Third Grade

While cleaning out my closet yesterday, I found something that was very precious to me as a child.

My teacher had us make a Memory Book over Christmas and Spring breaks.  I don't know whatever happened to the Christmas one, but I found this one and it brought back a flood of memories.

This is me with my favorite stuffed animal at the time.  I still have this teddy bear in my pet net hanging in my bedroom.  I was all about the tie dye and neon back then.

Some things never change.  My favorite subject is still space.  In fact, in a few weeks we're going to see a lecture from Niel deGrasse Tyson.  (Omgee I'm so excited!!)

Can't fathon which book I was refering to with "horse".  "101 Dalmatians" I remember playing at recess because I had that entire movie memorized.  One thing I forgot that I wish I remembered was our school trip to the OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry).  It was easily the best school field trip I went on. Too bad I can't recall much of it.  Every time we drive through Portland I tell Aaron (and anyone else in the car) I went there, lol!

Well there's a little snippet of my past.  Hope you enjoyed it!  What are some of your favorite things from elementary school?  Do you remember?  <3

Quiet Time

It's been said that the first two months of a babies life is the hardest for the parents.  We have been so blessed with our baby boy and this wasn't the case for us.  The past two months, however, have been a challenge.

Working full time, trying to keep a breastfeeding & pumping schedule, general stress, hormones, and PPD have weighed down on me pretty heavy.  Impatience, frustration, mixed signals were running rampant.  After some long talks, tears, hugs and kisses We have straightened out pretty much all of the wrinkles that have been givin us problems.  It feels great!

Having such a solid partner in this wild new world of parenting eases and comforts my heart.  I can look past the troubles and see peace.  Peace in my heart knowing that I am exactly where I want to be and where I'm meant to be.  I am at peace knowing that despite the challenges life has thrown at us, this house is full of love, and we can overcome anything.

It makes me all warm inside.  Just so nice and cozy.  So much so, I think I'll join my guys in a little shut eye.  Here's to a peaceful (and restful) nap.  <3

A Thankful Heart

First off, Dean is teething.  Yay!!

...

>.>

It's hard because he's been so chill that when he cries and cries now I kinda panic.  It's just him teething though so I know he's ok.  But still.. It's hard.  He ended up sleeping pretty much ALL DAY, hence him still bein in pj's at 4:00 in the afternoon.

The only reason we were even out of the house was because our car has been having some weird problems.  Our car doesn't start (but we have a perfectly good battery, which I've had checked) and the fan/a.c./heater works sporadically.  We are a one car family so Dean and I took the car to get looked at while Aaron was at work.

Our dealership was pretty vague about what they could do for us, so I called a local service shop that my father in law recommeded, Hi-Land Garage.  The guy on the phone was super nice and said that if I stopped by today he'd take a look at it to give me an idea of what needs to be done.

I guess I took too long getting there because the guy I talked to wasn't there. But the guy who was there offered to look at it too.  Charlie and his high school age assistant (who commented on how cute Dean was) pulled my car up in front of their busy garage and popped the hood.

Immediately he saw the problem.  One of the cables that connects to my battery was hardly connected.  (Thank God it stayed connected while we were driving!)  I guess it was worn out/coroded so he snipped it off and completely replaced it. The he went under the dash and noticed that the blower for our air is on it's last leg.  He did a temporary fix but told me I need to have it totally replace before winter.

All the while this was happening Dean was being cute and I was taking pictures of him.  Charlie joked and said I should put one of their business cards in with him.  I took a picture of their building instead, lol!

Then he closed the hood and said I was good to go.  When I asked him how much I owed him (he worked on my car for almost a half hour), he said I didn't owe him anything.  Just that when it comes to getting that blower replaced I come back and get it done through them.  I was taken aback.  Every bay in the garage was full, their parking lot was full.  He took tome away from someone else's car to help me.  He didn't have o do that.  Let alone not charge me for his time.

I am so greatfull that Charlie (and his assistant) were so nice to us and really helped us out.  (Especially when the dealership said they charge $88/hour for diagnosing cars!)  I will absolutley be being my car into them this fall when we replace the blower.

Right before I left, I told Charlie that I took that picture of Dean and posted it on Instagram pimping their garage.  He was surprised and excited.  I could tell he didn't expect that.  It's not a big deal or anything but it seemed to matter to him.

Tomorrow I'll be writing a thank you card to them.  Being a mechanic seems like a thankless job and these guys were pretty awesome and deserve to be recognized for it.  If I can't give them money, I want to at least give them something. *^_^*b 

*Yawn* But that will be tomorrow.  I'm too tired to do it tonight.  Hope you all had a good Friday and have a great weekend.   Are you doing anything super fun?  <3

Road Trip Tally v1

Do you play any car games while you're on road trips?  Counting "slug bugs" or spotting trains for instance.  My family was really big on car games as we took lots of road trips gowing up.  It was a mixed blessin for my parents, I think, beause it kept us busy and free of arguments, but we'd call out just about everything unique we saw.

Now that I'm grow up Aaron and I have our own car games we play.  We slug each other for slug bugs, throw up a "peace sign" for Volvo's (cuz it makes a V with your fingers), double fist slug for Mini Coopers (and call them in a silly voice saying "mini coooooooop"), and push up our glasses for Smart Cars.  (There are variations of this for the driver for safety.)

We live out in an area that's mostly desert and farmland so there's a ton of wildlife that I enjoy counting.  "Big birds" like bald eagles, hawks, and ospray.  Animals like marmots, sheep, goats, deer, and elk.  And the most exciting of all (if you're me) military vehicles- jeeps, armored vehicles, medical trucks, double helicopters, and jets.  Oh!  And windmills (pronounce windmeels, if you're me ;D).

For as long as I've had this blog I thought about writing down a tally of all the cool things I saw, but never did because I thought people would think I'm silly. Well I don't mind if people find I'm silly, and I count things every trip so it's kinda a big deal to me.

So this last weekend we went to Boise for a wedding, and I counted a lot of fun things!

• 1 bajillion Volvos (I stopped counting in the first hour cuz there were so many) (for this reason we just stopped counting vehicles all together)

• 16 big birds

• 2 herds of goats

• 1 herd of sheep

• 1 herd of just bulls

• 4 military vehicles (including one very small convoy)

• 3 trains

• 3 pockets of windmills

There, I did it!  That wasn't painful at all and you'll prbably not stop reading my blog because of this post. Right?! >.<;;

What car games do you play on road trips?