A Finished Room and Some Travel Talk

We finished Kloe's room (for the most part) last week.  It is a small space, so making lots of places to organize and store things really helped create order out of the chaos.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but this is a captain's bed with extra storage underneath.

We finally found her comforter at Target.  I actually really like the one she chose.  It has a mix of a lot of my favorite colors (and hers too!).   The underside is orange, and super fuzzy and soft.

Here are the "Carmel" colored walls, which she chose all on her own.  We also thinned out her stuffed animals and displayed the ones she chose to keep.  The book shelf was also one of the craigslist finds.  My girl loves to read, and she loves to collect books, but she had nowhere to put them so they were a major contributor to clutter.  This is so much better:)

I made the curtain valance with a board and some material to bring more of the aqua color into the room.  Derrick was finally able to install the ceiling fan we bought for the room over a year ago (both the bunk bed and loft bed she previously used pretty much ensured decapitation of he'd installed it any sooner).  He also fixed her closet doors, and hung the stuffed animal shelf and new mirror (he can put things on the wall straight the first time he tries.  I always make a couple extra holes in my attempts).

This is the dresser, night stand and bed I bought on craiglist. 

Aunt Bean is going to paint an owl picture with Kloe's colors to go on this empty bit of wall above the lizard's aquarium.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy..."  My contribution to her walls:)

Most likely you can tell, but I am very excited with how her room came together.  I think this will be much easier for her to maintain. 

Now for a completely unrelated topic:

We get to leave this grey winter-ish land next week!

I have been holding in this little bit of personal happy-ness for awhile now, mostly so I don't create the winter hate mob this sort of news has a way of generating.

But now, I am too excited to care.

We are going to Cancun.  We've traveled to Mexico quite a few times, but we've never been to that part of the country.  This is also the first time we will be going to an all inclusive resort.  This is also the first time we are traveling with another couple (Deana and Rob) to such a far away place.

Yes, I am excited.

Aunt Nae is going to stay at our place with the kiddos.  We always feel a little guilty leaving the kids behind, but it is important to be able to have these times once in awhile with each other (plus we just took them to Mexico last March, so we don't feel too guilty).

My goals for this trip are:

• Don't get sick this time!! Mexico has not been very kind to me on some of our previous trips.
• Lay in the sun, and soak up mass amounts of vitamin D. 
• Play in the ocean.  Hoping for good snorkeling.
• Have fun with our friends! :)
• Write a little every day we are down there, and take lots of pictures.
• Gather great memories to carry us through to Spring.

One Fine Day of Parachutes and Pickles, and some other Stuff

Okay.  So, since I am having a hard time getting started here, I will commence making a list of what my day consisted of:

1.  Woke up.  It was pouring outside.  Derrin had made a good strong fortifying brew of coffee for me (bless you, my son), and after my first cup I drove both kids to school so they could avoid the wet walk to the bus.

2.  Had a second cup of coffee.

3.  Started a third.

4. Off to school to go on a field trip with The Derrin and his class. Experienced a bus ride with lots of loud and kinda smelly 10 year olds (Derrin being the exception of that description, of course). Our destination: The Smoke Jumper Visitor Center, where we learned about all things pertaining to Smoke Jumpers.

Thing that stands out in my mind: To be a Smoke Jumper, you must be sized from 5'3" 120 lbs. to 6'6" 200 lbs. I am baffled how a little 120 pounder would be able to jump out of a plane into trees, cut herself out of the parachute to get out of the trees (because it seemed like that was a pretty common occurrence?), climb out of tree to get off backpack and other carry-ables (all weighing in at 120 lbs. themselves!) and then climb back up the tree to retrieve the stuck parachute, then climb back down the tree and haul her massive pack to make camp and then go cut down trees and chop fire lines. It would take a stronger woman than myself to do all that, or want to do all that. I want to meet a little woman that has done all of that someday. Anyways, Derrin took a lot of pictures (I'll post some) and it was good to hang out with him.

A picture of a picture.  No blue skies today.

Smoke Jumpers have to sew their own fire resistant jumping clothes.

Ropes to hang/dry parachutes

5.  Grabbed lunch for Derrick and myself, came home, balanced Quickbooks (I am practically an EXPERT at this point.  It may be time to start hiring myself out to help other companies with THEIR Quickbook questions.  Heh.), worked on Derrick's website issues, worked on marketing, just plain worked.

6.  Dropped a giant, and very full jar of pickles.  Spent the next half hour cleaning pickles and pickle juice off the kitchen floor.  Tried to see the bright side:  Vinegar is a good cleaner, even if it DOES smell like garlic.  My house may smell like pickles for awhile.  I may smell like pickles for awhile.

7.  Went to the library.  Finally invested the dollar to replace my library card AND paid the fine I have owed for two years.  Such a clean slate.  Kids both got tons of books.

8.  Dinner.  Derrick made his beautiful Salmon, rice and corn. 

9.  And then our Family Study.  Nice lesson on praying for strength, and also about our motivations.

10.  Took a picture of these flowers, because they were beautiful and the sun was finally out, shining through their petals:



11.  Put the kids to bed.

12.  Gave Kloes's lizard Lizzy another warm bath and put vege oil on her.  I'm worried about her:(  She hasn't eaten in quite awhile.  All the message boards I've gone to say warm baths and oil.  Hoping she feels better soon.

13.  Actually, this is what I didn't do today, or any other day for the last week:  Run.  Between the rain and the millions of things I've been doing, when in the world am I supposed to run.  *sigh*  Had a feeling that THAT would be the thing to slip through the cracks.  Darn it.

14.  Watched flooding happen all around us.  I think that we are going to be okay where we are- it would have to come up quite a bit to get us.  I hope.

15.  Wrote this blog.

And I will call that The End.  Of this day.

The Tortures of Cleaning One's Room

For the love of PETE. 

Kloe has been in her room for FOUR HOURS, "cleaning".  Argh.  I was ready to jump in there are three and a half hours ago to do it myself, but then I got the 'She'll never learn to do it herself if you keep jumping in there to do it' speech from Derrick, so I withdrew.  Talk about torturing the both of us.  If I wasn't determined to clean her carpet tomorrow I would just give up. 

Not worth it. 

BUT, since giving up isn't an option for either of us at this point, and she only has thirty-five minutes left before bedtime, I've had to resort to threatening to keep her lizards in my room for a while.  I actually hear a lot more movement in her room, so maybe everything will be work out?  A lot of flinging and flouncing actually.  I'm definitely not on her 'top five parent list' at the moment.

Derrin's still working in his room too.  He's doing the finer details, like figuring out what to do with all the shoes lining his walls.  I think it only took him so long because I found a really cool fish tank for his room today, so he was moving his little bug-eye goldfish "Wolf" over to his new home and coaxing him to eat.

We bought Wolf yesterday at Walmart.  I'm hoping that he lives longer than any of the other fish I've bought from there.  Usually they only make it a week or two before floating belly up.  He (*as in DERRIN, not WOLF- thanks for calling me about that Renae-haha* :) was willing to go grocery shopping with me if I took him to Pet Smart, but then Pet Smart was closed.  He was one sad little guy.  Getting the fish at Walmart made the sad face go away.  Hopefully it's not back in a couple weeks.

While Derrin and I were out fish/grocery shopping, Derrick took Kloe to get a new bike- her feet were draggin on the ground on her old one. By their bike riding accounts, a good time was has by all (as in Kloe and Derrick- Derrin and I were on the aforementioned grocery shopping expedition).

Okay.  The moment of truth is coming up (13 extra minutes, hopefully spent well).  Time to go check out the rooms and then kiss some kids before sleepy time.  Hoping Kloe's lizards aren't coming into the Gramma Lizard's room.

While the kids are gone...

My plan this morning involved cleaning the carpets in both the kids' rooms since they would have time to dry before the kids got home on Sunday. I went into Kloe's room and discovered that somehow in the 12 hours between when it was last cleaned and we left (most of which were spent sleeping), somehow a rock bomb went off in there. Seriously, there is rubble everywhere. What can I say? My girl loves rocks passionately- she has hundreds in her room, stored away in boxes in her closet, and sometimes she sets them free. Another thing she is passionate about are her lizards. The other day she was showing me a big size tic-tac container filled with white flaky stuff. Turns out she saves her lizards skin when they shed. Yeah, a little... um, eccentric? I asked her why she wanted to save the skins, and she said "to remember them!" I guess it isn't any weirder than saving your baby's first hair cut, right? :)
So, tomorrow includes cleaning up the rubble, and getting the kid's rooms mom-clean before they get back.

And on to better things...

So, let's talk about some happy stuff! The kids:) They are doing super dupe. So far this summer hasn't been to shabby at all in kidland. We are doing the usual going to gramma's house while I am at work, and it seems to be suiting everyone just fine. Derrin finally saved up enough to pay for his half of his WII just as the summer was starting. He has already become very proficient at the sports games that came with it, and is now gunning for Mario world. Both kids are TAN (as usual for them) from being outside so much. Kloe is anxiously awaiting to see if Lizzy's egg (one of them got moldy and had to be thrown out) is going to hatch. Come the first of September we shall see. Lizzy is currently with-egg again, so we are being super careful with her out of respect for her delicate condition. The kids had a lot of fun at the assembly (minus the head bonking at the pool) and this week they've been out in service a bunch:) Our CO is here this week. Have heard some very good talks that I have appreciated even in my funk:) This Saturday I am going to Plains to do some family portraits for my auntie and her family, but I will be coming back that night so I'll get to be home this weekend. This summer has been so full, and it seems like we've been away from home for a lot of the weekends, so it feels nice to get to be at home. There is always an up side.

Summer ROCKS

July 3rd we (Renae, Steph and I) went to Lilith Fair over at the Gorge in Washington. It was AWESOME!!!! The line up was fantastic! I FINALLY got to see my favorite musical artist EVER (Sarah McLachlan) live! Wow, I was excited. I finally understand why all of those silly little girls at Beatles concerts screamed like... silly little girls:) There was also Sheryl Crow, Sugarland, Erykah Badu, Cobly Coley, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals (awesome new band!), and A Fine Frenzy (LOVED LOVED LOVED HER!!! Check her out!!) The crowd was interesting to watch (ah hem), but peaceful and just there to have a good time. Definitely want to do it again! I would be a Lilith Fair Follower if it didn't put me so far in the Out Of Touch With Reality category! :) I'll post some pics later when I get a chance.

Besides that, life is pretty much back to normal. The kiddies are back home with us, and it is nice! I missed them so much! We are going to have Kobe come stay with us this weekend, and I am looking forward to seeing him too:)

Add to those details of life :

~A lot of gardening.

~Also replacing dead goldfish in the front pond (Benny and Joon did not make it- Johnny and June in the little back pot pond are holding strong. Yesterday we put Zavidy (Derrin's fish), Zena (Kloe's fish) and JoonTU (MY fish) in the front pond- here's to hoping they LIVE).

~Also, Lizzy (Kloe's girl gecko), laid her first two eggs last week- they are in a little dish on the warm side of their aquarium. I will rejoice if they hatch.

~There was also quite a bit of road rage on my part I had planned on sharing, but I'm thinking the only thing that needs to be said is: I need to quit yelling at bonehead drivers in front of my kids. Derrin thinks I don't like elderly drivers because the last three people to cut me off in traffic have been little old ladies. I seriously am trying to chill out!!

I have to say, this summer so far has been pretty incredible, and it's not even half way over yet! We still have our assembly in Kennewick in a couple of weeks, our motorcycle trip with Doug and Renae, some photography stuff lined up, and our trip to SEATTLE (yay!). May this summer never end.