He got a little Confused

Well, Travis got his orders this morning. We're heading EAST to Washington, D.C.

Yeah, wrong way, I know. We wanted to go WEST to WASHINGTON STATE. Oh well. We're looking forward to the adventure of living around our nation's capital. We're heading out next week to take a vacation/neighborhood hunting trip. This trip was planned before. I told Travis while we were this far east, we should take advantage of seeing some of the east coast. Well, now we'll get to see it close-up starting next summer.

We're still doing the tourist thing this year since we don't know when Travis will get a big chunk of leave in his new job. We plan to hit Indianapolis, Columbus, OH (visit Great Aunt Mary) Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, Hershey, PA, Williamsburg, NYC, New Hampshire (visit Great Aunt Eleanor), and Niagara Falls, and whatever else in between. It'll be fun!! :)

Anyway, that's our latest news. Not what we were hoping for, but better than GUAM! :) hee hee

Our Evening

Travis came upstairs last night and said we were having a good lightning storm. I LOVE watching the lightning storms here. We opened the blinds and had a good time watching. Then, at about 10:00 p.m. the tornado siren went off. So, we turned on the tv and found out that we were under Tornado Warning. That means a tornado had been spotted around our area. When a warning is declared, you are supposed to get in the basement. We got Sara's fishy, my purse, and Sara's pillow and favorite stuffed animals and headed down to watch tv down there. Luckily, the storm ~and tornado~ blew out of the area pretty quickly. We brought all our stuff back upstairs and went to bed. Ah, living in the middle! :)
Here is a video of the lightning I took before the warning siren came on. It's kind of long, but there are some really cool bolts and you can see the light show we get to see when these storms blow through. :) Oh, make sure your speakers are on so you can hear the rumbling of the thunder, too!

Joni's Grandbaby quilts

These are the 4 quilts I made for a dear friend, Joni. Her ex-husband, but still good friend and father of her kids died way too soon. He wore lots of crazy, cool Columbia shirts. Kinda had the fishing theme going on. Anyway, she wanted a way for her future grandbabies to have a piece of something special from Grampa. She asked if I would take the shirts and make them into quilts. I was HAPPY to do it. Here are the results. 4 good sized quilts. I hope the future babies will love snuggling in their Grampa's shirts. :)

***And, this is from Joni in the comments, but it tells how the shirt quilts came to be from her side. :) Love ya, Joni!!! :) Making these quilts was TRULY my pleasure.

Cindy, Cindy, Cindy...... There are just not the words to say what these quilts meant to me when you brought them in last Friday while you were in Vancouver.
Since grandbabies are still years away for me, I was quite happy knowing that you were the perfect person to hold these shirts until such a time that you had the desire to make the quilts.
I asked Cindy to make me four baby quilts, I was thinking I'd see receiving blanket size quilts, these are more the size of a twin bed.
Gregg was my former husband but he was my friend and I mourn his passing every day. The last room of his house that I cleaned out was his closet. Every time I'd step foot in it, I'd see him, I'd smell his cologne (or tobacco) and I knew that this room was my last link to him as he was. There was not one day that I was in there where I didn't sit on the floor, holding his shirts, crying. It was one of those days that I realized he'd never be there to hold our grandbabies.
Where the thought came from to ask Cindy about the quilts I don't recall but it had to have occurred on that closet floor. There was not one second of hesitation on her part when I asked, not one. Someday, God willing I will have grandbabies, (if there are more than four, they will have to share) and I will hold and snuggle them with grampa's shirts and as they grow, I will let them know how much he would have loved them.
Cindy, you are by far one the sweetest people I have ever met. This gift that you gave to me will never, ever be forgotten.
Much love,
Joni

Our Trip

I don't have a bunch to say or time to say it, but I wanted to get some pictures of our trip on here for you all to enjoy. :) So, without further ado, here ya go.......

The girls at PDX on the little escalatory thingamabob.

















Evonne and me on the 4th of July watching all the pyromaniacs we call our children! :)










Some of the crazy people.














Timmy (Sara) and Mac (Macall) (their new names given by Keith) enjoying chicken stars from Carl's Jr. We have Hardee's out here, but they don't have chicken stars...what's up with that??!!







We hiked to the top of Multnomah Falls with the big girls. It's SO GORGEOUS there! :)















Here are the big chicks after we hiked to the top and walked back on the trail to some other falls.











Here I am with my two gorgeous girls in Seattle. We went to check out the Art Institute for the three big girls. Krista and Marion want to go into the Arts. Anisa wants to go into the Culinary Arts. They have really great programs there.









Here are Timmy and Mac at the First, Original Starbucks. Timmy is in Heaven. That crazy chick LOVES Caramel Frappaccinos.










Here are the chicks at the Space Needle. We didn't have time to go up to the top, but we had a couple of minutes to snap some pictures.














Of course, I will never go out west and not make a trip to MY beach. The weather was completely perfect. The wind picked up a little later during our trip, but I didn't mind. I was in Heaven.















I took this gang out to the Falls later in the week. After the falls, we headed over the Bridge of the Gods, then back on the Washington side of the river. We made a pit stop at the Bonneville Dam to see the fishies in the fish counter windows. See the little lamprey guy sucked onto the window?


This was our last view of Oregon. Mt. Hood is there in the front, then off in the distance is Mt. Jefferson then you can kind of see the Three Sisters way off in the far distance. I miss my volcanoes.

We had such a wonderful trip. We stayed with our very wonderful, generous friends Keith and Evonne (I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!). They totally put up with all of us messing up their house, eating their food, running around like crazy people. We ran like chickens with our heads cut off the whole week and didn't get much sleep. But that was ok. We loved being out west in our element. :) Not literally in our Honda Element, of course, she was stuck in WI. tee hee Now we're back in Wisconsin looking forward to our East Coast trip in a few weeks. That adventure will be here later! :)