The second week of May

Last Sunday was Mother's Day. So even though Nathan and Don were not home, it was a special day that I was very much looking forward to.

Dylan and Sean, bless their hearts, set their alarms for 5:30 a.m. so they were sure to be up when Nick woke up. They wanted to intercept him and let me sleep in! Unfortunately, or fortunately, Nick decided that he'd sleep in that day and didn't wake up until after 7:00! So by the time he woke up, the boys were already pretty tired : )

Dylan made breakfast: pancakes and bacon, while Sean took care of the Littles. Then the 6 of us headed off to church and listened to an excellent Mother's Day service. From church, we drove south and went to Val and Dave's to spend some time with the Richeys and my parents. We had a delicious lunch and we presented mom with her Mother's Day/birthday gift: a gift certificate to her favorite nursery. Mom and Lee really don't need much of anything, but nursery gift certficates are always useful.

While we were there my niece Hailey gave Jordyn one of her American Girl dolls, which really helped Jordyn get over the sting of seeing Patience receive Kit the day of her birthday party. Thanks, Hailey! Jordyn really likes that doll and is taking good care of her.

On Sunday Nathan and Don made their way to San Jose and were able to take in game 5 of the Detroit/San Jose series. Unfortunately, San Jose lost that game but at least now Nathan can say that he's been in the Shark Tank for a playoff game...he can check that off his bucket list.

On Monday Nathan and Don completed their drive and arrived at the Pacific Inn at Seal Beach. Our lives got completely back to normal. Dylan and Sean were thankful that Mother's Day was over : )

On Tuesday Nathan reported for duty at his new station! This took a few hours of paperwork and such so while he was gone Don took advantage of the nice weather and beach location and wondered around Seal Beach. That evening my parents arrived from Bellingham into Long Beach. They decided to head down there and help Nathan get settled. Which is really great, since it has been a HUGE undertaking!

On Wednesday Don flew back to Canada and Nathan and my parents were able to see his prospective new condo which we found on Craigslist. It looked amazing online and the owner was more than helpful in letting Nathan get a feel for the layout and location. It proved to be just as good as we thought! Doug, the owner, wanted to give it a fresh coat of paint but told Nathan he could move in on Sunday. So Nathan and my parents have been at the hotel in Seal Beach all week while they waited for the keys.

In the meantime, Nathan's car has been in the shop getting a transmission problem fixed (under warranty, YAY!) so they've been driving a brand new Armada. They've shopped at IKEA for beds, couches, dining sets, desks, etc. and Target for everything else Nathan will need for his household. It's a good great thing that Nathan has been so dilligent about saving money, because he's needed a lot of it to set himself up in his own place. After all the necessary, mundane things were purchased, Nathan found a huge hockey store in Anaheim and got himself fully set up to play ice or roller hockey (protective pads, etc.)

Today Nathan's IKEA order is being delivered, so there will be lots of assembly going on! And then tomorrow Nathan's household goods will be delivered from the Coast Guard. I imagine Nathan will be very busy unpacking and then will reward himself with a bike ride along the beach path that runs right outside his condo : ).

My parents are hoping to leave either Wednesday or Thursday, by which time Nathan should be fully settled. He starts work Friday for his first 3-day shift. For Nathan, weekends alternate between being a three-day (Friday-Sunday) work weekend or a three day weekend off. The other four days are work two, off two.

So Don got home Wednesday evening and got back into the swing of reality. He had a great trip with Nathan, though.

Sometime during the week, Dylan got a job offer! He's now working at Freybe Gourmet Meats right here in Aldergrove. It's a full-time job during the summer and then it goes down to part-time during the school year (perfect). The pay is very competitive and they have no problem with Dylan taking a week off for the cruise. Today is his first day (orientation). They have 2 shifts: day shifts from 6-2:30 or evening shifts from 2:30-11:00. This summer he's on days, unless they need him to cover an occasional evening shift. But during the school year he'll only be available to work 1 or 2 evening shifts each week. They're not open on weekends at all. He is very fortunate to have this job! I think I might try to get in here myself when all the Littles are in school full-time.

On Saturday Don and I took the Littles to a local mall for an outing. The idea was that the Littles could play on the play place and it would be a cheap date/outing. Except for that the Children's Place was having a sale and I spent a lot of money on a summer wardrobe for Nick. On our way to the mall, I looked in the back seat where all the Littles were (we were in the Matrix) and this is what I saw:

For those of you who haven't experienced Nick, he has this...um..."interest" in necks. He finds them comforting. If you pick him up and hold him, especially if he's upset or tired, he'll always put both hands up and hold your neck. I don't know how it started or why he finds necks comforting. But I thought it was hysterical that he was holding his sisters' necks!

Yesterday all 7 of us went to church. I can't remember the last time that has happened, but it's been a long while. After church we had some friends over for lunch. The mom offered to bring dessert. Imagine our delight when they showed up with this Dairy Queen ice cream cake!

It was a great day, topping off a great week.

And now, my blogging is all caught up! You don't know what a relief that is! I will try to be better about blogging more frequently. I know a lot of people appreciate seeing current pictures and hearing about current anecdotes. And no one appreciate them more than ME when I got back to read them a few years after the fact when I've long forgotten they ever happened.

Catching up at the Farm

Here's a little post to bring you all up-to-date on the events that I apparently don't have time to blog about on a daily weekly regular basis:

Don submitted his resume for two jobs: one with University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, and another with the Township of Langley. Both would come with a nice benefits package and we're hopeful that one will come through.

Nathan found out on Friday that he will NOT be going to the Coast Guard Academy this summer. He is mildly disappointed but now he's looking 100% forward to his next 4 or 5 years in LA/Long Beach. He leaves Cordova early Tuesday morning on the Alaksa Marine Highway ferry and will arrive in Bellingham on April 29. He has a 4-day layover in Juneau.

Dylan submitted his resume for an incredible summer internship position with a museum in Fort Langley. We're hopeful that he gets hired here, as his last day at Panago is a week from today. The pay is really good at this summer job...good enough to carry Dylan through an entire school year easily.

Sean brought home an excellent report card on Friday. Lots of A's to be happy about, one little "I" to work through : )

Dylan has moved rooms yet again! We have a leak in the pipes in Dylan's small dorm room, so we moved him into the larger gray bedroom in the basement so we can do whatever repairs we need to without worrying about Dylan's stuff.

Our entire front yard is a mud pit. We had a friend with an excavator company come in and dig a huge drainage pit in our front yard to help with some leaking that happens during heavy rainfall. We found the hole during the dig and Don patched it up. And now we need to do something about making the front yard green again.

Don and I are both on a low-carb diet. It's going really well as far as not being hungry much. We've both lost some weight so we feel really good : )

Jordyn has learned how to read thanks to Pokemon on Wii. She has inherited the video game gene from her older brothers and loves to play Pokemon Park. For a long time she would ask people around her to read the words on the screen, but that gets tiring after awhile so we stopped doing it. So, she had to start reading them for herself. The same thing happened with Sean when he was about her age. Just to make sure she was really reading, and not just memorizing each dialog box, I had her read to me out of a magazine at the dentist office on Thursday. Yep, she's reading. It's hilarious.

Patience and Jordyn have 0 cavities! Nick did not think that letting the dentist see his teeth was a good idea. At all.

Speaking of the girls, they are having a combined birthday party on Friday, May 6, which is a Pro-D day. They're having a "garden party" theme, so I hope the weather cooperates and we can do at least some things outside. Like painting the birdhouses. I really don't want do to that inside. I've really got to get on the invitations.

Dylan is in the middle of his finals for the sememster.

We are scheduled to take family portraits on Saturday, May 7. Outside. We are praying that the weather cooperates.

I think that's about all the newsiness from our neck of the woods. I'll post more later!

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Salad, anyone?

While my BFF is visiting me I want to be able to serve healthy salads without slaving away in the kitchen...I'd rather be visiting! So today I put together a salad bar that will serve us well for lunches and dinners. What you don't see here is the huge tupperware bowl full of young spinach, chopped romaine, and shredded carrots. Yummy, healthy, easy, yay!

April menu

3/29 Turkey and black bean burritos
3/30 (Heather arrives!) Pork cutlets, salad, couscous
3/31 Dinner out (?)
4/01 Pizza, salad
4/02 Roast, salad, broccoli, mashed potatoes
4/03 Spaghetti with meatballs, garlic bread, salad
4/04 Beef and bean burritos
4/05 Chili with corn bread
4/06 Potato soup, salad, bread
4/07 Clean-out-the-fridge soup, baked potatoes
4/08 Pizza, salad
4/09 Roast, salad, baked potatoes
4/10 Mealoaf, salad
4/11 Homemade macaroni and cheese, salad
4/12 Beef stew, biscuits
4/13 Spaghetti with meatballs, salad
4/14 Beef enchiladas
4/15 Pizza, salad
4/16 Roast, potatoes, salad
4/17 Turkey stirfry
4/18 Taco soup, quesadillas
4/19 (Nathan leaves Cordova!) Beef stew in bread bowls
4/20 White chili
4/21 Sloppy joes
4/22 Pizza and all the fixin's
4/23 Roast, salad, spuds, veggie
4/24 Meatloaf, potato soup, veggie
4/25 Beef and barley soup
4/26 Deli sandwiches
4/27 Beef and bean enchiladas
4/28 Homemade macaroni and cheese, salad
4/29 (Welcome home Nathan!) Pizza, etc.
4/30 Roast, veggies, spuds, etc.

Turning frugal fare into a feast

is as easy as baking a loaf of artisan bread for each of your guests!

These lovely loaves will accompany our turkey vegetable soup tonight. This will hopefully be the last turkey meal we have for quite some time!

Our trip to Merritt

Don and I bravely loaded the car and the Littles on Friday afternoon and headed to visit Grandma and Grandpa in Merritt! We took the portable DVD player (we took the Matrix, not the van) and all the kids happily watched movies all the way up. Halfway though the trip Nick fell asleep, so he had a short nap and woke up about 15 minutes before we arrived at their house.

We had a great time going for walks and quad rides, geocaching, playing cards, painting bird houses, and, of course, gorging ourselves enjoying Waneta's wonderful cooking. We were a little concerned about Nick, but he did really well as long as he got his "outside" quota in. But he went to bed early Friday night, allowing the adults to enjoy some card playing, and then he napped today, so we got to play this afternoon, too.

Don and Waneta have a delux GPS that is perfect for geocaching that they're letting us borrow. We're going to use it for a while and see how much better it is than the car GPS : ) In Merritt we found geocaches #5 and 6! It was a great trip and we're looking forward to going back, now that we know we can survive Nick : )

Dylan's spring recital

Haley and I went to watch Dylan perform in his final recital for this school year. It was very impressive!

Here it is for you listening enjoyment : )

Miscellaneous farm news

• Because of the horrible tragedy in Japan, we are no longer expecting to host two Japanese international students next week. We hear that everyone is okay in their families, but that they don't feel like this is the right time to send their sons oversees, which I totally understand.
• Nathan is going to be in Anchorage tomorrow, Tuesday, and Wednesday for his physical and vision exam for the US Coast Guard Academy.  Nathan finds out by April 15 if he is accepted or not.
• Sean has applied for a cadet trip this summer to go to Sweden for two weeks! He just found out when he went tagging (begging) for cadets on Friday night that there were open spots on this trip and he was asked if he wanted to apply. Of course he did! The miraculous thing is that it doesn't conflict with our family cruise...Sean will leave July 2 and return July 18. That will leave him plenty of time to get over his jet lag before we start our holiday : )
• Speaking of Sean, the lucky duck is in California for spring break visiting with my parents. He comes home Sunday, and then it's back to the hard reality of school and cadets.
• Dylan is in the process of applying for the most amazing summer job. I'm praying that he gets it because not only is it a job that he would do very well, but it pays $20/hour and that would definitely get him through his second year of university. It's a summer intern position, and they're looking for someone going into their second year of university. It's in Fort Langley, so it's very close. He's getting reference letters from two of his professors. I'll keep you posted on Dylan's dream job.
• We might be going to Merritt for a couple of days to visit Don and Waneta and introduce them to geocaching. I know that once Don Sr. gets the hang of it he'll love it.
• Dylan is teaching a trumpet lesson right now! It's his first real lesson and I hope that he's enjoying it and that his pupil is getting a lot out of it.

Stretching a turkey

Today I roasted a turkey that I had purchased at Christmastime when the prices of turkeys were really good. It was a good sized turkey, not sure about the exact weight, but probably 20 pounds if I were to hazard a guess. And now my challenge is to stretch that turkey into a week's worth of meals. Here is what I have planned:

Tonight: Turkey Divan over pasta (yummy!)
Monday: Turkey and cheese enchiladas
Tuesday: Turkey fried rice
Wednesday: Turkey noodle soup
Thursday: Turkey pot pie
Friday: Turkey burritos
Saturday: Turkey deli-style sandwiches

Plus I'm planning on using some of the breast meat, that I've already sliced thin, for sandwiches for this week's lunches. If this goes according to plan it'll be the best $20 I ever spent : )

Geocaching

Our family has started enjoying a new hobby: geocaching! Don and I have been exploring it on the internet and thought it was a great thing for our family to do together...it's active, it's outside, it's free...what more can you ask for in a hobby?

So last night when Don got home from working and it was sunny out, we loaded up the kids and drove down to Steele Park, a little park about 3/4 mile south of our house. We searched for about an hour using Don's car GPS and we didn't find any of the caches that were hidden there. But we had fun anyway! Here are some pictures of our first high tech treasure hunt.

After searching for three caches unsuccessfully, we headed down to Otter Co-op to try to locate their geocache. It was, thankfully, much easier to find!

Tonight, after Don got home from work and it was sunny again we decided to meander over and try to find the Krause Farm geocache. Because Don insisted on bringing the GPS (I didn't think we'd need it) we were able to find it fairly quickly. The kids are all excited about geocaching now and we are bound and determined to find the caches hidden in Steele Park, even if it takes all summer : )

Nathan news

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned here that Nathan applied, at his commanding officer's encouragement, to apply for admission to the US Coast Guard Academy. Well, he did. He jumped through many hoops to get reference letters from highschool teachers whom he hadn't seen since 2008, took the SATs, filled out umpteen pages of application, and then sent it off with a kiss and a prayer.

I had mixed feelings about this endeavor, mostly because in all the years I've known Nathan, I've never seen an overwhelming motivation to do well in an academic arena. It's not that he's not smart and capable, but he always had other interests that were more important than book learning and grades. So I had misgivings about this very academic pursuit, knowing that he'd be giving up his current Coast Guard job, which seems to be the perfect fit for him.

Anyway, Nathan just received a letter today from the Academy stating that they wanted him to have a physical and an eye exam. So, the Coast Guard is flying him to Anchorage next week for 3 days and paying for everything: the airfare, hotel, rental car, meals, you name it! So, while this doesn't mean that he got accepted, it does mean that Nathan is a candidate...a bonafide candidate.

Second-hand store treasures

On Sunday Sean watched the Littles and Don and I went on a date. We went out for some retail therapy, which I wouldn't normally recommend to anyone, but especially a couple on a budget. But anyway, we stopped at Value Village and scored some awesome finds. First, we (meaning "Don") found this adorable little Canucks jersey for Nick. We couldn't pass it up! And it's a size 4, so he should be able to wear it for a while.

We found both of the girls winter coats for next year. Patience's is a Gap warmest down jacket. We also found Nick a rain coat, which he needs because he wants to go outside and play regardless of the weather. At least now we can bundle him up and send him out.

Jordyn got some jeans, which she needed, Patience got a lovely dress that will be perfect for dressing up for dinner on the cruise. And various other items that were all amazing deals. Let's just say that I had quite a few loads of laundry to do : )

Folding table!

Remember how Don gave my laundry room an extreme makeover last month? And the last think that he had to do was build a folding table against the green wall? Well, that's what he did this weekend : )

He built it and painted it out in the shop and then he and Dylan moved it in this evening to finish drying (we're not exactly having good paint-drying weather here). When the paint dries I can actually use it...I can hardly wait!

Again, the room is so small that you can't really take good pictures in there, but you get the basic idea. I wonder when the kids are going to realize that this will make an excellent hide-and-go-seek spot?

March menu

So you know when to fish for an invite or just pop in unexpectedly : )

1. Pancakes and bacon
2. Spaghetti and garlic bread
3. Minestrone soup
4. Pizza
5. Mom and Dad date night
6. Roast, veggies, rolls, etc.
7. Burritos
8. Potato soup
9. Spaghetti and garlic bread
10. Pork chops, mashed potatoes, corn
11. Pizza
12. Crepes
13. Roast, veggies, rolls, etc.
14. Roast beef deli sandwiches
15. Taco soup
16. Waffles with bacon
17. Chili with cornbread
18. Baked potato bar
19. Meatloaf, veggies
20. Pizza
21. Turkey, veggies, rolls
22. Chicken stir-fry
23. Lasagna
24. Broccoli soup with homemade bread
25. Pizza
26. BBQ Hamburgers
27. Beef and veggie stir-fry over rice
28. Spaghetti and garlic bread
29. Turkey, mashed potatoes, corn
30. Crepes
31. Pizza

 

Tech support, the next generation

Nick and Don were trying to make Nick's Thomas the Tank DVD work on the kids' computer. After much trying, they gave up and watched it on the television. But I thought this was so cute : )

Murphy family rules

Don and I did this little project together after seeing some examples on the internet that we both really liked.

Pumpkin scones

Everybody's new favorite. Super yummy. Recipe is here.

Snow

This is what we woke up to this morning! By the evening it had warmed up and started raining, so now most of it is gone.

Laundry room progress

Don worked hard all weekend on the laundry room. He primed and painted Friday night and Saturday, and then laid down laminate flooring on Saturday and Sunday. The flooring makes the room look so much more tidy! The room is so small that it's hard to get good pictures of a whole wall, but I tried to show you some of my favorite parts.

This is a clothes hanging bar that Don installed on the south wall.

This is the green wall. Evenutally a clothes-folding table will be against this wall. That project is for another weekend : )

White on white : )