Back to School

We are now well into the swing of things. We have a month of school under our belts. It has been good so far.

B started jr. high and was definately more ready for it than I am. I can't believe how well she is doing. I swear she has grown up since school started.


M&M is in 5th grade and thanks to the 6th grade moving to the jr high she and the other 5th graders are the big wigs at school. She is having a great time. She has some good friends and a good teacher and I think this is her best year yet.


Roo started pre-school two days a week. Can you hear the hallelujah choir in the background?.....I sure can. Four hours a week to do whatever I need or want to do is pure bliss. She is loving it too. She talks more about the boys playing pirates than what she is learning. I hope that is not a glimps into the future.

They all start school at a different time which means no more back to bed for me. That has been a little depressing. I am on morning car pool duty. It is nice to be out and done with all my errands so early in the morning but sure makes for a long day. I am ready for bed every night by 9. Makes me feel like an old lady. It's all good though. I am having a good time watching the girls. I am really proud of all three of them.

I have put stamping to the side lately to pursue my newest "hobby". I have discovered beaded watch bands. You know the ones inspired by the "Bumble" brand. I am loving it. Today I finished up on the few I was having trouble with. Who knew you could have beaders block. I am still trying to decide if I need to change one of the bands, but hopefully I am done for a while. One of these years I will have to post some pictures of what I have done. I think that I will get back to stamping.

For now I am off to bed. Tomorrow is another day.

Vacation part 2

The second half of our vacation is definitely we will never forget. We started off the day at the Applets and Cotlets factory. My great aunt used to buy them and it was fun to see where they were made. Not sure hubby appreciated it, but the girls and I had fun. The next stop we decided to make is to Lake Chelan. We got there without any excitement. We pulled up to buy tickets for the "Lady of the Lake" boat tour. The girls were very excited. We went thinking we were just in time. I went up to the desk. "We would like to buy tickets for the lake cruise" I said to the girl sitting behind the desk. She asked me when we would like to go. "Today" seemed like a good response. She looked at me funny....."yes, it would help me book your ticket if you told me today when you want to go." Hmmm. That was a strange response. So I tried "Right now." I am at that point thinking we are standing here with our whole family, jackets in hand, obviously ready to go. "Yes, I need to know right now if you want me to book your tickets." By that point I am thinking it is the blonde leading the blonde. I explained to her that we are not from the area and saw the cruise in a brochure and would like to go out for the afternoon. Oh.....we only have one cruise, it leaves in the morning and gets back in the afternoon. It would be nice if they said something about that in the brochure.

We headed back to the RV looking for something else to do. We drove around the lake for a while. It was beautiful. We decided to try and find a water slide park we read about. We finally found it on Water slide Road (who would have guessed)? It was a great. We all had a good time. I didn't have my camera so you will have to imagine the water park overlooking the lake. We stayed until closing time and headed over to the RV park we saw while we were driving around. There was a new sign out front. Full. Not good. We couldn't find anything in town so we headed on down the road. WAY down the road. I was starting to get worried. We finally found a spot in a rodeo ground rv park in Omak Washington. Have you ever been to Omak? I don't recommend going. We were thankful for the place to rest, but happy to get going again in the morning.

Up and going again we headed toward the Coulee Dam. Wanted to go on a dam tour. It was hot at the dam. Too hot. The ol' rv didn't like it there. Started lurching again. We pulled into the dam parking lot just in time to take the tour. We walked across the dam with the tour guide explaining it was probably over 110 degrees on top of the dam right now. No kidding.....let's get on with the tour. We went to a shelter on the edge of the dam and listened to the guide for a while. She got my attention when she said, "this is the point we usually go into the dam, but since the elevator is broken, we can head back now." So the tour existed of walking across the very hot dam, peering over the edge, and walking back. We went to the visitors center for a while and back to the rv. This was the worse day in the rv. She broke down about every 20 miles or so. The rolling hills and the heat were just too much for her. We limped her into Spokane that evening and stopped for dinner. After dinner I spotted a KOA sign and told Nate he had better follow that sign. When we got there, I ran in to see if we could get a spot. I got quite a scare. No spots left. I wanted to fling myself on the counter and cry, beg, bribe, anything to not have to get back into that motorhome. It had been a very long stressful day. Then suddenly they remembered they had just had a cancellation. Hooray! Kissing them would have been inappropriate, but I sure wanted to. We lurched around the parking lot a few times. Felt like the Griswald family pulling in. I am sure our neighbors were thrilled when we pulled up to the side of them. All we were lacking was a backfire. KOA was our refuge that night. Swimming in the cool pool, movie on the lawn, and to bed. I would have been happy staying there for a long, long, time. Unfortunately we only had reservations for one night.

The next day was Sat. I was ready to go home, but we weren't supposed to be home until Sunday. So we headed toward Cour D'alane. We wanted to see if maybe we could get that lake cruise in yet. We made it there with no lurching. Drove right into the middle of the biggest street fairs I have ever seen. We had to walk a LONG way to get to the lake. Saw lots of stuff in the booths lining the street. We grabbed some lunch and finally got tickets for a lake cruise. It was very relaxing. Roo instantly made a friend and didn't leave her side the whole time we were on the boat. She has the tendency to be a stalker that way. I am glad Zoe's mom humored her. Then we headed to Cataldo. It would be our last hurrah. A little Idaho history the next morning and then home. I didn't know the greatest adventure with the RV lay ahead that night. We pulled into the rv park and hubby says he is going to drop the fuel tank to see if he can figure out what the problem is. OK. I have no idea what that meant. Now I do. If you have never had that experience, I hope you never do. We couldn't get the plug out of the bottom of the tank so we had to drop it full. Right onto Nate's hand. Ouch. Then we had to figure how to get it into the 5 gallon buckets we had. Not enough buckets. Hubby couldn't see anything wrong so we had to try and lift the half full tank back into place. It involved a jack, and lots of language I didn't think the girls should hear, but we did it. That is a feeling of accomplishment. Don't know many people who can say they have done that. Then Hubby made friends with the rv park owner and got a tour of his garage. Turned out to be a drag racer and hubby was happy to have met him. Even stopped on the way out Sun. morning to say thank you.

Sunday I was ready to be headed home. We held out breath and hit the road. Only broke down once. Coasted into a little gas station that claimed to be running out of gas. Sold us $10 worth of gas. Thank goodness it was enough to get us to the next exit. Hubby didn't want to chance it so we came home with the windows open and the heat on. I was sooo happy to get home to my air condtioned house and my kitchen, and my full size bathroom......I could go on and on. We can laugh about most of the trip now. It was a good time. I might even want to do it again after hubby fixes the lurch. The girls have a story no one else will have. I would definately say we bonded. Maybe a little too much.

I left the Roo factor out of the vacation. She was something else the whole time we were gone. I was proud of hubby not killing her when she told him to just turn the key and get her out of there when we were broken down for the 6th or 7th time of the day. If it were only that simple. Or her repeated requests for fruit snacks and gum. If nothing else I learned patience. For now I will just be happy hanging out at home enjoying all those little luxuries we take for granted.