One Year Ago...

I tried posting this yesterday, but my home computer has "issues" grrrrr.. So I am a day late, which irritates me, but what do ya do!

A year ago, I lost my best friend, my sister. Yesterday was the anniversary and I made it through w/o a tear and I am trying really hard not to phsycho analyze myself and what that means, I am trying to tell myself it means I have come to terms with my new life. Which does not mean I do not miss her every single day, but I can get through my days a little easier.

I wanted to take this day to post some pics of Carrie for everyone to see and remember her by. Enjoy!

Going to Colorado....

I'm leeeaaavingggg ooon a JetPlane... (you're supposed to sing that part!) lol

Whatever.. So I decided that since my friend Danielle cannot make it back to WA for Thanksgiving, that I would go see her! I feel bad for leaving my family behind (and my husband!) but I need to get away, I need to go see my friend and I need the relaxation and non-stress. I, I, I... yes it's all about me. I'm hoping that while I'm there, I can get into some holiday spirit, I will be in cold, probably snowy territory and if that doesnt do it for me, then nothing will. :)

Derek is happy that I am going, maybe too happy.. just kidding! He is going hunting this weekend, leaving Friday and returning Sunday night and then Wed morning I am leaving him and returning Monday night.. We certainly dont need a break from eachother, but I think we'll both feel refreshed once the next 2 weeks are done, somewhat of a relationship flush! lol

I may never want to leave CO, it is going to be so pretty there....

Birthday Card

I got this card for my birthday from my cousin Jennifer this year for my 35th... :) I love the card, I listen to it atleast 2 times a week. Then I realized I should share it, if this works anyways..

Camper & Dogs

I got a few cute pics of the dogs the other morning. We always let them in the bed as soon as one of us wakes up in the mornings, give them an hour or so to sleep in the bed, usually with Derek as I am getting ready for work. Russell knows how to work his way to the bottom of the covers and poke his head out so he is not too hot but his body is still covered. The other morning, this is how they looked... And I did not pull those covers back.

She was being cute here....

When I type on the computer, she almost always is at my feet under the desk, although occassionally, they both hang out there.. she is under there now snoring, Russell is probably on the couch.

So the weekend is almost over now, feels like a very unproductive weekend but I suppose it wasnt that bad.. We spent pretty much the entire weekend dealing with the new camper. We picked it up Saturday morning at 9am, when we got there, she was washing it. It came with tie-downs, the kind that go into slots on the side of your bed, but we didnt have any way to bolt them down to the bed, so we hauled the camper home untied! that was a nervewracking trip! A short drive with only one small uphill, but not fun all the same.. We off-loaded the camper and headed to town to buy some bolts and then dropped by Marc's place (Julies old place) to have him help us drill holes in the truck and he also made us some steele plates that were needed.. Thank You Thank You Thank You Marc!!! So the camper is now back on the truck and secured down. I washed the inside a little, didnt need a lot of cleaning. There was fresh water inside from her washing the exterior, so clearly we have a leak on the one side, Derek bought stuff to re-seal.

Hooked the horse trailer up with the 14" hitch extension that Derek had to buy, works great! We already tested and there is NO way for the camper to hit the horse trailer no matter how far you jack-knife it.. :) Mom and dad came over today, helped us figure out how to turn on the water, what certain things were for, got the stove working, got the heater working, we think we got the fridge working! :) There is no hot water for this camper, so if warm water is needed, it will have to be heated on the stove. No oven or microwave, but we dont need those things. It is very basic and that is exactly what we wanted. From the picture below, you can see when you walk in, is a big open space with seats on both side. I can set the table up and you can get in/out of the seat just fine with the table up. We installed some supports for the 2nd bed area.

The guys have been loading up the horse trailer the 2nd half of the day with their goose decoys for the upcoming hunting trip. I'm pretty sure there will be 4 of them going this coming weekend, Derek Dad Ted & Tyler. My brother was supposed to go, but he and Andrea are heading to Pullman that weekend for the Apple Cup and then Lance was supposed to go, but had to cancel. It should be a fun trip for them, pretty cheap with 4 guys splitting gas too... Derek will let Dad and Ted sleep in the camper, he and Tyler will sleep in the trailer.. brrrrr

That pretty much sums up the weekend. I had really wanted to get my horse and goats home this weekend, because with Derek being gone next weekend, it wont happen then. But there is a lot that needs doing to get them home still and I decided to be the nice wife and let it go so Derek could get ready for hunting but he did promise to help me get the pasture ready Thanksgiving weekend so I can bring them home then. I really miss having my kids here at home!

Well here are some pics.

Oh and I think Danielle will be coming home this weekend to WA to spend it with family/friends for the Thanksgiving weekend. I think she might stay with me for a day or two or who knows how long, doesnt matter to me, I'll keep her as long as she wants to stay with me! :) I havent seen her in what, about 8 months... I think this Saturday her and I will spend the day together, hopefully drive down to see a horse she is interested in and then we'll head to go see Oakley!!

Let's Go Camping!

We bought a camper last night! We've been looking for a couple months, started getting more seriuos lately. It was a little frustrating considering we have a short-bed truck and most campers are 8.5' + so finding a decent 8' or less was nearly impossible. But then Tuesday morning I came across an ad for a 1990 8' camper weighing only 1350 pounds IN Snohomish!! Asking $2250. I emailed right away, the ad indicated she was a horse person and used the camper at shows, so I felt I might have a leg up on this one.. I told the lady I was VERY interested, wanted it for camping with my horses, lived in Snohomish etc.. She emailed back and said she had a LOT of interest but everyone lived kinda far away and that I should come see it sooner than later, but she'd hold it til Saturday for me if I wanted. I said, NO WAY, we are coming tonight, I'll bring a flashlight! So we did..

It is in great shape, she is the 2nd owner, its been tarped the whole time she had it and before her, the previous owners kept it in a shop. The inside does not smell like an old camper. It has a small fridge, 2 burner stove and a sink. It comes with a portable porta-potti that is kept in a cabinet in the camper, we'll probably upgrade to an exterior potti-shower tent that we can get from Cabela's. It has a lot of room inside, I might actually be able to sit at the bench with the table in place.. I'll take pics as soon as we get it, we are picking it up on Saturday morning!

We are sooo excited, it is a nice camper and very light. We gave full price, felt it was worth it. It comes with tie-downs, although they are not the big heavy duty ones, the ones it comes with should work just fine for our truck. We will have to add a plug to the truck so we can plug in the camper and the horse trailer. Derek is planning to go hunting in E WA the weekend of the 22nd, so looks like he'll have something to sleep in instead of the horse trailer like he did last year in 18 degree weather!! :)

I am excited to get it out and use it this next year.. camping, here we come....

Girls Weekend Recap

Derek drove his parents to the airport this morning so it's back to the 60's... and I dont mean the era!

Okay, so now for the update you all have been waiting for...

Girls night! We had a great time. I am so glad we did the roller skating, that was the funniest part of the evening. I had gone into the evening well prepared that I was scared out of my mind to get up on roller skates and I think the other girls all underestimated how difficult it was going to be, which made for a HILARIOUS evening. Now Rachel & Andrea, the 2 spring chickens of our group did just fine, regardless of how much alcohol may or may not have been involved. They were out skating at a decent speed and spending more time up than down. Shana on the other hand, she spent the most time on the ground... lol She was having a great time although she did take a big spill right on her tailbone and from what I gather, she's hurtin pretty bad even still today! Sorry Shana..... Jen, she did pretty good too, she and I were the most timid and reserved. We did NOT want to fall and get hurt. At one point we were skating, hand in hand, AHHHHH.... well she got in front of me a tiny bit, and as I was trying to get even with her, I wobbled, she wobbled, she wobbled some more and I said the hell with this, I'm not goin down with the ship, so I let go just as she went down and I drifted over to the wall to turn and see poor Jen on floor! LOLOLOL. I did try to go back to help her up, but she is still, well she's not still young (HAHA), but she is definatley still.. well lets say limber and skinny and skinny bitches can get up w/o a helping hand even with rollersk8's on their feet! Me, I did not fall once, I was the only one not to fall, probably because I was the only one not drinking :) It was really fun though and a good place to people watch, I particularly enjoyed laughing at the muscled, thinks he's the shit, 35-45 something guy dressed in all black who occassionally skated with another guy all in black, but mostly on his own, doing funky things with his legs, actin like he was all cool, spinning, skating fast! gadar!! lol

We did glow, particularly during bowling. We bowled next to a couple who were very nice and they enjoyed us very much! They were our age, late 30's.. Oh Damn.. when did it become ok that we are approaching our late 30's???? I all the sudden feel so darn old. Anyways, we ALL sucked at bowling except Andrea's 2nd game, she kicked butt with her best score ever. Jen hated the lanes, they hadnt been oiled in 2 days and considering she bowls in tournaments and league, she knows what she is talkin about.. so her game was crappy. I was still sober and since we were just havin fun, I tried different techniques. We attracted different guys at different stages of the bowling. Well okay, Jen, Shana, Andrea & Rachel attracted the guys, I just spectated. lol Actually it was the shirts.. People wanted to know what was up with us, so we told our story a few times that night and it was good.. It was good to be able to do it and reinforce positive feelings about the day and not negative ones. One guy was sorry he asked, he felt really bad. He had approached Shana & I to chit chat, friendly flirting I guess and I told him we were out to celebrate my sister and he just kept appologizing. I told him, if we didnt want attention, we wouldnt have all come out in glowing shirts with glow in the dark writing on them. He was really nice, he was from Omak.

We got home that evening around 2am I think it was. Derek drove us home, Shana had called him early in the evening to ask him to plan to drive us home so I could drink, he had Tyler drop him off at our truck and he slept (well tried to sleep) while we did our thing and then drove us home. Shana thought I would be drinking, I tried, but I wasnt feelin it Saturday night, so I didnt end up drinking, I could have drove us home. Oh well, there is a pic of him with our silly glasses on, he drove with those on all the way to Rachel's house, even kept them on while we went through the drive up window at Jack in the Box! :)

Real quick, I have to get out what all I did on Saturday! Derek got up at 4:30am to go hunting, I slept til about 8 maybe. Dereks parents left around 10 to go to Dawn's for a potluck. While they were gone, I got motivated, not sure what that was about. I did watch a little TV, but then I was bored, so I went out in the rain and nailed up those vinyl roofing pieces to my shed to be the wall, I needed one more, so I went to town with the dogs (mind you I was lookin like a dog myself in a ballcap, no makeup and dirtly clothes!) went to Home Depot, bought a piece of roofing for my wall, drove to the petstore in town and bought Scout a fleece jacket, she was shaking and cold, she gets that way sometimes when she is outside or in the truck, she has no fur! Got home, nailed up the 3rd piece, reorganized the shed I had just put the wall on so that I could also fit some hay into it. When I bring the goats & horse home, I needed to put that wall up so the animals would not get inside the shed. I was going to put up fencing, but could not find the t-post driver. I then decided to move the pile of 2x6 boards from the pile by the garage to the 4x4 pile. We needed to get the wood covered so it does not get ruined. Then I decided I wanted to get rid of the garbage that was outside the house and over by the shop, it bugs me to have garbage lying around and we just hadnt cleaned it up yet, so I loaded up the truck with a dump run load, had to tarp it to be "legal" and then I headed to the dump, really startin to look attractive at this point with my muck boots on outside my ratty old jeans, a shirt so dirty from moving the wood and slingin garbage, arms had dirt on them.. after I dumped my dump load, headed to my parents to throw down a couple bales of hay and feed the goats and horse. I have started feeding once a day now, they all tell me they require it. I decided to then cut sticker bushes for 20 minutes so my horse could have a path to get to the feed tub w/o having to go through the pond which is currently still mostly empty but will be full of water within days I'm sure.. so I cut the bushes with the pruners, OMG my arms by this time were just tired, I could hardly lift them from the hammering, lifting HEAVY wood, throwing garbage, dragging hay bales and then pruning.. I finished up and headed home just in time barely to shower and hit the road to go meet the girls. Somehow though my arms were not dead-weight for bowling, they did pretty good. Although I'm sure Jen would say that is cuz my ball is so darn light a toddler could lift it! Cant say the same for the day after, today is Monday and my arms are a little sore. My legs, they are a little sore too, that roller skating is a work out in a half!! Holly Moley... My back did fine, but my back muscles were used and I could feel them, my thighs were tight.. I have to say though that after all my work on Saturday, the skating and the bowling, my lower back pain thats been bugging me for a couple weeks, is gone! I guess that is telling me to get off my *ss and do more, its good for me. :)

I guess that was a little more than "real quick!" Sunday George, Rachel & Samantha came up for the day to visit. They brought Gus with them, but not Cash. Gus and my dogs all got along so well. Russell turned his nose up just a little, but Gus & Scout were like ol' friends.. they had a good time playing. I tried to introduce Gus to the doggy door and got him through it with the help of me pushing him through, but he HATED it and later when I tried to call him to practice some more, he hid behind George! LOL So we just opened the door for him when he wanted out. It was nice that all our children could play so well together. Samantha, Rachel & I made necklaces from my bead collection. They were supposed to be bracelets, but Samantha picked out so many different beads, that we had to make necklaces instead. Can't say that I will be wearing it out in public, but we had fun making them anyways. :)

I need to find a way to get back to being tired by 11 again. My system is all off, I spent Fri night up til almost 2am, Sat til 2am and I didnt crawl into bed til midnight last night and even then I lied there for a few minutes before I fell asleep... I have to work on getting back to normal..

Oh and Scout, she is my shadow. That dog is so attached to me! Last night I had to leave to go meet Andrea to take her phone to her, Derek said when I left, she ran around whining at the doors, couldnt/wouldnt sit still and was upset. She was so upset she decided to jump on the stool and then up onto the dining table!! There was a table cloth on the table from our craft project thank goodness!!! He threw his hat at her and she jumped off, but she was really upset. When I got home, she was all over me and was happy when I sat down to relax so she could curl up in my arms. When Derek went to bed (at a normal time) he tried to get the dogs to come to bed with him, he called them and they both ran to the bedroom and not 2 seconds later she came straight back to my lap while Russell curled up in bed. I just LOVE this dog to pieces.... I cant even imagine my life w/o her.

Enjoy these pics.. this is a very long post!!


Here is my shirt and our Yellow Accessories



















Proof that we did RollerSk8! :)



























A Couple pics of all us girls.. okay I'm not in this one cuz I took it!



Rachel & Jen after throwing their balls down the lane.. or is it alley..


























Andrea havin a little fun....


























And now for Shana.. The first pic is my FAVORITE pic of the night!!!! I literally Laugh Out Loud every time I look at this picture!!!!! lolololololol
I have to say for wearing White Pants, Shana wore them very well, but guess who's NOT wearing a thong!



























and our taxi driver for the ride home.. Look at what a sport he is. :) Lou U my Person..

Happy Birthday Carrie!!

Happy Birthday Carrie! It's about 1:15am on Saturday morning, not even feeling tired at this point, but I need to get some sleep because later this evening, Shana, Jennifer, Rachel, Andrea & I are going out to celebrate your life in the best way we know how and that would be blacklight roller-skating and blacklight bowling! We'll be decked out in glowing t-shirts, yellow accessories and drinkin a few down in Honor & Memory of you Carrie. We all Miss You Every Day!!!
I love you...

I guess the truck thinks we are made of money..

Of course it was the G-Damned Starter! lol.. what do ya do but laugh. :) My co-workers vehicle had to have a new ignition I think it was put in a few days before my truck had issues. I park next to him every day, i think his SUV had a chat with my Truck and my truck decided to keep up with the Jones's on autorepair! Oh and the truck MUST have paid attention that day I drove it to the bank and got my bonus, cuz the very next day (seriously) it wouldnt start.. there goes that free money.. lol

Bad Truck... Bad Bad Truck!!!

So Mister new Red Truck decided not to start this morning!! Derek called his service buddy at Speedway in Monroe and Johnny said to crawl under the truck and tap on the starter, which worked.. fired right up then. Damn truck... dropped it off at Speedway, they'll check the starter and find out what is going on. Hopefully it is not the starter, that is a $463 part! Maybe for once something will be an easy cheap fix.... yeah right!

Bob & Nouna (Derek's parents) are staying with us now.. We picked them up last night, Mr Red truck drove just fine for that! They'll be with us until Monday morning when Derek drives them to the airport. We normally set the heat at 62, but to accomodate them, we've increased it to 72, which might not be enough, we'll see how they do at that temperature.. It is supposed to be rainy, crappy, windy for the next 7 days, just plain yucky weather. Derek went out this morning to Fred Meyers to buy a coffee maker and some coffee. We've wanted to have one at the house for company, just didnt get a chance before now. We both LOVE the smell of brewing coffee, but dont like the taste, atleast our company will have something warm to wake them up in the mornings! :)

Oh and Miss Scout, she is still causin' business when we are away! Last night in the 1.5 hours we were away, she brought another tiger animal out of the back bedroom but did not chew it, we accidentally left the bedroom door open and she brought out some garbage from the master bathroom, mostly just some TP that we probably used to blow our nose with, chewed up a pair of undies from that overgrown pile of dirty clothes.. oh and she jumped up on our stool at the counter and got herself into the candy dish! She didnt really eat any, just dumped some out of the bowl, just cuz she could do it. Scratched up one of my stool seats, not real pleased about that since they are leather topped, I cant fix them if she pokes holes in them with her nails or scratches them.. We did not get mad at her, just silly stuff mostly. :)

Time to Glow!

Things have been great in our house with our new girl Scout! She is really a GREAT dog and we just love her to pieces. We are very thankful to her previous owners because we feel like we couldnt have found a more perfect fit for us and Russell. We did discover that although we have a BIG yard and lots of room to run, that is not enough for her and when given the chance, she will RUN! :)

It was my fault, I had a friend help me by carrying in a TV out of our garage into a back bedroom. I did not shut the garage door behind him cuz I needed to show him where to take the TV. Scout and Russell followed us to the bedroom, but as soon as he put the TV down, she just KNEW that the door was still open and she just took off... I mean she ran like her tail was on fire.. lol You could just hear her saying whoppy, yeahaw, see ya later folks!

She immediately ran to the road and Brandon took chase and after I found some shoes, I did too. I was trying to sweat talk her and she would start coming towards me, but then that look of wild fire in her eyes and she was gone again. It only took us about 5 minutes to catch her, Brandon finally did. I praised and praised her, I did not want her to think that coming to me was a bad thing. Darn dog, scared me.... I know at her previous house, that was one of the problems was that she would get out and be gone for a couple hours which is NOT acceptable at my place.

So if you come visiting, DO NOT! DO NOT! DO NOT! let our dog out of the fenced yard!

She is quite the character.. We've been leaving the back spare bedroom door open because her and Russell like to play in that room, she darts under the bed and hides from him. Yesterday I came home, Derek was gone as well, and I find 2 of Derek's stuffed tigers lying out in the dining/living room areas. They had not been chewed up AT ALL which is great, they were just lying around. I went to the back bedroom to see if there had been anything else she got into and she had also thrown the 2 huge tigers that are on the bed, onto the ground! I guess she wanted the bed to herself. In our bedroom we have a dirty clothes pile that just sits on the floor (my hamper is full of clean clothes that need to be put away!), yes I am WAY behind on the laundry issue... but anyways, the point is not that I am lazy on my laundry, it is that when we are in our bathroom, she claims the dirty clothes pile as her resting spot and curls up on top of the mound! At night in her crate with Russell, she buries herself UNDER her blanky.. I'm working on getting some cute pics of her.. Still NO poddy in the house.

So this past Sunday the girls (Jennifer, Shana, Rachel, Andrea & I) were going to get together to design some glow-in-the-dark t-shirts for our gathering this coming Saturday. We are going roller-skating and bowling Sat night. See, Saturday is Carrie's birthday. We have decided that the 5 of us would like to go out and celebrate Carrie's life on her birthday. This is a big step for all of us. It is our first time of really acknowledging our new life w/o Carrie and making her a focus of our gathering. We are not labeling this as a "cousins night" but essentially that is what it is and is the first time we have all been ready to do this again. I still dont find myself thinking of the good times with Carrie because that reminds me too much that she is not here, but I also recognize this could be a good step for me personally and I hope it brings about laughter, but I'm sure it will bring some tears as well. It's her birthday...

So in memory of Carrie and in all fun of things, we purchased some basic white t-shirts and the 5 of us were going to decorate them with glow in the dark puffy paint as the bowling alley has a blacklights show while you bowl. The shirts are tied together with a theme that Shana, Jennifer and Carrie started with cups. Jennifer is Jack, Shana is Me, Rachel is Off, Andrea is Bia and I am tch! lol Plus we have our names on them and a few other things that remind us of Carrie. We are accessorizing in yellow because yellow is Carrie's color, we have all sorts of fun things.

So on my way to run some errands prior to meeting Shana in Everett on Sunday, she calls and tells me that Jennifer is sick and Rachel's daughter Jasmine is sick! What the Heck.. so Shana is going to still meet me in Everett and we'll head to Mt Vernon to make shirts with Andrea.. I tell Shana what dogs the other girls are for baggin out! Of course I'm kidding... then a little bit later as I'm still doing my thing, Shana calls and tells me she just threw her back out and is not going anywhere!!! Bitches! I cannot believe all 3 of them dogged out on this.. Of course none of them were lying, it was just bad luck I guess. Which worked out just fine cuz me and Andrea had a GREAT time making their shirts!!! We did some shopping for yellow things, purchased things we probably did not need (she is dangerous to shop with, she loves to shop! lol). It was nice spending time with just Andrea, something I have not had a chance to do yet and I will cherish bonding more and more with her over the years. So long story, long... the 3 bitches as I like to call them will have something "special" on their shirt that is not on mine or Andreas just cuz they were not there to help.. Saturday is going to be fun, but I am very very afraid of the roller skates....