Our latest happenings

I never got around to posting what's been happening lately, so here is two weeks worth.  Last weekend, we made a craigslist swap.  I finally got rid of the treadmill I purchased on craigslist a few years ago and rarely used.

and, we  found a used cargo trailer for our trip.

I wish I could say it was an even swap!  The trailer was quite a bit more (several months worth of newspapers more).  We drove all the way down to Bonney Lake (1 1/2 hour drive) to buy it.  There was just NO WAY I was going to squeeze everything I needed for a three week trip into the van.  And believe me, I wish I could.  I'm not excited about taking this on the road but am sure by the end of the trip, it will be much more natural.  This trailer is a 5x10 and will hold all our gear and our bikes.  Dode is in the process of building shelves to make the space easier to pack/unpack.  We're also planning to buy an inverter that will allow me to run a small microwave off a battery.  The ability to heat something up quickly and easily is one of the things I miss most when camping, having a microwave will be wonderful, and a cost savings.  Sometime in the next month, I need to practice hooking it up to the van and backing it in.  Most of the campgrounds we're staying in don't have pull through sites.  We know that when the trip is over, we can sell it for what we paid and only be out the tax we paid when licensing it, but thinking of future road trips, I don't know that we'll end up getting rid of it.  I wish we could rent it out! 

William has a cold which means he's spending a lot of time looking like this...

We just had his IEP meeting for the next year.  He qualifies for an "extended learning year" (summer school).  William has a really hard time academically.  Over the course of this year, he'd managed to learn to recognize the letters "A" and "E".  After going back from spring break, it was gone.  His teacher told me that in seven years of teaching in her self contained special ed classroom, William is the most affected student she has ever had.  What makes it so difficult for William is he looks perfectly normal, so people he interacts with expect him to act like a "normal" child.  Even in the fall when I had the parent/teacher conference, the teacher was talking like William was soon to move out of her class (I just nodded and smiled).  Now that she's had most of the year to work with him, she realizes the extent of his disability.  William's biggest strength is his cheerful personality and optimistic demeaner.  He never feels bad that he can't do something, he tries and if it's too hard, he just moves on to the next thing.  He's also always willing to help, but his limited understanding and lack of color knowledge makes it difficult.  I've learned creative ways of describing things to him that don't involve color, number, or size.

Isaac had a scout campout up in Darrington.  Dode was able to go along.  They went up into the snow and were able to practice target shooting with some of his scoutmaster's guns. 

Isaac had a great time and loved having his dad there.

This was a crazy week.  Dode had a work conference down in Tacoma Mon-Wed which gave him 12 hour work days.  Then, on Thursday he had his wisdom teeth taken out.  He only had three left because several years ago when we didn't have dental insurance, one started to really trouble him so after months of waiting for it to resolve itself, we had it removed.  Now that he has dental insurance, it was time to get the rest out. 

He hadn't had a general anesthetic since he was five years old.  (For those that don't know, my sweet husband caught himself on fire as a young child and had to endure a long hospital stay and skin grafts.)  It was weird to have him the one out of it, it's been me way too many times.  The procedure went smoothly and a little more than an hour after we got there, we were ready to go home.  Right before his appointment, I'd driven over to Frost doughnuts, a gourmet doughnut shop in Mill Creek I'd read about in the paper.  I bought a dozen of their "evolved" donuts to bring home to the kids.  Isaac's favorite is the maple bar topped with crumbled bacon.  Jacob liked the aztec, which was a chocolate cake donut topped with a chocolate frosting with cayene in it.  My favorite looked plain but tasted wonderful, salted caramel.  It was an absolutely fresh old fashioned doughnut, drizzled with caramel and sprinkled with sea salt.  It was definately worth the calories!  When we got home, Dode spent the rest of the day sleeping.  He's actually doing great so far and is not in a lot of pain.  He keeps wanting to tackle more shelves in the trailer and I keep encouraging him to relax and take it easy. 

We had 81 at the co-op.  Hooray! (82 is my max).  We got:  fuji apples, bananas, strawberries, green bell peppers, cantaloupe, pineapple, green beans, carrots, corn, persian cucumbers, grey squash (think zuchini) and romaine.  I'm so glad we got pineapple.  We didn't get any last week and I had to buy one at Costco, it's become a staple.  Last week the truck came at 6:00 am, three hours early.  I was laying in bed when I heard the sound of a semi setting its breaks.  Surely that can't be my truck, I thought.  Wrong!  Dode was gone so it was up to me to help the delivery man get the produce up the driveway.  He has an electric hand truck the pallets rest on but there is one spot of loose gravel that requires someone to push.  Then for the first time, the people who did the ordering messed up and we had to send stuff back.  The boxes that had to go back were on the bottom of the pallets which meant I had to unload all the boxes, by myself, as quickly as possible so the truck driver could take them back.  My lower back ached for days.  This week was much smoother.  The truck showed up at 8:00 which is still early but we were already up and about. 

It's so wonderful to hear so many "thank you, you're so wonderful for doing this" type comments in the morning!

I've been sewing for the girls.  I'm surprised that my 12 year old girl wants to wear things her mom makes for her but she's loving it and shows off to all her friends.  I've made her three skirts and a repurposed sweater.  I am NOT a skilled seamstress.  The seam ripper is getting a bit dull!  But, skirts are just rectangles sewed together with an elastic waistband.  I can do that (as long as I don't mind ripping a waistband out three times before I get it right, no exageration.)  She was so impressed because the last skirt I made had pockets in it.

Here is one of the outfits I've made her.

The wrap skirt is reversable so she can have either the polka dots or solid black on the outside.  The pink jacket used to be a sweater that I cut down the middle and added a ruffle and ribbon tie to.  She made the flower bracelet.  Anastaya spent the morning at a music workshop at the stake center.  She now wants to get an organ so she can practice on it.  She loved the way an organist can personalize the song to their liking.

Here is a dress I made Miriam.  Two rectangles sewn together, shirred at the top using 8 lines of elastic thread.  She loves it.  Yesterday she wore it to Haggen with purple rubber boots and about 6 plastic sparkly butterflies in her hair.  It was quite a unique look.

Elizabeth's new skirt.  I love the chiffon ruffle at the bottom.