One of those days

That's what today was...one of those days.  You know the ones.  Where you don't feel like doing anything.  You just want to lounge around.  It's kind of gray out and it just feels like a lazy day.  Normally I'm forced to work on those kinds of days, but not today.  Since I don't have a job, I was able to enjoy it...and that I did. 

Some things from today:
Overcast skies, with *light* rain and wind (it was reminiscent of island weather)
A cup of tea and hot chocolate...at different times :)
Wrapped up in a blanket
A game of Phase 10
A book
A movie...interrupted by a nap
Soup and homemade french bread...Mmmm!

It certainly feels like fall is right around the corner! I think I'll change my background to get in the spirit. =)

A Fun Afternoon

Yesterday my parents had a couple visits to make, and since we had Lilly & Olivia we thought it would be fun for us all to go and get out of the house for a few hours.  While they were on their visits, us girls spent some time at the park.

My parents picked us up when they were done and then we proceeded to head up the mountain to a lake that we've gone camping at several times.  It's still so strange that we're actually living here and can go any time we want for a day trip.  I love this lake...it's so peaceful.  There's just this calm that comes over you when you're there.

There are two different docks you can go on.  While on one of them, the girls wanted to see how cold the water was.

It was quite chilly there.  While we were walking the trail, we even heard thunder. We had hoped to have a picnic, but obviously this wasn't going to work!

Despite the brisk air and impending rain storm, Maggie & I still wanted to get out on the water before we left.  After my dad aired up the tahiti for us, we did just that.  It wasn't long before it started sprinkling though!  We paddled our way from one dock to the other and back.  By the time we got back the rain was starting to come down a bit heavier so it was time to go home. 

 

Our time spent there was shorter than anticipated (Chris & Selena were able to join us towards the end), but we still had lots of fun and that's all that matters right?!

1 1/2 weeks

Such a short time span can certainly hold alot of events.  Hmmm lets see...

The day after my last post I woke up with a fever that lasted for a week.  It was accompanied by a cough that unfortunately is still hanging on, although not as bad.  Having a fever that long can be quite concerning.  I kept joking around that my brain was being fried. :)  Anyways, I went to the dr and sat in the room for 2 days (ok, maybe not that long...but it sure felt like forever) only to find out that it was a viral infection and there was nothing to do but ride it out.  Talk about frustrating.  No job, no insurance, dr bill that's who knows how high only to tell me that they can't do anything for me.  Oh well.  Such is life. :) 

That weekend we had our first official visitor, Nicki!  It was so good to see her again! Aside from me dying and her allergies, it was a great weekend for her to come because it was the Stampede!!  The rodeo was SO MUCH FUN!  It was the first I had ever been to, and I will definitely do it again!  After church on Sunday we played chicken foot and enjoyed some of Chris' pizza. Mmmm.... Unfortunately Nicki started feeling really sick due to her allergies and she stayed an extra night.  I was sad to see her sick, but happy that we got to keep her longer. =)

  

Let's see...I layed around most of the week contemplating who I would bequeath my belongings to if I died from the illness the dr wouldn't give me medicine for....I'm not bitter...nope...not one bit. =)  Ok, I might be exaggerating a bit...but I really did lay around. I wasn't feeling good at all.  If you're wearing a fleece jacket in 100 degree weather...somethings not right!  The people in the waiting room must have thought I was crazy.  Haha...I was trying SO hard not to cough because there was a sign saying that they would give you a face mask if you were contagious.

Thursday brought more visitors.  The Radachs stopped by before the Hwy 20 campout.  She even brought me some of her old Wilton cake pans!  Awww...thanks!!!  It was nice to spend a little bit of time with them before we all headed off to the 4th campout over here!  Can you believe it?  We've been doing this for 4 years now!  It was SO good to see everyone that came! It had been almost 2 months!  The campout went really well.  I personally didn't go on outreach Friday because of being sick, but many were able to have some good conversations and hopefully we'll be able to follow up with all of the contacts.  (Sorry...I don't have one.single.picture from the campout!)

It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but on the way home Maggie and I started formulating a plan.  More about that in a minute!

Saturday afternoon Pastor & Mrs. Sargent and Jake came over to spend our 'Grand Opening Service' with us the following day.  It was great to see them again and catch up on what's been going on at BBC, the youth missions trip to Mexico in particular!  While the adults went to dinner, Maggie, Jake, Andy (he stayed from the campout), Lilly, Olivia & I stayed at the house and had pizza, played at the girls' playground, and watched a movie.  Funny story on the pizza.  You wouldn't think it would be too hard to order some pizza, but it took me 3 tries before I had any success.  The first one was a pizza & video place right here in town, but they said they weren't making pizza right now...probably when school starts.  What???  The second one was in the neighboring town and said they don't deliver to residential addresses.  Again...what??? My third try was a success and it was pretty good pizza too!  I had to laugh at the first two pizza places...it was insane that they either weren't making pizza right now or don't deliver to homes!  In the end, we got our pizza and were happy!

Sunday went really well!  We had the most people yet with the usual 8 of us, 3 regulars, 3 first time visitors & 7 from our home church!  It was a great service and the fellowship was thoroughly enjoyed!  After lunch Pastor & Mrs. Sargent, Jake & Andy had to head back to OH for the evening service because the youth were doing a presentation on their recent missions trip.  We were sad to say goodbye...or were we???  Little did they know, we would see them again....very soon!

I mentioned earlier that Maggie & I started formulating a plan on the way home from the campout.  As we were driving back I was thinking about how nice it was to see everyone and even though some friends were not able to come we had seen them already or would be seeing them very soon...except for Alyssa.  Because of her work schedule she didn't know when she would be able to get some time off.  I mentioned to Maggie that I thought it would be fun to go back to OH and surprise Alyssa sometime.  She then mentioned that she had been thinking about how Linnea really wanted her to come see the missions trip presentation and while she initially thought it wouldn't be possible she was beginning to think it would work after all.  We discussed it a bit more, but I was kind of unsure about it and we left it at that.  Once we got home we started talking about it more and it soon turned into a plan to leave after church so we could make it to OH in time for the evening service, and then spend that night and Monday with Alyssa...but we wouldn't tell anyone we were coming!!  And that's exactly what happened.  Except for our parents and the Majors, no one knew we were going to OH...not even the Sargents who were probably only 15 minutes ahead of us on the road!  We made with an hour to spare and sat at the beach waiting for the time to pass.  We were so excited to surprise everyone and were a couple of giddy little girls the whole afternoon!  Unfortunately on our way to church we were spotted by Steve & Sherri but followed them into the church parking lot to make sure they kept our secret.  As part of our plan, we tried to make sure we got to church right as the service was starting so no one would see us.  We hoped to walk in during the first song, but due to the special events of the evening we weren't able to do that...but what happened was even better!  Sherri let us in through a side door so we could wait in a classroom, and as we did we heard Pastor start talking about spending the morning with us.  Perfect!  We walked in right as he was talking about us and he sure was surprised to see us!  Everyone else was just as surprised...our plan worked! 

The service was great and it was wonderful to see others that weren't able to make it to the campout.  After surprising Nicki who was home sick, we spent the night with Alyssa...the main reason for the trip.  If she couldn't come to us, we were going to go to her.  It worked out perfectly because Mondays are her day off!  We had a picnic at Deception Pass, played at the church playground (hehe), played Sorry Card Revenge (Alyssa & I won!!!), and just spent time enjoying each other's company!  We even got to spend a little bit of time with Josh on Monday morning! Even though the time was short (we came home today), it was wonderful to be able to see Alyssa (and others!) again!  I'm so glad we decided to make the trip! 

Go to Alyssa's blog and Maggie's blog for more about our visit!

Now it's back to the job hunt, and preparing for many visitors in the weeks to come!

Missing You

I miss my brother...and yes, even all of his annoying ways. :)

I miss my friends and their companionship.

I miss seeing all of the friendly faces of BBC.

I miss singing in the choir.

I miss doing nursery with Linda Wadsworth...aka Anna. Haha

I miss spending time with the ladies in the jail.

I miss walking through the school lunch room or even Jr. Church and hearing "Hi, Miss Kali" or "Hi, Teacher Kali."

I miss Ladies Bible Fellowship.

I miss practicing specials.

I miss SPG meetings.

The list could go on and on.  It's funny, because you don't realize how much something even as simple as a handshake by the same person every service meant to you until you don't have it anymore. 

Anyways, I miss you all and am thinking about you!  Can't wait to see some of you in the weeks to come!

Correction

I realized after doing this post, that we're not actually living in the Methow Valley.  We're starting a church in the Methow Valley, but we actually live in the Okanogan Valley.  Phew!  I better keep things straight or else people over here will  figure out that I'm not from around these here parts! ;-)

Cooking - Coupons - Crocheting

*smile* It took me a bit to think of three things to post about that all started with the same letter.  What can I say?  Alliteration has been ingrained in me over the years. :)

Cooking

Over the past year and a half Maggie & I decided to make one night a week 'our night' to cook.  Maggie cooked on Tuesdays and I cooked on Thursdays.  I think it makes cooking more fun when you're the one planning what will be prepared.   Haha...there for a while it was a competition to see who's meal would be better.  I think Josh got a little spoiled in the dessert area because he started whining questioning when we stopped making dessert with every meal.  :) 

Last week the menu was being planned and Maggie just so happened to do all of it, plus she's been the one making dinner all week.  So it gave me an idea.  Why don't the 3 of us (Maggie, mom & I) rotate planning the menu and cooking?  They thought it was a great idea too! So next week I'm in charge of planning the menu and cooking.  It may sound funny, but I'm kind of excited about doing it.  Now I just need to figure out what we'll have.  I definitely want to throw in at least one new thing to try. Maybe I'll post the menu once I have it. :) 

Coupons 

I'm trying to become more coupon savvy.  They're out there, so why not use them?  Last week we were able to use coupons on top of the sales the store was already having.  We ended up saving around $50!  Call me crazy, but I love looking at the receipt to see how much money I've saved! Lol.  Anyways, I thought I'd post the different websites I go to for coupons/deals.  Here goes...

Money Saving Mom

The Frugal Girls

The Krazy Coupon Lady

Free Sample Freak - Sounds silly signing up for free samples, but again...if they're out there, why not take advantage of them?  They've come in handy!

So those are the blogs, but there's also coupons.com, smartsource.com & redplum.com.  I've also been buying the AllYou magazine.  It costs $2.49 and they've got tons of coupons in there, so if you can use at least that much in coupons out of it, it's worth it.  I also want to throw out there that I heard Walmart will take coupons from other stores. I haven't verified it with my Walmart yet, but I plan on it. (If they do, just make sure they know it's a competitors coupon so they can make the price adjustment when they scan the item.) Also, the Sunday paper is usually full of coupons!

Crocheting

Between both of my grandma's I learned how to crochet.  It's not something I've done for quite some time, but I'm hoping to pick it up again and become more skilled in it.  Selena has been crocheting quite a bit and has been making dish cloths and pot holders.  A couple weeks ago she showed me how to make a dish cloth and we're even talking about making stuff over the winter months to sell at the Farmers Market next year as an outreach program for the church.  Anyways, I've kinda got the crocheting bug now.  (hehe...I made Max a tail warmer!) I got a catalog in the mail today from Lion Brand and there are so many neat things I'd like to try.  My only problem right now is I need yarn to crochet and you need money to buy yarn and you need a job to earn money. :)  So once I get a job I'll start trying things out.  There are some really neat things in there that are knit and I have no clue how to do that.  I remember doing some sort of knitting when I was younger, but I wouldn't know where to begin now.  Maybe once I get crocheting down, I'll make an attempt at it. 

So there you have it.  Cooking - Coupons - Crocheting  Hopefully I didn't bore you.

And because I can...here are a couple of closeups...hehe

Haha...look at that mosquito bite smack dab in the middle of my forehead!

Awww...Max's pig tails!

Prop 8

As most of you probably know, a ban on homosexual marriage in CA was overturned yesterday by Judge Vaughn Walker.  Here's an interview with Wendy Wright from Concerned Women for America that I thought was really good.  We had the opportunity to meet her while in DC, and I was very impressed with her and enjoyed hearing what she had to say.  She's gone through alot of persecution standing up for what she believes in and I really admire her for that. 

Pounding the Pavement

That's what I've been doing this past week.  After our trip to Oregon, Maggie & I started this wonderful thing called...Looking for a job. :) It was very intimidating at first because I've never had to do that before.  I didn't have a resume, I had never conducted an interview and I had only filled out one application.  You see, when I finished school I picked up an application for a bank and started filling it out, but that's about as far as I got before the Lord gave me a job at the church.  I praise the Lord for the 5 years I was able to work there.  It was a huge blessing to be in such a great work environment and I couldn't have asked for better coworkers.  I'm really going to miss that. 

As of today, I've written a resume (with the help of Brother Geist & Brother Majors), filled out 4 applications, taken my resume into 4 offices, applied for a Bookkeeper position, File Clerk position, and Receptionist position.  I'm also constantly looking on Worksource and the local classified ads. 

I haven't heard anything from the 3 positions I've applied for.  Hopefully I'll hear something from at least one of them this week.  In the meantime, I'm just trying to stay proactive about looking and praying all along the way.  I know the Lord has the perfect job for me out there.  It's just waiting for His perfect timing. 

FaMiLy FuN

Last week Maggie, my mom & I were able to spend time with family in Oregon.  It was fun seeing everyone again and catching up on each other's lives.  Anyone looking from the outside in would think it's utter chaos (and yes! it can be sometimes..hehe) but we've grown up with it and it just seems perfectly normal to have so many people around and 10 different things going on at the same time.  =)

Can you imagine playing Apples to Apples with around 20 people?  Haha 

Can't you just imagine what Josiah's face must look like? :)

Girls night!

It was a little too exciting for Violet. ;)