Winters Kids

Just a little update about what in the world we're doing these days…

Archive for the ‘The Parents’ Category

Europe: A Synopis

Monday, June 14th, 2010

As most of you know, Nick and I had our first European adventure for 10 days at the beginning of May…. which explains the lack of posts until now. Between Easter and the end of April we were focused primarily on preparing to leave… and watching volcano reports.

Luckily, we did manage to make it out and back in between eruptions and ash clouds, and were better for it. Our flights both directions were canceled, but Iceland Air moved us over to British Airways, affording us direct flights between Seattle and London. It shortened our travel time by a few hours, which was great!

Our kiddos were able to spend some quality time with Nana and Papa Winters, which is a rare treat, and they were spoiled rotten, with trips to Chuck E Cheese and a back yard complete with donkeys to entertain them. And in the process, they learned to appreciate dear ol’ Mom and Dad a little bit more. Oh, yeah, and we missed them too.

So with out further ado, here’s the quick and dirty version of our trip. We have about 420 more pictures that we will be compiling into a book of our trip, so for those of you who care… you can come see it anytime. For now, we picked our top 38. The photos below are just thumbnails… you’ll have to click on them to see the full picture.

After seeing the changing of the guard, we had to hustle back to the train station to collect our luggage and then zoom over to the metro to take the hour-long Tube ride to the airport. We sweated bullets worrying that we wouldn’t make it in time, but somehow we managed to get there just as boarding was starting. Perfect! We had to wait to take off because the Ash Cloud was forcing all air traffic onto one runway, and then we  had to head out to the east, and skirt around the volcano to the north. It felt like we were being chased out by ash, kind of like Jeff Goldblum and the T-Rex on Jurassic Park. But we made it, and have LOTS of chocolate to show for it. We had a great time seeing what few sights we got to see, but generally had the best time just hanging out with our friends in Belgium, getting a true (albeit small) taste of what life is like over there. One thing is for sure, we got the travel bug, and hope to be doing much more of it in the future!

Practice Makes Perfect

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Nick took the kids out for a little practice. Him on the camera, and them on the vehicle of their choosing. Here’s what resulted:

Are you sure about this, dad?

He’s down!

No wait, he’s up!

Race ya!

This is the most fun I’ve ever had… except for that time I got to jump in the mud.

29 Version 1.0

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

I turned 29 last month. It’s the end of an era, really. I never really pictured myself older than my twenties, so I’m holding on to this birthday for as long as I can. Actually, because I have a weird number fetish, I think 29 is a rather ugly number, and kind of wish I could have stayed at 28. But, as we have no control over such things, I had to move on.

My wonderful awesome spouse knew of my desire to remain 20-something, and so he planned a surprise party for me, with the theme of “Forever 29.” He did a wonderful job, and I really had no clue what he was up to. Truly, he is a really bad liar and I never expected him to be able to pull something like this off.  He even got friends and family to write favorite memories of me which he put together into a little book. Much awesomeness. We had a wonderful mesh of family and friends come to enjoy the day with us, and more who participated long distance with their messages. It was so much fun!


Waiting For the Party to Start



Nick also made a large poster of me that was a collage of pictures of my growing up years all put together to make my portrait (and yes, he’s talented… but he had software to help in the process… he’s not that talented). On the bottom it had big words printed to say “Karli – Forever 29.” I’ll admit, it kind of creeped me out and seemed a little like memorial. So, I decided that even if it would be cool to be 20-something forever, I think I’ll be happy to move on, because one more birthday means one more year I have been blessed to spend with all of you wonderful people that are in my life. But I still might tell people I’m 29 for as long as I can pull it off :)

P.S. Here is the mosaic using the program found at http://www.andreaplanet.com/andreamosaic/




Mosaic Poster

Mosaic Poster





The Show Goes On…

Friday, February 26th, 2010

After Nick created my most wonderful Blog Book for me for Christmas, I came to treasure my blog a little more. And I have a renewed and deeper desire to keep the goings on of the Winters Family a little more up to date. So imagine my surprise when I realized that the thing that’s been occupying most of my time of late has yet to be included in any postings on Winters Kids! Thusly:

Last summer I had a dream.

Okay, that is completely and totally inaccurate. Let’s start over.

Me as a Townskid in "The Music Man", age 7

When I was growing up, I was heavily involved in our local community theatre. In addition to participating – from age seven on – in their annual musicals, I would spend most of my summers in theatre camps there. And each summer, there would be a variety of teenagers that would assist the camp directors as apprentices.

I idolized those teenagers, and thought they pretty much had the coolest job in the world. And it turns out… they did. Because at some point, I got to be that teenager, and I got their job. And it just so happens that when I did, it was with a brand new director that had rolled into town.

Lois, the new Youth Theatre director had begun her own non-profit youth theatre in Portland just a couple years before she started coming down to Klamath Falls in the summers for theatre camps. Eventually (insert long story here), the whole operation moved down full time. So summer after summer (and occasionally during the school year) I worked for her through high school and into college.

To make a long story short… eventually I had to grow up and move on. You know, get a college degree… do that whole “get married, have a baby thing,” and I stopped going back in the summers to help. For her part, Lois grew her theatre program substantially, but eventually had to close it down when she moved back to the Portland area. She sadly hung up her hat and thought she had closed that chapter in her life, as I had a few years earlier.

But the show must go on!!

It turns out that both she and I (and our families, of course) moved back to the Portland area at about the same time. Of course, we’re on opposite ends of the city, so we didn’t get to see each other a lot. But at one fateful dinner party last spring, what started out at the beginning of the evening as “Man, wouldn’t it be fun….” turned into “Well, why the heck not!?” by the time everyone went home.

One thing led to another and, Northwest Youth Theatre is back in business baby!!

From our website: The mission of Northwest Youth Theatre is to educate and enrich the lives of young people by providing meaningful opportunities for them to explore the performing arts. Our purpose is to provide education and experience in the performing arts to children regardless of their past experience or training. We offer youth a variety of performing opportunities, through after school and summer day camp programs, and NYT classes are filled without requiring students to audition — we believe that by working on performance skills and team-building activities in the rehearsal process, every group of young people can produce an excellent program.

We’ve put in lots of hours getting it up and running again, but boy is it fun. We’ve enlisted the help of our loving, patient, tireless and wonderful husbands to assist us in such duties as website development and marketing. We have found incredible generosity from the Hillsboro School District, and especially Brown Middle School. And most importantly, we’re quickly finding the kids!

Photos by Steve Lents Photography

We started out in the first rehearsal of our Fall ’09 term with about 7 kids. It was disappointing, but we were hopeful. By our performance in December, we were up to 21. And a few weeks later when we started our Winter ’10 Term, we hit 40 students, and at this point, we’re a little worried about having to cap our Spring ’10 enrollment because in the 3 days that registration has been open, they’re already steadily rolling in. We’re excited, to say the least. Not to mention that the students we have are just about the greatest EVER. They are so much fun to teach, and are so full of energy.

Rehearsals for "A Place in the Christmas Choir", Fall 2009

The best part about this job, is it’s something I love. I feel at home here, and always have. And now as a grown-up, it’s even more wonderful because I get to share it with my own kids. Mylie has loved being in both productions we’ve done so far, and is already jazzed about the next one. We feel truly blessed that the doors have continued to open for us on this latest adventure, and look forward to all that is in store for us down the road!

Mylie as a Dog in "A Place in the Christmas Choir"

And P.S. Don’t forget to check out our super-cool website on which Nick has labored intensively as my slave.

And P.P.S. If you’re in the area, please join us for our Spring Performance of “It’s A Jungle Out There” and “At the Hop” on Thursday, March 18th at 7:00pm at Brown Middle School.

Remarkable

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Does anyone else find it rather remarkable that you can use rotten fruit and curdled milk and end up with something that’s not only gorgeous, but absolutely delicious? We had some rotting bananas hanging around, so before the fruit flies moved in, Mylie and I decided to make some banana bread. Of course, my recipe calls for buttermilk, which we do not have. BUT, did you know you can substitute a scant cup of milk that you mix with one tablespoon of lemon juice? The acid curdles the milk and gives it the same chemical properties as buttermilk. Or something like that. Anyway, you come out with delicious bread, and this time we experimented with one of my Demarle molds (best bakeware EVER). So not only did it taste delicious, it was rather gorgeous to look at, if I do say so myself :) .

Sunflower Banana Bread

Here’s the recipe, if you’re interested:

  • 1 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 to 4 medium)
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup chopped nuts, if desired

1.Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, 8 1/2×4 1/2×2 1/2 inches, or 1 loaf pan, 9x5x3 inches.

2.Mix sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Add bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened. Stir in nuts. Pour into pans.

3.Bake 8-inch loaves about 1 hour, 9-inch loaf about 1 1/4 hours, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.

From: The Betty Crocker Bridal Edition Cook Book

And the Answer Is…

Thursday, February 11th, 2010
BELGIUM!

We’ve booked our tickets and will be heading out mid-spring to visit our good friends who have lived there for the past two years. We’ll be making a couple stops off in London and Paris too, and anywhere else our gracious hosts tell us we must see. For a girl who’s entire international experience can be described as… Vancouver, B.C…. this is an exciting and welcome chance of a lifetime!

Where in the World?

Monday, February 8th, 2010
…are Nick and Karli going on vacation? We just booked tickets to here:

Can you guess?