Chicks in Coats

Speaking of Fall, the chicks needed new coats. I wish they would stop growing...it sure would be helpful! We shopped for 2 days! One day in Green Bay and another in Appleton. We were successful the 2nd day in Appleton. Here are the chicks modeling their new coats. Now if I can just get them to wear them on cold days. They still wear flip flops outside, but who am I to talk? I'm still wearing shorts!! :)

It's FALL!

Well, it's fall in Sturgeon Bay. The way I can tell is that all the leaves have fallen off the trees. It didn't take long, either. One day, the tree had leaves, we had a good frost that night, then the next morning they ALL fell off.

The city comes around with a big truck with a mulcher...I call it the Sucker Truck.....the catch is that you have to rake all the leaves into a pile out by the curb. Doesn't it look good enough to jump into??!!

Just stuff I'm thinkin' of

Ok, most people who read this already know I'm crazy (in a good way), so you won't find this too surprising. I love all the wildlife in my backyard! Our "pet" squirrel, Dave, is so fat that he wobbles when he hops. There are a couple other squirrels who visit all the time...
*Shunhei (named after one of Anisa's Japanese friends). He's chubby, but we can tell it's him because he has one pointy ear and the base of his tail is smaller than the rest. He'll take peanuts right out of your hand.
*Frank has a notch out of one of his ears. He doesn't like to take the peanuts out of your hand, but he'll come up to the window and wait for you to throw some out.
*Eddie is SUPER FAT too. Him and Dave are more like little fuzzy walruses since they're so fat.
We also have about 5 blue jays that come to visit us. We just call them the Jays. They're harder to tell apart. :)

We had a tiny snow storm last week. Ok, ok, it wasn't a storm at all, but there were snowflakes coming down and it was COLD!! One day that I checked it was 28 degrees with a wind chill of 14. I don't care, tho. I'm not putting on jeans until I absolutely have to...until then, I'm wearing shorts! I'm a rebel. At least I put on a sweatshirt.

My grandparents have been here for a few days. We've been having a nice visit. We took them up north to the end of the road and through all the little towns on the peninsula. It was a nice drive and a nice day. We went in a few little shops here and there. We stopped at Newport State Park to look at the lake (Michigan). We took them to Cave Point Park which is very cool. The girls and I went out there this summer and the water was crystal blue....really pretty. The day we went it was windy so the water was muddy from all the waves. It was still very nice. On our way out there we saw a really big porcupine. He was about the size of a small dog. Very cool since I had never seen one alive in the wild. We also saw a deer, which is not that exciting, but I still like seeing them.

And that's what's been happening here in Wisconsin....YIPPEE! :)

Homecoming

Anisa played at the homecoming football game (our team - The Clippers - lost, AGAIN). The band rocked, tho! They had their brand new uniforms and looked great. Did I mention, Anisa is the only Piccolo player in the band?? :) She loves that. Anyway, it was a wet night at the game, so they had to put plastic bags on over their uniforms while waiting to play at halftime. Their band teacher is awesome, and loves working with the kids.
















Before the game they had a big ol' bonfire...gotta love these small towns! :) Too bad I forgot the marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers! Oh, and the trailer!! :) The fire was super hot, we had to stand far away from it, even tho it was cool outside.




Saturday was the homecoming Dance and Anisa went with a bunch of friends and had a great time. They all looked so cute. We took pictures down by Sturgeon Bay.....Great night, and not too cold. :) The kids went to Applebees then the dance at the school. They had a fun time. Afterward, Anisa got to spend the night at a friend's house. She was a tired puppy the next day! But it was worth it.

Element - a noun

ELEMENT n. 1. The natural or suitable enviroment for a person or thing.....

Ok, in other words a boxy little car with TONS of room inside and is fun to drive. :) We have been wanting to get a 3rd vehicle that will drive in the snow. Baby and Chuck hate snow driving and slip and slide all over. We looked at the Honda CRV and the Toyota Rav4, but settled on the Element. Travis has liked these boxes, er, cars since he saw them at the Portland Car show when they first came out in 2003. He liked the fact that you can open it up, hose it out and dry it with a towel...no steam cleaning carpets or any junk like that.


So, a little about OUR little box. It's a 2004 Honda Element. It's "Cargo Khaki", which is basically a metallic goldish color. :) It has a little 4 cyl engine, but it actually has some get up and go to it. All 4 seats fold flat to make into a bed. It has a sun/moon roof and we've found out that there are several after-market cool accessories we can get for it....a screen for the moon roof instead of the glass - great for camping - and a tent thing that goes over the back (speaking of camping). Those were a couple of the things we'd actually consider getting later.

The first thing the girls did when we got home (they were at school when we bought it down in Green Bay) was SCREAM! Anisa almost peed her pants. Of course, she HAD to take it out for a drive, so off we all went to the market then to show it off to our friends. It's a nice little addition to our family and we don't have to pick up after it!

Horsing Around

Saturday - 9-23-06 - Anisa entered the 4-H Fall Horse show with Cinnamon the little fluffy (we don't call her fat) pony. They both did really well, considering Anisa hasn't ridden in a LONG time and, well, Cinnamon is a good little show pony, but she had a little extra weight to carry around. :) Anisa entered several classes which were quite large, so she didn't win any ribbons but she had a blast. The day ended with a pretty good downpour. The owner of Cinnamon has another horse that HOPEFULLY Anisa will get to ride one of these days, you know, in our SPARE TIME! :)

At the Races

We went to the Champ Car races on Sun. 9-24-06. Our pal Chris gave us tickets and it was FUN!!!! Travis is a big Formula One racing fan and these were just a taste of what he'll see next year at Indy when we go to see the F-1 races. Katherine Legge, the chick in the pink car, was who we were rooting for. Unfortunately, she crashed right down the track from us. It was SO scary. Something flew off her car right in front of us and then she hit the wall at the curve. We saw the whole thing and the first thing I thought was, "Oh My Gosh! We just saw someone die!". Her car hit with such force that it flew into jillions of pieces. Thank God she walked away with some cuts and bruises. Another cool thing we saw was the back of Paul Newman's head! tee hee He was there with his team. Woo hoo, an exciting day at the track!

Our furry friends

Today is starting to feel like fall. It's supposed to be 52 degrees today. The squirrels are really working to get their stash for the winter. We've been feeding them peanuts. Most of them take the nuts to hide them. We've had a young squirrel (named him Little Dude) who just eats them out by the tree.
This is a picture of Dave. We call him Brave Dave, Daring Dave and David when he's in trouble. :) He'll come and take the peanuts out of your hand. He looks like a tough guy since he has lots of little notches out of his ears, but he's so cute.

I really love it when the squirrels stand up like this...

I know people think squirrels are just rats in fancy clothes, but I think they're cute!

Included in our wildlife are so many birds. The blue jays like the peanuts also. They're so bright blue here. I'll have to post a picture of them later. They don't sit still very long. Usually, they dive down to get the nut and go back in a tree.
Next summer I'm planting a bunny garden, so they'll come into the backyard more. They like our neighbors' yards better since they have yummy flowers and veggies.

Cannon Beach Wallhanging

This is the Cannon Beach wallhanging that I just finished. I like how it turned out. I did more quilting than the pattern told me to and I actually painted little footprints on it. I'm such a rebel! My next project is shelves in Sara's room and in the garage. Then I have to get Sara's comforter cover done. The fabric is just sitting there all ironed and folded nicely waiting to be cut! I need more time!!!! :)

We've been busy

The girls have finished the first week of school and so far they like it. They've even made a friend or two. The picture is of my girls with Emily and Meghan - long story, short ~Travis was stationed with their dad in Portland about 5 years ago, they went to AK, and now they're here. It's nice to have friends already in place when you move! Anisa is in 10th grade and Sara is in 7th grade. Anisa is trying band this semester to see if she likes it. Her poor little flute was just sitting here. She is also taking journalism and will write some for the school newspaper. Sara is taking Home Ec. and will learn to cook and they do some sewing. That will be fun.












These pictures were taken last weekend when we went out to go geocaching http://www.geocaching.com/faq/ ......it's kind of like a treasure hunt, using a GPS unit. You get the coordinates of the "treasure" off the internet, then you go search for the it. Usually they're little boxes full of small trinkets. We like it because we go to places we might not find otherwise. It made us go to a couple of parks we might not have gone to. We were out at Lake Michigan right where the ship canal comes out from Sturgeon Bay.
















These little dolls are inspired from my VERY TALENTED friend The Happy Zombie http://happinesszombie.blogspot.com/ She finds all these darling things to make and do, and I can't help but copy her....I want to be like her! :) They're from a cool blog called Wee Wonderfuls http://weewonderfuls.typepad.com/ Another very talented chick. Anyway, the dolls were very fun to make. I just used her pattern and then made it a little smaller to make my little Tenushi (angel in Japanese). My next project will be my Cannon Beach wallhanging, soon to be posted!

The good, the bad and the fuzzy

Ok, so I go downstairs this morning to "felt" a little knit purse I made as a test to see how it would come out. I happened to look down and see the big puddle under my brand new dryer. I'm thinking that's not a good thing! So, I disconnect the dryer vent, get the dryer onto a cardboard box (thankfully, I have some!) and put fans out to get the puddle dry. I think it'll be fine.
"How did the puddle get there" you ask?.....well, there was a sponge in the big tub sink that clogged the drain while the water softener was draining to the sink. DOH! Note to self: make sure the sponge is NOT left inside the sink at any time. Here's what it looks like now....I can move the dryer back in a couple of hours.

That's the bad.....

THE GOOD...This is the little purse I knit then "felted". It's an easy procedure. You knit your project with wool yarn bigger than you want it. Then you wash it in HOT water and it kind of "melts" together into a fuzzy project. I made some little mistakes, but I know what to do on my next project. The girls are in the process of making little bags now. I'll post those later. This little one is about the size of a cell phone. Not sure if I'll actually use it, but it was fun to do. I have a wallhanging that I need to finish before I try anymore knitting! So many fun crafty things to do, not enough time!!

And now what you've all been waiting for....THE FUZZY!
We went out to Potawatomi State Park. Don't ask how to pronounce it since we haven't figured it out either! Anyway, we were exploring on the beach. It was a chilly evening with a good cool breeze. Anisa said there were some bees sleeping. Yea, ok, whatever Anisa. But, wait! There WERE some bumblebees sitting in a thorny thistle plant sound asleep. These are just a couple of them, but the whole plant was full of little sleeping bees. Ok, I know what you're thinking. Bumble bees...CUTE? Well, see for yourself. I think they're pretty cute, all fuzzy and not bothering anyone. :) That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

I finally finished it!

Well, I have been working on this quilt since December for our new neice who was born in November. I would love to blame the move on my slowness, but it really has nothing to do with it. It should have been done WAY before we moved. But it's done now, and sent to Miss Hannah. I hope she loves it!! :)

Nice things today

Ok, I'm sitting here on this wonderful overcast day, sipping my hazelnut flavored coffee full of hazelnut flavored creamer. The birds are singing - I can hear the chickadees, orioles, and doves. Sometimes I hear the squirrels running around the tree. The breeze is just enough to keep the humidity down - I LOVE that! My kids are sleeping, the dishes and laundry are done. Sara has a friend over and Anisa gets to play with horses today. Life is Great! :)

The House

Ok, I'm feeling very productive today, and since I don't feel like unpacking or cleaning, I thought I'd get some pictures of the house. It's a nice day and SOME of the rooms are clean, well, not horrible, anyway. This is the front of the house. See Baby and Traily??!! The window on the lower level to the left is the living room. The upper windows..on the left is the guest/sewing room and on the right is our bedroom.





Here's the back of the house. The little window on the side is the bathroom. The windows on the back...on the left is Anisa's room and on the right (with the A/C unit) is Sara's room. Below that level is the garage level. WAY over yonder (the lower part of the house) is the sliding door in the dining room and little window in the kitchen. You can't see it, but there's a door to go into the house from the backyard.






Here's the backyard. We have 4 trees back there. 2 Christmas trees, some other sort of evergreen and some other kind of tree. Hey, what am I, a tree expert?? They are big, green with branches and leaves and the squirrels and birds like them. We like them too because they give us lots of shade in the backyard. They're kind of a pain to mow around, tho. Our grass right now is basically weeds, but when you mow them, they look nice and green, and grass-like. We'll get around to weed 'n' feeding and getting a nice green GRASS next summer.

Here's the living room looking in from the front entryway - looking east. We got new wood (fake wood, but still nice) floors and new carpet. Plus, Casey, the housing guy, painted and got the place all fixed up for us. We're still getting it just the way we like it, but that's just us being picky.















Here's the living room, from the opposite side (computer side) looking west. I know, I know, there are still boxes. The boxes are never-ending it seems, but I have a BIG stack of them in the basement waiting for our friends who are moving to take them. It's amazing how things on the wall makes it a little more "home-y".








Here's the dining room from the computer area in the living room. Yep, more boxes and junk in the corner, but I'm slowly finding spots for all the useless junk that we just can't get rid of. Thank goodness we have a basement. I can stash all sorts of stuff down there. I also thank my lucky stars for Rubbermaid! :)








And here's the kitchen. It's WAY smaller than my old kitchen, but again, I am thankful for a basement. Lots of things that used to go in my kitchen and pantry are now on shelves in the basement. If you look to the right of the cabinets you can see the hallway down to the garage/basement. The basement is directly under the living room and kitchen.








Here's the guest/sewing room. Notice, it's already being used to be crafty. The girls are getting stuff ready for school. Well, Sara's making a pouch for school, Anisa is making a purse. They both have five hundred million bags, pouches and purses, but ya know, you can always use five hundred million and one! All my chickens are in that room, and there's room for more. When we have visitors, we'll put away the mess. I already have to store lots of fabric down, well, you know.....in the basement!









And here's Anisa's room. It's the only BEDroom that has gotten pretty set up. Of course, the master bedroom will be the last one done. Sara's room is in the process of being totally redecorated. In Vancouver she had pink and groovy stuff. She's going tropical. We have some decorations, but we have to put them up.

And that's the house so far. Now, if you want to see it in person, just give us a call. We'll make the futon up for you!

Our Trip To WI

We left Washington on July 5, 2006. We were all sad but anxiously looking forward to get to Wisconsin and seeing all kinds of cool stuff on the way. The first day we drove through Washington, Oregon and Idaho. We stopped for the night in Couer d'Alene, Idaho. We played at a big water park there for excitement. 7-6-06 we drove up the mountain passes we had been dreading, but our little Toyota Truck pulled the trailer up just fine. We stopped at the top of one of the passes for lunch and it POURED down rain with lots of lightning and thunder. It was really cool, but then it was really humid.


Our next stop was the Lewis and Clark Caverns. One of my friends told me we needed to stop at them, but we kind of found them by accident.
We enjoyed the 2 hour tour since it was nice and cool (about 50 degrees) inside and was super hot and humid outside....did I forget to mention that our trip across the country was the same time we were having that horrible heat wave?).
We saw stalagmites, stalagtites, a cool little pigeon, a dead bat in the process of becoming a fossil, a pool and a really cool tunnel at the end.



We got reservations to stay in Three Forks, Montana. There were bunnies and horses at the campground so we were very happy with that. That evening a big thunder and lightning, buckets of rain and wind storm rolled in. Anisa got to feed the horses and the girls swam while Cindy got to do laundry (the fun never ends). Oh, there were also chickens (Cindy's favorite).












Our next big stop was Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. We spent 2 days there. On the first day we saw the south end of the park with lots of geysers including Old Faithful. Wow! Tons of people were there to see that geyser. It was cool to see. There were lots of bubbling pools and sulfur smells. We saw mule deer, geese, bald eagles, buffalo, cutthroat trout, pelicans, elk and we even saw a moose. We REALLY wanted to see a bear, but they didn't show themselves. There were beautiful waterfalls and canyons there.



The second day we saw the north side of the park. It was a wonderful trip, long, but we saw lots of really cool things there.
We had to PAY to see bears in a cage. Darn. There were also wolves in the cages, and Travis got them howling. They put on a little show for us.
At the campground, we ran into an old friend who we hadn't seen in about 7 years! She happened to be walking her dog and we took double takes and realized it was US! One of her girls was in Sara's preschool class. It was fun to catch up with them.

We left Yellowstone to head to Devil's Tower, Wyoming. On the way we stopped at the Battlefield of Little Bighorn and heard about Custer and his men. We saw a guy who we all think was Lex off Survivor.
We passed through a little TINY town called Ashland and there was a sign at the bank with the outside temperature on it. It said 106. We didn't think it was right (it was right out in the sun). We stopped for gas later that day and the temp there was 97 but the lady said it had peaked at 106 that afternoon, so the sign WAS right. We got to Devil's Tower and went to explore. There was a field of Prairie dogs called Prairie Dog Field (duh). They were EVERYWHERE!
OK, Devil's Tower is a big rock. It was made from volcanic magma (I'm not sure about all the details, but that's the jist of it). People come to climb it and it was the rock in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We hiked around it and got to see a climber on it. Lots of birds nest on it too. Around it there are Ponderosa Pines and we smelled the wonderful Vanilla-y smell of them.
Our next desination was Mt. Rushmore. It was VERY COOL. You see pictures of it, but they look different once you've been there. We went during the day and saw the Visitor's Center with all the displays about how it was made. We had some Lemon Ice and got our souvenirs. We went back at night to see the light show. They tell all about the carving, why the men were chosen to be up there, and put the lights on the monument. They also called all veterans down to the stage, so Travis went down there and each person told their branch of service and time they were in. It was very nice.

From Mt. Rushmore, we headed to Wall Drug Store. It is in Wall, South Dakota. The story is the store was out in the middle of nowhere and the owner wanted to get some business, so he put up billboards offering free ice water to travelers. Now there are TONS of billboards and there is still free ice water, but it's like a little mall. There are different little "shops" inside and a restraunt.
From there we were headed to Mitchell, South Dakota to see the Corn Palace. We had to stop at Wal-Mart and next to the store there was a Cabella's store. We went in and it was HUGE. Like a big log lodge with animals (stuffed, real ones) and even a little stream with live trout in it. We had fun in there looking at all the cool stuff.

The second day we went to the Corn Palace. They decorate it with all corn products. The whole outside is decorated every year with a new theme in corn. Inside it is a sports arena and they had lots of corny displays in there. We packed up and started to head out, but before we left the campground a guy came over and talked to us. He was a Coastie transferring from Seattle to Sault St. Marie and his friend had seen our CG stickers. Later we were eating lunch at a rest area and this girl walks up to us. It was the guy's friend from the campground, but she asked if we were Cindy and Travis. Um, yes. She introduced herself and it turns out she was one of my friends' sister. They were driving the camping guy's Mustang across the country for him. It's a small world!
We went to the Mall of America in Minneapolis, MN. Ok, I know it's a big deal, but IT'S A MALL! I wasn't too impressed. We did see a store called Grillz. I didn't know what it was all about, but Anisa filled me in. For those of you who don't know what a grill is, it's Bling for your teeth. They make this piece of "jewelry" and you put it on your teeth - kind of like those sports teeth guards. Inside there is an amusement park. The girls went on some of the rides and we saw Hello Kitty!
We got to go to Ikea too! Woo hoo. We got swedish meatballs for lunch and some swedish fish. Unfortunately, we didn't buy any big things.
Weather-wise, WOW! I used to think it was humid in WA, but I hadn't felt anything until we got to MN. It was so hot and sticky. Ew.
We were almost to WI by then, so we headed out and went to Wisconsin Dells, WI. It's the waterpark capital of the world. OK. Noah's Ark was our main destination, but we got free tickets from the campground to a little waterpark, so we went there the first day since the day was half over. That was fun. We were going to go to Noah's Ark, America's largest waterpark, but the guy camping next to us said the lines there were really long and they had gone to another park and had way more fun. So, we checked out Noah's Ark, and the lines were HUGE. So we ended up going to Mt. Olympus. There is a waterpark on one side and roller coasters and rides on the other side. We had a blast. We went on all the waterslides during the day, then went and got a late lunch then went to the roller coasters in the evening. There is a ride there called Hades and it goes under ground (the parking lot) 2 times. It was VERY FUN. We rode the little go-carts. It wasn't Formula One, but Travis liked them.
Well, we were in WI, and headed to Sturgeon Bay, but had to stop in Green Bay at the mall and TitleTown brew pub. We finally made it to Sturgeon Bay safely. What a great trip!

My Peeps

Some pics of my little chicks.

Yep, that's Anisa driving MY BELOVED VAN (Baby, as I like to call her)! I will be watching my money fly out the window when she actually gets her driver's license and our insurance goes UP!~ Ah, the joys of motherhood.

Sara with her violin at WSU. I loved the background there and wanted to take more pics of the girls, but never got the chance before the move. You have to get there at the right time for the sun to be just right in the sky. What a great campus. But back to Sara, I think she'll continue with playing as soon as we get all settled and find a good teacher, although none will be as good as MS. H. :) She's family.

There are so many activities here in Door County - if you know where to look. It's an artsy-fartsy place, so I'm sure we'll be involved in music and art of some sort.

Now you've seen how grown up my girls are. Sometimes I hate it because I miss those toddling days, but they're growing up into wonderful people that I like hangin' with. Now, off to shop with my peeps!

Heaven!

My favorite place on the planet....Cannon Beach, OR. That's Haystack Rock over there. :)

Right now I'm in WI, liking the midwest so far. I'm REALLY looking forward to getting all unpacked and settled so I can go explore all the great little towns up and down the peninsula. It's a pretty area, but for those of you who have been to the Oregon Coast, you know how fantastic it truly is there.

The Chicken Coop

Wow, I did it! I set up a blog. The Chicken Coop, since I LOVE chickens. I'll be puttin' pics and silly stories about the family and our adventures in Wisconsin on here for your enjoyment. Have fun!