Coming Soon...

A Wedding Post

But, in the meantime, here's a little something:

Last Sunday we attended our old ward in Camas, Washington because we were there for Spencer and Adrianna's wedding.  It's the ward we moved into fresh out of college when Scott (our oldest) was just nine months old. We lived there for 25 years and had our other seven children whilst in that ward. 

It was nice to fill up "our" pew with most of the Gale gang.

It was Fast Sunday and thus Sacrament Meeting was open to testimonies. 

Andy got up and began with:

"We moved into this ward 25 years ago--back then I had an afro and a six-pack.

Since then, both have disappeared."

And...That's a Wrap

Goodbye BurgervilleAnd Top Burger too...

Goodbye Crown Park

We'll miss you.

Goodbye Camas Pool

Where we learned to swim

Goodbye old Camas High

and Fred Howe Gym

(yeah, no picture--that's another story)





Goodbye Prune Hill Chapel

Our Church on the Hill

So many good memories,

A book they could fill.

Farewell Shell Station

and "Dorky Socks" School

Where some of the Gale kids

Learned so many rules.

We lived here so long

We never thought the day would come

That we would move away

and call someplace else home.

But wherever we go

and whatever we do...

We'll keep close in our hearts,

Sweet memories of you.

Our Town Again

So, here's the house we built next. It probably looks strangely familiar. That's because Andy liked the design of the front that he did on the other house so much, he repeated it here.

This was only six blocks from our last home. But this place had more room around it. It was a little over an acre and had protected greenspace behind it--which included a little creek and lots of trees.

During the building process, I spent a lot of time going back and forth from our other house to here and always dragged Shane along with me. He didn't enjoy it because he had to stay out of the way of the workers and listen to boring adult talk as we discussed tile and carpet and plumbing and blah, blah, blah. When we finally moved in, Shane was not happy. In the middle of the night our first night, he woke me up and said, "I want to go home now."

I said, "You are home, we live here now."

"NO we don't! Our house has a white door. This is not my house. Take me HOME!"

A few days later I was doing laundry and he walked in and started crying, "What did you do with our washer? This is not our washer!!"

Eventually he resigned himself to the fact that we were staying.

Before we got the landscaping in, the backyard was a muddy mess. After a snowstorm, Siara and her friend, Sumner, decided to go for a walk in the forest. Unfortunately, he sank into the mud and couldn't get out. Siara tried to pull him up and out but he sank deeper. We were about to call the fire department when he finally heaved himself out of his boots and snowpants and up on to solid ground. We found the boots the next summer when the ground dried out.

Scott spent his last year of high school here and left for BYU and then his mission from here. Siara also graduated and left for BYU. Then Shanna graduated and left for BYU. Then Spencer never went to high school but he left for BYU while we were living here.

I loved gardening here and spent a lot of time out in the garden. The kids couldn't help but gravitate out there too. We planted pumpkins and strawberries which they loved. We also planted tomatoes and squash which they didn't love.

We had hawks nesting in our trees and it was so fun to see the babies learn to fly and then grow up and build their own nests. Eventually we had a pretty healthy hawk population. They helped the cats keep the mouse population down.

We started homeschooling here and this became the lab for many interesting experiments. Some of them very loud. This was also the testing facility for many flying contraptions. Seth and Spencer built rockets, hot air balloons and various planes...with various methods of getting them off the ground. Spencer built a GIANT trebuchet which was used for launching pumpkins into the forest.

We were surprised when this house sold so quickly. We thought we would have more time there. But it was fun while it lasted and we moved from there to the little cabin we are enjoying now.

Next: A few favorite places around town.

S'more of Our Town

This is the first house we built. Andy got to live out his dream of being an architect and drew up the design. It was an adventure living in a tiny rental with seven children and the eighth on the way. We thought we would save money by doing our own cleaning. That worked out just great...everytime there was a BIG cleaning deadline, the husband would be out of town. So, the pregnant wife would haul construction debris from the house to the curb. Sweep like a maniac and try to keep her crazy band of yahoos from injuring themselves while they "helped". Also, Andy did all of the electrical and thanks to a flakey brick driveway craftsman--he just up and disappeared, left all of his tools and even his lunchbox, Andy also cut, arranged and placed every brick in our driveway.

We also saved money by purchasing the old flooring from a high school gym. The kids got paid to pull out the nails and Andy installed it in the raquetball court. Tedious? Yes. Crazy? A little. But it looked great and was perfect for those rainy days we get around here.

This was the site of many fun parties. The next door neighbors became bestest friends with our kids and had good times running back and forth. Shane was born and learned to walk and talk. Soon he was running back and forth too. We moved, they moved, but the kids still go back and forth!

Our back fence bordered the church's baseball field. It was so nice for the seminary age kids to walk out the back door to class every morning. It was also convenient for the Teachers when they forgot the bread. Both wards knew they could come to the back door and get bread. I warned the people who bought the house that they should be prepared for that.

We lived here for 3 years. Then we found the perfect spot to build again. Because we were completely out of our minds.

Continued...

Oops! This got away from me before I finished the captions... I have been busy packing and cleaning for the move. That's my excuse anyway. Savannah and Tori's: Notorious and Often Unsupervised!
"Don't Cross Fargo!"

Our Town

This is the next installment in our "Farewell to Camas" series. Here you see the first house we bought--well the first house that didn't have wheels.

It is appropriate that it was pouring rain when we were out taking pictures...sure gonna miss that Northwest moisture!

Anyone who knows Andy knows that when we lived here, the walls and driveway were spotlessly clean thanks to his connection with pressure washers, and his constant hard work.

He also went to great lengths to make sure all the planters had nice plants and flowers in them. When we first moved in, I was about five months along with Shanna, and Scott and Siara were running around. Our neighbor across the street (who still lives there BTW) came over to tell me:

"How does your son stand up? His head is so big I expect him to fall over!" in a lovely German accent.

That was a nice welcome to the neighborhood. But, as we got to know her and her family, we realized that though she could be blunt, she was a wonderful neighbor and her daughter Antje babysat for us and our kids loved her. Antje gave Shanna her nickname: Nunny.

Note the VERY steep driveway. The kids adapted quickly and eventually would ride their bikes down it and also had fun coasting down it in the wagon. Siara and Shanna each crashed into the tree down the street after picking up too much speed coming down the driveway. Just minor injuries but major drama.

It kept me in good condition as our van would not fit in the garage and I had to carry every baby, diaper bag, car seat and all groceries from the curb, up the driveway, up two sets of stairs and into the house.

Andy completely remodeled that place. It had the brown and gold shag carpet and avocado green kitchen of the seventies. He moved walls, gutted bathrooms and put on a huge addition to the back. Then he completely excavated the backyard and terraced it. Through it all, the kids had a blast playing in the construction mess. Scott earned money for his used bike by hauling debris to a huge dumpster down at the curb. Spencer stepped on nails every time I turned around. Good thing he had that tetanus shot. Seth fell out the backdoor after the steps had been jackhammered away. He just jumped up and started playing in the debris.

I continued to run a daycare here. Don't worry, that was before the major renovations began! I let the kids ride their trikes and big wheels in the big basement. Another favorite activity was putting the napping mattress on the stairs and bouncing and sliding down it.

After Shanna, four more babies came home to this house. We have pictures here of baby blessing days and baptism days. We had many fun birthday parties here--everything from Pirates to Princesses. And many memorable Thanksgivings and Christmas'. We also hosted a lot of ward activities and business dinners and parties and Joy School graduations.

But mostly we just lived here. It was our home for a long time and we have many sweet memories of that time and place.

Any memories you would like to add?

Up the street: The Cracking Spot--basically a place to play in the dirt

Down the street: Savannah and Tori's house--good friends and partners in mischief.

How 'bout "Don't cross Fargo"?

Our Town

Yesterday, The Gale Academy of Classical Education drove about town taking pictures for a project we call "Farewell to Camas". Actually, I call it that. The boys call it: "Anything to Get Out of Regular School Work".

We began where it all started for our family: at the trailer park where we lived right after Andy graduated from BYU. His first job was at Tektronix and we found a used single-wide trailer for an affordable price and moved it into this place. Scott was just a baby and this is where he learned to walk and talk. We have pictures of him inside the actual trailer when he was an actual baby but those are packed away in long-term storage. It was in our little trailer where Scott learned the names and sounds of all the farm animals. His favorite game was to have Andy tell him, "Scott, where's the horse?" Scott would run into his room and bring back the horse from his Fisher-Price farm. Then we'd ask him, "What does the horse say?" (this was in the days before every toy did all the work for kids--they could actually use their own imaginations and make the sounds themselves!). He would make the neighing sound and then wait for the next animal. He also spent many hours here with a magnetic alphabet board that he got for his 1st Birthday. He would point to a letter and say, "What's this?" and I would tell him the letter and the sound. He would go through the whole alphabet and then start over. Since we didn't have TV, this was as exciting as it got. But along the way, he learned to spell his name and other simple words.

This is also where we lived when Siara was born. When she started crawling she was a speed racer and could dash from one end of the trailer to the other in record time. Usually with Scott running after her and both of them laughing. I started doing daycare here so the trailer got a little crowded some days. I made a Noah's ark out of a grocery bag and traced the animals from the nursery manual. I mounted them on cardboard and Scott, Siara and the daycare kids played with that happily for hours.

When we found out Shanna was on the way, we decided it was time to find a bigger place. That will be a later post. Stay tuned for another episode of "Farewell to Camas".