Lake Wilderness

I am playing "catch up" using my blackberry. Sorry for the quick posts.

This morning I had the boys since Kari was working. It was warmer and not raining so we took off just the three of us to get out of the house and see some nature. I want the boys to learn to love the outdoors and not always be inside. We ended up at Lake Wilderness in Maple Valley WA. I will have to get the website to show you tomorrow. We walked around a bit and threw sticks and pinecones into the water. They both thought that was great fun. It's a beautiful and peaceful lake with a nice park.

I also attended the second service at Susie's church. It was 3 hours long but it didn't seen like it. Gary Morse is a prophet from Austin TX who came to this church because he knew the pastor which once lived in TX when they lived there. Yesterday and today he had words for me. I am very glad he came to WA to minister and to endure our rainy weather.

Hugs to all.

Diversity Institute, PLU

Sorry I haven't posted timely. Again the computer at home hasn't been available so I am typing on my blackberry.

Today I spent the day at Pacific Lutheran University at the Diversity Institute held each year. This year the focus was Latinos and undocumented students. We learn about this population within our state and their challenges. It can frustrate a person. I leave there with more knowledge and trying to think of better ways to serve the needs that are out there.

In the evening I went to my friends Susie's church. A prophet from Denise's city of Austin Texas came as a guest to minister by the name of Gary Morse. He will be here for two more days; a serve tomorrow night and Sunday morning. I will see if there is a website or something to show you.

Have a great weekend. Hugs

Riley - Emissions - Brady

We got a call from the daycare to go pick up Riley Wednesday afternoon because he had a fever again of 101 degrees. Kari went to get him and when I got back to the office, I cancelled my lunch visit to Enumclaw HS for today so I could take care of Riley and take him to the doctor. His cough is still there too so it should be checked again. I also got the battery changed so after driving around a little it should be ready to get checked again.

Riley checked out ok. They gave him medicine to take for 5 days. He didn't act sick or have a fever today. So we went on to the second emissions test. It passed! So we rested the rest of the day.

Kari picked up Brady and is keeping him over night. I am sure Brady will be thrilled because he loves his mom so much.

Until tomorrow. Hugs

The Twilight Zone and My Miracle Car

It is time for me to renew by tabs. But before I do, I have to visit an Emissions Tesing Stations here in Washington to have my emissions on my car tested. We have to do this every other year and it only costs $15. It is one of the differences I came across when moving from another state. In CA in 1993 we would visit one of my car repair shops that could run an emissions test, fill out a form and sign it, and we would send it to DMV or where you pay for tabs. I don't know if that has changed or not there. But here, we go to an official station that the state set ups and runs. There are only a few in the area, so you try to go when there isn't many people doing the same thing. It looks like one can online see if there are many people at certain stations.

Anyway, I went to one of the stations one day when I was out on my deliveries this week. I paid my $15 and was brought into the area where they test things out. I got out of the car and sat down to wait. However the guy said that he couldn't do the test because he could NOT find my car computer registering on his equipment. (What?) The car runs fine... there hasn't been any problems. So they gave me back the $ and told me to come back later.

So, I wasn't far from a mechanic where my husband had just had one of our cars checked out and repaired. It was around Christmas or just before. This was a new place ran by a dad and his two sons. They named the business "Honest Mechanics" which I thought was good advertising especially for women. They seemed to be honest too. Very helpful to Dave. The owner had also driven home our car to test it after fixing it. OK, so he would be able to help me figure things out with the lack of a computer reading I thought wouldn't you? I pulled into the driveway and parked the car... but I noticed that there weren't very many cars so I thought maybe I came on a day they were closed for whatever reason. The signs for the business were up and it's banners were all in place. Plus there were some tires stacked on top of each other but there wasn't anything in the lobby or office. They had moved out. There was the sign that posted when they were open but everything inside was gone. (What?) OK... Number two weird thing to happen within the same half hour.

I decided to go back to the college where I work. I couldn't believe what I had seen... or didn't see. Anyway, at the college we have an automotive program so I drove to the garage to see if any of the instructors could help me out. They had a student that is learning electronical systems for his certification so he started working on the problem. They took off the battery cover and there was this big fuzzy glob of corrosion as large as a man's fist. We all stood there amazed at what we saw... like it was a monster or something. (What?) As far as they were concerned, they didn't think that the car should have been running at all with all of that on the battery... but it was. Amazing really. So I got another battery today and they put it in. Hopefully the new battery will fix the problem and my car will pass emissions. I will drive it around tomorrow and then I will have the emissions test done again. Weird, huh?

Until tomorrow... Hugs

Congrats! Tina and David

Tina and Dave were married last night between the hours of 9 pm and 11 pm. Tina is Kari's friend and so Kari was her bride's maid. There is a story here that is too long to put in a post but these two people have come through so many hardships that most of us would have been in a mental hospital if we had lived their lives. And thru it all they became believers in Christ. They don't have much so they had a very small wedding.

Because Kari is the bride's friend, I met Tina and have encouraged her etc. So she asked me to come to her wedding. Solid Rock is a small church in Puyallup WA. It has a ministry to nontraditional church people. The pastor is 60 years old and has been in ministry for 30 years. Through my life I have had involvement in some ministries such as the homeless. It was exciting to see a church outreaching to this part of our communities.
I will add photos of the wedding later. I am on the run but wanted to leave you something. Hugs

Kari - Football - Monday

Kari Talking to Brady

Kari is now at a place across the valley exactly 6.7 miles away but the boys are going to be with me for a while because of her disability. We will take things very slow. Even though she is now taking on a new chapter and is happy about it (as she takes over more of her life), I find myself missing her. It isn't the first time. Children often find they need the help of their parents more often these days, it seems. Over the past 10 years she has been home a couple of times. She came to live with me when she was expecting Riley... and then Brady. In the past year, we discovered that she has ADHD. As I look back at the behavior of my family on my mother's side, I can see that there has been this issue with many family members, they just were not diagnosed. My view is, although I wish she didn't have it's challenges, I am very thankful that she found out early in life. From this point on, she can go on with knowledge and get help for any situation. She was so depressed before and now she is doing so much better. I am really proud of her.

So many people watched the Superbowl but I didn't. That was hard to admit while everyone talked about the game today. I guess the Patriots at some point during the year they were found cheating. I don't know anything about it since I don't follow sports too closely. I guess those around here that do were very glad that the Giants won, just on the "fairness" factor.

There isn't any thing exciting to write about today. It was a Monday. Back to work; switching weekend thoughts and desirers to the "To Do" list that is before us each work day. We watched half of the movie The Holiday last night. Tonight we will watch the second half. This will be my 3rd or 4th time watching it but the guys have never seen it. They don't seem to bothered by the fact it is a chick flick. I wonder why? (Joking)

Have Super Tuesday ;-)

Make Up Birthday Day for Brady

As you know, Friday night, which was on Brady's 3rd birthday, we were going to have a dinner and open birthday gifts. Well, Dave cut his finger when he was opening Brady's gift with a pocket knife. So we postponed any celebration until this early evening. Today, when Kari was home she baked a cake for Brady and decorated it. When we got home, we sang happy birthday to him and had some birthday cake. She put a candle with a number 3 on top to light. He did know what to think of us making a big deal over him singing Happy Birthday to You...

You can see in the picture that he is a blanket carrying kid. (He is like Linus from Peanuts.)

Finally, he got into it and remembered that one is suppose to blow out the candle on the cake. We sang it three times and let him blow the candle out three times just so he could get use to the idea.

Both the kids like the Spiderman trike. They both helped me put it together while Aaron and Dave were at the hospital getting Dave's finger sewed up.

When the boys go outside, they play on a deck or patio, which you can see in the pictures above. It is covered so they can even go out there when it is raining. Washingtonian kids are use to playing under cover when it is raining outside. I was surprised by this idea coming from CA but it seems that rain doesn't seem to do any harm. Of course, the rain that CA has been having in the past month, kids could float away.

When I was a school bus driver in CA while going to college, once I opened the bus door in one of those rains and the water came into the stair well. Needless to say, I closed it really quickly and drove on to get out of there. At that time I lived in the Inland Empire in the city of Ontario.

Anyway, back from memory lane... I also bought a little toy train for Riley so that he didn't feel left out however Brady took it over... so the two of them have been playing trains for the last two days all over the living room.

Another week is about to begin so I have to get off the computer and get every thing ready for tomorrow. Hope everyone has a great Monday. Hugs