Monthly Archives: August 2015

This weekend we were supposed to go to a family camp with our church.  It was going to be a bit rushed, but we would be able to come home late wednesday do laundry on Thursday, head to camp on Friday spend the weekend leaving there just in time to get to Newport for a shower before work.  Tuesday or Wednesday we got an email that said there was to be no pets allowed at camp.  We probably could have found someone to watch Myra but we didn’t really want to.  We had needed to do that for the previous weekend and this time because we would need to head straight back to the coast after camp would have to be for a whole week.  There were other straws like the only other day we could go to the fair was going to be complicated by three dentist appointments so if we wanted to take a whole day like we love to do it would have to be Friday. Yesterday I still hadn’t really decided if I had the energy for a day trip.  Maybe we should take Myra and keep her in the car for the one night.  could we get away with that?  No, that probably wouldn’t work.  Maybe we could head to the beach at the end of the day and just stay there an extra night.  I don’t think Chad and I were on the same page.  The fair was good although I felt a little bad about skipping on camp.  I had most my mind made up about going out for the day today, but besides laundry and making Musubi we didn’t do much.  Two days in one week that wasn’t chocked full of must dos.  Something about that just didn’t seem right, but the straw that broke this (going to family camp) camels back was the no dogs allowed.  It did allow for us to go on a date night tonight.  

Here are a few pictures from teaching Uncle Jayson how to make musubi this afternoon for lunch.  

    
    
    
   At dinner Chad and I ordered some lychee to split.  It was canned lychee but still good.   
 We miss you Big Island friends and loved to reminisce a bit while enjoying a few of the foods you taught us to love.  I’m still not sure we made the right decision.  It is important to rest sometimes right!?! Back to work tomorrow.

$1.50 day today was in honer of it being the 150th year of the Oregon State Fair.  At that rate we could save the tickets the kids earned at the summer reading program for another day and make this a two fair day year which we have never done before. The lines were shorter than we anticipated at the entrance and really over all less crowded. I wasn’t quite sure if the whole city of Salem would turn out because of the sweet deal.  On our way past the horse pavilion Aunt Stephanie who had beat us to the fair waved us down and told us that she had run into Aunt Bonnie and Tate and that Taylor would be showing her horse in the arena sometime soon.  Well perfect we wouldn’t want to miss that.  We headed into the pavilion and found seats up a bleacher or two from the rest of the crowd so our restless kids wouldn’t disturb anyone’s peace.  We enjoyed watching the two or three groups of kids/horses before Taylor, but it was especially fun watching someone we knew.  Maybe more so because we got to enjoy the company of Aunt Bonnie, Tate and Tiffany while we did it.   

   We were there for quite a while so the kids ate the first part of their lunch which is also our tradition…lunch in the horse pavilion.  
   Afterwords we congratulated Taylor and met Chief her horse.   
   We loved the other horse events we watched, the showing of sheep, shearing, FFAers showing goats and the sleepy pigs snoozing the hot stuffy afternoon away.  
    
    
   This cute piggy’s name was Eve!  
 The poultry barn was next after a quick whistle purchase and a few dogs distance jumping into a pool.  

    
    
    
    
   Gotta love the 4H projects and the Artisian village although they seemed much smaller than usual.  

 So much hands on learning. I love it!  
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
   After a clown performance we headed to find some dinner.  
 The kids kept us entertained at dinner with their clown noses.  

   We made it through 3/4 of the last pavilion we were planning to try to hit today and Eve was just too tired.  We talked to the Oregon Authors which I love to do every year. Then headed home.  
 The kids are learning about handling money.  So they have had some of their own money I am amused to watch what they choose to spend it on.  

We made it home by 10:00pm and the weather is just starting to cool.  I have enjoyed the chirp of the crickets in our back yard as I have sat in the dark typing this up.  It is sometimes hard to go to bed after an exceptionally fun day knowing that that will bring it to an end and the page will turn in our life book to a new blank page tomorrow morning one calling for a new and different adventure than what was held in the pages of today. 

Good night and goodbye August 28th 2015.

I can almost not believe it myself, but yesterday, Thursday, I did not do anything except some paperwork that was mailed out early and then sit on the couch and crochet all day.  Well until 5:00pm at least. Those of you who have known me for very long know that my well earned nick name in college was “Grandma Sarah” due to my love of crocheting and the fact that I took it everywhere with me which I suppose is atypical of most 17-20 year olds.  I have missed my hook and yarn therapy.  The kids had fun just playing together too. We had a blanket fort early in the day then the game of life and even a visit from the mounted police.  

    At 5:00 we started packing up and headed to the park to have a picnic dinner with a few of Chad’s childhood friends, a fellow couple from NNU, Pastor Trevor and Kristal.  It was a nice evening to be at the park.  
 

Never in my 33 years of living in California, Idaho, and Oregon have I ever seen so much smoke.  From Boise, Idaho to Salem, Oregon the smoke was so thick that you couldn’t see any foot hills, and could barely see across the Columbia River to the other side of the Gorge.   

    
    
    
 We didn’t see any mountains, in the above photo strait ahead is Mt. Hood.  Can you see it? Me neither. 474 miles later and we have seen absolutely no blue skys. 

After a late night you can imagine that we slept in a little.  Just after 9:30am we met Kayla (my childhood baby sitter) at Flying M Coffee Garage.  If you know Kayla you know of her infections laugh and the way she makes you always feel like her very favorite person.  We visited for a while before the kids discovered how completely awesome She is.  From then on there was no adult conversation, but a bunch of knock knock jokes and silly stories…such a heartwarming sight.  Seriously Kayla I never get enough of hanging out with you.  

After visiting with Kayla for most of the morning we headed to Boise to visit our childhood neighbor (he wasn’t just a neighbor he owned the dairy that my dad worked) we had quarterly farm meetings that from a kids perspective was a big family dinner, we worked beside eachother cutting and wrapping meat, he was a godly grandfather figure in our lives throughout childhood (and beyond really).  In the past few days he has recieved a terminal diagnosis that gives him but only a few more weeks until his heavenly graduation.  It was a good visit.  We loved soaking in the teaching and wise words of this great man. My parents and sister joined us after a while.  Tears and laughter, stories of the good old days and encouragement for where we are and especially these next few weeks.  After our goodbyes I found it was so so hard to walk away knowing it was the very last time I would ever see Jerry on this side of Heaven.  We were blessed to run into his wife, Carol, and (son)Ron and Chris in the lobby downstairs as we were leaving and they were coming.  Jaeger family we love you all so much, and will be holding you up in prayer in the weeks and months to come. 

Leaving the hospital it seemed like we had plenty of time to get to Caldwell for our family reunion. Traffic on I-84 was slow and a stop at Winco made it so we got there at the perfect time.  We loved visiting with my Dad’s family.  He has a whole handful of siblings who have their kids, grandkids and great grandkids.  It was amazing to watch all the little ones running around as we adults caught up with each of our aunts, uncles and cousins.  Thank you Aaron and Trina for hosting.  Thank you Sherman family for making getting together as a family today a priority on your calendar we loved seeing every one of you. 

We stayed at our favorite hotel in Nampa, it has a lot of great memories from college days and the vouchers for free breakfast from the resauraunt are pretty awesome too.  The kids slept in late it was nearly 9:00am when Eve finally woke up.  One hour time change or not she never sleeps that late.  

 After breakfast we headed to visit a friend and coworker from the Idaho State School and Hospital (ISSH) Lavonna.  We worked together in the Recreation department from 2/2000-4/2004 it was a good college job that worked well around my schedule and I have appreciated the friendships that I made there.  Although we have talked on the phone (that was pretty recently) it had been over ten years since we had a chance to visit.  Lavonna hasn’t changed a bit she is still the very fun, always loving, never judging person.  We loved our visit with her.  

    
   The kids gathered the chicken eggs, collected turkey feathers, helped feed the birds inside, jumped on the trampoline and had a blast.  
 We got to visit with her sister Cheryl too.  I was blessed to get to live with Cheryl the second half of sophomore year as well as through the summer.   

 After our visit with Lavonna we ate lunch at Wendy’s. 

 After lunch we braved NNU although we had noticed that it was new student orientation and the place looked packed! We were able to pick up an unofficial transcript and order an official one.  We walked up stairs to the nursing deparent and visited with Dr. Lester the director of the nursing department and a professor I had the privilege of taking several classes from in my time as an undergrad student at NNU.  On the way back to the car we checked out the new library,  it is very nice although I had so many fond memories of the old one it is hard to see it has changed so much.   

 After NNU we took a short rest at our hotel room then Blimpies for dinner and Roaring Springs for Friday Family Night.  It wasn’t an overly hot day so by 8:00pm Eve was feeling pretty cold.  We got out shortly after that and cuddled up in our towels while Chad and the kids continues to ride slides until 9:20pm when we headed out.  With everyone freezing we had schemed that we would run and jump in our hot tub as soon as we got back to the hotel.  25ish min. In the hot tub warmed us all back up and now it is time to hit the hay.  Another big day tomorrow.  

Last night in Suzanne’s basement we slept in the most gloriously pitch black room it had been a few days since I had slept at night maybe that it why it was so appealing.  For that reason we also got a little extra sleep as the sun had no way of knocking on our eyelids.  The large rumbling sound of 5 running children upstairs woke us at exactly 7:00am.  We got to watch Hadassah and Elijah for a few hours as Suzanne and Jeremy headed off to work early.  The kids made a giant mansion of a fort.  

   Do you notice Hannah’s waving hand?  The adjoining “hot tub” was a relaxing hangout.   
   When I text Aunt Suzanne with pictures she said they could drain the hot tub when they were done (fold the clean clothes) since this is supposed to be the clean laundry basket.  
 We got on the road at 11:05am with sandwiches for lunch in hand.  We were making good time even with the time change.  Jen is a high school art teacher, we got into town before school was out so we just parked in front of their house and watched videos of Newfoundland puppies playing together until Nick appeared from the house.  It didn’t even come across our minds to knock on the door.  We didn’t see a car and we knew Jen was not yet off of work.  All this time (20 min. or so)…lol, oops next time we will probably remember that Nick works from home.  

Nick was Chad’s college roommate until after sophomore year when he and Jen married.  We married eight months later.  We were all young.  In college when you get married all of the sudden it is like your single friends (pretty much all your friends at this stage of your life) are afraid to come over like they might be interrupting something.  We never had that distance with Nick and Jen they were our best couple friends.  A lot of study sessions, coffee dates and meeting up at the gym Jen and I quickly became best friends.  We talked about all kinds of things on a much deeper level than you experience in most friendships.  Hopes, dreams, hurts, hangups, beliefs, ideals about God, purpose of life and our purpose for where we were at that time.  After graduation we moved eight hours away and we soon became parents. Phone calls were not the same as face to face.  Texting and social media weren’t really an option and I am bad at checking email.  Although we had a blast when we got together the oportunities were so few and far between (years and years).  I am always so glad for oportunities to hang out together again.  Today was no different.  Their kids are young 3 and 2 so this is the first time that our kids have all played really well together (a year and a half ago they were pretty young and overwhelmed by all the strangers and big kids in their house).  Today we had plays and a princess fasion show, and a whole lot of beach ball toss it was very fun.  

    Hannah braided my hair while we were talking.
  The laughter as the kids chased eachother around for hours was priceless, thank you Nick and Jen for your friendship over the last 15 years.  We miss the fun we had in college, and the companionship of you guys as one of our favorite couple friends. We loved hanging out with you this evening.

I got off of work in good time this morning.  Our goal was to make it to  Pendleton but we had a long to do list in Salem before we headed out.  Packing up in Newport didn’t take long, a necessary coffee stop didn’t set us back too much either.  We thought we had most of our “to do” paperwork ready but there was a lot of it and it seemed overwelming.  Our first stop in Salem was Chad’s parents shop to make photocopies and reprint some forms that had errors on them then off to the post office we went.  We got my packet of continuing ed. all put together to send in for my California license renual, this is the first license I have had continuing ed. requirements on and I think I have more than enough but my PALS, NRP, ACLS, BLS don’t say how many continuing ed. credits they are so I am not 100% confident that I have everything I need (I have three other certification classes too so it was probably over kill, but really I don’t know).  We got that sent off to the State of California Board of Nursing, Caleb’s passport paperwork and photo all submitted, and employee health forms submitted to my agency.  We stopped by the house to drop off my Nursing Portfolio and a few other things we will not need for Idaho to clear some space under my feet, Chad made a call on our insurance and left a message.  We are having more headaches with that.  He is anticipating a good hour long phone call when we are able to get through to the people we need to talk to on that.  Myra is staying home from this trip since we don’t have a good place for her to stay when we go to Roaring Springs the car even in the shade with the windows down would be too hot.  I looked through my file box of school papers from my childhood to see what school I went to in California for the first part of Kindergarten because one of the nurses that I have been working with grew up in Janesville until 8th grade and I thought I had gone to that elementary school which would have meant that we would have gone to school together.  I turned out that I went to Johnstonville k-8th school which is only about 7 miles away from Janesville.  Even though it didn’t end up being the same school it is fun to have that connection as we lived very near eachother for four years of our lives.  I was surprised to see our long check list get completely checked off, in less than an hour we were back on the road.  By the time we hit Portland I was out, it was after noon and I had been up all night working and was starting to feel nauseated.  With a stiff neck, a bit of drooling and snoring I’m sure we made it into Pendleton just before 4:00pm.  Suzanne and Jeremy were still at work, but Suzanne had arranged with the baby sitter that she could leave when we showed up.  She was out the door maybe a min. When I hear Elijah who had been in his room seconds before, talking away from behind the closed bathroom door.  I tried the knob and noted that it was locked.  Maybe Chad was in there and Elijah was in the room next door, I checked.  The. I heard his cute little voice again.  He was definitely in the locked bathroom by himself.  He tried the knob and was not getting it open and it did not appear to be an easy to open door we were going to have to take the knob off since the hinges were not even on the outside of the door.  I shot Suzanne a text, “Elijah locked himself in the bathroom and couldn’t get it unlocked. We had to use a small screwdriver to unlock it. He wasn’t too upset by the time we got in there. Silly boy. We have barely taken over care and we are already making memories.” As Chad attempted to unscrew the side of the knob it popped and unlocked.  Few that could have been a lot worse.  Jeremy and Suzanne soon both came home, dinner was served and the kids played.  I’m glad we didn’t try to push on all the way to Idaho today. 

  This was taken on Myra’s morning walk.  When I drove over the bridge from work the fog was so thick it looked like I would drive up the entry into the bridge and into the clouds.   
 I must have been really needing the caffeine if I was so entertained by trying to take a picture of the heavenly liquid through the circular opening of the lid.   I loved that at the passport office the guy teased Caleb that he could give the second picture to his girlfriend, he was given a most awesome reaction.  

The drive from Portland on was a sleepy blur, the kids as always really enjoyed eachother’s company and became quite muddy in the process.  Aunt Suzanne hosed them off before they could come back in the house….don’t feel too bad for them they loved it.