A Sneak Peek: Wednesday

Today was a beautiful day! It was almost 70 degrees! It was so nice to be able to go outside and not need a jacket. It was a bit windy, but it's a warm wind unlike the bitter wind that comes off the ocean on Whidbey.

Gauge stayed at the vet overnight, so he was picked up this morning. He was SO happy to be home. He was fixed, had his dew claws removed, plus the normal shots. Aside from the bandages on his legs, you wouldn't even know he had been through all of that. He's as hyper and active as ever!

Yep! That's painting tape keeping his bandages on...haha!

Let's see...I cleaned my room, worked with the dogs on some different commands like, sit & stay. They've got 'sit' down for the most part...but 'stay' has been a bit challenging!

I got a book from the library today...in the mail! When you request a book online you have the option to have it sent to your home. How neat is that? In came in this nifty bag that you send the book back in when you're done...free of charge. 

Now I'm off to watch Tangled and have some Peach Crisp. Mmmmm....

Behind

Last week was supposed to be your "Sneak Peek Week" into my life, but I forgot about it until Mon or Tues and decided to do it this week instead. Well, I'm not in any better shape this week...here it is already Tuesday and I haven't posted yet.  I'm going to go ahead and combine Sun-Tues and hopefully do better the rest of the week. Forgive me? =)

SUNDAY:

Went to church. (It was snowing up on the pass. I'm so ready for spring!) After that we spent the rest of the evening relaxing at home. Dad and Josh were sick, but are feeling better now...Praise the Lord!

MONDAY:

Ran some errands in town, and then since it was such a nice day we took the dogs out to get some exercise. You may have already read Maggie's blog about our adventures! Here are a couple more pictures and a video.

I made BBQ Ranch Shredded Chicken Burgers for dinner. Yum! As Maggie mentioned, we did a video chat with Alyssa for 2 hours last night! It's so nice to catch up with friends!

TUESDAY:

Today I had an interview! It was for two different companies that are hiring in the area. One is an office assistant position with a paving company, and the other is a personal assistant position with Lifeline Ambulance. The lady thought I was a good fit for both positions, so we'll see if the employers decide to interview me or not. The paving company is a part-time position and the ambulance company is full-time.  Both jobs come with benefits which is a huge plus! We'll see what happens!

I watched Braxton this afternoon, and now I'm just hanging out. =)

Brothers

For the first few days, Charlie & Gauge were very nervous about the stairs. Here's a picture of us trying to trick them into coming down. :) Unfortunately it didn't work.

However, on Monday they finally decided to try them out. It was hilarious watching them go down. They were slow and very careful about it...it looked so awkward. Now they just run up and down. They often run down the first flight and stop waiting for you to come down and trip over them. :) Speaking of tripping, it seems that they're always at your feet. They like to follow you wherever you go and are constantly moving back and forth. At times I've had to hold onto the wall just to stay up!

We've been spraying them with a water/vinegar solution to teach them that certain things are not ok...such as jumping on the french doors that lead to the deck. We'll put them out on the deck and they'll jump up on the doors only to be greeted by a spray.  Charlie does not like being sprayed...Gauge could care less. :) On Thursday, one of them was jumping up and I was trying to quickly get to the door, open it and spray the culprit. In my haste I whacked my forehead with the door! It hurt really bad and I had a goose egg for a bit! LOL Thankfully even though it felt bruised, it only left a minor red mark. 

We take them out to the bathroom separately and the other is almost always waiting at the door for their brother to come back. It's so cute!

If one has a toy, the other wants it. They're usually chewing on or fighting over the same toy. They even try to get the treat out of the others mouth when being rewarded for something. It's hilarious!

Charlie snores (I'm not sure if Gauge does or not) and has had the hiccups just about once a day!

They're so much fun! They're definitely a handful and quite frustrating at times, but I love them despite how many times they've gone to the bathroom in the house!

...All The Time!!

Monday I went to work and received quite the surprise...they let me go...fired me...whichever way you prefer it. "Let go" doesn't seem quite as harsh, but it's the same thing.  Honestly, it's kind of embarressing...but I know that I gave my best so I have no regrets about it. It was just one of those situations where they didn't feel I was the 'perfect fit'. Oh well, the Lord obviously has something else in store for me. As much as I loved it, I'm relieved to have the door shut. There were some less than ideal things that I'll no longer have to deal with which is a blessing. So, for now I've taken over babysitting Braxton once again :)until the Lord opens the next door for me.

The title of the post I wrote when I got the job was God Is Good. It only felt appropriate to title this post All The Time! God Is Good...All The Time!!!

Puppies!!!

We got 2 puppies today! They are 4 month old, male, chocolate labs and OH.SO.CUTE! One is a family dog...Charlie (red collar) & the other is Josh's dog which he plans on training for hunting...Gauge (black collar). They are so much fun to watch and play with. There are certain things they are definitely not used to right now, such as collars & leashes. When you are trying to get them to go outside or even pulling on their collar to bring them downstairs they turn into bucking broncos...it's hilarious! Here are a couple pictures for now...I'm sure you'll be seeing lots more and some videos too!

Me & Charlie

<3 Brothers <3

Rachel's Banana Bread

This is by far the best banana bread I've ever had! We often refer to it as "Rachel's Banana Bread" since we got the recipe from our friend Rachel D. I made some today so I thought I'd share it with you! 

BLEND:

1 1/2 c sugar

1/2 c butter, softened

1 1/2 c mashed bananas (ok, you may think this is weird, but when bananas are starting to go bad at our house we stick them in the freezer...when we want to make bread we pull them out and either let them thaw or defrost them in the microwave. they're perfect for banana bread and we usually always have some on hand!)

ADD:

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 c flour

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

ADD: 

1/2 c sour cream

chocolate chips are really yummy addition too!

Divide between 2 greased pans. Bake at 325 (glass dish) or 350 (metal dish) for 45-60 minutes. Enjoy!!

Going Green!

No, it's not quite what you think! As you all know...tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day (or as we refer to him at BBC...Baptist Patrick's Day!) Since Thursday can be kind of crazy with work/church schedules, we decided to "celebrate" a day early...and when I say "celebrate" I'm only referring to have green food. We've never done this before, but we thought it would be fun. I'm thinking it needs to become a tradition. =) 

We talked about doing green pancakes for breakfast but decided to go with Lucky Charms!

Lunch...green egg salad sandwiches, granny smith apples, green apple dip & green Kool-Aid!

Dinner and Dessert were very green as well...but you'll have to go to Maggie's blog to see what we had!

Happy Birthday Braxton!

Today is Braxton's 1st Birthday!! 

On Saturday was his party and I had the privilege of making his cake! It was challenging because the fondant wasn't cooperating with me, but it was worth it! A LOT of prayer went into this cake!!! :)

Pedicures

When I left for work today, Maggie was giving herself a pedicure and telling Lilly & Olivia that she would give them one too. What about me?! =) When I got home I jokingly asked Maggie if she was going to give me one, and Lilly offered to do it so I let her! Nice for me...fun for her!

Thanks, Lilly! You did a great job!!

A Letter From Max

Today we are grieving yet another loss...our dog, Max. I won't go into all of the details because Maggie did a great write-up, so I'll just send you over there for a minute...be sure to come back though. :)

At the end of Maggie's post she mentioned how my Grandpa often referred to Max as "his dog". Tis true! When we sent out a family Christmas letter this past year, my Grandpa wanted to know why there wasn't a picture of "his dog" in it...whoops! So I had this grand idea to do up a Christmas letter from Max to Grandpa. :) Unfortunately, it was never sent...so I'm going to post it here!  (click the pictures to enlarge)

I'm really going to miss him...

A Sneak Peek: Idaho

Due to the circumstances of the week, I didn't feel up to blogging everyday...so I'll do my best to recap the rest of the week for you.

First of all, I want to thank everyone for the kind birthday wishes and especially the prayers for our family during this time. We could definitely feel the prayers! 

Wednesday we woke up to snow (go figure) and were on the road by 7:20. The drive was long...11 hours. We ended up with two rooms that night, so the guys were in one room and we had a sleep over with the girl cousins in our room...so much fun!

Thursday people did their own thing. We had more family roll in, some things at grandpa's needed to be taken care of, some of us went shopping, etc. It was a pretty laid back day.

Friday started bright and early. We all met in the conference room that the hotel let us use...this was a huge blessing since there were 33 of us! After we ate breakfast we all got in one big circle, joined hands, prayed over the day and shared things about grandpa...it was a really special time. After finishing up there the 7 siblings went to grandpa's apartment and then the rest of us followed. We were able to look around and see everything the way he left it before we started packing things up. It was SO hard to take in. Everyone was able to take something(s) to remember him. I was able to get one of his dishes that I plan on putting in my 'hope chest' and his road atlas too. When he found out we were moving he would always ask us about it and look it up in his atlas. He even has the cities circled in it...so it's pretty special. After that we went to the viewing. I had no intentions of seeing him, but once I got there I decided to do it.  It was the first time I've ever done that...I've always been set against it.   It was the strangest thing though, because it was him but it wasn't. Does that make sense? He had this peaceful look on his face, yet you knew he wasn't there.  We all just sat around the room and started singing hymns, it was an amazing time. It was like our own little pre-memorial service. I cried so much that day...grieving for us, yet rejoicing for him!

Saturday was the memorial service. Besides a couple of things, it was pretty much run by the grandkids which was really neat. It was a great time to be together to celebrate his life and share with others the hope that he had in Christ. We had a reception time back at the hotel where my aunt Dora (the oldest sibling) was presented with the American flag honoring grandpa for his service in the military. Also, we were able to watch a video of my grandpa talking about different things that Jason (my cousin) took a couple years ago. That was SO neat!

Everyone left on Sunday except for us. We decided to stay one more night for which I am thankful. It gave us an opportunity to go to church on Sunday rather than travelling the day away, and we got to go see Shoshone Falls!

So much happened over the course of the week, it seems like a whirlwind.  I feel like I've barely even touched the surface. We had such a wonderful time remembering/celebrating grandpa's life and spending time with family. It's been a long time since that many of us were all together...and that's not even ALL of us! :)

A Sneak Peek: Tuesday

Today is my 24th birthday! It didn't quite turn out the way I expected, but it was still a good day.  Let me explain...

I woke up to the normal "Happy Birthday" serenade from my family, phone calls & text messages.  (I was showered with birthday wishes all day long and I thank each and every one of you for them. You truly made me feel special today!)  I was served breakfast in bed...Oatmeal Bake...yum! The plan was to go to work at 1, but that changed. The phone rang and we received some most unexpected news. My grandpa (my mom's dad) went home to be with the Lord this morning. :( I'm happy for him, but sad for us. It still doesn't even seem real. We're heading out tomorrow morning for Idaho and won't be back until Sunday or Monday. I would really appreciate your prayers for all of the family during this time.

Brother Majors came over this morning and was a huge blessing. He stayed all day long, made my birthday dinner and cake! Later Selena, the girls, Tiffany & Braxton came over for dinner and cake.

Now I'm off to go pack for our trip. I just praise the Lord that my grandpa was saved, because that's the one thing that does bring comfort amongst the heartache. I miss him, but I know I'll be seeing him again someday!