Spring and projects

The past two months we have been working very hard on cleaning up the barn area.  We had tons of gravel delivered and rented a tractor and bulldozer to spread it.  I had so much fun driving a skid steer.  I want a tractor.

I'm old

So many things are changing. Gavin has his first girlfriend. Drew wears mascara to school. I turned 43 last week. I have wrinkles. Life is good.

On my birthday I spent quite a bit of time figuring out how to get a bird out of our wood burning stove. It flew down the flue into the stove. Gillian took video which I will have to try to upload tonight between the hours of 11pm and 4am thanks to our lovely satellite internet. Speaking of old, this computer is 5 years old and verrrrryyyy slow. Five year old computer coupled with satellite internet makes blogging, web surfing, downloading, uploading, writing papers, or doing anything, very very frustrating. But I will post proof of the bird drama later. Also, the bird brought a friend back a few days later. So we had two birds flying around our house and banging into the windows. It was soooo exciting for the kids and the dogs.

Darren took me to the Salish Lodge spa last Saturday night. It is at Snoqualmie Falls. I got a massage and we had a late dinner. It was so nice to get away with him if only for a few hours. He is always so thoughtful and knows how badly my neck and head have been hurting. I had hot rocks, hot towels, and a deep massage. I wish that the relaxing effects could last forever.

Did I mention that Gavin has a girlfriend???!!!!!!!

HB visit

My mom flew me down to Huntington Beach last week to visit with my family. It was so nice. Alice kept me busy playing "animal puzzo piece." She never tires of her animal puzzle. I also played with Alice at the beach while Suzy went for a run. The fact that it is warm enough and sunny enough to go the beach in March blows my mind. The morning I flew out of Seattle it was snowing.

We celebrated mine and Laura's birthday. Mama hen was singing to us too. It's a battery operated hen that lays plastic eggs. Glad that the hen lives at Suzy's house because it has a very catchy tune that tends to get stuck in my head. "Mama hen's back again squakalakin lets begin......"

I also got to meet Manny, Laura's fiance. He's a pilot and has a small plane that he took me, dad, and Laura up in. He let me sit in the front and fly the plane. We flew over Catalina and the Queen Mary. The sunset was beautiful.

And of course, no Crockett family get together is complete without a word game of some kind

President's Day

President's day was last week and the kids and Darren had the day off. The weather was very Seattle-ish but that didn't stop us from having fun. Nasca and her boys came over with their quads and motorcycles and so did Bryan and his kids. We rode motorcycles and horses and roasted hot dogs. Now Drew really really wants a motorcycle. Sigh.

I've learned that even when it rains in Washington you just have to go ahead and follow through with your plans or you would rarely do anything outside. That's what hats and coats are for.

Turds

Last week Drew came home from school and proclaimed "it's like we are living in a giant turd." Hmmm..... I was a little confused by this because this is by far the loveliest house I've ever lived in. So she started furiously cleaning. "Joelle doesn't have laundry all over her couch!" "The Peay's house is ALWAYS clean!!!" On and on this went while she angrily vacuumed. The thing is that I had spent most of the morning doing laundry and cleaning the girls' extremely cluttered rooms. When I pointed out her bedroom disaster to her that I had spent the morning on she just said "well, nobody LIVES in my bedroom!" Oh boy, I'm so excited for when she becomes a teen. And by the way, with 5 horses and 4 dogs I spend a good portion of my day cleaning ACTUAL turds. That's all.

Winter Wonderland

This past week brought lots and lots of snow. Along with that school was cancelled for the entire week. Most of Darren's patients cancelled so he had time home too. Overall it was fun, except when I was trying to drive. I left the driving to Darren. It was nerve wracking even in four wheel drive.

Our power went out several times. It was kind of fun. Darren cooked a yummy breakfast burrito on our wood burning stove. We got a great workout just carrying in wood to stock up for the storm. It's amazing how warm the stoves keep the house. Also, when the power goes out the generator automatically comes on. Pretty nice.

This is the rickety ladder that we have to climb to get to the hay. Kind of treacherous in the snow.

Darren and I dropped Drew off at a friends house to go sledding. She was very concerned before we left because of the way we were dressed. Darren was wearing his canvas overalls and I was dressed for the storm. She said "Great, now I'll be known as the kid whose parents dress like hobos!" This is me dressed like a hobo.

Christmas2011

What a fun season Christmas is. Having our new house has truly made all the difference. I had a place to hide presents, and a place to have people over for our "Ugly Christmas Sweater" party. That was on the 23rd and it was pretty fun. I did a little shopping at Goodwill and Walmart and voila, ugly outfit. The really nice part was having enough room for kids to party and stay out of our way (but not out of earshot!), and having plenty of parking.

Rebecca, Cyn, Katie, Nasca, and Jenny.

Rebecca and Katie obviously weren't in the "ugly sweater" mood.

I also enjoyed decorating the house for the holidays. When we went to get out tree Darren figured our front room could handle a tall tree. We got it home and it's a whole heck of a lot taller than it looked in the u-cut tree farm. We had to drag it over to the staircase to get the lights and ornaments on the top. We estimate it's height to be at about 15 feet. Not looking forward to unstringing the lights.

Gavin and Darren really wanted their Christmas pj's to be "real tree" camo. I lucked out and found some that are pretty close to real tree (as far as I'm concerned) at Walmart.

Darren got me the coolest present ever. He bought a Weeping Willow tree. My favorite kind of tree and I've been talking about wanting one in my yard since we moved here. The tree company comes and plants it and everything and guarantees it for a year. Hooray! So thoughtful. Oh, and I got a new vacuum, but that was out of necessity.

And now for the present that the kids and I got for Darren:

He named her Shadow and she is an adorable 6 week old Lab. And yes, I know that makes 4 dogs for us. And yes, I know that's crazy. But Darren has wanted a Lab forever-- a "real" dog as he says. It was always in our plan to have a Lab but in our other home it wouldn't have worked. Then along came George, Holly, and Roxy. But Roxy is pretty much like a guinea pig. We even brought her to the mall the other day to get Santa pictures. So anyway, the puppy reveal went pretty well. D took the kids to church this morning and I was too "sick" to go (actually my stomach really did hurt). Then I drove 10 minutes to where the puppy lived, luckily I found one close, and had her sleeping on his pillow when they got home from church. I believe he was genuinely surprised, and I was very relieved that he was happy.

Drew had a 6th grade Fun Run on the last day before break and this was her outfit.