September

by jcastles | Feb 20, 2015 | Family

Remember my stepson, Derryk?  Well he decided to move back home.  Except home wasn’t in Texas obviously…it’s now in Washington.  So he sold his things and we flew him up here.  The boys were so ecstatic that their big brother was moving home!

School started a few days after Derryk got here and I not only had a Fifth Grader and a Kindergartener but my baby turned 6 years old!!  He wanted a SpongeBob party.  So duh, that’s what I gave him.

I made the cupcakes and bought the cookies from a local cookie maker.  She’s fantastic!

I also made this banner with my Silhouette Cameo.  I sure do love that machine!

Here’s my lovely 6 year old!

The day after the birthday party we went to the State Fair.

These boys sure did love this ride.  They rode it like 10 times!

Some donut chicken sandwich the Hubs and Stepson had.  We had a few other fried foods that day but I didn’t get any pics.

We’re done!  They had fun!

The BEST scone EVER!  Seriously.

The next weekend we took Derryk to see Mt. Rainier.

We started at the Sunrise Visitor Center.

Look at that beautiful water!!

It was a sunny day!  It was hard to get the 2 littles to look at the camera.

Big white mountain!!

OMG!!  I had no idea that they were that small!  There were 3 running around and I was mesmerized!

The Groves of the Patriarchs.  We’d been but wanted to take Derryk.

Reflection lake.  Seeing that reflection was absolutely beautiful!  We’d been there once before but it wasn’t sunny.  I’m glad we caught this pic!

Our last adventure in September was Downtown Seattle.

Here’s the Seattle Aquarium’s Octopus.  He was very active that day.  Super cool!

The Seattle Waterfront.

The famous gum wall.  Ewwwwwww!!!!

That’s it!  A super busy September!

August in a post

by jcastles | Feb 20, 2015 | Family

Well let’s see.  August.  If you’ve followed me from the beginning this will make sense.  If not I’ll catch you up supa fast.  We moved to Washington from Texas.  It’s hot in the summer here and most houses have NO AC!  Ok, that’s it.  Your caught up.

So with no AC in the house and me hating our neighborhood and school I wanted out of there!  I found a house on CL.  Contacted the realtor and she said it was rented but I have these two.  I liked both but one was my favorite for many reasons. Oh, btw we rent…we have our reasons and one day we’ll maybe buy a house but definitely not in Washington.  So back to the house.  One ad said it had AC!  So of course we wanted to see that one first.  It was perfect….for me.  Big 2 story, 5 bedroom, located in a culdesac, park literally across the culdesac, and yes this is the one with AC….so we thought but I’ll get back to that soon.  The other house was super nice too but not as super….to me.  The hubs didn’t like the location of the 1st house.  We’d heard bad things about the new city I was looking at but there aren’t many cities with new houses and all the other houses here are old, ugly and suck. He liked how big the 2nd house was.  I really did too.  It had enough room for us to bring my MIL up here to live with us.  You could fit a dresser in the entry way as a side table.  But….it was on a busy street.  Kitchen was small and mediocre compared to the 1st house.  And I wanted nice nice.  The first house had granite kitchen counters and so much more that was nice.  So in the end we went with the house I wanted.  I really had to put my foot down.  And I’m so glad I did.  As we talked to the realtor I’d mentioned the ad said it had AC.  So since it didn’t she added it for us and raised our rent a small amount.  I can do that!!  So we had AC, a park, a culdesac, a nice yard, a nice house like i’m use to back home in Texas…I was happy.

We had a month to get situated before school started.  So the boys made friends and that was great.  They played outside every day and that was awesome too!  We’ve met a few of our neighbors but we rarely see them.  We live in a  one street neighborhood.  Most people work and during the fall/winter/spring seasons it’s rainy here (in Washington…WHAT!?).  So most people stay inside.  We all wave at each other though.  I can’t wait until this summer though.  A whole Washington Summer (they’re awesome here btw…well if you have AC it is!!)!!

School soon starts and I have a 5th grader and a Kindergartner!! Where did the time go?!

Here are some pics of the house.  This is the house before we moved in.  I love the backyard.  And I want the prior owners patio table, lol!

The Trip Home

by jcastles | Feb 19, 2015 | Family

So back in July 2014 we drove from Washington to Texas and back in 10 days!!  I wrote a post on the trip there and said to be continued.  So yah, I’m a little late.  Not like I’ve been busy or anything.

To see our trip to Texas click here.

So we left Texas and now that it’s months past I don’t remember everything.  Darnit!  But I will do my best to remember.  I do have lots of neat pics though.

So according to my pics we made it to Oklahoma!

A cool pic.  Where we were I have no friggin clue, lol!

HOLY CRAP look at the rain up ahead!!

So the one thing we wanted to see on the way home was The Grand Canyon.  And we got there too late to see it so we decided to hit Vegas (I’d never even seen it before) and go back the next day!  So here are our boring Vegas pics!

Then of course before we hit the road we got In and Out Burger.

So here’s a pic of my awesome travel trash can.  I use this trick all the time!  I try to bring a few with us but anytime we stopped at a gas station and bought stuff I requested a bag no matter if it was 1 or 2 items.  I have my reasons for everything.  I just loop the loop over the corner of the glove box and close it.  It’s a great trash can when your the solo driver.  It stays open for you too.

So we didn’t make it to The Grand Canyon in daylight again…..ugh.  Yup, that’s all we got to see folks.  We will be making this trip again.

The Grand Canyon Selfie!

After that adventure my feet were so swollen from eating sunflower seeds (my stay awake snack) so we decided to stay the night to give my feet some needed rest.  Yah, that’s crazy swollen!

And of course I had to do laundry.  I hadn’t used pay machines in well forever!

We made it to Oregon!  I know that because the sign tells me so.  LOL!!!

And we’re in Washington!  I had to zoom into this pic!

HOLY CRAP the house was hot!!!  Window units were not enough for that!

The hubs picked the pup up from the pet sitter and got him groomed.  He was happy to see one of us!

Then we got back to real life.  Laundry.

But we did get to bring back a small bag of heaven!  Love this bread!

Well that’s it folks.  Literally all I can remember.  It was fun.  If we can’t get back to Texas soon I want another road trip like this.  We love to road trip!

We drove to Texas….for a 2 day trip

by jcastles | Jul 19, 2014 | Family

Yes, that title is correct!  It took us 3 days to get there, spent 2 days, then it took us 5 days to get home!  Think we’re crazy….maybe so but it was so fun!  However by the 4th day driving home I was ready to be home!  Even if I don’t like home….

So what took us to Texas for 2 days?  Before we moved to Washington my in-laws were having hard times and the gas in their big quad cab Dodge hemi truck was killing them.  So we traded them our PT Cruiser for their truck.  Then my husband got the job at Amazon…..when he came to Washington for his interview he noticed that the parking spots in Seattle were not quite large enough for a truck of that size so we sold the truck and got him a Mini Cooper.  Perfect for Seattle, right?!

A year goes by and we get a call from the in-laws that the PT Cruiser broke down….turns out to be the timing belt.  We were still making payments on that car so we couldn’t just get them another car.  The plus side is the dealer we bought it from would give us a lower pay off if we traded it in there.  Downside…..they’re in Texas and we’re in Washington!  So after a few days of thinking what in the hell are we going to do we decided to sell my hubbs Mini Cooper here in Seattle, drive to Texas, get the in-laws a car, trade the broken car in for the hubbs to get a new car and drive 2 cars back.  So that’s what we did.  Crazy thing is I just got a new car the month before.  At least we didn’t have to make that drive in my old car!

Since school had just let out I of course wanted us to all go to see friends and family.  We decided to leave a day earlier than planned and didn’t get out of town until mid-day after all our runnin around that we had to do first.  You might also ask yourself as you read along that we didn’t quite take the quickest route.  Since we had time we took scenic routes instead.

Once we finally left we were pumped!  We’d never done anything like this so there was a lot to see.  We stopped about every 2 hours to stretch our legs, get drinks, potty, etc.  Doing this we never got tired or sore.

We stopped at this really cool Gorge at the Columbia River.  As you’ll see in the 2nd pic below it was a tad windy!

A lil windy?

Next we stopped in Spokane, Washington to see the Big Red Wagon.  That was cool!  Really hard to find in that park though.  I can’t even tell you how to find it but I’d ask someone if your having a hard time.  I was like how are we missing a 12′ tall wagon?!!  Well it’s easier than ya think!

Montana and Wyoming were very cool!  We saw a moose and a bear!  A friggin bear ya’ll!!!!  And because the speed limit is 75 we weren’t quite prepared to take a pic.

Did you know that Wyoming has some red roads?!  Not sure why but it was cool enough for a pic!  And the sunsetting in Wyoming was awesome too!

Something I didn’t tell you earlier is we kept the destination of this trip a surprise from the kids.  Now….of course Kennyth (10 yrs) guessed it and knew where we were going the entire time but we still managed to not tell him until we were on Texas soil.  And yes he was pissy almost the entire trip because we wouldn’t tell him.  But our first stop in Texas was just for him!  His favorite pizza place!  And of course since it’s not the usual one we would always go to (cause it was still 8 hours away!) it wasn’t as good, lol!  Oh well!

We arrived at our friends house about 1am….I know they were not happy about that…sorry!!!!  First thing the next morning we got up and got my hubbs his new car!  (This pic was taken in Utah–only good pic we got though)

2014 Dodge Challenger

After that we got to see our oldest kiddo that I just saw a month before at my brother’s wedding but the rest of the family hadn’t seen him in over a year!!

That night we got to see one of Jayson’s friends Ethan!

The next day the boys got to see Grandma….at Cici’s!!!  Yes, our normal location…and yes it was WAY better!

Next up was Kennyth’s best friend Chase!  I let him stay an hour or so to hang out.  Jayson and I went to see our old neighbor (she’s not old though) Nanette.

That evening we got to see my nephew!  He was just a baby when we left and I was so sad about leaving him.  And of course he didn’t know me but I still tried to squeeze him!  Of course we had mexican food too!!

On the way home we went to my brother’s house.  I was the only one able to come to the wedding we wanted the rest of the family to see him….sadly his new bride was out with the girls.  Ah well.  Luckily she has family here in Washington and will come visit soon!

The next morning we stopped at our oldest’s work to say goodbye.

The trip home…..to be continued.

My husband the Great Father

by jcastles | Jun 5, 2014 | Family

So my husband’s birthday is June 7th then Father’s day follows soon after. I see all kinds of posts from people talking about how bad/stupid husbands and fathers are.  I’m here to tell you there are a few good ones out there.  But you can’t have my husband!

My husband never leaves the toilet seat up…ever!  It’s never even been a problem.  I’ve never told him once to put it down.  He aims quite well too!  Yah, maybe a little TMI but you get my drift.  He replaces the toilet paper roll (in the over direction) when needed!  He doesn’t hog the remote.  We decide together what to watch.  If we want to watch different things guess what….he goes to another tv in the house and we’re both happy.  He’s not messy…with the exception of his desk which is his desk….well and the garage.  And he cleans his desk up before visitors come too…on his own.

He loves all 3 of his kids with all his heart.  He will do whatever necessary to protect them and help them through obstacles in life.  He’s there for them.  I stay home with the kids.  But if one asks him to go on a field trip he goes.  Even though that’s what i’m home for!  He plays video games, board games, Lego’s, etc with them, intentionally too!  He gets up early with them one day out of the weekend for me to sleep in.

He is a devoted husband and father.  I couldn’t have asked for a better man.  Sure we bicker….but what husband/wife don’t over simple stupid things?!

If I don’t get my way I stop myself and think about all the things he does for me and my family.  In the end I usually find myself saying…ok, is this that important to fight over?  He goes to work every day so I don’t have to…even though I want to at least half the time.  He chills with me every night after the kids go to bed.  He spends time with all of us on the weekends…even if it’s to the grocery store.

He is the best!!  I am so happy he’s mine!

Best Husband Best Father