Pumpkin Patch

For the second year in a row, Isabelle and I headed to the pumpkin patch, though this year Daddy was able to make it too, since we went on a Sunday. :) And though the forecast called for a bucket of rain, the morning was so nice, COLD, but nice, we bundled up and headed out. (Yeah, the rain didn't start till we were half way home - and in buckets too).

We all had a blast!! We started in the Kid's Korral with riding a stick horse, milking a wooden cow, playing with a water pump and so much more. Then, up a hill we went to see the farm animals, and then to the corn box which was followed by a hay bale maze (for the little kids). It was so cold that we needed to warm up our hand, so we got some hot chocolate and a little rest before we headed to the tractor ride. Isabelle was SO excited, but then didn't want to go without one of us. In climbed Eric, more like he squeezed himself into the little bucket that was pulled by the tractor. Then off for a hay ride which went around the pumpkin patch and dropped us off in front of the corn maze. This was my first corn maze ever and it was so fun. I will say one thing though... it took so long to get through it, and it was daylight, I will never do one at night! Of course, we did let our sweet two year lead the way at the beginning... till she got tired and needed to be carried... till Daddy got tired and it turned into a piggy back ride. But we made it out! Then off to the actual pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkin. Since we only got one, we let Isabelle choose (with a little guidance).

It was a FABULOUS morning!!

... Until next year...

Thank you Thomasson Family Farm for another year of great memories!

Published!!!

Remember last June, I had a last minute trip to Montana with my dad to the MRHA, or Milwaukee Road Historical Association Railroad Train Convention... well, their magazine came out and I had a four (4) page spread of photos that I took. Well... most of the photos are mine, there are a few others that are from other people, but over half are mine... so yahoo!! I am published... so to speak. I am so excited!

Got a convention and need a photographer? I will travel. :)

Holidays Already?!?!?

Seriously WOW! When did the holidays show up... Halloween in two weeks and then Turkey Day and Santa! Today was productive though... Lunch with my parents ... a nice visit to 'Toys R Us' where I got Isabelle's Halloween costume (surprise ... must wait for the pics... they will be great... gotta make sure now that I can get the rest of the us in similar ones... that's your only hint), and 95% of her Christmas shopping done. Not bad. And yes, she was with me, but like she is going to remember in 2 months.

Welcome Holiday Season!

Crazy Busy

That is probably an understatment...

House wise:
-The deck is done! Well not exactly all the way finished, but we can walk out of both the kitchen door and the French doors (that we had built in when we first moved here 5 years ago... ) Yeah, no more 3 foot drop!! We have also stained the deck so the winter rain and snow will not hurt it... all the rains we have had, the water just beads up on our new cedar deck. We still have the stairs to do on the next nice weekend, then next spring/summer we will put up the railing and possibly a pergola. Pictures of progess on the deck will come in the next post.
- There are two other major winterizing projects we need to do soon... not sure really which will happen first, but they are digging a wide trench in the front so we can attempt to stop flooding (and eventaully fill in that massive hole in a few years). The trench will continue the flow of the water into the wetlands, instead of pooling in our front yard. The other project is new gutters around the house... the ones up there have holes and the down spouts are leaking.

Us wise:
We are all good. Isabelle is keeping us busy every second with her painting and coloring and plwaying outside. She is everywhere all the time... she doesn't walk, she runs! We are still working on the potty training and she is starting to love more compicated puzzles and she's learning her letters. Eric is working as always, both at work and on all the house improvements. I still have my everyother day schedule at school, still 8th grade science. Coaching Gymnastics still and the season starts in 3 weeks... argh! That means 4am wake-ups and late night meets. I am also continuing my Saturday summer job at a local lumber yard as a sales clerk (which really helped the cost of our new deck). And on top of that I am also working and getting gigs for my photography business.

A Most Successful Day!

Yup, you heard me say it... we worked the potty training and had SO MUCH success today. We started after her nap with not putting on a diaper, and just her pants. Though we went through 3 pairs of pants and three wet spots (a chair, a foot stool and the couch) we had MANY more great trips to the bathroom. We even have a potty dance (more like just jumping around and clapping-but it works). Of course, I did get tired of wet pants, so I let her run around with just her top on. The best part of it all, is once I put on her pajamas and a diaper and we were watching her bedtime show, she said she had to go... and we went to the bathroom and she went. That is with wearing the security of a diaper... so maybe, in the near future of a few weeks we will be potty trained (at least daytime trained). The worst part is ALL the Up and Down false alarms when she said she had to go, but didn't and it was more like a game at those points.

Yeah for no candy reward! I really didn't want to go that route... seems like our little dance and the reward of getting to do the actual flushing and watching the pee-pee go bye-bye is enough. :)

Summer Photos!

Being the last day of the summer or the first day of fall, I figured I should update some photos.

In July we took a trip to the Pt. Defiance Zoo with my parents to feed the Budgies or Parakeets. Isabelle seemed to have a great time, though at first was a bit nervous, she ended up loving the little birds!

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Being Cute!

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Watermelon Fun!

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A few weeks ago was Eric's aunt's birthday. She and her sons came up from Portland and we all had a blast celebrating her 29th again birthday! Isabelle's favortie part?? The cake! It was delicious carrot cake with sparkler candles.

Blowing out the candles that kept coming back!

Big Bites!

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The most recent event was at a friend's wedding. While there we took the opportunity, since we were dressed up, to get a couple family photos too.

Congrats Michelle and Tyler!

Smelling the Roses!

Picking up the rose petals dropped by the flower girl

Thanks to...

... the most talented hubby, my photography website is new and improved!!! On top of that, he has made it so it is super easy to change, update and tweek as I keep getting jobs.

Go see: casualfamilyphotography.com

First Day Jitters...

This really should have the title 'First Day Chaos!!!'

All was ready to go... and since I have been teaching for a while, the pre-first day of school jitters are all gone. Papers printed, lab set up, presentations set up and reviewed ... all set! Next... computer on. Good to go. (side note... my work laptop is in the computer infirmary, has been all week). Projector on... check. WAIT!! It was blurry and crooked. Our projectors are hanging from the ceiling, so they are a bit hard to reach. So next door I went for help and my one coworker came over to do all the adjustments... YEAH! Uhhh, Wait!! The computer was not registering the projector! Turns out, after some investigation that the cable splitter was missing. WHY!!!! It is supposed to be permanently attached??!! And it was no where in sight. So, being the flexible teacher, 5 minutes before kids are to enter the room... we unplugged the monitor from the computer and directly into the projector. Hmmm.. ok, so it was awkward to work this way, but doable.... and ring ring went the bell, and in came the kids. WELCOME!!

First period did good... as did I with the new hook up. Good kids (really all periods of kids were good, some chatters of course, but good)

Ready for second period... hahahaha... I laugh just thinking about it! In come the kids, hello and welcome! Switch the cords around again to the projector (at least 3 times I did that in 1st period) and on with class I went. About 30 minutes into class, I noticed that the projector had readjusted itself in the upward direction, where we could no longer see the top couple rows of info. So I asked a tall kid to help step up onto a table and adjust it for us. He 'barely' and I mean barely touched the set up that was holding the projector and down it all fell out of the ceiling!!! Oh my!!! what the!!!!! I tried holding it too, since it was heavy and hanging by cords so I got another kid to help hold it, while I ran to another coworkers room and interrupted his class and told him to 'help!' He walked over to my room and before he even went through the door, he started laughing ... hard! (thanks!) The whole time he unhooked the correct cables and all, he was chuckling. The good thing was the kid caught the projector so it was safe and place on a table!!! But now... Hmmm... I am flexible yes?!?!? so, with no projector I still needed to get the kids their first day info! How??? Ahhh, plug back in my monitor, put the info on the student drive and have the kids follow through on the student computers. Ahhhh, perfect. It seemed to work.

We had lunch minutes later. So of course, my story is all over the staff room of my day one of the year. hahaha, craziness... that was only half over. But the good news... during the stories, we found a new splitter that I could use that was not in use, so yeah, I could have my projector and monitor hooked up again like normal!! Though, having no projector was the down side. But then!!!! Another coworker had some extra short cables I could borrow, which meant that all I had to do was put the projector on a table/cart hook it up to the short cables and the newly found splitter and I was totally back in business (as I should have been in the beginning of the day). I was supper happy and the kids liked having back to mostly normal!

Phew!!!!! 179 to go!

Progress!

The house has been painted... its color is called 'crushed granite' and it is SO much nicer then the ugly beige that used to be. We thought we had found a nice trim color that would compliment the tile roof and all, however NO! It was orange... you can not have an orange trimmed house... so we are still searching for a trim color that will look good. Luckily we only painted around one window as a test...

The deck, in the meantime is making awesome headway!!! I am so impressed with my hubby and our friend Matt. In just 3 days they got the foundation done, and the base boards mostly complete. Today they will finish the rest of the base and posibly start the decking! It is so awesome to see this prject happening. We will finally, after 4 years, be able to open our french doors and walk out onto a deck instead of having a 3 foot drop. Technically you can go out through those doors now... you would just need to have really! good balance. :)

As for the family... Eric is busy building, Isabelle is growing, talking and on a potty training break (again), and I am good... starting trainings next week and school the week after.

And yes, pictures will come when all is said and done. :) and of course a deck warming BBQ! Till then...

Summer '09

Well, it is now August of this summer, and I ask where has it gone???

June was filled with the end of school and a last minute trip to Montana with my dad for the Train convention. As well we had our first trip to the woodland park zoo too!

July was filled with Grammy time! She came up and stayed with us for 3 weeks where we played and visited lots! There was an awesome first annual PigRoast too!

July was also had the HOTTEST week ever! Maybe it was 2 weeks of hot, I dont know. What I do know is that I somehow got the summer cold from Hades which I still have (going on 3 weeks now though it has gotten a bit better), and unfortunately passed it on. On the hottest day, it was 116 on the front porch and 109 in the shade near the goat pen. It took so much effort to do anything on those days. It stayed a constant 83 (81 if I was lucky) in the house... fans can only do so much. At one point we filled the soaker tub and called it an indoor pool. So needless to stay, the end of July remained uneventful... though Eric tore out our back deck. We have designed our new deck, which will be bigger and way nicer than what was there. The heat wave stopped ALL PRODUCTION on building the new one. But of course, we came up with a new project to postpone the deck even a bit longer... pressure washing the house and painting it (yes, ourselves). So that is the next two weekends, if it is managable weather and then we do the deck. :)

So now we are in August... painting of the house and the deck building are the plans... of course summer is always cut short by the teacher trainings at the end of the month. :(

Other news worthy pieces, Isabelle is on her way to being potty trained, though the only way it works is when we say no diaper on, and just let her run around... then she will go and sit on the potty if she needs to do a number 1. That is a good start!!!

Lost....

... but now FOUND!!

After 8 months of wondering where 'it' went and searching for 'it';; ""knowing"" 'it' was in Eric's car, yet looking and not finding 'it';; 'it' has been found!! 'It' WAS in Eric's car, under the driver's seat. I am so, SO happy that 'it' has been found, you have no idea!!!

Now, I bet you are wondering what 'it' is?? You can guess 'it' is small, since 'it' was found under the driver's seat of a car and that 'it' is very important to me... I'll give you a hint~~ 'it' helps something by making something work so that I can record the cuteness of our little girl. ;) (and it is black)

YEAH!!! 'It' has been found and 'it' is working very hard right now!

Pig Roast Photos

Ready to begin!!!

Eric in his welding helmit

Hunn with his camera!

measuring
Cutting metal
welding the grill

putting the cinder blocks together for the above ground pit

Hunn prepping the gril with vegie oil for non-stick effect!

Eric and Anton playing with fire

The knife for fileting pig

The prep room for slicing and marinating the little piggie...

also known as my future pantry

Bringing in Piggie

(caution... next photos are 'the piggie'
-- there are others--closeups that I did not include)

Prepping the piggie for grilling in the am

Piggie cooking on the grill.. this was at 6am

Piggie ready... time to cut the meat off the bone and eat!

The boys cutting the meat off the bones, had this table out by the grill and brought it out to the back where people could help themselves. Left -- good ole pork meat; middle -- legs, ears and hoofs; right -- the head

The Party People

Badmitten Fun

Pool Party

Rocket Launching

So much speed may be a bad thing on a 16 foot kiddie slip-n-slide
that has a blue tarp at the end of it

slider may take tarp with him.

Next year, we will have an adult sized slip-n-slide!!!!

What happens to someone who stays up till 1am on the 4th, lighting fireworks, get up at 5am to finish preping the pig for cooking, tending to the cooking pig and then parties and eats all day till about 7pm and then has to clean up... Way to much fun. See you next year!