It snowed last night

We got a little snow last night. Maybe 1 inch. This is the snow I prefer, a light dusting. There is no need for double digit inches.

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Christmas Eve

This is caden on christmas eve after eating a few hersheys kisses. A little wild but fun

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Christmas Eve

So, no picture of this, but Christmas Eve was something else. It started out quite well - I delivered potatoes to my sister, did some last minute shopping, helped at the church pre-school for the noon service, family went to the 4pm church service... and then it went crazy. When we were leaving Church, as Justin liked to point out it was like leaving a concert, we got into a car accident. That's right, in the church parking lot on christmas eve. We weren't even moving.... the person in front of us backed into us to let someone else get in line. It was surreal. We were sitting there, waiting our turn and our lane wasn't even moving. Next thing we know, the Yukon, in front of us, puts it into reverse and pow, crunch. Not good.

We are all ok and just inconvenienced to have to deal with another car accident. So we had to call my parents (who were ahead of us) to come back and get us. The delayed dinner at my sisters, which was why she couldn't come to the service was she didn't want to make dinner be so late. Well, we took care of that.

After that, all was well. We had an amazing dinner cooked by my sister. We also had some family fun time which was great. Hopefully we have no challenges in the future with this car accident and we can get Justin's car fixed quickly.

Until then, we are a 1 car family.... sweet~

A new nephew has arrived

Here he is, Royal James Anda. He is 7 pounds 6 ounces and was born 12.18 at 7:31pm. Mama Vanessa is doing well after 23 hours of labor.

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Christmas Countdown

After watching Elmo's Christmas Countdown for the umpteenth time (not sure if that's a word), I realized that maybe I need my own countdown or check off list. When everything is done, that will be a christmas miracle in itself. This year here is what is on my list...

Buy presents
Wrap presents
mail presents
bake christmas cookies
get a tree
decorate tree
put up lights outside
order christmas cards
address christmas cards
mail christmas cards
clean house
write thank you notes
figure out a christmas dinner
christmas eve service at church
enjoy family at christmas

Some of these things seem obvious (enjoy family) others are not solely my job, I have help, but all said & done, there is a lot that goes with christmas. The part I am looking forward to the most is the family time at christmas. Everything else can get done hopefully before christmas.

this year I actually made christmas cookies. Not a ton because I don't want to eat them all myself, but some to make things festive. I divided them up in to 3 bins and froze them. 1 bin is for actual christmas day, so whatever we do that day, we will have cookies too!

Well, I just ordered the christmas cards, so the next thing to do is pick them up tomorrow. I hope to have them mailed by Saturday.....

Do you believe in santa?

Well he is at the mall. This is the same santa that we saw last year, and 2 years ago.

I do have to say, santa pictures are pricey. $25 gets you a 5x7, a 3x5 and 2 wallets. Are you kidding me? The nice thing is if you buy a picture, they let you take one with your own camera/phone, so it can make it to the blog for everyone to see.

Caden was really excited to see Santa and talk to him. He was so busy talking to Santa, he couldn't pause to have his picture taken. Santa had to tickle him to get him to look at the camera.

We asked Caden what he asked Santa for... Caden said "a present." Well, I don't think the little man will be disappointed. I think he will get a present.

Merry Christmas!

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Will it snow?

This is what the sky looked like this morning. it's tough to tell if there is snow in our future. They are predicting it for tonight or Saturday. Happy winter!

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Another relaxing night

Caden & I were just hanging out, watching some elmo's christmas countdown. Good times

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Dinner time

This was another test with my phone and camera to see how this would work, bear with me please. Thanksgiving was exciting for us. We were the hosts. There were 13 adults and 3 kids. We had our family, my sister's family, her in-laws (parents and sister& husband too), my brother's family and my aunt. One big happy family together. It was a good afternoon spent reviewing ads and catching up.

This picture below is to get the grandkids in one picture wearing the sweaters that my mom knit for them, fondly known as the knitting sweatshirts. The funny story is that Caden's wasn't done yet, so every chance my mom had, she would knit. Charlie would remind her to knit caden's sweatshirt. Caden would become hysterical if charlie was wearing his sweater, and his wasn't done. So they are all finished now and everyone is happy... This was the night before thanksgiving and we made the turkey cupcakes out of rolos and candy corn. This is my mom, niece Annie, and my aunt Ginger.

My dad made it over for the festivites too. That was a lot of fun too. He got to help. Charlie figured out how many of each item went on the cupcake and did it in order. Caden just plunked it on there any way it would stick. So funny about their different approaches to cupcakes.

This was on thanksgiving. The kids table. Next year there will be one more - Pete & Vanessa are expecting a baby on 12/22 so there is a spot open at the table. :)

This was from my phone, it is our table all set to seat 13 of us. This table was my dad's parents table and is great for large family gatherings. There are leaves in it to expand it.

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Thanksgiving walk

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This was a test to see how this would work to e-mail photos from my phone. It looks like I can post from my phone, just like with facebook. Look out world, here we come!

This was our walk around riverfront park on thanksgiving. It was cold so we had to bundle up good. What a great way to start out thanksgiving, with some exercise.

Adventures in Travels

I am on the road in Louisville Kentucky. I had high hopes for this trip to be uneventful. Too bad I was wrong on that. I had to gate check my laptop bag. So in order to keep my job and my laptop intact, I removed my laptop from the bag. When I got to the hotel, my wireless card was not in it's case in my bag. I think one of the baggage people took it! I can't believe it! I am glad that I took my laptop out of the bag to be safe, or I would be at the airport filing a claim right now!

Yikes, note to self, keep valuables on your person always..... and extra clothes and a toothbrush and cell charger and deodorant. gosh this has been an expensive year for traveling.

I am sure that tomorrow will be great, I am looking forward to getting some rest tonight. Back in Spokane on Saturday!

Halloween Finnegan Style!

Well, it was finally time to upload my halloween pics. Caden was a pirate and we are hoping that he can wear this costume until he is 8, just like the package says... well at least 1 more time!

We painted his face and he had a blast as a pirate. We went to his kindercare party on Friday night and then on Halloween morning, we went to a friend's halloween party. By the time it was trick or treating time, Caden didn't want to be a pirate any more. He wanted to be a pumpkin. Well, we didn't have a pumpkin costume, so he settled on a dragon. What do you expect, he is 2! So here the pictures are, enjoy! I am headed to Louisville tomorrow, so unless I figure out how to e-mail the pictures from my phone to the blog, don't expect any posts for 2 weeks. :) Back on Saturday!

Yes, the pirate has dracula teeth!

Layla & Cole playing pin the face on the pumpkin!

Caden & Layla eating their pizza and cookies. Yum!

Not the clearest picture, but this is Keegan and Caden - Keegan is 10 months old in this picture and he is a monkey. Caden is a dragon. yes his hair and face are green. He didn't want to wear the dragon hood and we had the facepaint & hair paint, so we went nuts!

Yep, I can still rock the flag team uni! This was our halloween family pic, caden was already cleaned off and changed.

This is the 3 kiddos after trick or treating. It was so fun to go out as a group because the little guys were so comical. Us parents might have had the most fun though.

Halloween preview

Bad picture quality on this... But this is what the little guy will be wearing for halloween

We are back

We are back from Mexico, and are back in the grind! uploaded my pics to facebook last night, so hope to upload some pics to the blog this weekend. When we got bacck from the cruise, I got the flu - probably the swine flu but didn't go to the doctor.

Caden did some funny things in mexico. One of the things he did was when we walked by a guy on the ship with a mohawk, he said - "mommy, that guy looks like a chicken!"

So funny, and the guy heard him too. Gotta love the filter free world that Caden lives in!

Happy Halloween!

We are ready to cruise!

That's right, we are packed and ready to head out for our cruise to Mexico. Caden & I are ready to say Bon Voyage. While I know there will be some tears at the airport from both of us while we say bye to Justin for a week. We are ready to have some fun. Getting ready for the cruise is a 2 week process. Even though I have been preparing and planning for months, there were still a lot of last minute items to get. We needed more sunscreen, kid headphones, a little suit for Caden, and enough summer clothes to not boil for a week. I think we have done it and we are ready. This is Caden in his suit - trying it on for the cruise. It's a winner all right!

This is a picture of Caden with his purple trumpet he got at the fair this year. Most annoying toy, but made him so happy!

See you in a week or so!

Staying busy - that's what we are doing

For Labor day weekend, we headed to Bellingham and Orcas to relax after all of my travels and to spend some family time. We started out with a wedding and ended on the island. My mom has a friend that has sheep, so she asked if we could come over and see them. Caden loved to feed the sheep. He thought that was pretty cool!

For an added bit of excitement, my parent's neighbor's cows got loose and we looked out the window, to see 3 cows in their driveway. They headed over to another neighbors, but it was pretty wild when they started running. The owner just said "I guess I should have fed them more yesterday"

This is Caden with his cousins. As you can see, Annie is learning to love books as much as Charlie.

We also had a giant nest under our deck - Pretty frightening!

My friend Jessica got married, so we got to go to the wedding which was fun. She is beautiful!

Caden can give a thumbs up, and here it is!

Another highlight for us was the fair. We went to the fair 2 times, and Caden really liked the rides. This is him on the bouncing cars. He really liked the motorcycles the best, but I didn't get a picture of that. The funny thing is that was Justin's favorite ride when he was little too.

This last picture is to show how daring this guy is. He can climb the rock wall at our church playground with no help. I was pretty proud of him for this, and then worried what else he might climb at our house. 2 1/2 years old - a little daredevil!

Family weekend in Pasco

So this is what good old fashioned fun looks like. We planned a family get together at my brother's house in Pasco. It was so fun for all of us to get together, and really made my mom happy to have all the kids and grandkids in the same place at the same time... she took the picture. We had a great time hanging out and were really entertained by Caden. He went down the waterslide more times than I care to count. He climbed up the ladder all by himself, and then went down on his own. I don't have any pictures of it because I forgot to bring the camera....

I am now headed to Chicago for another work trip, and then hopefully no travelling for a while.

The worst flight experience ever......

So to say that I am a disgruntled airline passenger, that would be a huge understatement. I fall under the category of enraged. I actually overheard a news story about a person that swore at a customs agent and was arrested. That possibly could have been me yesterday, but I amazingly did not swear.

Yesterday I was headed home from my wonderful work trip in Toronto. When we got to the airport 2 1/2 hours ahead of time for our international flight, the check-in machine froze on me, and then when it did un freeze, we found out our flight would be delayed and we would not make our connecting flight. When we asked the gate agent what we should do, her suggestion was to stay one more night in Toronto. I asked her if she would be paying for a hotel for us. Nope, that is not in the plan, but it would be her suggestion. Well, just having left a hotel and paying a rate of $230 per night, my coleague and I decided we would test our luck and go forward and hope our next flight would be delayed too. We also asked her if we do get stuck in minneapolis, could we get our luggage. She said that shouldn't be a problem... obviously we have different opinions of what a problem is, but that will come later. We also asked if she could get us to SEattle, no flights that we would make.... So on we went. When we got to customs, they asked me if I had anything to declare. I said no, he said are you sure. Oh yeah, i bought an outfit when the airlines lost my luggage on the way to toronto. and I got a free build a bear. Duh! Didn't know that was what he was asking. So on we went to the gate, holding back tears because all we wanted to do was go home to Spokane. Both of us had our hearts set on seeing our little boys and husbands.

after eating dinner - more airport food, we went to the gate, bad news, flight is delayed an extra 20 minutes. When the plane finally arrived, we had a quick turnaround. As we were boarding the plane, they informed us that our computer bags won't fit in the plane.... so we need to do the a la carte. Great. The gate agent also got mad at me that I didn't have my passport in my hand. I didn't know I needed it. She rudely let me know she had announced it already, next!

When we got on the plane they announced that we should land at 9:30 and our next flight leaves at 9:45. Oh a glimmer of hope, but wait, our bags are now gate checked so we are going to be running. If you have ever been to minneapolis airport, it's huge. The flight attendant on the plane was very nice. she actually looked up our gate info for us, so when we landed, we knew which direction to run! Our plane landed and unloaded at 9:45. We ran through the airport got to the gate, and our plane was pulling away.... Without us! It was a moment when you wanted to scream NOOOOOOO! and I did!

When we got to the gate, there were 2 agents. 1 was helping someone, the other, doing paperwork. We asked the one doing paperwork what we should do, she couldn't be bothered. At one point as she was typing away, I asked her if she was looking up our info or doing something else. She said "I am fixing my numbers and paperwork." She then walked away!

The other lady fininshed helping another person and then moved on to us. She suggested we go to baggage claim, they are giving out overnight kits and cots if we would like to stay the night in the terminal.... Really not going to sleep on a rolla way with my purse, laptop and phone unattended, but thanks for the offer. She then gave us vouchers for $25 off our next flight. Meanwhile, my colleague called the NW distress line. They offered to pay half for our hotel and the country inn with no airport shuttle and is 20 minutes from the airport. Our share would have been $79 each we knew there were other hotels that are closer with shuttles and a little more. We asked, they told us that was the only hotel they had on their list. No thanks.

We headed to the phone bank at baggage claim - which was a zoo because the flights were messed up all day! we got a room at the ramada and went to walmart. we bought pajamas, and clothes for today. we figured we could share a room and save a little $ if we had some pj's and walmart was right there!

I forgot to mention that I bought some captain morgans at the duty free shop in toronto, and since we had left the secured area, I would now have to check that bag. So I bought a backpack at walmart - only $9.

So as I write this, we are sitting at the gate, patiently waiting to go home to Spokane!

Can't wait for my adventure on Tuesday to do this all over again with Northwest. Here is my advice to them. Please learn how to be helpful to your customers. By providing options, it gives the customers choices. Many of the employees just seem to be disgruntled. I just feel like I have a black cloud following me around especially when I am flying.

Did I mention my luggage got lost on the way to toronto..... I love travelling!!!!!!

I'm in Toronto!

So in case you are wondering what I do when I travel, here is a visual. This is me and a colleague in front of our part of the Washington booth. Here we are selling Spokane to anyone that wants to know about it. So on this trip, I have had many crazy things happen. I almost didn't make my connecting flight to Toronto - Minneapolis airport is huge! Then when I did arrive at 10:30pm, my luggage did not arrive, so I went through customs with just me. I didn't get my bags until 11pm the next night. In the mean time, my phone didn't recognize I was in Canada, and it kept going to roaming. I bought a new outfit to wear for the day and the opening reception. I also had some computer challenges at the booth, and one of the sessions I really wanted to go to was too crowded so I couldn't even get in the door. What a zoo! I will be thrilled to get back to Spokane. All in all, once things calmed down, I was able to network and meet lots of people, so it was a great week.

The Wiggles go Bananas in Spokane!

Ok Wiggles fans it's your lucky day! For anyone that doesn't know who the Wiggles are, here they are: Jeff, Sam, Anthony & Murray. They arrived in the big red car and the fun just kept happening! We told Caden about the wiggles concert about a week before. he didn't really understand what we were telling him - he would see the wiggles up close and personal. Well we did. We were in the 5th row (Row E and seats 3 &4 - which we only needed 1 ticket, but if you have a pulse, you need a seat) I bought Caden this velour guitar and he was so happy to be able to play the guitar with Murray!

This is us just before the show started. So exciting for us! As soon as they came out, Caden's eyes popped open and he was in awe!

The wiggles even came out in the audience. I sent caden over to murray, but he just stood in front of him with his guitar, it was so cute. He got to see one of his idols! Captain feathersword didn't come out into the audience, but it was still fun.

Here is the captain, singing something...

This is the quack quack song - what started our love for the wiggles!

After the concert, on the way to the car, we walked by the river. I couldn't resist these pictures of Caden playing his new guitar after the concert.

This was when we got home and he was just in wiggle heaven!

Thanks Wiggles for coming to Spokane! It was a great highlight for our summer!

All good things come to an end

Jan was here for 3 weeks and we had a blast. We all decided that we need to see each other more often for sure. The last weekend she was here, we went to deer lake to relax. My sister's inlaws live there and were gracious enough to let us stay too! We had a blast just playing in the water and hanging out. Here are some fun pics of Jan with her two favorite guys - Caden & Justin!

Thanks Jan for visiting us, it means a lot to us that you were able to come out here and see where we live. It was a great visit, come back often!