 hours in the hornet. That had been my dream for a long time and all of a sudden I had to deal with the fact that I was getting older and that someone that I personally knew and had graduated high school with was living my dream.

This hit me hard...It is ok to give up on your dreams and realize that hey, most people don't get their dreams, but then to find out that a classmate got it, ouch. I mean I have people from my class that became chiropractors, dentist and lots of other things, but a fighter pilot that was my dream.

Ok, enough lamenting...after talks with my 2 closest friends of which I have 15 years and 24 years of friendship with I was able to come to the realization that the bright lights of a dream don't allow you to see clearly. I was reminded that God has created a good work in me and that he is not done yet. My dream was that, mine, not God's. It reminds me of the Garth Brook's song "Unanswered Prayers"

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you're talkin to the Man upstairs
That just because he doesn't answer doesn't mean he don't care
Some of gods greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.

I had tried for the Naval academy 18 years ago and God prevented that from happening...and since then He has done so much for me. He has brought me the love of my life, He has given me the blessing of watching 3 beautiful kids born, healthy...to be there for their first breaths! He has given me 2 more beautiful girls to love and raise that he is using to mold and make me into the man He wants me to be. He has given me 15+ years at Hewlett Packard. A wonderful home to enjoy with my family in the country. A church and fellow believers to share the walk of this life with. I still have my folks and sister as well as my wife's folks and sister. I still have a grandmother alive. I have an awesome life that God, hopefully, will allow me to continue to enjoy for many years to come.

I wanted to share also with you a video that hit home with this all to that one of my dear friends shared with me...take a watch and see if it affects you as it affected me and remember when we hold onto things that "we want" it does not allow us to let God change us!

Kids say the funniest things

The other day...ok it was last week, we are just that bad about getting entries posted...Tracey took the girls to Springbank Farm for a job interview. Looking for summer jobs in Oregon is not the same as it was when we were growing up back on the farms... in Alberta and Nebraska. There all kids got summer jobs...real working type of jobs. For Nebraska it is rouging and detassling corn fields. In Oregon we have found that kids can pick blueberries. Ages 10 - 12 with parental consent and 12 on up without consent.

Tracey had played email tag with the folks at Springbank Farm and was able to set up interview times for the kids and her. Upon showing up, Tracey hit it off with the O'Driscoll family. They were joking and laughing, having a good old time sharing stories.

Mr. O'Driscoll was asking Tanya questions. What kind of chores she did around our place. Tanya said that we take care of the chickens and that we have pigs and a garden. He asked her what she did with the chickens and Tanya told him that she collected the eggs. He then asked her what about the pigs...without missing a beat, Tanya said, "They don't lay eggs".

Sure as shootin, she nailed that one...our pigs do not lay eggs. Well I guess Mr. O'Driscoll and Tracey killed themselves laughing. It was so sweet because Tanya did not even know what she had done. It is moments like that we often forget about when it comes to the innocence of children.

Kid pics from the past few days

Sometimes it is just great to see some pics...so here are a couple that I ran through photoshop tonight just to see how they would turn out and I thought I would share them!

Tanya posing for mom in Libby, MT (at Grandma & Grandpa's)


Declan, Alexis, Tanya and Kimberly having fun in Libby, MT


Fair Princess Kimberly with the rose she picked herself

Road trip and then Fun!

This morning we left Family in Libby, MT and took off early to make it to Coeur d'Alene, ID. We had a treat waiting for the kids there. We had arranged for their Nana and Papa from Canada to meet us there.

We showed up at their hotel, playing it off like we were going to get something to eat, take a stretch...anything other then meeting family. Alexis and I were headed down the hallway to find the bathrooms when who should appear from the elevator but their nana and papa! I think they were all kinda shocked in a wonderful way.

We then went to the local little restaurnt and had the buffet breakfast to get us ready for the trip across Washington state.

Even though we had the problems with the transmission, we had long ago planned to take the kids to Grand Mound, Washington to Great Wolf Lodge, a place that I had read about when we had hosted the girls 3 years ago. A family back east had taken the child they sponsored to stay at one and we have been fortunate enough to have one build between Seattle and Portland. We thought it a great opportunity to do this one on the way home from this vacaton.

We have very seldom in the last 17 years of marriage taken a vaction other then to family, so this was/is great. We got to spend the first part of our family vacation with Sean's side of the family, including 2 aunts from Nebraska and then on the way home from that time, we got to meet up with Tracey's folks and head to the waterpark / hotel for a couple of days. I imagine this will be some of those memories that stay with the kids maybe for the rest of their lives...

The trip across Washington was hot, long and a bit different then what we normally get to experience on our trips to and from Canada. Normally we make a turn at Ritzville, Washington. This time we continued West of Ritzville towards Seattle.

This added some spice to the trip, though it was quite warm, dry and quite a photo op for the kids ;)

After a short stop, we continued toward Seattle and hit a wonderful onslaught of traffic (I am now reminded why I left LA so long ago). We fought traffic, well somewhat, since we were able to use the carpool lane, for close to 2 hours.

This put us into the hotel somewhere around 4:30, checked into our room by 5 and the kids in the water by 5:30. It was originally only going to be for a few minutes, to get a taste of it and then get supper, but it turned into 1 1/2 hours in the water.

After getting the kids out of the water park area, we changed and made our way to find some food and the hotel where nana and papa will be staying (much more reasonably priced then ours :( ). We ended up at Denny's after making it to their hotel and had one of the best waiteresses that I have had in a very long time. She made the evening for us with her very chipper, helpful and courtesy attitude...what a blessing it was.

We then headed to Safeway to pick up some food for snacks and breakfast in the morning, made it back to the hotel, got the kids cleaned up and this entry done...what a day. But tomorrow is for relaxation :)