Stampin' Up

Since Brian is in Ellensburg quadding I decided to take my self out! Rachel and I went to Moses Lake for a Stampin' Up card class at Jan's house. And since we were out on the town we even took ourselves out to Taco Bell for dinner, haha! Jan is my most favorite Stampin' Up demonstrator...she is a kick in the pants, what a hoot, she always makes things fun! She had some of the cutest cards lined up for us.

My loot, some cute stuff in there!

Here is Jan and I!

Brian the Builder

Brian has been living in the shop for the past 3 weeks and he is lovin' every second of it, for his birthdays and christmas' that past 2 years he has gotten nothin' but tools and more tools, and he is so excited that he has been using them all lately. I tell ya, the guy can think of and build anything....I love taking pics of him in action...all the sparks flying and glowy welding lights. Notice he is wearing his safety helmet. Yep, that was a b-day present.

I love this one! It kinda hurts my eyes looking at it.

I know he loves when I make him pose for pictures in the shop, I think it takes the manly lustre out of the whole thing for him.

Asparagus

The art of packing a canning jar is something I have yet to master, someday, it will be something I can aspire to...master packer! Anywho, this evening I pickled a few loads of asparagus...I haven't ever done it before, so it was a little of an adventure. Thanks Lyndenn for the awesome recipe! I think they will be o-so-tasty. It's almost May and thus begins the canning and food preservation season for me...I absolutely love knowing how to can food, it makes me feel useful, and even though Brian doesn't like or eat any of my canned goods, I enjoy them enough to do it over and over.

Step 1: Start with some yummy fresh picked asparagus, thanks Brian for bringing that home for me!

Step 2: add plenty of garlic, dill seed, dill weed, peppercorns, red pepper.

Step 3: pack jars with asparagus, spices, and vinegar brine.

Step 4: wait 4 months for them to marinate in their juices...I don't know if I have the patience...pickled asparagus is my absolute favorite.

Bittersweet

I will explain why I titled this post bittersweet but first of all I want to give a little shout out to Anya and Lindsey....what what! :) On Monday of last week my friend Joelle's mom went home to heaven after a battle with cancer, I was so thankful to be able to make it to the memorial service that was held on Friday in Lynden. Praying for you and the family Joelle, you guys are amazingly strong! The service for Kathy was so wonderful! And I got to see Joelle for a little bit and meet some of her fabulous friends!

Here is why the post is bittersweet, Joelle (brief background: we met in college we are the same Home Ec major, she actually is a teacher though, we make jam in the summers at her house in Lynden, she has two cute kids, Jack and Jovie) ok anyway, bittersweet because she lives in Lynden and Emily only lives like 20 minutes from Lynden, so since I was already up North, I got to spend some time with Emily.

I think this part of the state is gorgeous, I love it, I love visiting, I love the green, I love it all! I soak it up when I get to go there, and I might even say literally, because the green beautifulness doesn't come with out the sacrifice of having to deal with the rain. Life is full of bittersweetness...that is about as philosophical as I get...

Emily and I took silly pictures of her dog Ben, her three longhorn steers, went on a hike, crafted, and hung out. It was perfect! This picture here is a testament to why I love it there...beautiful raspberries...

The three guys!

Can anyone tell we are making a BC for British Columbia? Eh?!

The view from up top TeaPot Hill.

Oh the green forest!

Documentation

A total overshare of pictures follows...

This weekend as I stated in the Pioneer Woman post Jonda, Ashley, and I went to the west side to Ambers for a birthday weekend for Ashley. Here we are on the way. Now if any of you have ever been on a road trip or anywhere with me for that matter you can bet I have a camera in hand...documenting life, and yes I always do have my tripod with me, Gizmo always sticks by my side! You might also notice alot of sunglasses in these pics...we had a sunglass thing going on! We had a blast getting coffee, shopping, and hanging out!

I had to take a 'hamster picture' you can keep running, but you'll never get anywhere...

We went to Chopsticks the dueling piano bar for an evening on the town.

And yes Amber paid money to embarrass Ashley and make her sit on the piano while they made jokes and sang her a song.

There are some amusing videos from the evening, but I shall refrain from posting as Ashley was already embarrassed enough we made her get on stage well lets just say when "I like big butts" came on and they asked for people to get on stage and dance and I drug her up there....

Proof! Jonda can dance!

Shopping at Nordstrom's

I totally shoulda bought the pink shades! Um hello, I look 5 feet tall next to these chicks! Seriously!

Pioneer Woman

This requires a two different postings.....I have way to many fun pics from our girls weekend! So I will start with the Pioneer Woman! If any of you know who she is then you will get it, if not check out her blog and you will see why we love her! www.thepioneerwoman.com

For Ashley's birthday we took a little girls weekend over to the west side to meet the PW, she was at a book signing in Bothell! We left on Friday made it to Amber's in Marysville, did a little shopping and then had a fun night out on the town...more to come on that. Saturday we went to Third Place Books in Bothell got our tickets at around 1:30 for the 5:00 signing, we were assigned to group E, and there was about 50 people per group. So went to lunch and shopping and then came back around 5:00 and waited for a bit.

That's her! Ree Drummond!

Here she is signing my book!

More More More

Brian's Uncle Alan and Aunt Amy came over with little Nora Bell for a visit to Quincy for the weekend. On Thursday night they came over, we had dinner and since Brian was stuck on a tractor we got to go to Dairy Queen in Moses to see Shelley for blizzards! We decided that Nora would have fun on the 4-wheeler, so we decided to give her a little ride! She loved it, as you can see from her face! She kept saying more, more, more.

42 feet up

Last week Cousin Ryan brought over his TeleHandler to help Brian move the butt-huts. Brian decided it would be fun for Ryan to boost him up 42 feet in the air...so here is our house from 42 feet up, kinda cool. For those of you who don't know what a telehandler is, here it is, it's a machine they use to load and move big bales of hay. If you look close you can see Ryan looking up and look how small the Mad-Dog looks. Our poor lawn is still trying to recover from the underground sprinklers...it looks sickly...give my lawn boy a few months he will have it under control!

Weekend Activities

On Friday Brian and I were at Jolene's for her Birthday Celebration we came home Friday night, Saturday was Andrea's baby shower so Lyndenn, Emily, and Nicole all made the trek over for the shower. While we were doing girly baby shower activities, the men folk were in Spokane trap shooting, we all met in Ritzville for dinner and then went to Josh and Lyndenn's. What a great weekend, gotta love these girls!

We played the measure the belly game....let's just say I was way off...

Tiara

After having posted by favorite quote "I am fairly certain that given a cape and a nice tiara I could save the world." on the blog...Trisha decided it was necessary that I be given a tiara so I can start saving the world. Once I get my cape, watch out people.....

Here I am with my tiara...yes I took a picture in the mirror, I was trying to avoid eye-rolling by Brian...what sort of reaction do you think I would have elicited by asking..."Hey Brian, can you take a picture of me...wearing a tiara..." Yeah you would have opted for the mirror too....in any case, thanks Trisha...I will start drafting my "world saving strategy"

The Many Faces of Mad-Dog

Maddy and I were having fun with the camera the other day...

Shop Projects

Brian's been busy in the shop again. He always has some project in the works...and I am sure he loves me taking pictures of him too...haha!

The Amazing Race

My cute easter basket! Amber made me an Easter basket with homemade granola, trail mix, chex mix, and the cutest apron and pot holders! Love it!

Saturday Brian and I were privileged enough to partake in the Roberts' Amazing Race- a 4-wheeler style amazing race around their property. Ashley and Lyndsy put on a an awesome challenge for all of us. Their were 12 teams in total, 11 of them with 4 people, and then Brian and I as a two-man team. I didn't take that many pics because it was pure craziness for about 4 hours. We have challenges from solving puzzles, carrying a hay bale through a barrel racing course, de-coding MORSE code, heating up paper to find hidden messages, all the while racing back and forth on the 4-wheelers over a 2 mile span to different places to locate our eggs and return them in order to receive our next clue. It was a crazy fun filled day! I am still finding dirt in my ears! Thanks Lyndsy and Ashley for putting so much work into it, it was awesome!

Jonda and I before the big race.

Brian transporting water (with his mouth from the hose) to the cup to fill it up, one of the many challenges.

Ash and I after the race- this is what 4 hours of buzzing around on a 4-wheeler does to your hair!

Amber, Shane, Tamar, and Brian on the last challenge, duck-taped together navigating the mini-forest to find their egg (brian and I had the advantage on this one, we were only a two man team, much easier navigating a forest with 2 people tied together then 4)

We did end up winning the race, not sure how...Im pretty sure Brian solved all the puzzles and did all the driving. SO MUCH FUN!