Darn that tricky hail!

We live on the Oregon Coast. As I may have mentioned in previous posts, we get a lot of rain here. Rain is just one of the prices we pay for living in the most beautiful state I have seen so far. Snow happens in Oregon, but not typically where we live. Yet every winter our kids yearn for a snow day. Every winter it seems like they are just willing it to snow.
We have lived here for three years, going on four. Our first winter here, it snowed. It was one of those freakish 3 day winter storm things. It was not fun snow, but we played in it anyway. Playing in it involved stomping through the layer of ice that had formed over the top of the snow to get to the powdery stuff underneath. Of course, the powdery stuff was worthless for snowballs, so it wasn't the best, but the kids didn't care...snow is snow to them.
Our second winter here was a no snow winter...as is typical.
Last year was our third winter, and it did snow, but not until March. It was however, beautiful snow. Perfect snowman, snowball and snowangel snow. It was a one day deal. It was deep enough to have a lot of fun in, but melted the next day enough that we enjoyed a nice hike with friends and didn't worry about the roads or the snow. To me, last year was the perfect snow year. I like to play in the snow, but I don't love snow. Its a hassle. If I was in charge of the weather here we would get that one snow day a year to have fun and play, and then we would be done with it.
So here we are...and its technically not even winter yet...still Autumn. This week we heard it might snow. Haha we thought...we have heard that many times before. Earlier this week...Monday it was...I heard the boys talking in hushed and awed tones about snow. And then I heard D telling them it was time to go to school. I was thinking...something is wrong with that. We live in one of those places that cancels school for snow when the grass is still sticking up through the snow. Still...off the big boys went to school and it wasn't long before K was bothering me to let him go outside and play in the snow. I got dressed, made sure he was properly snuggled up in warm clothes, gloves, and a hat, and went outside with him. I could see right away why school was not cancelled. It looked like only a dusting of snow...there was a lot of grass showing, but there was a nice white coating all over the car. We decided to use it to make some snowballs. However, when I went to make my snowball I noticed that the "snow" was made up of a lot of tiny BB sized pellets of ice. It was, in fact, hail. We had been deceived!
It did snow off and on that day, with intermittent hail in between. Our town was transformed into a wintry landscape that had no fun value at all. We went off to Costco Monday evening to make some purchases, and just as we were finishing loading the car after Costco, it started to hail again. Marble sized hail. We had another stop to make, so we drove to the next store and sat in the van and waited for the hail to stop. By the time it did the entire parking lot was covered in a layer of white. Again, it looked like snow, but it was really hail. This made the roads slick on our way home and we stayed in the rest of the night. School went on the next day, although the towns to either side of us cancelled their classes. The "snow" that is really hail stayed on the ground for two more days. I am sad to say, that I think that this may be all the "snow" we see this winter. I suppose only time will tell.

You'd Better Watch Out...

Yesterday was a lovely Saturday, and being that we live in a small town that doesn't get hit quite as hard with the weekend after Thanksgiving horrors of holiday shopping, we thought we would go out and do a little shopping. I am already about 95% done with our Christmas shopping, but had a few things left to get, and some things that I needed for a Church Christmas party that I am in charge of. So off we went to the store.
D thought that it would be fun for the boys if we gave them each a dollar and let them spend it however they wanted to. Believe me, they were pretty excited! We started out our excursion at Deals Only...the local discount store. There the boys flitted around trying to decide what to buy. In the end, only K (4) and C (3) spent their money. K is now the proud owner of a suction cup dart gun (which the boys have been having fun sticking darts to the ceiling with) with a cool fake spy watch. C invested in a Rugrats Christmas coloring book which is now already half used up. J opted to spend ten cents of his money to get a package of Kool Aid in a flavor he has not tried yet. On we went to JoAnn Fabrics.
JoAnn Fabrics is not a great store to take five little boys into. Of course we always get comments like "Are all of those yours?" Like the boys are some kind of inhuman science experiment. And then there is the-not much to entertain little boys aspect of the store. All in all, they didn't do too badly, except that T (6) decided playing Hide and Go seek would be fun and stalked around the store hiding from his brothers, who were not even bothering to look for him. He got particularly frustrated when I kept stumbling across his hiding spots (purely by accident) and making him come with me until he escaped again. There were also some moments of C screaming that he didn't want to be there at the top of his lungs, and some face pinching by various brothers...I guess they weren't that well behaved after all.
From JoAnn fabrics we drove to the factory outlet stores just over a half hour away. The boys were eager to spend their money at the KB Toy outlet. I, however, had other places to go first, so we started out (after a much needed potty break) at the Kitchen Store. As soon as we went in T (who has a form of high functioning Autism by the way) went into meltdown mode. I wasn't really thinking ahead, and with T you have to tell him exactly what you are doing, and in what order. He only knew we were going to the toy store, and to him that meant without anything else in between. We got plenty of looks from the shoppers as T proceeded to have a noisy meltdown and throw a major fit, which included a lot of stomping and attempts to hit various products in the store (this all took place about three feet into the store). J (9)was also complaining loudly (did I mention he is also Autistic?) This ended with me dragging T (literally) out of the store and bodily placing him in the van (it was harder than you would think and involved me finally having to shove him in there and close the door before he could get out). Then I got into the front seat and proceeded to reason with him. This included a lot of screaming and crying on his part, and a firm, "You have two choices" on my part. Once he figured out that I meant it, he decided to be nice, and went back into the kitchen store with me and he was fine.
Next was the toy store, which proved to be too expensive for them to spend their dollars at, and even though its an "outlet" store, even our locally overpriced Fred Meyer has much less expensive prices. I did get one thing that was on sale for a good price (and that I didn't need to get since I was already done shopping for that person-so now I will have to save one of his other gifts for his birthday). Then we went to the bookstore next door, where the boys proceeded to lay on the floor and read books as if they were at home, and it was very frustrating. I got some of the rest of my Christmas shopping done though, and was happy enough to leave that store. I had one more outlet store to go to, which was a costume jewelry type place, and I knew the boys wouldn't do well there. On the way to the car (for the boys and D-the next store for me) K (4) was asking me when we were having lunch (it was getting dark by this time) and he just couldn't understand that we basically skipped lunch since we ate breakfast at noon. I am sure that other shoppers overhearing him ask about having lunch and dinner thought I was the worst mother in the world for starving her five cute (and skinny) sons. D took the boys to the car, and I hurried as best as I could at the last shop. I got what I needed, then went to the car, and amid the cries of the starving masses we drove towards Taco Bell/KFC. Once we got to the parking lot D made the cardinal mistake of asking the opinion of our boys as to whether we should eat in the restaurant or get it to go and eat in the van on our way home. This erupted into a huge argument and a fit on the part of J. The last time we all went into a store that J had protested about going into, he was HORRIBLE. He was already nearing meltdown stage, and my frazzled nerves couldn't take it, so D started the car, and we left. This caused an incredible amount of noise from the back of the van from all of the sudden screaming and crying. In the past we would have appeased them all and gone back. However, they have shown that that kind of spoiling doesn't help them, so we continued home. I wish I had recorded the noise...it was unbelievable. I have sensitive ears, so I turned up the radio-which was at the time playing one of my least favorite Christmas songs (Jingle Bell Rock if you are curious) and sang along at the top of my lungs. D looked over at me and said "I thought you hated this song." I just smiled and said I would rather listen to that than the kids screaming. The screaming continued (mostly by J with some crying by K) for most of the half hour drive home. I reassured the boys that we would have leftovers when we got home, and J proclaimed that he would not eat anything ever again until he got TACO BELL! I told him that he was going to get really skinny and we continued our drive home. Once we were getting close to home it just popped into my head, and I couldn't help but sing it out.

You'd better watch out
You'd better not cry,
You'd better not pout,
I'm telling you why...
Santa Claus is coming to town...

Of course I put special emphasis on "He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake."

So to all of you out there contemplating taking your kids Christmas shopping with you...try to make it easier on them...better yet...try to make it easier on yourself! And watch out, because Santa may be watching you too!

Only Five More Weeks of Holiday Stress!

I hope you are getting your shopping done. I am pretty much finished with mine other than a few small things and some stocking stuffers. Still, I think that I have enough to do to keep me pleasantly stressed out until the emotional crash the day after Christmas when I look around at our messy, toy strewn living room and try to remember what went on over the last two months.
Seriously though...I am kind of excited because I spent the last two Christmases as a working Mom, and didn't get to really enjoy a lot of things about the Holidays. This year, I am not working outside of the home, and I will be able to have the energy to make those gingerbread houses (actually its a train in this case-Family Fun Magazine had a great idea for that in the November Issue). I am still trying to get things done ahead of time. I have some cookie dough in the freezer, and I need to get the cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning made up to the point of their last rising and freeze them also. Then there are all the candies to make, but if I could get all that done last year while working close to full time outside the home, I think I can handle getting it all done this year.
I have been thinking a lot about Christmas food lately. How I make fudge, truffles, peppermint patties, and other various tasty things that have no nutritional value. I think that in spite of these things, I eat healthier near the holidays than most times of the year. Its because citrus fruits are cheaper, so we buy it whereas we don't buy it at all during the other times of year. I also tend to get apples and other fruits more this time of year. I have, what I think is a doable goal of not gaining weight this year during the holidays. I WILL partake of junk food, but I do that all year round. However, I am going to make an extra effort not to eat until I am stuffed, and to sample desserts rather than eating a whole serving of every kind. Of course I expect that my weight will fluctuate depending...you can't not be heavier the day after Thanksgiving... but my goal is to not have that 10-15 extra pounds hanging on come New Years Day. Am I going to obsess over it? No. I am just going to try to pay attention to how much I am eating, and see what happens.
Sorry there isn't much in the way of cleverness in this post. My mind is focusing on getting the last of that Christmas Shopping done before Turkey Day, and all the fun things we are going to do this year. We start tonight with our traditional Apple Turkeys (this involves decorating apples to look like turkeys through the medium of toothpicks, fruit snacks, mini marshmallows, cheerios, raisins and etc.) I think I will put down one idea per week of something fun we can do as a family.
What are you going to do this year to put some fun back into the Holidays? Go on! Kick out the stress and have some fun!

Ah....The Power of......

Electricity!
I have been thinking about a few different titles for this blog entry. Among the possibilities were titles such as...You Light Up My Life, Schoolhouse Rock's Electricity song, Stormy Weather, and submitted by my husband...Gone With the Wind.
We have in fact had some...Stormy Weather here recently. And because of that weather, our...Electricity, E-Lec-Tricity was Gone With the Wind for about 9 hours on Wednesday. I have personally been waiting for a good power outage for a while now. I was thinking about how cozy it would be to just have some family time without the many distractions of TV, Computer and etc. Wednesday at about 4:30 in the afternoon the power went out. Now living on the Oregon Coast as we do, power outages are frequent. Usually its more of a flickering thing, and maybe an hour or two without power. At 4:30 I was just thinking about getting ready to make dinner, the boys were playing on the plug and play (since I had turned the computer off due to the high winds). Only half of the boys had finished their allotted time playing video games, and it was getting dark. So the power goes out. We are not unprepared for such things, although in the future I would like to add a few things to our arsenal against power outages. It was still somewhat light outside, so we opened all the curtains, I cleared the table off, and set out our two small oil lamps, some candles and got our flashlights and batter operated push lights and lanterns out. I had been talking to D on the phone when the power cut, which also cut our call due to the fact that all we had was a cordless phone that needs electricity to run on. (I say HAD, because I went out the next day and bought a corded phone to use in such situations in the future.)
The boys immediately began complaining that they didn't get to finish their time, that they were bored, and that they were afraid of the dark. I got out the playdoh, some paper plates for them to work the playdoh on, placed the oil lamps and some candles in the middle of the table and lit them. This occupied the boys for half an hour or so, until D came home from work because they didn't have power there either. A year ago we would have been cooking our food outside in the wind on our camp stove, but a while back my Dad gave us a single burner stove that runs on cans of butane, and can be safely used inside. Thank you Dad! The first thing I used our lovely burner for was to make two batches of popcorn with our Whirley Pop Stovetop Popper. Luckily we had some margarine out of the fridge, because I didn't know how long the power was going to be out, so we had a no opening the fridge rule so as to keep it as cold in the fridge as possible. We sat around the table and ate our popcorn, then tried to decide what to have for dinner. My original dinner plans involved several things from the fridge, so we cancelled that and opted for soup. The boys ate Tomato Soup (also cooked on our burner) and D and I had some Bear Creek Potato soup. After that we spent pretty much the rest of the evening trying to find ways to entertain the boys. There was much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth by some of them, and many heartfelt and fervent prayers for the power to be restored, and then more tears when the power didn't come back on as soon as they said "Amen". D and some of the boys did do a puzzle by the faint glow of our oil lamps (which are more like glorified candles and don't give off much light). I appeased our oldest (and the most weepy and upset as he was the only one that didn't get to do at least part of his game time) by sharing the glow of my flashlight while I read. I made a call on the cell phone to check on the outage and found out that over 15,000 customers of Pacific Power were out of power. A couple of hours later, it was down to 12,200, then eventually 10,500, and finally around bed time it was down to somewhere around 8,000. We took the boys for a drive to tire them out, and to see the hopeful glow of lights from the next town over, that had previously been without power also. Then we went home where the boys went to bed (although scared to not have their hall light on like they usually do) and I finished the book I was reading by lantern light since I was getting tired of winding our LED wind-up flashlight (supposed to be good for "up to" 45 minutes of light, but really only good for 5 to 10 before you have to wind it again). We made some hot cocoa on our trusty burner, and fired up the Kerosene heater. The power was restored somewhere around 1 a.m. School was cancelled for the next day, which I thought was weird since we had power by then. The boys enjoyed a day off of school, and I have been thinking about how to better handle a power outage in the future.
I find it sad that our boys were so consumed by their need for electricity. They even tried to get us to set up Grandpa's DVD player with two screens (that we will be returning this weekend) in the van so they could have their DVD viewing and plug and play time. What I had looked forward to as cozy family time turned into a nightmare of whining, and irritation. I think that we should have some no power weekends every so often and just keep everything off for a day, just to get those kids off of their power kick. If we had to go more than an evening without power, I think they would have a nervous breakdown.
Here is my list of things I would like for future power outages...some are doable, and some are not so much so.
Real oil lamps...with a wide wick, so that they actually light up a good area.
A generator for the Fridge and Freezer so that we don't have to worry about spoilage (haha...like we will ever get one)
Checkers made with LED lights inside each one, so that you can see the game, and a glow in the dark board. (Someone invent that will you?)
One of those car battery jumpstarters that also has a plug and a light on it, so we could plug in a boom box or something and have some music (see, I am addicted to power also)
A fireplace (again...not affordable, but it would be oh so nice, and I could cook dutch oven in it as well, and we could have smores!) Actually what I want is a Soapstone Fireplace/Heater with a built in bakeoven...if anyone wants to give me about $10,000 to $15,000 for one, just let me know. Soapstone heaters stay warm after just a couple of hours of wood burning, and they retain the heat and keep you toasty all day. And the Bakeoven would just be cool, pizza anyone?
Really, we have all the essentials covered. We have light sources, we have a heat source (even though the kerosene can be smelly) and we have a way to cook. Our hot water heater is a gas one, so we would still have hot showers, (unfortunately our gas furnace needs electricity to turn on). All in all we have the things we need the most. Hopefully next time we will be able to focus more on a good family time and less on the woes of not having the electricity.
In closing, I will part with a poem from my high school literary publication of Thistledown.

Ode to a lightbulb. (originally written by...me)

Ode to a lightbulb
All shiny and bright
I love him a lot
'Cause he give me light.

Road Trips...Travelogue

First of all I have to apologize for my lack of posts. I have gone a record amount of time between posts. My only excuse is that I have been busy the last couple of weeks.
We just got back from a trip to visit my husband's family(mother, step-father and two brothers). They live in Kettle Falls, Washington, which is a bit of a drive from where we live. Of course its not nearly as bad as driving 23 hours straight through to Colorado like I did this summer with my parents and two of my sisters, but when you add in five sometimes impatient children, it can seem like a longer trip.
We wanted to go up through the Seattle area and over since according to google and other sites this would be the shortest route as far as hours of driving go. However, we were worried about the evils of Seattle area traffic (we have previously learned that nothing can freak out a kid on a road trip more than being stuck in a traffic jam and not moving at all). We were also worried about the possibility of flooding along the way, and snow in the mountains. Because of these concerns we opted to take the way we are more familiar with and drove through the Columbia River Gorge. This also enabled us to get a little head start on our trip by driving up to Vancouver, WA on Thursday evening and staying at my parents' house. This took two hours off of our drive time.
We left Vancouver around 8am on Friday morning (after stopping at a local grocery store to get our staple road trip breakfast of donuts and orange juice-I know its bad for us, but sometimes on a road trip emotional well being comes before physical well being, and eating those donuts was like getting a big hug.) Our first stop was Multnomah Falls for a potty break for the boys. We drove on down the gorge and pointed out places of interest to the boys along the way. We stopped at a rest area in Boardman and let the kids run around for a while. Then we were off to cross the border from Oregon into Washington. We stopped for a very unhealthy lunch from McDonalds and got gas in Kennewick. Then it was my turn to drive. There wasn't much of interest between Kennewick and Spokane, except a long gap in between rest areas. We had passed a rest area sign, and D took the opportunity to ask (unfortunately this was AFTER we passed the rest area) if anyone needed to use the bathroom. Of course T did, and of course there was not another rest area coming up anytime soon. This resulted in us taking an exit into some rural roads that seemed to go nowhere so T could pee someplace outside. Luckily this was our only foray into emergency peeing, and for those of you who are curious, I did take some Whizzy products with me just in case we ran into a horrifying toilet along the way.
I had made a deal with D that I wasn't going to drive in the city. I am not a city driver...I prefer rural areas. My wish was not to come true however. All of a sudden, we were in downtown Spokane, and I was still the driver. After many lane changes to get us in the right places for our route, I finally found a safe place to pull over and let D drive. Of course I had already gotten through the worst traffic areas, so he had an easy time of it after that.
I am sure you are wondering what our kids were doing this whole time. I will tell you. This is kind of a miracle really, because usually our kids can't even handle the ten minute drive to church without fighting, screaming and driving us crazy. To be sure, there was a little bit of all of that, but generally they were really good. I attribute this to the presence of a portable DVD player with two screens, a lot of good music (our rental van had a CD player in it) and the two plug and play video games we brought along with us. (Thank you Grandpa L for letting us use your DVD player).
I guess I forgot to mention that our van at home needs a ton of work and wasn't going to get us to where we were going. Okay, it probably would have, but for my peace of mind...the idea of breaking down with five kids in the middle of nowhere was not an option, so we rented a van and were given a really good deal on it.
After spending some time getting through Spokane we were on our way for the last leg of our journey. Kettle Falls is one and a half hours to two hours away from Spokane, depending on which part of Spokane you start timing from. We drove through such interesting places as Loon Lake (where there is a sign advertising the local Loon Lake Loon Society) and we got to see some snow on the ground. This of course excited the boys since we don't get much in the way of snow where we live. Then we went through Chewelah, Colville, and finally reached the in-laws house at around 5:30 p.m. We had been on the road for about 9.5 hours...except for our brief stops at rest areas along the way. The boys did a great job and were remarkably well behaved. 9+ hours may not seem like much of a road trip to some people, but to us, its a long drive.
We were able to enjoy a nice visit with Mom S, Dad S, Jesse and Preston. The purpose of our trip was to see Jesse off as he leaves for a two year mission to Montreal, Canada, French speaking. The boys enjoyed seeing two of their uncles, and spent a lot of the weekend making up for their time sitting still in the car. They ran circles around Grandma's living room and pelted each other and their uncles with nerf balls. They rammed Tonka and Little Tikes cars and trucks into walls and furniture, and they made an awful lot of noise. In general they had a great time. Their dreams of snow were not to be realized until Monday morning as we were preparing to leave. Of course all of their gloves, boots and etc were packed, so they froze their fingers and got their shoes wet making "Just one snowball" that turned into a lot of playing in the wet snow. It was only an inch or so of snow, but it might be all they get to see this year. We finally got them all into the van and headed for home. The drive this time was longer since we didn't stop to stay the night in Vancouver, and we spent almost 14 hours between here and there (some of which was because of longer stops along the way for meals and bathroom breaks). We also drove back along the Washington side of the gorge which is somewhat windier (as in more curvy as opposed to more windy) but has some interesting sites such as a life sized replica of Stonehenge along the way. The views were wonderful, and the windy roads were fun to drive. We drove through Camas where D grew up and stopped for fries at top burger. We also stopped in Vancouver for a potty break and got a pizza for dinner which we ate in the car before heading the rest of the way home. The boys were a little more restless on the way home...but all in all they did well aside from some bickering about the plug and plays. We enjoyed our visit, and we enjoyed spending time as a family. Now we just have to get back into our home routine. As much as I generally hate road trips, I think I would be willing to try it again under the right circumstances. I don't think I really want to take the boys on a trip that lasts more than a day of driving, but you never know.

Only in the Northwest

I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, so I am pretty used to the rain, and generally it doesn't bother me too much. I think that its a pretty singular thing to this area of the US to see it pouring down rain, and yet the people out walking in the rain generally are not carrying umbrellas, and they aren't usually rushing through the rain to get to their cars quickly either. Of course they walk a little bit faster than usual, but I just don't see the cowering, dodging run that is common to other areas, or to people that are visiting this area from a drier clime. I think it is amusing to watch people in the rain and try to decide if they are from this area, are transplanted here, or are just on vacation. Its not usually too difficult to tell. Generally if you see someone walking calmly, with a patient or even serene look on their face, through a Northwest downpour, they were probably born and raised in the area and often enjoy the weather. These are the people who sometimes tell others, with a look of pride, that they were born with webbed feet. Then there are those who hurry through the rain with a look of annoyed resignation. They don't try to dodge the rain, but it obviously bothers them. These kinds of people are often transplants to the area, who fell in love with all the green beauty of it during some of the drier months of the year, then pulled up stakes and moved here, only to find that they had to endure a lot of rainy days to get their reward. The third category is my favorite to watch. They are the ones that are dodging the rain like they were dodging bombs in a war zone. They pull their coats up over their shoulders, they look panicked, and have such an aversion to water that I would not be surprised to find their genealogy linking them back to the Wicked Witch of the West (if she were not a fictional character).
Another thing I have noticed about the Northwest that I just don't think you would find anywhere else, is that people go to the beach no matter what the weather. Last summer my sister in law was coming to the coast for the day with some friends, and since we live on the Oregon Coast, we arranged to meet her at a beach not too far away. It was a warm summer day, but it was also uncommonly foggy, and when we got to the beach, the parking lot was full. D drove around while I got out to try and find his sister. The fog was so thick that when I got down to the sand, I couldn't see the ocean. I could barely see ten feet away from me, but as I walked around looking, I did see a truly amazing sight. Everywhere there were people laying on the beach on towels, or on beach chairs, some even with umbrellas over them, just as if they were sunbathing at some resort beach. They were oblivious to the fog, and didn't care that if a tsunami decided to strike at that moment, none of them would even be able to see it coming. I would personally go to the beach in any weather, but I think I can safely say that I would not be trying to sunbathe in the fog. I think most of the people there were of the tourist type, who just wanted to get their beach time in, and chose to do it in the way they were most accustomed. Generally I find NW people to be the kind that go to the beach to walk and play, not lay around like beached whales. Still, you have to love it. I hope I can live in the Northwest for the rest of my life.