Sunday, September 29, 2013

Too much..

I know that Seattle is known for its amount of rainfall. Yesterday was a little overboard. We had just over 2 inches of rain in 24 hours. It was great. My stupid drain outside my lower glass door couldn't keep up, and water began to come into the basement ( which is the older boys bedroom). I've never seen them move so quickly in getting their junk off the floor. Jon and Tom had cups, filling them and tossing the water into the yard. Tom suggested renting a jack hammer to create a new drainage hole. I told him I didn't think that my husband would go for it.
  Later today were are suppose to get a wind storm. It's been several years since we have had a good one, so it will be interesting to see how much damage happens, especially since it was so wet yesterday.
   I had the kids make sure their flashlights are ready, I have kerosene for my lamps. Now just waiting for the fun to begin...

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Fall has arrived..

  Fall has arrived in its typical fashion here in the Seattle area. As I was driving home, it was down pouring ( I really  dislike driving on the freeway in that type of rain). As the kids were watching the Seahawks game, the rain stopped and the sun came out. There was a beautiful rainbow out, I got a good picture of it. I will post pics later...
    You can feel that the weather is changing. My tomatoe vines are beginning to die, the pumpkin vines are beginning to wither in spots. My strawberries however, are still blossoming and producing strawberries..
Hoepfully this week I will get time to finish picking the pumpkins, and pulling up the vines. I am trying to stay on top of the garden clean up this fall.
     I planted lettuce, onions, and swiss chard. Now to make sure my hens don't get in and eat it all as it sprouts.
My trees out front and back are beginning to change colors. My tree in the back has little leaves. They turn the most beautiful colors. The drawback: the leaves are small and a nightmare to rake or blow.
   The older boys went on a scout rendezvous on Friday and Saturday. They had a great time. They went last year ( they really didn't want to go); but had a lot of fun. This year they were looking forward to it.
   I found a memory card that was stashed in my nightstand- there were pictures on it. There were pics on there from last year. Its funny to see how the kids have changed in a year.



These pictures were taken a year ago. My mom grew up in Millwood. My great-grandfather was one of the first settlers there. He had a huge farm. My mom and uncle grew up seeing this train go to the papermill. It is in the town of Snoqualmie at the Railroad Museum. I was floored when we came across this locomotive.
There are several really cool train engines stored there.


The town of Snoqualmie is quite. It has several ma and pa stores off the main road. There's a really good ice cream parlor there. My kids enjoyed the ice cream.

I like decorating for the fall. This is the table decoration I made last year...

My goal is to get my fall décor up this weekend, so we shall see how that goes...

Saturday, September 14, 2013

life

Things have been busy here- I keep hoping things will slow down, they just haven't yet. Hubby left Tuesday for Idaho. Its just been me and the kids. Things have been going well so far. The weather has been super crazy here. A week ago Thursday we had an incredible lightening storm. Usually around here, we get a couple flashes, then its all over. Thursday morning, I saw lightening the entire trip to work ( 40 minutes). They were incredible flashes. That night, it was impressive. I didn't stay up for it- the thunder shaking my house did wake me. The national weather service said there were over 500 lightening strikes. We had an inch of rain in 13 hours. My grass is very nice and green now.

Here is a picture of my fire place mantel ( ignore all the junk- this is how my house looks like after working all week and not being home in the evenings.)
Last Sunday Thomas sanded the mantle. We are going to re do it. We aren't sure what we are going to do. We have been playing around with ideas. I want a bigger mantle- we may just build around the existing mantle. We think that the previous owners may have secured it with construction adhesive ( that is how they did the paneling). I dislike sheet rock/drywall work. SSooooo, we have to resort to other ideas and methods.

I am in charge of awards for my cub scout pack. At the last committee meeting, we discussed having the dens do den flags. I have been put in charge of organizing and helping the dens create one. I have an idea in my head, my goal tomorrow is to make one. I was at the scout store today getting my adopted son a merit badge sash, they had big wolf, bear, and webelos badges. So, I bought one of each. I think the flags will be cute when they are done. I also need to make two arrows for the Arrow of Light award. The one I have to get started on this week, as the scout has earned a TON of awards. His will probably be one of the most  complicated arrows I have made. I like a challenge :) I am hoping that it will be great motivation for some of the parents to be more involved with their scouts.
Here is the arrow of light. pattern I use. The parents and scouts seem to really like the arrows. I use lots of feathers and beads in addition to the stripes. I will be taking pictures to show them off.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Labor Day

Its been busy as usual here.
Saturday I worked, went shopping at Hobby Lobby,then we had family pictures done, then a friends daughter's wedding to attend. I got several Christmas presents for family. They had a really good sale on some of the things my kids and nieces have been looking at.
The wedding was cute. The bride and husband are so sweet. We had a great time.

Sunday we went to church, then I decided I would clean/organize our bedroom. That was an all night excursion. At least it is clean.
As I was cleaning, my husband and middle boys decided to work on the oldest boy's car.
He finally figured out what the bugs were.

This is the part that what causing the problems. It required a new PCV valve and 2 cans of throttle body cleaner. Car idles just fine now. Hopefully my hubby will have time to take it through emissions tomorrow so we can get it tabbed.

As I was watering my flowers out front, I discovered this in my pot.



I  haven't seen this little guy out front, I was surprised when he stuck his head out of the pot. He has gold markings on him.


As I was vacuuming earlier, my cats were working hard- ha ha ha.

Its been warm and humid here. I will be glad when the temps come down more. There is thunder and lightening forecasted for today and Thursday, so hopefully this crazy weather streak will end soon.