Monday, May 21, 2007

We Made It!

After 4 days of driving, we finally made it to Spokane! It was a LONG trip with lots of miles, a billion gallons of gas and way too much fast food.

Jason's parents were able to help us drive which was a huge help. They took the kids in our CRV while Jason and I drove the UHaul towing a car ( actually I just scanned for radio stations and passed snacks). The trip was mostly uneventful except for a blowout just outside of Butte.


We have slowly been unpacking our boxes. Jason was able to return to the Philippines in January to ship some boxes of our things home. Most of our stuff made it home in one piece, however most everything has evidence of the Philippines in it or on it - and boy does it stink. The process of opening and emptying out boxes is stinky enough to almost make me gag! All of our things were wrapped in clothes, towels, sheets, etc. and has taken at least 2 cycles through the wash to start to get the smell out of the fabric. So it has gone a little on the slow side.

Another thing we have been busy doing is fixing up our fixer upper. One of the first things we did was pull up the carpet. The house smelled like dogs and smoke so getting rid of the nasty carpet was a huge help.



We were re-reminded of the previous presence of dogs when we moved the stove and found this lovely surprise! Now that really made me want to GAG!



On a much nicer note!! We are enjoying spring here. We pulled into town right when all of the tulips were in bloom. We even had a few out in front of our house. We love having a nice big grassy yard and a beautiful Hawthorn tree which is in full bloom right now. The tree looks like it has a million tiny rosebuds on it. Beautiful!

I'm still waiting to put away our cold weather clothes. It is a cold and rainy day today and was only 43 degrees when I checked the temp this morning. I can't believe that it is almost June and it is still this cold. Welcome to the Northwest!!

So much for a family photo!




















Working with tools is without a doubt one of Kellan's favorite activities and he loves to work along side of his dad. Kellan has a set of play tools, but after discovering real tools, the plastic ones are not anywhere near good enough. He recently had lots of tool time while Jason replaced the engine mounts in one of our cars. Unfortunately this was the result:




Three stitches to the middle of the forehead due to a fall while holding a wrench.







While Jason was taking Kellan to the doctor to get stitched up, out walks Mirielle looking like this:

She decided that she was too hot to have bangs so she cut them off and threw them away in the garbage. Thankfully she didn't decide that she was too hot to have the ponytails that she was wearing that day. What do you do with a girl like that??

I guess this means that I will postpone my goal of sending out a new picture prayer card in our upcoming newsletter!

Thursday, May 17, 2007