Early Morning Happenings...

if you read the local paper The Bellingham Herald, you would've heard about us this morning. Well, technically there was no mention that this happened in our front yard, but that's where the whole thing took place.

I got up after my alarm went off around 6 AM to get ready for my 7 AM Boot camp class at the gym. When I walked to the bathroom I saw someone parked in front of our driveway gate who's car I did not recognize. No biggie, it's happened before, someone pulls over to talk on the cell phone or to take some picture of the eagles in the trees by the river behind our house... But this time it was a little different. Upon closer investigation I found this in our front yard:

What the heck????
I guess someone was driving a bit too fast, or was asleep at the wheel, cause this darn truck just slid right off the road, into the field in front of our house. Luckily no one was hurt. Just imagine if this guy would've missed the corner by a few less feet, he would've ended up taking out our little rental house where Ryan was sleeping. Pretty scary!

When I got home from work at around 5 PM this is what I found:

They are just finished unloading all the lumber that was in the back and have some huge tow trucks trying to pull it out of the field. Looks like it's back on it's wheels now and they are trying to load it onto a trailer.

Ski To Sea 2008

This is the second year my husband has participated in this event. The first time was in 2001 and we was approached by a guy at the gym he went to. He completed the cross country event. This year he was asked by our friends Ray & Lisa, whom we know through volleyball. Lisa's employer was sponsoring a team and they needed someone to ski the downhill portion for them this year. Ray was doing the running leg. So Martin agreed to be their snowboarder. Not a lot of people like this portion as most of this leg consists of hiking up the hill rather than skiing/boarding down. just like the first time Martin practiced (once) on the run and then showed up ready to go.

The team did really well considering they were just a bunch of average guys, with the exception of the cross country skier, who apparently is a pro. This guy manged to finagle them a really good positron out of the starting gate and the rest of the boys performed well also.

After the race the company (Lucid Consulting) even put on a BBQ for the racers and their families. What a great weekend...

Saturday at the Farmer's Market

Today we spent the morning in Bellingham walking around the local farmer's market. It took a little bit of arm twisting to get Martin out but in the end the good food won him over. This was the second weekend in a row that we went.

Last Saturday I took my new camera and since the weather was so beautiful we all got a little dressed up and headed out. Any photos in this post will be from last weekend.

Some of our favorites are the crepes, chocolate croissants, pretzel sticks spread with Nutella, Sno Cones, Mallard's Ice Cream, Goat's Kefir and much more.

Grace loves to stop and watch the performers, whether it's the guy with the crystal balls, the musicians or a hula hoop lady.

Then she asked to have her picture taken with Daddy!

Then she shared her new favorite treat with Aubrey.

And finally on the way home we stopped at the car wash...

More Home Improvement...

Remember the infamous planter?

Well it now has it's first inhabitant. Check it out:

I'm a Winner!

Check this out: I won, don't know what but I won...

I'll let you know when I receive my prize.

A Picture Post Just For Grandma!

Here's your granddaughter after her bath on Thursday. She didn't want to take it off, actually wanting to go into town wearing it. LOL
The braid was a first too, she usually doesn't even let me brush or clip her hair up. But today she wanted hairspray just like Mommy, so I took full advantage...

Mother's Day Crazy-ness

For Mother's Day we decided kind of last minute to pack up and head over the moutains to visit my mother-in-law Becky. They live in Winthrop and it's about a 3 hour drive, which we did in approximately 2 3/4 hours. Yeah!

We had sneakily planned to take her out to Sunday brunch (my favorite meal of the week!) at Sun Mountain Lodge.

I had never been there before and the drive up the mountain was incredible. The view was stunning and I can't wait to go back there again...

Brunch was fabulous, especially the steak, done rare, just the way my MIL and I love it. Both the boys, Martin & his dad, are not so fond of undercooked meat. To each his own, but boy did they miss out.

Miss Grace looked fabulous in her new dress and of course she sported her styling straw hat which made the whole thing even cuter.

Wow! I am Speechless...

More home improvement projects! Two in one week, we must be setting a record here...

Yesterday Martin's cousin Mark who came up to visit two days ago helped Martin install our new pot filler. If you're wondering what a pot filler is ask my husband, it was his idea to put one into our kitchen. :)

Anyway, the model that goes with our kitchen faucet costs approximately $1600 give or take. So needless to say we've been putting it off as it definitely is a non essential item in our lives. Well, cousin Mark, who is a devoted Costco shopper, found us the Costco version for less than $300. So here it is:

House Improvement

I know, I know....I should be blogging about my Nashville trip and what I learned, the wonderful girls I met and reunited with, etc, etc.
But that post just seems too overwhelming right now for a headache and a late Tuesday night. So here is a post about our new home improvement that took place Sunday evening.

Hubby says to me: "You want to help me put up our chandelier? It should only take about an hour and a half." Well, little did I know that finally about four hours later we would be admiring our handy work, finished, lit up and correctly positioned in the window.

I guess the two lessons I took away from Sunday night with my husband are:

1) It will always take longer than expected.

2) Never take flash photography when your husband (who incidentally is afraid of heights!) is balancing on two planks between two rickety ladders about 15 feet in the air trying to connect a lamp to the electric circuit. He may just think that he's being electrocuted....

OOOOOOOPS!

Playground Date

Last weekend we actually managed to drag Martin away from work, chores, his phone and the computer for a few hours and drove into town. We headed to Boulevard Park and the new Woods coffee stand that has opened there. I had never been and we decided to get some drinks and treats and walk the park. Of course Grace demanded a mandatory stop at the playground. I guess it wasn't such a great idea to dress her up in the new clothes Grandma had bought for her birthday. White is not so white after about a gazillion runs down the slide. At first she was kind of hesitant about climbing up by herself, but after Martin helped her out a few times she quickly got the hang of it and did so the rest of the time all by herself. There was another little boy there and he had no qualms asking a strange man (ie: my husband) to help him too. His dad had his hands full with the little man's baby sister. After a few slides the boy apparently warmed up to us as he felt the compelling need to inform us that "Daddy had a shower this morning". Martin and I looked at each other and had the hardest time to not burst out in gut wrenching laughter. Martin did manage to keep a straight face and when the Dad in question inquired what Jr. had said replied: "Oh, just giving the hygiene report." LOL

Birthday Party Success!

Gracie's 3rd birthday party was a blast. Not only did almost everyone we invited (with the exception of her daycare friend Neva!) show up, we had a full house of overnight guests (including Grandma & Grandpa), but we also had the most wonderful summer-like weather you can imagine.

My mom, (thank you so much!) and the rest of the ladies in the house were fabulous with helping make things happen in the kitchen. I had my hands full with trying to get together the cupcakes, the cheese platter, the fruit platter and much, much more... I could not have done it without them. My sister's boyfriend Brian put together this fabulous cupcake tree I found at Tar-get, love that store. And I had gone bonkers buying pretty much anything with Backyardigans theme on eBay. Hence the balloons, party hats, cupcake decorations, plates, napkins, party favors, kites and much more...

The kids had a blast running through the fields chasing Grace's new John Deere four wheeler, playing ball, opening the pinata, eating candy and cupcakes (Thanks Carly, the icing was a hit!), painting canvases from Treasury of Memories, flying kites and just being kids. What a great party...

I am exhausted...

after a long, long weekend of guests, cropping, working and going to the gym my body is telling me to take it easy...

I think I better listen, cause I don't want to get sick before heading off to Nashville on Sunday...

Today at work I completed my first kit to sell at the store. It's pretty exciting but also very gruelling as I had to complete the instruction sheet. I labored over it and think I did a pretty good job. We'll see how many ladies call and ask for clarification. LOL

Anyway here is a sneak peek at it:

It comes in baby boy or girl or a family option. Does anyone want me to bring one of these puppies to Nashville? They make great gifts!

Proof!

Today has been kind of strange. I am still tired and sluggish from the all night charity crop on Friday. I did manage to get a nap in yesterday and also today, but with the company at our house and two really, really (no I mean REALLY!) noisy boys it's hard to feel better and beat the headache I've been fighting all afternoon.

Anyway, the boys (that means everyone except Grace and myself) went skiing/snowboarding this morning and got back around 4 PM. So Martin, who loves to have a lot of people around, (not so much the noisy ones though!) invited our friend Jon over who is bringing another 5 kids. ARGH! So much for a quiet day to prep for next weekend's birthday party... I've been frantically buying stuff on eBay and online stores. I sure hope that it'll get here for the weekend.

Anyway, I digress... Proof of what you ask....that we have a cat and a dog. The illusive dog has not been around for months now, preferring the neighbors house to ours apparently. But today out of the blue he shows up at our front door. So Rudy has been enjoying a good belly scratching and quite a bit of attention. Maybe he'll stick around this time...?

Our new cat finally has a name too. I perused numerous websites on clever and meaningful names and one just really stuck with me...so it's going to be Indigo with Indie for short. I kind of like the Indiana Jones reference. LOL I felt kind of pressured to come up with something before I left for Nashville next weekend so that whatever the boys and grace came up with didn't stick. Especially since Grace went through a short period where she called the kitty "Little Pablo". Not so much my favorite....

New Family Addition!

We adopted a kitty on the weekend and are still looking for suggestions for names. It's a he and he's mainly white/gray with some tabby markings on his legs and head. His eyes are a really pretty light shade of blue.

Any ideas and comments are appreciated as I really don't want Grace's nickname to stick. She goes around the house calling for her "little Pablo". LOL

Thank You Secret Chick!

At work we've been gifting each other secretly and no one is supposed to know who has who. But as always with a bunch of fun girls like our group it's hard to keep a secret and most of us are already sure of who we've been getting fun stuff from. Anyway, I received the coolest treasure hunt type of clues and they led me on a hunt all over the store. The first time I got a cute shamrock plant, and I'm proud to say it's still alive. I love the little white flowers on it... The second time my secret chick led me on a merry chase around the store again and I got a bag full of fun for Gracie and me. In it where the coolest shades and some awesome bubbles. Grace has been anxiously awaiting some nice weather to use them outside.

Just had to post this photo...as you can see the shades have been put to good use already.


Thanks again!

Awesome Easter Egg Hunting

All I can say is WOW!
I am in awe of what this amazing group of people has accomplished. Grace, Martin & I were lucky enough to snag an invite to the annual Easter Eggstravaganza my boss and her family and friends put on in a little park behind their house. I can't rave enough about how cool it is to have a park and playground like this in your backyard. Wow! Very cool.
Anyway, I digress... We suited Grace up in her Easter finery and lo and behold (like some other girls, I was glad to see!) she refused to put on pantyhose to keep her legs warm. So knee-high socks and black leather shoes it was, since a girl get's what a girl wants, right? (Well, sometimes she gets...)
I found the cutest bunny pail that unintentionally even color coordinated with her outfit. How cool is that? She even wore her bunny ears for most of the day, what a trooper.
She was a little set back by the fact that there were a lot of kids there and absolutely refused to get into the group photo. But I got some nice single shots of our little bunny girl.
I heard rumors that there were between 800 and 1000 eggs hidden in the park, and boy some were hidden rather creatively, like hanging from bushes and such. Very neat to make it a bit of a challenge for the older kids. I think the number of kids was supposed to be around 50 or so...
This year Grace got into the egg thing a little better than last year. Last year she just kind of stood there and watched all the other kids running to pushing to get a the loot. This year she took off at a good pace and had her share in her basket fairly quickly. The cool twist was that there were some "golden" eggs hidden that the kids could trade up for prizes like stuffed bunnies, bracelets, PEZ dispensers, little toys and trinkets, stickers and much more. Grace decided to go for a three pack of play-dough, which Mommy will hoard until we can play without making too much of a mess.
It was really neat that the event was a potluck so there was plenty of good food to be had and we had our share. Yummy! Grace was in 7th heaven with her strawberries and cheese on cookies. Yes, you read that correctly she placed her cheese slices on her sprinkle cookie instead of her cracker. Guess she liked it...
After we spent some time catching up with the gals from work and saying hello to others we knew we headed out for home. Grace barely made it out to the main road and my tired little bunny girl fell asleep. What an exciting morning...

Help, Advice or any Input is appreciated...

I am in the throes of planning my first ever Toddler birthday party. And I'm all by myself. Thank you so much for Sara and the other TOM girls with their helpful thoughts on my invitations. Because of them I am on my way... (on the way to what I don't know, but nevertheless I am going there!)

But now I still need help with food, decorations, goodie bags, the cake, games, what time to have the party, etc? Heck, how many kids is it sane and politically correct to invite?

As you can see I am a total novice when it comes to kid party planning. At least with my birthday I could pretend to know what I was doing and with a little help from my friend MARTHA I even lulled some of my guests into believing that. LOL

So please help a girl out and post any hints, tips or advice on my comments here...

Thank you so much.

Finally Found Some Free Time..

Wow, what a concept. After being sicker than I've ever been, (I couldn't even scrapbook!), I finally found some time and energy to finish some layouts. These particular ones were part of Creative Escape last year, a class taught by Heidi the daughter of Mr. BAZZILL. I wasn't too fond of the class especialy since it was supooed to be a calendar and they only gave us 1/2 the pages due to budget issues, what's that all about? Anyway, I put the page kits together and printed some quick photos to finiehs the puppies off.

So without much further ado, here they are:

Wrestling News

Well last Saturday Ben was wrestling in Lynden and things finally went his way...he will be going to state this year.
So watch here for some hopefully good photos and a run down of what happened.

Viva Las Vegas Baby!

I guess it's about time I blogged about our trip to Lost Wages. It's been a month already and wow, lot's of things been happening.
Most of us in the house have been sick for the past month on and off. Martin got sick right after we returned from Vegas. We arrived home to a blizzard and landed in Bellingham airport with a total whiteout. It was strange to see this at the end of January, and the whole town was turned into a winter wonderland.
Vegas was definitely a last minute decision as we had originally planned to spend that weekend on the "Rowe Boat" out in the San Juans. When we heard that the forecast called for cold weather that weekend with snow int he mix we just thought that we'd be better off somewhere else. Since the place we wanted to go to in Oregon was booked that weekend Troy suggested flying out of Bellingham with Allegiant Air straight to Vegas. The price was right at $88 each way so we looked into a hotel and booked. I even investigated a little and reserved us a limo from and to the airport. It was quite an experience...
We stayed at the Mandalay Bay and I must say the place was very nice. Our room was connected to Troy & Aubrey's and there was a TV in the bathroom and even a phone in the toilet room. We immediately made plans for dinner and Troy's choice of restaurant was vetoed by the girls. We picked a different one and boy did we pick! It was a wonderful choice at the top of THE Hotel, a section of the Mandalay Bay and the view was spectacular, including sitting right across from Stone Cold Steve Austin the wrestler. Dinner was fantastic but so was the bill at the end. We even decided to forgo a wine and dessert as we just couldn't justify spending that much.
The second day we went for a walk down the strip. Here's the boys on the bridge crossing the strip at the New York, New York.
The idea was to head to the Paris for some crepes for breakfast. We obviously didn't' realize how much of a walk this really was. The last time I was in Vegas was back in the late nineties and the Mandalay Bay was just being built, the Paris not even thought about....

Anyway, we did make it to the Paris hotel and walked the little cobblestone streets to the cafe where we ordered up our crepes. Not my favorite I must say, and definitely nothing like the chocolate croissants or "Pain au chocolat" in Paris. The weather was nice maybe a little breezy but we enjoyed the walk and soon headed back towards our hotel. We had talked about going to a show and of course in true Man/Woman style no one could make a decision. So Aubrey & I headed for the box office at the New York, New York and proceeded to make reservations for the night. Well, by the time we had our ducks in a row of course all that was left for seats was waaaaay up in the rafters, not even the nosebleed section. We again made an executive decision and booked the tickets for Sunday night instead, forgoing the hypnotist we had talked about seeing. So with some rather pricey tickets for Cirque de Soleil's "Zumanity" we headed off home to the Mandalay. Troy had made some calls to his contacts in Vegas and managed to get us some awesome third row tickets on the floor to see the amazing Brad Paisley up close and personal. He just happened to be performing a the Mandalay that night. Martin & I had already enjoyed his show in Vancouver a while ago, but it was so good that we decided to do it again. And man, was it great. The talented Rodney Atkins opened for him after a great performance of Chuck Wicks the guy who sings "Stealing Cinderella" (great song and awesome performer, you'll see more of this guy!).

Brad of course rocked the house with his awesome guitar playing and performed all his hits including, Ticks, Letter to Me, Celebrity (a must see video with Jason Alexander), The Fishing Song, You Are the World, Everything (a personal favorite!) and a new one that hasn't been released yet called I'm Still a Guy. During the show they had a slide show going on the screens and couldn't help themselves with poking a little fun at the Monte Carlo fire that happened the day before.

So Sunday we headed over to The Hotel for a nice breakfast. Then we spent the day enjoying the spa, doing some bargain hunting, playing some card or slots and Martin took in some poker with the big boys. He almost won big, got a great hand and was beat by an incredible hand, twice...what are the odds of that? Not very big, we were told.

Sunday afternoon we got ready for the show with a haircut for the boys, a little shopping for the girls... Aubrey had Troy buy her a beautiful sparkly ring and I shopped for a little black dress to wear that night with my Anne Taylor heels that I had snagged up the day before for $20, they were marked down from $200. Yeah! So looking a snazzy and pretty we headed to the Shanghai Lily for dinner that night.

After dinner we took a cab to the New York, New York to get there in plenty of time to have some dessert and of course to help us ladies with our heels. It would've been hell to walk all that way.
The show was phenomenal, I haven't laughed that hard for a long time. It was an adult show so it was a bit risque but tasteful and with the audience participation you never knew what you were gonna get. There was a midget who did acrobatics on the silk ties hanging from the ceiling, synchronized swimming by two very flexible Asian ladies, hot dancing men, a clown couple for some comedic relief and all in all I think we all enjoyed the show immensely. I would even go back and see it again, if there wasn't so much else to do and see in Vegas. I think we've already picked out a different show for our next trip...