New Additions to the Family

I got an email from my older brother complaining that we have not updated our blog in a long time. I was a bit surprised because I thought that Samuel didn't even know what a blog was. But thus, here I am updating on a few new additions to our family...
Seth and I finally got on the same cell phone plan and in so doing we HAD to get new phones. I thought that I would never want anything other than my dinky little flip phone which I loved so much but I was soon convinced otherwise. I had a blackberry for less than a day and didn't like it at all, too confusing for me, so I finally settled on the Palm Pixi. Its light, easy to use and so far I haven't lost it.


Seth, on the other hand, likes the phone called the Moment. He is kind of a tech nerd and since we got our new phones he has been showing non-stop me how he can download cool gadgets and watch TV and pretty much do anything.


The next two additions to our family are two new fish. I finally decided that our fish, Randy, needs a new home. We've managed to keep him alive for a few months now so we were willing to take the risk of getting a new home and new friends. So we bought two bottom feeders or algae eaters and named them Blake and Mimy. Other than that... well I am now about eleven weeks pregnant and my days consist mostly of throwing up and being nauseous, hence we have not had much to blog about but we are very excited about our upcoming new addition to our family. Happy now, Samuel?

The Spader Origin

My cousin Audrey and I are currently helping my grandpa Spader with a big project. He will hand write his memories of growing up then Audrey and I type them, edit them and are compiling them with pictures to go along with some of the stories. One story that I had the chance to type up tonight really hit home with me. It is not one of my grandpa's memories but actually a brief history of where the Spader family came from.
In a reader's digest version my great great grandpa Frank Spitter and my great great grandma Gerri Spitter were taught by missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints over in Holland. They were baptized in a river with a thin layer of ice. After being baptized they felt that it was the right thing to do move their large family, 8 children total, to Zion in Salt Lake City. Frank left his family for a year to get a job and find a place to live in America. After a year he sent for the rest of his family to come. Gerri traveled with her 8 children across the Atlantic by boat and then by many trains to finally arrive at the main station in Salt Lake City.
As I was typing up this story I felt the Spirit so strongly. I imagine what I felt was what my great great grandma felt when she stepped off the platform, looked up and saw the Temple and the Angel Moroni atop shining in the afternoon sun and fell to her knees giving thanks to her Heavenly Father.
I am so grateful for her wonderful example, as well as the examples of my grandparents and my parents. I normally don't cry when I feel the Spirit but tonight as I was typing up the words my grandfather wrote I couldn't stop.


Eventually the name Spitter was changed to Spader as the word "spit" translates to the English word "spade" or "shovel." And THAT is where the Spader family came from.

Shout Out to Russell

Dear Russell,
Happy Birthday! You are soooo old now, quarter of a century right? Thank you for being such a wonderful friend to Seth and I. You have been there through it all and we are grateful for that. I know that we both consider you to be one of our best friends. Seth is especially thankful for you example in his life and I am grateful for the good influence you have been for him. We wish we could spend some more time with you before you leave but I guess that is just how it goes when you live hundreds of miles away. Have a great birthday! We love you.
Love Always,
Carmen and Seth

Unlikely Service

Seth and I have set a goal to give service as much as we can, at least once a week. We were inspired by this last general conference and decided that we need to step it up a notch by doing more than "nice" things everyday but at least once a week take time out of our busy schedules (school, work, family, more school work) to give up some time to help others. Today we had a most unlikely opportunity to do just that. Since Marty is a fire chief of Tukwila, he is in the know of when service is needed. He signed Seth and I up to be volunteers to help the Tukwila Police Department conduct SWAT training exercises. We figured it would be a pretty fun and unique way to give of our time.
Well... I didn't really know what I was getting into but when everyone else starting showing up with bullet proof vests on and thick clothes and all the guys were asking Seth if he had brought a cup I knew we might be in trouble. Basically our job was to be actors for a situation that could potentially occur. We did a couple scenes, Seth played the role of a scared and freaked out employee of a bank a few times, I played the role of a dead person lying on the ground and the team had to step over me. We both played the role of hostages about to be blown up by a terrorist. The scariest one was when I played the role of being a single hostage and the "bad guy" was using me as a shield. It really is kind of scary, they have chalk bullets that apparently hurt really really really bad and the SWAT teams that are practicing are so intense and amped up, it does seem real in the heat of the moment. Luckily for me when I was taken hostage I didn't get shot but I had a few close calls.
We were also able to learn how to conduct a SWAT mission and how to react in certain situations, hopefully this information will never have to come in handy though. Who knew service could be as exciting as this.

Puyallup Fair

This is the first time that Seth and I were able to go to the fair together. Of course we have both grown up going to the fair every Fall but just never with each other. I was really excited to go. We went with our friend, Camille, and we had a lot of fun. And after living in Cali and going to Disneyland and Six Flags the rides at the fair aren't at all exciting so we spent most of our time just looking at all the animals, looking at all the stuff people were selling and I was determined to have my husband win me a stuffed animal by the end of the night. I mean lets be honest, I'm a little jealous of Audrey and her giant stuffed animal Toren won for her. And we HAD to get some fair scones to bring back to Seth's parents and then I HAD to spend $5 on a nasty jumbo size lemonade. Seth also made us spend some time at the big candy stand, he has such a sweet tooth. One of our favorite parts was looking at the giant pumpkins and the garden displays that they have. Our little Grisham garden has been flourishing, we already ate quite a few tomatoes and radishes and our parsley is just overflowing but our pumpkins... WOW! We could probably make some big bucks selling our pumpkins if they keep growing at this rate.

This is a horse butt. The horse's name is Shelby. We HAD to get a pic

Seth and I decided we want chickens as soon as we get our own place

Seth trying to win me a stuffed frog

Camille showing him how its done

At least I still got my stuffed animal

Mt. Adams Results

Well Mt. Adams was quite the adventure. I was debating about whether or not I should even blog about our trip, but... we managed to get away with a few pictures and since I use our blog as an online journal of sorts I figured I might as well. Due to inclement weather we decided it was best to not bring along our nice camera but luckily we just had our small digital one. It was raining pretty hard outside when we got to the trail head, but we geared up and went anyways. The first night we hiked up quite a ways and stopped once it got dark and set up camp. Apparently there was a storm the night before and a bit more storm the night we were up there (lucky us) so the trail was covered over with snow and the trail was a bit lost to us, but we figured hey, all we have to do to reach the top is to go up right? So we headed up, soon found out our own trail was a little more technical but still quite the adventure. We made it to the false summit but due to time constraints decided it was best to just start heading back down, well since we climbed up mostly rocks, we couldn't see our tracks and got lost for a while on the mountain and THAT is when the real adventure started. It was a neat experience in the long run but one we all prefer not to relive anytime soon. You can see in the pictures that we definitely forgot our sunscreen and we found out the hard way that a snow burn is the worst kind of sunburn. Even now, a week later we are still in the recovery process. As for Adams, we are all bummed about making it so far and not reaching summit, but we are going out again in about a month, this time with the proper gear and for me boots that fit!

Bran and I in the morning, don't we look so chipper?

This is actually after we had started on our way down, you can already see the sunburns on our face

Seth and Brandon with Mt. Adams in the background

Mt. Adams

We are currently preparing to summit Mt. Adams on Tuesday! We are so excited and you should be too, on account of we are taking our camera and will post pictures of out trip. So far it is only Seth, Brandon and I who are going. Can't wait! We've got all the gear... ropes, ice ax, crampons, thermals, trail mix, MSR stove... the essentials. As of now, our plan is to leave late on Sunday night spend the night with my favorite cousins who live in Portland (Audrey and Toren, if you haven't gotten my message yet, then consider this inviting myself haha.) Then we hike up to base camp, also known as Lunch Counter and on Tuesday morning we'll summit, glissade down and be on our merry way. Other than that, Seth and I have been having a busy week working but luckily we have no school until the 21st! woo hoo! We took a Lake Tapps trip on Monday with Khia and Joe for F.H.E. and lets be honest, we showed them a thing or two on the jet skis. We don't have any pictures because we forgot our camera, but we would have gotten some sweet shots.
P.S. Kylee, this update is for you, have fun blog surfing.