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Hello, I’m Vicki Blacken. I'm 57, have been married 37 years to Laurin, my “high school sweetheart”, and we have two terrific children, Lars, 32 and Kylie, who is 30. I love nature, science, and the outdoors, and collect (models of) hummingbirds and apples as ahobby. I've been researching our family history for the past 30 years, and I love old houses, and all kinds of old "stuff". I do as much sewing, needlework, gardening, quilting and fixing up around our place, and arts and crafts projects as I can fit in. I just retired from being a Camp Fire leader for the last 23 years. My club members graduated from high school, after starting with me in kindergarten. Sharing those years with them was a joy I’ll always remember.

I grew up in Washington State, north of Everett, out in the country, with three sisters and all sorts of “critters”, went to a small high school, and generally, had a terrific childhood! My oldest sister is mentally retarded, so I became interested in teaching (her) at an early age. I attended the University of Washington, where I received a Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood and Special Education, with minors in Psychology and Social Welfare. After graduation, I taught multiply-handicapped teens in a residential school setting in Seattle and took additional teacher training in the U.W. Child Development Center with special needs preschoolers. We moved to Arizona in 1975, where my husband got an engineering job, and I suffered through four, stifling, hot years, missing the Northwest and green trees! The good part about being in Arizona, though, was that I quit working and became a fulltime homemaker and mommy. In 1979, we moved to Wilsonville and another teacher friend and I started a two morning a week playgroup, with about five other moms. The other teacher then moved away, and I (accidentally) became a preschool teacher! This program grew, and continued for ten years in my home, serving about 100 local children. The “children” from that program are in their thirties now.

In 1989, we bought a house on five acres between Hubbard and Canby, and I took on the teaching job at the Tauchman House as a City of Wilsonville employee. In 1992, the City began contracting with me to provide the preschool program for them in the city-owned Tauchman House. Our own children attended Wilsonville Grade School, Wood Middle School, and Canby High School. Kylie graduated from OSU, is the administrator at an assisted living facility in Portland, and got married last year to a wonderful, young civil engineer named Grant. Lars graduated from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington and now works as an industrial designer for Calphalon in Atlanta, is married to Jun, a young lady from Shanghai, and they have a new, little daughter, Maya, our first grandchild!

After 11 years teaching preschool classes at the Tauchman House to an estimated 600 local children, I made the decision to find a larger, more flexible location where we could offer more classes and try some new things. In the fall of 2002, we started our new program, “First Friends Children’s Center”, in Old Town Wilsonville. We’re beginning our eighth year here, and we continue to paint, decorate, add new equipment, offer more programs, and fill it with children. Over the years, it has been so rewarding for me to be able to keep in touch with many of “my preschoolers”, who are becoming the next generation of young adults, with careers and families. I have had the honor of attending high school and college graduations, baby showers, and eleven weddings. Last year, the “second generation” children started preschool classes with me! It’s amazing to think that this will be my thirtieth year teaching preschool children in Wilsonville. I’m looking forward to another terrific year, working with a new group of special, little people and their families.