... to a blustery day on Windy Hill Farm. (Too blustery really.)

So last week it was really windy at our house, too windy. So windy and rainy in fact, we lost a few shingles off our roof. And while we had the Blinds Lady over to give us a quote on new blinds, we suddenly heard a small drip...drip...drip. We realized there was a leak in our living room ceiling. (The drip came from that seem along the edge in the top left corner) Yeah, there was also a little river running down the wall and collecting some where between the molding and the carpet. ( You can see it in the bottom right corner.) All we could do was put a towel at the outlet of the river and a kitchen pan to catch the drips, which sounded even louder in the pan. And of course I had a small pond forming inside my door. This only happens when it's really rainy and windy at the same time. No worries now though, my dad fixed it all, so we are good until the next storm comes.


*FYI, I think I am also all caught up with my blogs. I think there are five I put up today, so be sure to check them all out. There is still one more that I am just waiting for pictures, Alejandra....

... to wish MaryBeth farewell and Brent a happy birthday!

It was a bittersweet get together. MaryBeth Kraemer, my dear friend, is moving to Cambodia for six months to do her DTS. I am sooo excited for her and I know this is what she has wanted to do, but I will miss her terribly!! Brent Kintz, pretty much one of the biggest studs south of Mt. Rainier, had a birthday the day before. So me and the rest of the gang had to celebrate. Naturally we went to Red Robin, Brent's favorite place to eat. I had the Bonzai Burger and it was amazing, just like all the other burgers I have had there. We made sure to have everyone come and sing to Brent. He shared his sundae with MaryBeth, that's so sweet. It was a great evening laughing together, the perfect way to send MBK off. So farewell MBK, I'm praying for you, and happy birthday again Brent!

... to see the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything!

Ahoy matey. I'm gonna try and write this here blog like a pirate. So sit down ya scurvy dog and listen up. I heard that the new Veggie Tale movie was comin in fast, like a hurricane on a boat without a sail. Aye, that's right. So I scurried around and rounded up a few other scallywags and made like the dickens to the theatre. We had a mighty terrible ache for some grub, so we made a detour to Wendy's, laid down some pieces of eight and had ourselves a feast. When our bellies were full, we found ourselves a seat and my what a scene to behold. Twas a fine film. Full of adventure, fun, and vicious cheese curds. Well me hearties, I must go, the sea she calls to me! Farewel landlubbers!



P.S. Arg, if I ever hear tale of any of you dressing up your kin like this, you'll be havin me to reckon with bilge rat!

... to game night at Tiger Mountain.

Not everyone in my family has seen my uncle's new house up by Tiger Mountain. So we decided to have a game night at his house to break it in. I don't know what to say about the game night really. I mean I think you can guess at what we did. I totally dominated 10 Days in Asia. I have only been beaten once!
We naturally had snacks galore. Mmmmm Everyone managed to get in on one game, me and my cousin Tilana joined forces to not quite win, but we weren't terrible. Actually the first time we played we were, but... whatever. Next time we're going all in...

... to a Happy New Year!

For New Years I went down to Centralia, to the Bates annual New Year's Eve Shindig. We had a blast.
The evening started out with Disney DVD Pictionary. My team almost won, but we don't need to talk about that. We also played Catch Phrase and that game was definately rigged! Kim Bowen... grrr...
It was just nice to catch up with everyone. See everyone, goof around with people...
It was also Shawn's last night in C-town. Bye Shawn! Sniff sniff, hope you enjoyed that hug!

We of course broke out the sparkling cider and party favors. To end the night everyone gathered in the kitchen to sing Auld Lang Syne, all six or so verses! Whew, it was a fun night full of way too much apple cider and laughter!

... to... well a whole bunch of places.

Well sorry for my little sabbatical, I'm just going to put up a bunch of pics and do a little information dump.We will start with Christmas eve, which happens to be my dad and his brother's birthday. (His brother is, I think, eight years younger.) So as tradition holds, the whole family goes out to brunch. We usually go to the same place but this year we branched out and went to Trotter's in Auburn. Nothing special really. In the evening everyone reconvenes at my grandma's house where there are even more traditions to uphold. The first thing we do is host the Murray Family Christmas Program. Yes, everyone generally has to do something, it can be a reading, something musical, a game, a skit... the list can go on. This has been going on in my family for, oh, 50 years or so, probably a little less. Anyways, my family did a shadow play, I was the narrator in case you don't recognize my distinct silhouette. My uncle Clayton (the other birthday boy) played the accordion. He is a pianist who likes to pick up other random instruments from time to time. My second cousin and other uncle did a skit. There were a few other things, but you get the gist of it. The next tradition is the Murray gift exchange. I managed to convince my family to play it a little differently this year. You can ask me about it if you want to know. I made out pretty good with a LCD digital picture frame set. Not too bad compared to what my cousin ended up with, a coin sorter. The birthday boys blow out their candles and we eat dessert which always includes coconut ice cream and something else. We have dinner and then open any other gifts. It makes for a full evening, but definitely memorable. Here is the whole fam.

Christmas Day! Yippee!! The day you can always be a kid! We don't do anything different really as far as opening presents. After all the presents have been opened we have a Christmas brunch and toast the new year. This year we went to my Uncle and Aunt's house in Kent. Here we have a feast like no other, bigger than any rare roast beast! Mmmm. It was a little chaotic because someone decided that instead of passing the dishes around we would pass our individual plates. Sounds like it should work, but knowing my family we had people standing up and dishing up plates or passing them three people down. It was pretty funny.The major tradition we have on this side of the family some say is disgusting, but whatever, it's my family. Some time ago my grandma brought a fruitcake meaning for it to be eaten. Well no one ate it, so it was put into the back of a cupboard. The following year it was brought back out and passed on to someone else as a joke. That is not so bad, but this has been going on for 11 years! Yep, the same fruitcake. My mom has hot glued some of the candied fruit back on.My uncle made a case for it this year so it will forever more be preserved in the family. My grandma and grandpa got the fruitcake this year. It's come full circle. We had a gift exchange in which I got a sweet hand chopper thing, it is really cool. Then there it the dessert buffet. Wow, everything is amazing. Pumpkin, cheesecake, lemon torte, sour cream raisin... MMMMM!!! My cousins know how to make the desserts! Both families play a lot of games so both nights usually include games. We have a blast no matter what we do really. I love it!

... back to the kitchen of old.

Back to the days of Cream of Wheat and Wonder Bread. When a woman was serene in her kitchen. My friend Amy and I wanted to visit the good ole days with our retro style aprons. We actually made them ourselves like three years ago. The patterns that we used had these old classic 1950 pictures of women in the kitchen. So we tried to reenact the photos with the help of our aprons. That yellowish glow in my bowl is butter, not gold.

"Are you taking a picture of me and my wonderful cookies?"

The finished product!

Ah, the the joy of enjoying your own cooking.

We are planning to have another 1950's kitchen reenactment after Christmas. We have to collect a few more props; jeans and sweatshirts don't quite work for a woman in the 1950's.

... to a big mud puddle.

I didn't really know we had such big mud holes on our property, but obviously we do. A friend of Kathryn's, who will remain anonymous, decided to "get a little mud on his tires." Well he got some, and then some. It is actually all *Kathryn's fault , but she will say that it is my mom's fault. Anyways we won't get into that, the jeep was stuck.
So Alison had to get her truck to tow it. We had some help from one of Alison's friends too. The two guys seemed to know just what to do. (Funny how guys know that stuff.) It turned out to be a family outing, Alison, Kathryn, my mom, and of course myself all came out to watch the removal of the jeep from the mire. The real key to getting the jeep out though was us gals. The boys could not get it out with their mere trucks and knowledge. Us gals had to pile in the back of the truck, probably added maybe 400 pounds. Doesn't matter how many pounds I guess because it worked. So I can honestly say it was basically the girls who got the Jeep out. It was good fun watching the guys make an attempt at it. Apparently my aunt had fun watching it from her window too. Thanks "Mr. J" for coming out and giving us gals some excitement.

*So the story is that when Kathryn was interviewing my uncle about his excavating business a week ago she tried "smoothing" out a little bump in the earth with his trackhoe and actually made it quite a bit worse. After all this rain it has filled up with water and turned into a big mud hole. Well apparently when Kathryn and her anonymous friend got to the house no one was home, so to avoid being alone in the home they went out to get the mud on their tires. Kathryn I guess advised "Mr. J" about the muck, but he claims that she spoke up as he was falling into the abyss. So that is the story, you can draw your own conclusions. 

... to GTC Alumni Reunion.

Ah, the joy of meeting friends again and reminiscing of days gone by. Generation Training Center's annual alumni reunion was this past weekend and of course I had a blast. The evening festivities start off with worship and a short time of sharing. I love being able to worship and share with those that I am close with. 

The fun really began when everyone went to Centralia Bowl to practice our mad skills at bowling. (Or in my case the lack of.) But skills or no skills it was a fierce game. Carissa nearly beat me, but I pulled ahead with a whopping score of 80. Crazy I know.

The fun continued on at the Rollerdrome. (For those of you who are thinking I meant to type rollerdome, you are mistaken. A drome is actually an oval arena equipped with a track.) Yes this has become the tradition to take a blast into the past and relish a pastime our parents did when they were kids. We did all the usual stuff, the birdie dance, the hokey pokey, speed racing, limbo, races, and the new one this year was racing on these little cart things. It took me a long time to figure it out, but apparently they move by just moving side to side. I don't know. But it was fun when someone pushed you. We had a blast catching up with everyone and hearing what has been going on. It was a great night. Can't wait for the next one!

... to McFamily Night!!!

Besides my sister bringing home extra cookies and apple pies, one of the perks of her working at McDonalds is that we get to go to McFamily night! It was soo cool! We got to have a tour, a behind the scenes look at McDonalds. I got to see where all the meat is kept, the grill, the burger-makin table, and the McFlurry machine. (Which is, I hear, pretty dangerous. Apparently people have gotten gashes and black eyes from it! Wahoa!) The basement is what we really wanted to see. We had only heard rumors of the basement, but now I can testify that it is real, I walked in it! See the mass of buns and french fry containers?! (I took a small fry wrapper as my personal momento.) Yeah, the basement was a highlight.
Kathryn later let me touch the order buttons, it was a rush. I was very impressed with McDonalds, very well organized and clean. Although I did see a random meat patty on the floor of the freezer in the basement...
To top of the whole evening, families got to order whatever their hearts desired, including dessert! It was glorious! I am so proud of my little sis, going to school, workin, and going to more school. And she was a very good tour guide. And props to Emily, just because you are reading this and leaving me a comment... 

I'm kind of hungry for an apple pie now...

And here is my kids church group singing for the adults in the evening service. Aren't they the cutest bunch of kids?!