My Best Friend In The Whole World Has Spoke....

I received a text today:

And I quote:

"Ummmmmmmmmm aug 22 was ur last blog ?!?!"

My response:

And I quote:

"(: I am barely floating at this moment in time....bare with me!"

LIFE has gotten in the way of blogging....such is life this time of year.  These were the clouds outside Monday morning:



Beautiful!

Here is the "back to school" shot of my nephews this morning.  Chance is a 4th grader and Cash a 2nd grader!  Where does time go?  Notice they are wearing sweatshirts!  YEAH!!!  Fall(ish) weather is on its way....so glad!

Here is my pile for "work-at-home".  The changes are what I was working on tonight, and the entering of students for Connell Elementary.  Their fax machine is not working so at the end of the day I get my mail and they have a huge stack of new students that need to be entered.  I hate leaving them because school seems to be FULL of interuptions these days!  Go figure!  Anyways, I have had my own form of homework this week.

And here is what else has been going on at this house....my bathroom to be specific.  Just a teaser of what's going on.  Hopefully this weekend (it's a 3 day one!) we will get things more finished.  It's going to be close, with football, a wedding, work and general whatever else comes our way, that might challenge that goal but we will fight ever onward!

Getting totally excited!

So, here you go Lee Lee.  Just a glimpse of what's going on over here!  Thanks for making me take a little time out of life to let you in!  Lots of love!!!

This Calls For A Celebration

Mom had us (Jeff, Jenna, Kyle and myself) down for dinner yesterday in honor of dad's birthday.  Poor dad had to barbecue his own dinner, and ours!  Doing a fine job of it, I might add!

Aren't her tables great!

 My glasses even got to be part of the big celebration!

 Doesn't this just look fantastic!  It was!!!

 Happy Birthday to you!



Too Close For Comfort

The fire alarm went off for District 1....fire location:  mile post 40.  I jumped off of my bed, I was watching Sarah 101, and ran to the window to see if I could see anything.  I live right above mile post marker 37.  I couldn't see anything.  I went to the front yard and looked north....BLACK SMOKE, huge plume.  I called my mom because it looked like it was at the end of the alfalfa field.  Mom was upstairs so she didn't even know about it.  She went to the window and said "oh my gosh, I gotta go"!  That was enough for me.  I jumped in my car and took off.  As I got closer to mom and dad's I realized it was at the end of the alfalfa field but it was headed up the hill to my brother Jeff's house.  The wind was blowing from the northwest so the fire was booking.  I headed up the hill to the house.  When I got there mom, Briar and Nick were unrolling a garden hose.  I jumped out the car and helped.  Jeff and dad were in the firetruck right in front of the house, putting out a line of fire headed towards the house.  We found some shovels and headed down to the fireline and got ready to help put it out should it flare back up.  A gust of wind came and we booked out of there!  Just as we made it up to the house Jason came over the hill with a truck from Connell and got on the flareup.  That was way too close!!

Between Eltopia, Connell and Basin City there were 7 trucks and 2 water tenders at this fire.  The wind was blowing and fire spreading, but it was all contained before damage other than cheat grass happened.  There were at least 4 bulls in the field but they all headed towards the north part of the pasture.  At the south end of the fire was a field of field corn so that was pretty safe.

 Here's Jeff and dad going back after getting more water.

 Here's a shot of a group of volunteers waiting for another tender to get back, filled with more water, so they can go back and mop up the firelines again.

Thank goodness for these great volunteers!  Thank goodness Jeff's house wasn't burned down!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday

I am officially exhausted!  The week, so far, has hit me tonight.  Ready for bed.  Ready for sleep.  It's only 8:28 but I am heading for bed.

The Mariners are losing 5-0 right now.  Won't be missing anything great there.

Work has been going quickly because it is busy.  Toured the new elementary building at lunch today.  It's huge.  Feeling.  Beautiful.  Looking.  Ready.

Jessical lost her grandfather this afternoon.  It was expected, but still is heartbreaking.  Prayers for her and her family.  He's in a good place.

Not In My Bathroom

Here is my bathtub.....finally, back from the painters!!  As you can tell, it's not in my bathroom but in my family room/dining room area for the time being....until the bathroom gets ready for it.  We had to hurry up and wait for it to get painted, and now we have to hurry up and wait for the plumber to have time to come out.  MAYBE at the end of the week but more like next week with my luck.  Oh well.  Guess I'd better not complain too hard!

 Here are the "claws":

Went back to work today.  It wasn't a bad day at all.  I had lots of e-mails to go through, but more than a lot of them just had to get deleted.  I ended up taking some stuff home to get done because the next couple of days should prove to be crazy ones.  Football and cheer start Wednesday so all the athletes have to have paperwork turned in and fees paid.  Once all this is done a "ok to practice" ticket is issued.  I should be kept busy the next couple of days.  Volleyball, Cross Country and Girls Soccer start next Monday so I wouldn't be surprised if we had lots of them come to the office also.

Got new phones at work so tomorrow we have an in-service to be trained on how to use them.  The training runs from 8:30 until 11:00.  Now THAT is scarey!!!!  WHAT could be so difficult that it takes 2 1/2 hours to learn how to use?????  Not looking forward to this!

Brad's Graduation

Kyle and Blanche got to go to San Antonio, Texas last month to see Brad graduate from Air Force Boot Camp.  They had a great, proud, time!  It was hotter than Hadies but they survived and were so blessed to be able to witness the graduation.  Here are some pictures:

 He's not much of a smiler anymore, which is the really weird part!  He use to smile and laugh at everything!!

 Here's his locker.  Thank goodness the area is small so he has an easy time of keeping it clean!  Or at least he should!! 

 He is stationed at Wichita Falls, Texas right now.  He is finishing tech school and will wait until he can go to his next station, in Missouri. 

Where Has This Week Gone???

This week has flown by and no doubts as to why:  just today and tomorrow separate me from going btw...back to work!  Can't believe the summer has come to an end.  Oh well.  What more can I say?  Can't do anything but whine so might as well do nothing.

Monday I met Kathy in town and we had lunch, visited some antique stores and then plunked down at a table in Starbucks and spent the rest of the afternoon, well, until 7:00 pm! playing Bananagrams and visiting!  What a blast.  I haven't spent a lot of time with her in forever so we had a great time catching up.  Bananagrams and drinks were not that bad either! 

Briar has a new job at Lamb Weston so here he is taking off for his first day this week.

Tuesday Kaylee came out and hung out.  She loved the cats, but can't say they were as thrilled with the relationship as she was.  She lugged them around all morning and part of the afternoon.  Telling them what to do and dragging them here and there.  I think they were ready to see her leave.  She did have fun though.

Here she is in her "boots" ready to hit the road to town and the park.

Love her glasses.  And so does she.

We hung out at the park for the afternoon and then met grandpa at Burger King for dinner before taking her home.  I think she had fun.

Nick even got in on the slide fun.

I don't have any photos from the rest of the week but did do a lot of relaxing.  I was bummed that my tub won't be ready until Monday.  I really wanted to work on my bathroom.  Guess I will have to do what I can after work and on the weekends. 

Met Annette and Shelley on Thursday for lunch in town.  It was a nice afternoon catching up with them!  We went back to Annette's studio before saying goodbye.  That is a cool place.  So much fun being a photographer....I am sure of it!

Ran back into town yesterday for groceries and have been doing laundry and a whole bunch of nothing today.  I am going to watch Sarah 101 in a few minutes and then find something to do even if it kills me. 

Monday morning is coming all too quickly.......

Missing The Pictures

Friday night Leslie, my BFF in the whole wide world, came over for a bon fire with her sons, Matthew and Lucas, and parents, Barb & Ken!  Yes, their names are for real!  My mom came over too!  We had quite the fire at first thanks to Kyle's love of paint thinner.  I had some smore stuff so there was a bit of marshmallow roasting going on, and there was a football which got all the boys having fun.  Briar, Nick, Matthew, Lucas and Ryan were all loving the football/baseball game.  I wish I would have been able to get some pictures....it was around 9:00 when all of this was going on, so the sun wasn't cooperating with picture taking.  Darn!  Thanks for coming over guys....you guys rock!!!

August!

It's the second day of August already!  WOAH!!!!!!  The summer needs to SLOW down!  I am seeing my vacation days quickly deminishing......ugh!

Right now one of my favorite commercials is on.....Sterling Savings Bank.  The commercial is about a guy's bank being bought out by a big corporate bank from the east coast.  He gets on the phone to talk to them about any "forseeable problems" and tells them he's from "Washington-Washington State, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Pacific Ocean...."  Cracks me up!

Just came in from outside and turned on the Mariners game.  Casper Wells just hit a homerun and now they are up 5-3, against Oakland.  Bottom of the 6th.

Watered all my new sod that Nick and Briar helped plant this afternoon.  Looking good.

Picked some plums from the plum trees.....they are fantastic! 

Checked out the newest kittens....just born yesterday.  There are at least 5 if not 6 or 7.  Too young to start poking around to see just what is what so we won't know for sure for a couple of days.

Waiting patiently (trying to be patient) for my tub to get finished.  Halfway painted.  Half to go.