Bad Things Happen In Three's

... and usually within a week period.

I can say that this is now a true statement... though only one major 'bad' thing happened, the others were mostly just unfortunate.

1. As we all know, I was clocked in the face by one of my JV vaulters a week ago Thursday. Though this hurt, a lot, it was hilarious and I did not end up getting a black eye. It will go down as a funny memory at the end of season banquet.

2. This last Tuesday, on my way to school from early morning practice, 7:15 am to be exact, I was rear ended while sitting at a red light. The girl that hit me was a Senior at some HS and this so happened to be her second accident (her fault too) in the last month. Once we pulled over, I saw my damage, back passenger side fender is now a dimple instead of a corner. Her front end driver side was way more banged up. We exchanged info, of course, and I called work to tell them I would be late. Yes, I did get injured in this very first car accident of mine, not bad though. Just my lower back, which I went to my doctor that night after work. I am to go back next week sometime, but it is getting better, just aches a little and only hurts if I turn.

I am getting rental on Monday for a bit over a week while my car is getting fixed. Yeah that this her insurance is taking care of everything. It is making this very easy. I am just GRATEFUL that Isabelle was sleeping safely at home with daddy.

A side note: It was snowing that morning, and the girl that hit me slide on the ice. NO excuse, I know, slow earlier and leave space, however that was the circumstance.

3. Another unfortunate incident... Thursday (exactly one week later) I 'lost' my car keys. Somehow after I opening my car and getting Isabelle in the car after practice, the keys had disappeared. GONE! WIth the help of one of my varsity girls, her mom and my assitant coach, we search my car for an hour... took everything out, put it back in, came up with possible 'what ifs' that could of happened to the leys, We finally gave up, and I called Eric to come and get me. I waited at the gym, inside with Isabelle for another hour until he got there. Once Eric arrived, to give me my spare key, I got Isabelle back in the car, and we caught a glimpse of something shinny and purple between the seat and the door... my keys. WOW... I am a dork!

The good news was that it was the end of the day, at the end of a very long week, and it ended well. The better news was that Eric just shook his head and laughed.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Conversation

Isabelle and I had our first real converstation last night during our bedtime ritual.
It went as follows:

Isabelle: Here mommy, ba.
Mommy: Thank you sweety
Isabelle: Where is it? (shrug)
Mommy: Where is what?
Isabelle: Milk.
Mommy: Daddy is getting it.
Isabelle: ok
She then leaned back and got comfy and waited for the milk.

Most conversations to this point have been me telling her what to do, where we are going and her repeating everything I say... "Did you hear that?" "Hear that?"

Loving the small stuff!

NEW HIGH!

Wednesday night our varsity girls pulled out a new all time team high score in the history of THS Gymnastics!!! The high flyers got a team score of 161.25 We still came in second to a team of all club kids, but that is still awesome.

ROAR... GO BEARS!

KT.. this is for you

Normally, I would have called you tomorrow about this one, but you in SC so instead I'll write it so EVERYONE can hear. And yes, there will be many run on sentences! :)

Tonight we had our first and only JV meet. JV meet... not varsity... so no high flying. We are one touching on vault... already did the warm-ups... getting ready for the judge.., and here comes one of our new handspringers, who can do this, however one hand slipped on the board a tiny bit, which meant, I guess, that she chose to not keep her body tight, in a straight line, and she clocked me with a beautiful left hook... literally spinning me to the ground. Of course it happened soooo fast that I don't remember seeing her fist come at me... though I tried to duck, I didn't succeed. My glasses went flying off and broke (luckily I packed my contacts... don't know why, but glad I did) and I came up laughing SO hard that I was crying. There were a couple of "ooohs" and "oh mys" that I heard from near by girls, the judge and the audience, of course. But know one I knew video taped it... that would be funny to watch... and critique the girl as well... go figure, teachable moment. hahaha

Anyways, I was told to get ice on my eye right away to help stop swelling and the possible bad black eye. Won't that be funny to go to work with a black eye...

There is a larger bump now on my upper cheek and some darkness appearing. However, there will be no pics of this.... well I shouldn't say that, some girls on the team took some pics with my bag of ice and the girl that clocked me... but my eye was just red then... guess I'll have to wait till morning. I do have a MASSIVE headache though and my nose hurts too -

Well, it is 11 pm, I have a bit of a headache still and I have to work tomorrow, good night all!

PS... our JV girls did such a great job, I was impressed by them! AND the girl that knocked me down placed on 5th vault. How funny is that!

Mid-Season Report

Gymnastics is rocking this season... oh wow! Last year our best meet score was 143.4 This year our lowest is 151.25 Our all time high rocks at 158.7 These girls are truely amazing in their flying abilities.

We have two meets left for the season and then there is post season, which we are sitting very pretty for. We are currently in 6th place, and the SPSL takes 6 teams with them to districts. Hmmm... can you say "Yeah us... we have a shot!"

One of our girls was even on the HS Game Time with Paul Silvi from King 5. I Tivo'ed it of course, but dont' have the slightest clue on how to get that on a DVD and save it for later.

Anyways, big, huge meet tomorrow night... wish us luck!

PS... We have had all our meets (but one) where the floor is one or two wrestling mats in which the girls must fly and tumble on. Tomorrow night is a spring floor... literally the girls will be flying with the extra spring in their jumps. :)

GO BEARS!

Life

Life is wonderful
Life is full of the unexpected
Life is busy
Life is an adventure worth taking
Life is fun
Life is crazy full of people, love and happiness
Life is not slowing down for 5 more weeks
Did I say life is wonderful?


It started in November with the massive flooding and great neighbors. Then December gave us a massive amount of snow that kept us stranded for 8 days through the holidays and again great neighbors. The snow melted and we flooded again... for 3 days under water 15 feet from the house, though there was a good current running out to the wetlands, which meant the house would remain safe.

(side note: For those that knew us in our Pacific house... our old house and surrounding neighborhood was all over the news... all under water. We are very grateful that we moved to this house, through all its constant turmoil!!)

Now we are under a blanket of FOG... for days now, the fog is there when I get up at 4am and there when I get home at 5 or 10pm. If there is a glimpse of sun and blue sky... turn around... the FOG is rolling in all eerily (spelling??)

What's next?? hahaha Who knows.

Oh yeah... the wind! How can I forget the howling currently outside. Guess the sound is like second nature now. Wind blowing down the chimney pipe, branches and other things hitting the sides of the house. Luckily, the power is still in tact, unlike Saturday morning at 6am, when (it seemed like forever!) the power flickered on off on off on off for about 3 minutes. Scared us all... well mostly Isabelle. Her monitor likes to have power, otherwise it is all static and the on off scared her. It also scared Eric and I later that day when our computer wouldn't turn on, and instead said 'No operating system' For those that are not computer savvy, that is a VERY bad sentence to read on a computer. It means that for the most part, you have lost everything. Good thing, I have a smart and 'patient' hubby and "Dr. Hubby" was able to fix our computer baby and saved all our files. Phew! We are glad that the surge protector was on and working. That is what saved us.

Saturday to Saturday

We got snowed in last Saturday night, and yes, we finally got out today. We went to celebrate Christmas with the Morceau family (Eric's side).

Thank you for a wonderful Christmas and family time spent! Loved the new Guitar Hero. :)

Celebrate! Snow Fun

'Tis the season for celebrations! It is Christmas, the New Year is close and we have a plowed driveway! Does this mean we can get out yet?? That is the question of the hour and tomorrow we will find out. Till then...

All day Christmas it snowed and blew, making the drifts even bigger. But today it was calm, with blue sky and time to go out and play in the new foot of power (which lays on inches of ice and feet of packed snow).

Snow Angels

Snow ball fight... I win
Eric and the Snowman

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

There will be many Christmas' this year, the first being today!

It is a most beautiful Winter White Christmas, my first white Christmas.

Three Generations

Great Grammy with Isabelle

Snowy Photos

Enjoy some photos I have taken. You can tell what I went outside to take, and what has been taken from inside. :)

Stormy Day!

Animal Tracks... neighbor dogs

Beauty after the storm

Random picture of snow

Little Maple tree out front

Front Porch

Eric's Adventures

Adventures in the snow will continue for many posts. Eric's adventures started when he wanted to go to the Seahawks game last Sunday. It started with him trying to get his car out. He backup.. oh about 3 feet, started to turn the car and it got stuck. For about 30 minutes, he tried everything to get it unstuck; plywood pieces, shovel, turning the tires... No luck.Side note: Eric had built a larger shelter for our goats over the summer, and the night before the storm, Eric closed the one wall in so not as much wind could get in. Unfortunately, three of the goats did not let in the forth goat, and he was mostly frozen. :( So for about an hour, he and I got all the goats into the garage, one at a time. It took that long, since we had to leash each one up separately and take through many feet of snow to the back door of the garage. You can see what the back door looks like in the previous post with the tree in the truck.

Currently, they are thawed out and in a make shift pen in the garage. Though still cold in there, it is protected from snow and wind.

Back to Eric's adventures... he still wanted to go to the game... so after 'playing' with his car and after saving our goats, he decided to warm up a bit and then head up to the top of our road where my car was parked. Trekking through FEET of snow (pre-plowed road) he finally made it to the top and proceeding to dig out my car from where it was parked. Once done, he made it out to the main road and out to the city, where there was pavement for roads instead of packed snow and ice.

When he came home, Eric was unable to get the car to its previous parking spot, so he parked it on the main road and got it stuck. The next day, after delivering Christmas cards to all our neighbors and sharing snow stories, I dug out my car from the snow on the main road (the snow plow - yeah that it came through - had buried my car) and then went to start it to move it back to its spot at the top. Unfortunately, it wouldn't start. It tried and tried, but there was no go. I knew it wasn't the battery, but couldn't figure out why, and neither could neighbors that tried helping me. It got dark, so I walked home by the moon light.

Ever noticed how beautiful it is to walk in the snow by the moon's light? If only there was a way to capture it and share with you.

Earlier, this same day, about 9 am (if you know Eric, he is not a morning person) we got a call for help. A neighbor's septic was backing up and needed the help of Eric and others to dig down to find the caps to do whatever it is to septic tanks to fix them. Eric brought his shovel and went to dig. A bit over 5 hours later, in he walks... with a story. They dug through 7 feet of snow to reach the cap. It was the wrong one. They dug again, in a different spot where the other cap was. Finally after another 8 feet of snow, they reached the correct cap. Eric climb his way home over drifts of snow and had a nap with Isabelle on the couch.

The next day, day two of the plowing our private road, I went up to check on my car and as I walked up to it, saw the problem from the day before... the exhaust pipe was full of snow and ice! With a BIG stick, and about 15 minutes of chipping away, I cleaned out the pipe, undug my car again (snowplow) and started the car without a problem. I went to the store (since a new storm was coming in that night) to stock up again. I came back, parked in my spot at the top of the road, and two sled trips later, I was home with all the groceries.

Eric's adventures continue with chopping wood in the terrible wind and blowing snow. As long as we stay warm with our new stove, we are good to go!!!

Photos of Eric.

Eric's car today, after the latest storm.

PS... there is another one expected Friday through the weekend.

Winter Storms

Yes, You read right... I said storms with an 'S.' We are on our 3rd, maybe 4th storm now... I lost count. We are under so much snow! We have canceled all our plans. Last Saturday, I went to GH to pick up my grandmother to stay with us till and through Christmas. My parents were supposed to come in today to stay with us at our house for Christmas, but GH has declared a state of emergency, which means they are under lots of snow and ice. My parents also live on a hill, so they are pretty much stuck. Christmas with them may be on New Year's.

We have had to also postpone Christmas with Eric's parents till unknown date. Unless they all want to come here Christmas Day, park their cars at the top of the road and trek down a 1/2 mile to our house... but they didn't like that idea too much. ;)

Another party postponed was our annual trip to Eastern WA, with some friends to their cabin. We offered them our snowy abode, but that was also declined. Nobody wants to walk 1/2 a mile in the snow... go figure.

Without further adu... here are some pictures of our beautiful white winter wonderland!

(You may wish to view other pictures of the blog (normal days) to truly see the snowy affects. It is hard to take a photo of snow drifts... it all looks white).

That is our Christmas Tree, still sitting in the back of the truck. There is so much snow (about 4 ft or so next to the back of the house) that the tree pot is frozen to the truck. We do have a tree inside though, no worries. When I was at my parents house, my mom told me to cut down a little tree in their back yard for Isabelle. Her little tree is now our tree. :)

What steps?? There were three there at one point. Now just a trail. After last nights wind storm, some of the railing and that bin has disappeared.

Here is part of our driveway. You can sort of see the rolling hills of the snow drifts. Find the post with Isabelle with the apple... you sill see this same shot in that post, snow free.

Our Neighbor, trying to plow our private road. It took him close to 20 hours to plow from the top our driveway (we share a driveway entrance) to top of the road. He finished yesterday, just in time for last night's storm to hit. He was out again this morning starting all over, since the wind blew more snow on the road.

This is a 6ft fence... Mt. Rainer is just to the right of the fence post, in the pink sunset.

Coolest Video

Well, it's probably not the coolest video... but Isabelle thinks it is, and that is all that matters.

Catching up

Time to catch up on some photos from the last month or so. There will be more as I download more.

Christmas came early here... We got Isabelle a super nice wooden easel with chalk board on one side, white board on the other and a roller of paper in which she can use with paint in the farther future. :)

Trying on big shoes.....

Smelling big shoes....

STINKY shoes!!!!

Our Family