August 27, 2018

Lightening Our Load & Paddle Boarding

The past two weeks have flown by! We have been spending a lot of time indoors recently because of the thick smoke that is in the air. The smoke has been blowing in mainly from the 600 wildfires in British Columbia, Canada, but we have also had smoke from fires in Oregon and Washington. The air quality has been pretty bad and being pregnant it affects me more than it normally would. Bubba loves being outside and he has not enjoyed being cooped up.

A boy and his chickens.

Two weekends ago we decided to dedicate our Saturday to cleaning the garage. The garage wasn't finished when we purchased our home. I can't tell you how many hours have been spent insulating it, hanging sheet rock, mudding, taping, installing lights, building shelving and creating an attic space-- it's been a ton of work, mostly for Andy. In the meantime we have had stuff strew all over the garage, I cringe inside every time I walk in there.

Andy decided that he really wants to put a gym in the garage. I told him I was on board with that if we could get it cleaned up. I told him money for his gym equipment could come from anything we found in the garage that we were no longer wanted and sold. We sold over $150 worth of stuff in a matter of a few days that was pretty awesome. We have a lot more to sell yet. We took a trunk and a half of stuff to Goodwill and Bring Recycling. When you look at the garage it doesn't look like we did much, but we both know we made some serious progress.

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This past weekend my Mom came down to visit, this was the first time she had been down in quite some time. We took her paddle boarding on the McKenzie River, she had never been before. Aside from the smoke (the smoke rolled in right before we were scheduled to board and it was the thickest smoke I think I have ever seen in my life), she really enjoyed it.

My Mom.


Andy and I tried to take Bubba out on the board but he wasn't having it. Each time we tried to push off into the river, he would freak out. At least we got some cute pictures of him sitting on the board.





Andy went out on a board for a few minutes. When he went to push off into the river, Bubba decided that it was a good time to try and run to Daddy. He biffed it and ended up floating in the water (he was wearing a life jacket). He swallowed some water and started to panic, I scooped him up as quickly as I could and put some dry clothes on him. We feel very blessed that we were all kept safe.

Afterwards we went and grabbed some lunch at Mucho Gusto. It seems like that is the place we go each time my Mom comes to visit (she loves it).

The rest of the evening was spent playing board games, making and eating black bean brownies and visiting with my 85 year old neighbor and friend, Barbara.

The next morning my Mom headed home and we went to church. We were glad my Mom was able to make a trip down, it's always a treat when family comes to visit.