Today is raining, but it's ok :)

I figured I'd highlight some things that have happened over the past couple of days and something that has happened over the past several months.

Over the last several months (since March, actually) I have been exercising regularly at the Y, started running with Travis and have been trying to eat less (and healthier). I have lost about 18 pounds and have gone from jeans size 10 to 4.






It's great and I'm very happy, but the problem was I had no jeans to wear and we were heading to the Powder Puff Football game at night and it's getting cold. I went shopping a couple of days ago and bought a pair of jeans. They fit ok, but when I got them home and sat down in them, I felt a little air coming in from behind. I was irritated since they were the only pair that fit out of several pairs I tried on at Wal-Mart, Younkers and Target (we're limited to shopping here). Well, I had to take Anisa to Wal-Mart later yesterday (the day of the game) and thought, "hm, I wonder if I could fit into large girl's jeans". Well, I tried on a pair of 16s and they fit! :) I just thought that was so funny. The best part of all was that they were on clearance for $7.00! I love a good bargain.








A couple of weeks ago, they opened the new bridge downtown. It was to replace the old but historic steel bridge. Of course, they had a parade for it (only in a small town!). The girls marched in the band. Anisa didn't play her flute, she held the American flag. She said it was really heavy and awkward with the wind blowing it. Sara played cymbals. The percussion section doesn't have to wear hats, they go gansta with bandanas. :) I love their uniforms. They look so nice.

You're probably wondering what the Powder Puff Football game was all about. Senior girls vs. Junior girls at the high school played each other. It was really fun, but really cold. Of course, the seniors won. :)










This weekend is Homecoming. We'll go to the football game tomorrow night and the girls will go to the dance on Saturday. Traditionally, the kids toilet paper the school. Here are the results of their work. The have to clean it up next week. hahahaa

GAH!

Honestly, this really isn't a part of life I would like to be in. I wish my kids were still babies. They smelled so sweet, they slept a lot, they didn't talk back....ahh, those were the days.


I just sent off for information on COLLEGES! For those of you who have known my family for a while, you've watched both of the girls grow up into beautiful young ladies. Sara is just now starting high school. Anisa is graduating from high school in a little over 8 months. GAHH!!!


So, our search has started for colleges. She'd like to pursue a Culinary Arts degree. That's kind of limiting to which schools she can go to. Add to that fact, we're moving to the wrong Washington, and that presents a whole new set of problems. Should she live with us and go to school out east? Do we send her back to the Right Washington which is practically the other side of the world from where her mommy will be??!! I wish I didn't have to deal with them growing up and sending them out into the big, bad world. I just can't believe my baby girl is going to be 18 and in college. For those of you who know me and my control issues, you know how difficult it will be for me to let my little girl go. I need prayers!! :)

Ok, I just needed to share my issues with all of you....I feel better now. :)

**Pictures taken by my dear friend, Mary Jo. :)

life

So, last weekend Travis and I ran a 5K. That converts over to 3.1 miles. Of course, we didn't win, but we had a good time and got exercise. :) The race took place in Fish Creek, up north. I LOVE that little town. It's pretty touristy, but there are cute shops to look in. Luckily, the weather was pretty good, too. It was in the morning and cooler, not so humid. I don't know how many people ran/walked in the race. I know on one of the pictures, someone placed 150, so at least 150 people. Travis placed 14 in his age group and 61 overall. I placed 7 in my age group and 64 overall. We were just happy to finish! :) We're looking into more runs to enter. It's a fun thing to do together.

Another exciting thing (depending on who you ask) is school started! YIPPPEEE! The girls are not that excited, but they don't mind their classes and are both happy to see their friends. Also, they are both doing dance team and band (Anisa continues to play her flute and Sara's playing the bass drum). We'll be going to lots of activities this year between them playing in parades and sporting events and dance competitions.

Besides those things, life has just been getting back to normal after summer craziness. The weather is turning Fall-like, into the 40s at night and into the low 70s during the day. I LOVE it! Hope all is well with all our friends and family!

4,000 miles (6437.376 km) later....

Well, we took our East Coast trip and WHEW, what a trip! We drove over 4,000 miles, through 17 states and one Canadian Province in 18 days. I took over 500 pictures, and won't be posting them all, but here are some highlights.

We rented a Toyota Corolla and it really turned out to be a good gas mileage car. We averaged over 33 mpg on the trip. Our vehicles get a little over 20ish mpg, so it saved us in gas money, and we put 4,000 miles on it. Better a rental car than our own! :)

We left on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 bright and early so we could get to Indianapolis, IN. We stopped at Trader Joe's in Milwaukee to get Mochi ice cream for the girls. Mochi is a Japanese rice dough and they take little balls of ice cream and wrap them in mochi. The girls LOVE it.

We got to Lebanon, Indiana and spent the night. The next day we headed to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to check out the museum. Travis liked seeing the Formula One cars. I think he would have rather driven one, but..... We took the bus tour, which normally takes you for a drive around the track. Unfortunately for us, that day there were people who had paid (probably a small fortune) to drive around it in small race cars. Oh well, it was fun to see around the track.

From there, we headed into Ohio. We were heading to Columbus to see my Great Auntie Mary, Jesse and second cousin Linda. Mary is my Mom's Mom's sister, Linda is my mom's cousin. We hoped to see my other cousins, but it didn't work out this time. Hopefully we can make more solid plans during our move to D.C. so we can spend more time visiting. We couldn't see them until later in the day, so we headed to the Longaberger Basket Headquarters building. It's a HUGE basket. I don't collect the baskets, but it was fun to see the building and find out that the place we really needed to go was called Homestead and it's the place where you can shop, eat, stay. I am hoping Renee and I get to go there on a girl field trip! :)

We finally hooked up with Mary, Jesse and Linda and went to Cracker Barrel. It was my first time there, and won't be the last. Yummy food and fun company. :) After our dinner and good-byes, we headed toward West Virginia. We stayed in St. Clairsville, Ohio that night and got up early and headed into West Virginia then into Pennsylvania. Our goal in Pennsylvania was Hershey Chocolate World. We took the chocolate ride for the free chocolate, looked at the gift shop and explored the town. Everything revolves around chocolate. Even the street lights are like Hershey Kisses.






We ended up staying in Hanover, PA which is where George and Helen live. George was the Chaplain Travis knew in Virginia when he first got in the Coast Guard. In fact, George baptised Travis. We visited with them for a little while that night and it was very fun to hear about their adventures in retirement and their son who is a Brigadier General in the USMC.

We got up the next morning and headed to Gettysburg. We explored some of the battlefield, then headed to the beautiful brand new museum. Travis could have spent DAYS there. We plan to make another trip there when we live closer. We finished up at Gettysburg and drove through Maryland, then into Virginia to RENEE'S and CHAD'S!!!! :)

We spent 8 days at their house. During that time, we went to Larry's retirement (finally) ceremony. I say finally, because Larry, like Brett Favre, was going to retire several times before. I actually SAW WITH MY OWN EYES the Retirement Certificate. It was a great party, as usual, at Larry's. He brewed some his special beers, and had TONS of food. It was fun to see other Portland friends, too. Heck, we already have several people we know from Portland that live there. We also spent an afternoon going to lunch at Dogfish Head Alehouse with Larry, Jan, their son Cameron and his fiancee Courtney. After our burgers and beer we headed into D.C. to check out some sites since traffic back to Chad and Renee's was going to be horrible.

We went to the capital building, the Supreme Court building, then headed over to the Washington Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and Korean War Memorial. It was cool to walk around and see all the historical stuff. I am excited about living there and being able to really check out everything. :)

While we were at Chad and Renee's we spent lots of time visiting, swimming, seeing stuff, we had Ikea Swedish Meatballs, a quick trip to Fredericksburg, and a family trip to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg (on our way home, we were in the middle of a DOWNPOUR like I've never seen before. We actually had to pull over off the freeway because it was raining so hard, you couldn't see the road. There were lots of people pulled over so we didn't feel like total wimps). We also spent some time checking out areas to live. We still don't know, but at least we've seen all the areas and will know when we are checking out houses on line.

After our teary good-byes we headed to Trader Joes for more Mochi ice cream, then out of Virginia through Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. We spent most of the day in the car since we got stuck in D.C. traffic, Baltimore traffic, and New York traffic. We finally stopped in East Haven, Connecticut. THAT was a night we were VERY HAPPY to be out of the car! The next day we went to Mystic Pizza and the Coast Guard Academy.

We drove through Connecticut into Rhode Island then into Massachusetts. We went to Braintree, the birthplace of John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Travis read the book about John Adams and is really interested in his life. We couldn't find the home, so we left and headed into Quincy, MA, where the Adams' house is located. We actually went to the museum and found it closed and had almost given up. We got lost and found the Thomas Crane Public Library and talked to this super sweet librarian and she told us about the Adam's Home. We drove quickly up to the house and scored a private tour of the library on the grounds by Chris Davis (he ROCKS!). They closed down so we drove on. We drove through Boston in a HUGE lightning and rain storm.


















We reached New Hampshire. We stayed in Concord since we were heading to my Great Aunt Eleanor's house in Lakeport (near Laconia). She's a sweet, little feisty thing! She's my Dad's Mom's sister. We visited at her house that night, then headed back in the morning to pick her up to head out to Center Harbor. My Great, Great Grampa's house is now a knitting shop connected to the Keepsake Quilt store. The ladies in the knit store let us go upstairs (off limits to customers cuz of their offices). We saw the room where my Grandma and her two brothers were born, and Aunt E showed us where the kitchen used to be, the cool old shelves where the kids used to climb to get the candy, the hallway they used to ride their bikes . It was fun. And the trip to the quilt shop was fun too! :) After that, we saw the school they went to then to lunch. We are planning to head up for another trip when we live out there. :) While we were there, it was raining and we wanted to go up to Mt. Washington (the tallest peak on the East coast). We didn't go because of the weather.

Again in the car, we headed into Vermont. OH MY GOODNESS!!! Gorgeousness! We all loved the part of the state we drove through. Lush, green, Washingtonish. Back into New York on our way to Niagara Falls. We drove through Schenectady, NY. For those of you who know about MySpace, when you register, you have to put in your zip code. LOTS and LOTS of people put 12345 which is the zip code for Schenectady. Just a fun place to stop and snap a picture. We stayed in Syracuse, then headed to the falls the first thing the next morning.

If you haven't gotten to go the Niagara Falls, you NEED to go! It's so beautiful. We spent several hours walking around the American side, then walked over the Rainbow Bridge into Canada (get your passports, or you'll get hassled when you try to come back into the USA, even with US Military IDs). Anyway, like everyone says, you really have to go to the Canadian side to see the WHOLE picture of the falls. We spent time there until they lit them up at night. It was so cool.

We found a place to stay in Findley Lake, New York and got up and went to Cleveland, OH to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was REALLY COOL. Too bad we couldn't take pictures, because we saw all kinds of memorabilia from so many of our favorite musical talents.

Our trip was almost done. We spent the night in Elkhart, Indiana. We drove through the Notre Dame campus (beautiful campus and bookstore). Then we stopped in the Chicago area for lunch at Chevy's and then 4 hours later, we drove into Sturgeon Bay. We had such a fabulous time. Travis is now planning to buy 2 BMW motorcycles and tour the country on those! Crazy guy. There are so many cool places to see that we missed because of weather or just wanting to get to the next big thing. I'd love to be able to stop and see more stuff. Maybe when he retires. :)

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! :)

Mosaic Maker fun

Okee dokee, I copied this from The Happy Zombie. It's fun! Try it, you'll like it! Mine didn't turn out like Monica's, probably cuz I don't have a flikr acct. It's still cool! :)

The Game:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Labs Mosaic Maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Cindy
2. What is your favorite food? Edible
3. What high school did you go to? Eisenhower
4. What is your favorite color? Purple
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Matthew Mcconaughey
6. Favorite drink? Widmer Beer
7. Dream vacation? Ireland
8. Favorite dessert? Raspberries
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Retired
10. What do you love most in life? Family and Friends
11. One Word to describe you. Chick
12. Your flickr name: None

For bonus points… put “sign” behind your answer.

My Girl Is Gone

Well, she's not GONE, she's just gone from Wisconsin. She flew to Washington yesterday (lucky) (you can see her plane if you click on the sky picture). She arrived with no problems, delays or hassles. The only bad thing was that she had her wisdom teeth pulled Monday, then flew on Saturday....don't worry, we talked to the surgeon, he said it was fine. :) She'll be gone til July 22. Sara, her friend Macall and I are flying out to WA July 4th for a week, then we leave on our East Coast trip in August. Woot! I CANNOT wait. I'm so excited to get back out west, even if it's only for a week. I'm probably not going to do much shopping, since I did that last year. Like, I don't really plan to go to Fabric Depot (gasp), but I just don't need to. I WANT to but we have other things that I REALLY want to do...Cannon Beach, Multnomah Falls, stuff like that. I might change my mind if FD is having a 40% off sale for me. After all, it wouldn't be nice of me to not go if they have the sale especially for me. :)

While we were in Green Bay, we had to run some errands. We got to park Foxy next to her twin! Of course, Foxy is the cuter girl on the left, but it was fun to have them together. :) I saw 2 more Elements at our Target later that day. We still don't see all that many of them up here, so when I do see them, it's exciting. :) The simple things in life are great. :)

So, Today is Father's Day.....HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to my Dad and all the other Dads out there! I hope you get to do something fun today!

She a HIGH SCHOOLER

Well, Sara is officially a high schooler now. And Anisa is a SENIOR! I'm scared. They are both on Dance Team this year. It's going to be an interesting year. Pray for me. :)