To all those from Washougal

You might be a Redneck if:

Your class reunion is a keg party in the woods.

What would YOU say?

Dustin and I sing in a stake Christmas choir, (the stake is our church region consisting of about 11 congregations). So there have been about 5 rehearsals now and last night at practice we were all mixed up, not sitting by familiar people and stuff. I was sitting near the isle and this woman that I've NEVER seen at practice before, don't know her/her name, nothing, squeezes past me to an inside seat. I say "Sorry, it's a little tight through here," meaning the narrowness of the isle. She says back to me, "It's ok, we all understand how that goes," and proceeds to RUB MY BELLY as she passes me!!! At first I thought, she just rubbed my fat, that's strange, then it dawned on me, she thinks I'm PREGNANT!! Ok, so I'm pretty sure I sucked in my gut the rest of the practice and seriously contemplated lipo-suction before next Sunday when I might see this woman again. Then I thought, should I say something?? I didn't, but would you?? Just for the record, no I'm not expecting anything! Maybe this is a sign that even though I weigh the same as when I got pregnant with Damen, my tummy does not look the same and I should REALLY do something about it. Any and all opinions are welcome:)

Food Storage fun?

So, I recently heard about this blog called Safely Gathered In (see side bar), from Jen and decided to check it out. OH my gosh, I couldn't stop reading!! I spent the better part of this evening getting really excited about bread making and baked oatmeal! AND about adding to my food storage, something we can all do, especially in this time of uncertainty. So, check it out, I hope you can all find something to help you too.

Giraffe Heaven!

This is the picture of Damen feeding the giraffe. See the other ones in the background, don't they look happy?

Palm Springs

So I had mentioned before that we were out of town last week on our very first Family Vacation! We went to Palm Springs, about 40 minutes away, and stayed in a timeshare resort there. The resort was really nice with two large pools and water slides. We spent one day swimming and doing a sales presentation because we're not officially owners of this timeshare and that was interesting.
First we did a tour of the facility, very nice, then we were given an explanation of all the other resorts they own, also nice. Then our tour lady turned the experience over to a sales lady, not so nice! We told her we couldn't afford the payment plans, so she offered us a lower option, nope we said thanks though, then she got rude. She told us that we couldn't use the resort in Cabo Mexico next year, which we've already planned, because we need to buy more points. Now I'm not the type of person that just goes along with what someone tells me, and I knew I had looked up our options and we could go to Cabo, so of course I told her so. At which time she tossed a bunch of papers at the other lady, grabbed some reference sheet and looked it over in an uncomfortable long silence, then said, "Well you could go if you went just during the week."(insert attitude) To which I responded, "Yup, that's the plan" (big smile and everything) She said she couldn't help us then and stormed away. The pour tour lady just smiled at us and said she'd be right back with our $100 gift card for taking the tour. Ahhhh, customer service at it's best.
The next day Dustin woke up not feeling very well but we'd planned on going to the Living Desert, this really great zoo/garden/reserve place near Palm Springs, so we went. Damen got to feed a giraffe (of course I totally forgot my camera so I'm waiting for Dustin to download the pic from his phone), pet a goat, and see the neatest train exhibit EVER. Not sure why that was there with the Cheetahs and the Zebras, but whatever. We also saw eagles and coyotes, which wasn't really exciting for me having lived in the great northwest where those are pretty regular sights. After about three hours Dustin said, I'm done, we have to go back, and started walking to the car. By the time we got back to the room he was running to throw up in the bathroom. Poor thing was deathly ill the rest of the day. Damen and I went to the pool again that afternoon. The next day we packed up and came home so Dustin could be sick in the comfort of home.
All in all, it was a good experience for our first ever family vacation, we should do this more often!(minus the rudenss and the sickness)

OHHH-AHHHHH

I have a video camera on my digital camera!! My friend Melissa makes videos on her digital camera all the time, and one day I thought, "hmmm, I think my digital camera does that, I should try it out." And it WORKED!! So for your viewing pleasure, here is my very first video, it's kind of long and there's no sound, but you get the idea of how the marble thing works now. Enjoy!

Halloween already!

We've been out of town so I haven't been able to update and post Halloween pics. We had a great time at our Church's Trunk or Treat for the kids, Damen went around and around the parking lot shouting "Trick or Treat!" Most times he stopped at the cars for candy too. Afterwards we went to visit Dan's Aunt and Uncles house, it was his cousin that inspired and bought the Mickey and Minnie costumes and we had to show them off! We didn't get to do any pumpkins this year, there just didn't seem to be the time for it, but we had fun anyway. Damen has completely forgotten about the candy by now, which we are grateful for, more for us (ok me)!!