Making A Home

Thankful Tree

I picked up a pack of cute apple die-cuts at Walgreen's at the end of September for 50 cents.  This month we've been putting them to good use.  At the beginning of the month, the kids and I colored a large tree on butcher paper, cut it out and hung it on our diningroom wall.

Throughout the month, we've been adding the apples, full of things we are thankful for.

A few for the records:

Sam: My future brother, our chickens, my sister, treats, fun things, clean water, my chores, candlelight, mama & daddy, winning Super Mario Bros. 1 & 3, my gameboy.

Hallie: Headbands, my brother, My gamegirl, Keepers badges, my closet (a theater & game center), that I'm done with my latchook, Fiona (her cat), Reading, chickens, the world.

Happy Peppermint Mocha Day!

It really should be a National holiday. 

Brian brought me my first Peppermint Mocha for the season on Friday morning.  I was so excited!!  But in a temporary lapse of memory, (you still get BIG points for the effort, honey!) he ordered it like I order my vanilla mochas... with just 1/2 pump of syrup.  I could barely taste the peppermint.  He'd ordered his that way, too, and agreed, these had to be full strength to taste right.

The next morning, I did my usual homeschool planning for the week... at Starbucks.  Oh, what a delight.  I was so glad to taste the Peppermint Mocha Twist (a new addition this year... peppermint whipped cream and dark chocolate shavings) and know I hadn't hyped it up in my mind.  It was every bit as good as I'd expected.  Maybe even better.

I brought one home for Brian to enjoy, too.

Here's the ONLY photo I took on Thanksgiving - the kids in my grandma's sunroom (we went to the usual family feast at her house), playing with the Thanksgiving Little People set.

The Short List...

 

(Friends shown here NOT intended to depict the ONLY friends I'm thankful for!) 

Anniversary Conclusion & Minor Crisis

When I left off, I was mentioning we picked up lunch at a drive in on the way out of town.  The rain was picking up as we drove away from the beach, but we made a stop at a fun little gallery of chainsaw carvings.  Very cute stuff, but also expensive.  I especially liked the little bears making smores around a campfire.  (Sorry, no photos.)

We stopped at Radio Shack in Aberdeen to get a Christmas gift for Sam.  They were out of stock, so we got something for Hallie there, instead!  (We did get Sam's gift when we got back to our hometown.)  We continued on to IKEA in the Kent/Renton area.  I always love IKEA - fun decorating ideas, neat accessories, good prices.  We got a fun double-gooseneck wall lamp for our little bedroom, and some more jars for beans, rice, coffee, etc.

By the time we left IKEA it was dark and still rainy.  Brian made the choice to stop for the night in Everett.  We drove around to the different establishments in the area to compare our choices, and ended up at the Holiday Inn Express near the freeway.  The hotel was beautiful, the pool was fun, and there was a DVD player in the room (we watched Season 3 of "How I Met Your Mother", which we'd brought with us.  The first hotel had promised a DVD player in the room, but didn't deliver.)

We got to thinking about the rooms we loved so much in Ocean Shores... and the long drive... and the rain.  So we took a walk down to the front desk to ask if they offered anything similar.  (Thinking THIS time of year, a shorter drive might be a welcome change on a future anniversary trip.)  Sure enough, they had a Honeymoon Suite, with jacuzzi, fireplace, DVD player, king bed... everything but the ocean view.  And the price range was very comparable.  We asked if we could see it and they were gracious enough to give us a key to check it out.  We'll definitely keep that one in mind! 

I checked in with my mom again to see if she was surviving the kids, and she seemed to be doing fine (other than a tired voice... I left our literature book (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, at that time), and the kids talked her into not one or two, but four or five chapters a night, in addition to a few other books!  But when I talked to Hallie (little Miss "You can go now!" when we dropped her off), she was in tears.  "I want you to come home, RIGHT NOW!"  I guess she can only play tough for so long.  I assured her we'd be home before lunch the next day.  And when we drove up, she spotted us immediately - I could hear her screaming from outside... "THEY'RE HERE!!!!!"

On to the crisis...

Our fridge died today.  We saw dripping, from the freezer to the fridge.  Not a good sign.  Lest I forget to mention it, I had TWO turkeys in that fridge - one defrosting in the fridge, another in the freezer for later in the year.  Not something I wanted to lose.  So we started making calls to see if ANYONE could deliver TODAY, before our food spoiled.  The Deward & Bode Outlet came through for us.  In just a few hours we had chosen, paid for and had delivered a beautiful new refrigerator (at a great discount since it was a ding-and-dent, with the tiniest line dent in one side.  I assured the salesman our kids would have a matching one in the other side within the day.)  $550, for a 21 cubic foot model (HUGE), with an ice maker.  It even holds gallon jugs of milk on the DOOR.  Forgive my excitement, but it's about the schmanciest thing we've ever owned!  :)

Prayers for a friend

What do you say to a friend who leaves a message on your machine that her (young and relatively healthy) husband died suddenly last week?  All I could think of was "I'm so sorry."  But it sounds so... insufficient.

I got the message yesterday.  The machine was a bit garbled so I listened to the message several times, trying to decipher if I'd really heard her right.  "Mark passed away on Thursday."  I called her to confirm, which was hard enough... what an awful thing to say if I'd heard her wrong.  What an awful thing to make her repeat if I'd heard right. 

He'd taken the baby (that they are in the process of adopting) in for a bath on Thursday and (thankfully) hadn't even gotten him in the tub before experiencing sudden heart failure.  So sudden, it seems, that he wasn't even able to call out.  Their 6 year old daughter found him 15 minutes later.

I told her I'd like to bring dinner tonight.  She accepted.  I sent an e-mail to a few friends for prayer.  I wish I knew what more to do.  Will you pray, too?  I can't imagine being in her shoes.  I'm at such a loss even figuring out how to help.

Jammie Ride (cheap-style!)

We did another Jammie Ride

last Wednesday Night, after my board meeting.

While the timing was perfect last week...

money was tight.

So we pre-loaded the car with Hot Chocolate...

And went to the McDonald's drive through for pies (2/$1).

Yep.  $2 for another priceless family memory.

Tweet!

Under the category of "Kids say the darndest things"...

When Sam was finishing up a section of his math book, and brought it to Brian to check, I overheard the following short conversation.

SAM: "Daddy, what's happening in the middle picture?"

BRIAN: "The coach is blowing his whistle to stop the game because hitting someone's arm in basketball is a foul, and against the rules."

SAM: "Oh... That's good.  I thought he was eating a bird."

"TWEET!!!"

The Cone of Shame

That's what the vet called it.  "The cone of shame." 

(Skip this paragraph if you get queasy at "wound" stories.)  We took Annie to the vet this morning.  I noticed a sore on Annie's back about a week ago, but it looked minor.  Yesterday I got a better view, and it had gotten much worse.  About an inch across, deep, and oozing.  Bad enough that I knew we needed to visit her doctor.  According to him, it appeared she had been bitten by something (a raccoon perhaps), and it healed up nicely, but trapped bacteria under the skin that sweltered there and eventually burst open.  She had to have minor surgery today, to place a drainage tube, cut away the dead tissue, and stitched her up.  For $172.  (Including 3 doses of painkillers, a bottle of antibiotics, and 2 followup appointments - one to remove the drain, one to remove the stitches.) 

They sent me home with an "Elizabethan Collar", so she wouldn't lick or pick at her stitches.  "Just slide it over her head," they said.  "It hasn't bothered her at all," they said.  "Just pull the strings and tie a bow," they said.  

It took me nearly 45 minutes to get the dumb thing on her, which she wiggled out of twice.  First of all, it wouldn't fit over her head, so I had to take it apart and try to hold her still while getting it on her and reassembled.  She took a big claw-full of skin out of my finger during one attempt to keep it on her.  Finally I called the vet back and asked if I brought her back in, could they put it on her?  They said they would, so I did, and they did. 

Poor thing's all disoriented, walking backward, staring at walls, trying to get the silly thing off, or figure out where she is with it on.  Two weeks we have to keep her in the house, with the cone on (until the stitches come out).  But at least I get to giggle at her.  That's worth $172 and a hand injury, right?

Mixing it up

We are changing things up a bit this week when it comes to our meal plans.  Trying something different.  With the exception of Sabbath and Brian's days off, we're going to try switching dinner and lunch. 

My kids are very picky eaters and I all too often find myself wondering why in the world I just made a big nice meal for them, when they end up eating their obligatory 2 bites and declaring themselves finished. 

KIDS: "Thank you for the nice dinner mom."
ME: "Did you like it?"
KIDS: "Yeah."
ME: "Do you want more?"
KIDS: "No."

I am all too happy to go to the work to prepare a meal for my husband (who happens to NOT be picky, in addition to being very complimentary), but he's not here for dinner most nights.  And I certainly don't need to go to all of that work just for myself! 

We'll  see how it works.  I think I will be the only one that misses a hearty hot meal at the end of the day.  But it be nice to not have the mess in the evening when I'm tired.  (Thinking aloud...) Though I may have to rearrange school time a bit, to allow myself prep time for our bigger lunch.  I'll include the kids in the preparation, of course, to keep them out of trouble.

Anniversary, Continued

We had a nice little trip.  We headed over to Ocean Shores to stay in the Best Western Lighthouse Inn.  We stayed there once before... in 2001, pre-kids.  (Must have been feeling particularly rich that year, since we'd just gone to Disneyland in September.  We drove down, due to flights still being backed up from 9/11.)  The room looked exactly the same as last time, which was fine with us.  A deck with an ocean view (a stone's throw from the beach), fireplace, king bed, kitchenette, and an in-room jacuzzi.  :)

When we got to town, we headed out to find dinner, and settled on the Homeport, which looked nice enough... (the interior was pretty similar to a Black Angus) but as it turns out, high prices and a decent location don't always mean good food.  Brian got the steak and prawns, and enjoyed it well enough.  I got the Fettuccini Alfredo, which for $17.95 tasted like a bland chicken noodle casserole.  Hoping to make it palatable, I asked if they had any parmesan cheese.  After checking with the kitchen, she seemed regretful to inform me they only had "the shredded kind, none of the shaker stuff".  Yikes.  Seriously, the real stuff will be fine!  The addition of the parmesan, salt and pepper made it palatable, at least.  How's that for a raving review? 

After dinner, it was back to the room to make use of the jacuzzi.  (It was an anniversary trip, after all!)  We also caught part of a mini-marathon of "Jon and Kate plus Eight" - a show we'd heard about but never seen one our basic-basic cable.  At 10, the hotel banishes all children from the pool, so we headed down to take advantage of the facility, and were thrilled to find we had it all to ourselves.  There was a beachball in the pool area, which provided plenty of laughter.  I won't even try to explain what was so funny... just a couple of "kids", young and in love, 10 years married.

In the morning we woke to rain, which put a damper on any thoughts of walking the beach.  Instead we enjoyed our free breakfast (belgian waffles, biscuits and gravy, etc.), and headed out to see the town.  The minigolf place we enjoyed last trip... closed down.  The newer one was summer-only.  We did a little Christmas shopping at the local Ace Hardware, bought a few homeschool games (Scrambled States and Apple to Apples Kids) at a toy shop in town, picked up some Mochas at Tully's, a t-shirt for Brian at a gift shop, and a Tsunami Evacuation Route sticker for our new collection.  (We'd previously collected shot glasses at all of our vacation spots, but ran out of space to store them.  I've got plans for a sticker collection instead.)

So... the Tsunami Evacuation Routes.  They take this very seriously.  There were signs EVERYWHERE.  They looked like this (though I found this one online.)

I understand that a tsunami can be a real danger, especially considering the ones they've experiened in places like Indonesia in recent years.  However... The signs are mostly in locations from which you can SEE the beach.  And there's an arrow pointing the other way.  Is it just us that found that hilarious?  One would think if there was a tidal wave headed your way, you'd logically head AWAY from the water. 

Still, the rain and wind were picking up, the news the night before had warned of flooding in (other) parts of the state, and I think the tsunami reminders everywhere were starting to play games with Brian's mind.  I'm thankful that he takes his God-given role of protector so seriously.  He decided it was time to find lunch and head out of town. 

The logical choice for lunch was the local drive-in we'd been to on our previous trip.  Here's Brian in front of the restaurant in 2001.

And Charley in front of the restaurant, in the rain, this time.

Charley is my Webkinz chicken.  His sole purpose (besides looking cute), is to be our mascot on family vacations.  I'm envisioning a whole album of Charley at various locations.  (Can't you just see him in front of the Castle at Disneyland?)  I tried to get a photo of him overlooking the beach (because the view from our room was really that great!)  But between my non-professional camera, and the foggy, cloudy day, you couldn't really see the water.  So the restaurant photo will have to do for this trip.

To be continued... (afraid of overloading typepad again, so trying to do this in smaller chunks.)