Week #30:Beards, Mustaches, and Dead Batteries

This week...

...We stopped by to visit the Chapman's and Lainey charmed her way into painting her nails with Whitney. I'm not sure what Lainey was thinking as she flashed her I-love-you signs, Whitney went along with it.

...we made another trip to Mattawa to work on the ranch house. This time we installed new toilets. Just trying it out. :)

The view as we headed home from Mattawa. Sigh! I do love the sky over the wide open spaces of farm land.

...we took the kids to lunch at Red Lobster. We had a gift card. I don't need to say more. They enjoyed seeing the live lobster in the front tank.

The rolls are to die for. I probably ate at least five. Yum! Claire liked them too.

The strawberry lemonade got Lainey excited.

Ben liked the whipped cream on his smoothie.

Tyson and Whitney Chapman came with us. They decided to flip Lainey's I-love-you sign from Sunday.

Us girls made a trip to Joann's and the guys went to Lowe's. We had fun with beards, mustaches, and hello kitty.

...our Taurus car battery died. At walmart. In the parking lot. Right after I did a good deed by picking up my husband's prescription. Ugh! I called my handsome and he came to my rescue.

Only...our jumper cables didn't work. That. battery. was. dead. So we went in for a new set of cables and a small set of pliers. No luck! Still. dead. We went back in to buy a new battery. But still we had none of the tools that Jason would need to finish the switch. Tyson ended up coming to our aid with his handy toolbox. Thank you Tyson! I went home to the kids and left the guys to change out the battery.

Analogy time!!! This is my favorite...Ok, let's take a closer look at that battery. Very good! Get a good look.

So the battery is original to when we bought the car in 2003. That means we haven't changed it in about 11 years. (Which is really good because it lasted so long. Side note, I know.) Notice the corrosion around the cables coming into the battery. They were so corroded that it was hard to get the jumper cables to make a connection or to loosen the bolts so we could change it out. It made me think of our own spiritual batteries...Are they charged? Are they corroding due to months or years of neglect? Are they powering our spiritual growth and development? Just as a dead battery in your car causes inconvenience and extra effort to replace, dead spiritual batteries can cause just as much effort to jolt them back into personal beneficial service. Don't let your spiritual batteries corrode to the point that they die. Jason always says, "Be good to your car and it will be good to you." Just so with our spiritual development. Be good to your spiritual battery, and it will be good to you. It will pay us back ten fold what we invest.

...we started painting our kitchen cupboards. This is something we've been wanting to do for a while and it was just the right thing for Jason to focus on during his time off. Here are the before pictures.

I'm sanding the drawer fronts as we take them off.

We taped off all the counter tops and hung plastic to create a painting booth right in the house. Nice.

Two coats of primer and we're ready to begin painting them blue.

I'm the trusty helper, I hold the paint pot.

Then we started on the door fronts. Jason rigged up a handy Spraying and drying center for the cupboard doors. We hung them by wire so that we could do both sides at a time. One word: awesome!

 

...I took the kids to Barnes and Noble. They were each able to pick out a new book. It was fun to see their excitement, but I tell you I was ready to go by the time we were done. They thought it was like the library where we get to choose 4 or 5 books each. Lainey would pick books that were way above her level and cry when I put them back. Then she'd pick a book and I would get excited that we were ready to go only to have her change her mind and select another. We went through that probably three times. Once we paid, cleared the store, and buckled up in the van I vowed that it would be a long time before we make a trip to Barnes and Noble again. This picture does warm my heart thought to see Paul and Ben out on the lawn with their books.

...Emma tried on my wedding dress. She had a great time playing dress up. I told her stories about when I got married and how I used to put my mom's dress on when I was growing up. 

Ten more years and this could be her. Ugh! Don't want to think about that!

...I played in my last softball games for the summer. I'm so glad I had this chance to play softball again. It was so great! Zerorez Tri-Cities sponsored us.

Week #29: Family Time

This week...

...we spent time together. Here's a look...
Claire decided it was time to break into the Creamies I had stashed in the freezer. These are delicious! Aaaahhhh! You'll find them at Winco.

We went and saw How To Train Your Dragon 2. That was a great movie. It was nice to just hide away in the theater for an hour or so. Here's Lainey shooting a fireball with the cast from Guardians of the Galaxy.

We went boating with some friends, the Clarkes. Even Grandma Linda got out on the boat and the tube. Claire had a really hard time being on the boat. Jason held her and, once we got going, she calmed down.

Paul and Bennett

Grandma Zirker and the two of our girls brave enough to sit in the boat on their own.

Getting Grandma ready for her ride in the tube.

Emma, Lainey, Tegan, and Payton

We saw some horses. Deputy Monds, that Jason works with, invited us over so the kids could take rides on their horses, Sarg and Hot Shot. His boys, Sam (15) and Nick (13), even led our kids around. Then they gave us a goat tying demo. The kids were so excited and we were so appreciative that they would take time on their Saturday to have us come.

This is one happy girl.

 

We stopped off here...

...and here. Yum!

Jason and I went to Portland. Part work, part getaway. This delicious treat kept us company on the drive. Thanks Julie Marie for thinking of your favorite Deputy. :0)

We had some great views along the way. Just the two of us out on the road.

This was a startling sight when I looked up. I thought that truck was going to ram us. Haha!

Then we hit traffic. Ugh!

We stayed at the Red Lion at Jantzen Beach and found a little hole bar and grill nearby called Boomers Burgers and Ribs. We didn't want to venture far from the hotel or have to deal with traffic so we opted to go there. I loved the the pencil thin fries and how they came in a bucket for Jason. I was super excited to try the fries on my burger, but the BBQ pork wasn't sitting well with me. Cindy's official review: I would go in again for an order of fries, but nothing else.

We ate at the hotel for breakfast and had a great view of the River. It was hard to think of Portland having claim on our Columbia too. And man, I've never seen so many bridges. 

Jason studies the menu...

The view from our table

Good Morning!

We traveled the city, with our windows down and our my hair blowing in the breeze. We held hands. We laughed. We enjoyed being together...We saw Paul Bunyan? Don't ask me.

We walked the Pearl District on the advice of our friend Kuniko Votaw who used to live in Portland. They always say, Ask the locals. 

First stop was the bakery, LoveJoy Bakers. I love places like this. I'm compelled every time I visit such a place to find a table by the window, take out my journal and write the thoughts of my mind as I nibble on my pastry (I didn't specify what kind; I could eat them all!)

Second stop was a cupcake shop, Cupcake Jones. Yes, the sign shows $3.75 each for the jumbos and $41.00 for a dozen. We stuck with the minis at $1.50 each; much more our price style.

Jason tried the red velvet and I tried one with peanut butter (I can't remember the name.)

We passed up several places for lunch because I just wanted a nice little sandwich shop. These are also my favorite. I had almost given up hope and resigned myself to the Pizza whatever when we came across this place called Via Delizia. (I italicized it because it was that good. Sigh! Plus, they had a giant fake tree in-the-restaurant!)

Look at this deliciousness. Mmmmm. I want to go back.

Look at that deliciousness. Oh, I mean...he's wearing one of my favorite shirts.

We made a trip to the Temple and stopped in at the relatively new visitor's center. I have a soft spot in my heart for visitor's centers. They played the recording at the Christus. We shared about serving our mission together. They showed us a video about families and we shared our desire to make time to play and be with our children by putting our to do's aside.

Here's a panoramic view from the hotel out across the river. 

The view from our room.

Hanging out in our room. I painted my nails and toes and then was relaxing as they dried.

We stopped off at Multnomah Falls on the way home. There were way more people than I thought there would be. I was way more unbalanced by the narrow hike and being on the bridge than I thought I would be.