Annual Halloween Dinner

 Boys are getting older, and sadly, they don't want to do much with me anymore in regards to Halloween traditions (carving pumpkins, pumpkin patches, decorating cookies, crafts). It sucks - for me. I'm having a hard time with this. And it's not just over silly holiday traditions; it's just life in general. They want to do their own thing.....

BUT they still wanted me to do our annual Halloween-themed dinner! YESSS!!!!!

So.....we had "rat" for dinner. 

Peter cracked a dirty joke at Clifford's expense....got a smile though!

Max Gets Fixed (FINALLY!)

The day finally came for Max to get fixed! We're hoping after the surgery he'll calm down a bit (fingers crossed!)

Super early Friday morning.......he's keeping me company while I do my hair and makeup for the day. If he only had a clue what was going to happen an hour from now lol.....

Here he is 8 hours later! He was a little loopy. He whined the whole drive home. 

Max was finally allowed to eat. One moment he was chowing down. The next he was fast asleep like this. 

It hasn't even been a full 24 hours and he destroyed his cone of shame!!! Peter put a shirt on Max to try to keep him from licking his incision (this trick worked well with Jasmine when we had her fixed).

Shirt trick didn't last long. So Peter tried tying it up like a diaper on Max. That didn't last long either. So we gave him a benadryl to get him to chill out. THAT worked!

 

Hole in Head

 I finally let Kristjan pierce my ear!

And then Clifford decided he wanted to put an earring back in his lobe he got pierced a few weeks ago AND get his other lobe pierced by Kristjan.

Job Promotion

Yesterday on my commute home from work, my boss text me this.

So I gave her a call and she told me my promotion had been approved! I'm currently the Front Office Coordinator. The last her and I talked I thought we were just working on getting me a raise - basically to get brought up to what the other office gal at the corporate office was making (I was definitely being underpaid for everything I was doing. Not to the fault of my boss, just some stupid upper-management politics). But I was shocked to find out I have been promoted to HR Assistant!!! And I've gone up 3 pay grade levels-another shock! I cried happy tears and told my boss thank you so much for fighting on my behalf to get me to this. Come Monday morning I get to order new business cards (so fancy!) AND I get a work laptop (so important!). I'm so ecstatic. After I graduated college, I went straight to being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years. And now three years out in the workforce and I'm finally building a career for myself!

Later in the evening my boss texted me again with this sweet message (happy tears again!) and a toast to me! 

Back to School!

We're about 3 weeks in to the new school year. We all hate it. This virtual learning is so difficult. Both boys miss being at school and with their friends. I have one kid who I don't have to worry about keeping track of his schedule (the school alternates days/classes) and he does his homework. The other kid won't pay attention, already has some missing assignments, and we caught him skipping a class already. UGH. 

 Kristjan - 9th Grade

Clifford - 10th Grade

                                                 

Say Hello to Max

One Friday night, about a month ago, I was on Facebook when I came upon a post on the Snohomish Free Pets page. A young gal was GIVING AWAY her 11 month old husky named Max. Basically, her and her boyfriend didn't know what they were getting into with this breed, and she was forced to find him a new home because he was destroying the house (i.e., he was home alone all day and was bored). I was the first to contact her and we made plans to meet up in a half hour. Peter's eyes bugged out - he couldn't believe we were going to get a husky for free and add a FOURTH dog to our family. So we met up with her and we brought Max home. 

Max and Jasmine instantly bonded. It took a little time for Sheeba and Chewie to come around, but it was a much shorter period of time than when we brought Jasmine home a year ago. Max is a cuddlier. He has no awareness for personal space. He has one brown and one blue eye. He's well behaved, though we have to work on him being off lease. He isn't fixed, but that will change come next Friday. Our house if full with 3 big dogs and 1 little dog. There is dog hair everywhere. And it smells like dogs no matter how much I clean (working on getting tons of plug-in air fresheners). But we're lucky to have such amazing dogs. And there's nothing like coming home from a long day at work to have all 4 of them greet you at the door and want to give you loves. 

August Highlights

We had two vacations planned for August. First up was us going back to Cascade Peaks. Emily tagged along for this trip, as well as the Brignones. There was a big mess up regarding on our camping spot (campground's fault) BUT it turned out for the best because the alternate spots they gave us ended up being amazing (and we decided to reserve them for next summer). The weather was sunny and hot. Kids had fun playing and jumping in the river. Us adults enjoyed relaxing by the fire. 

Our second August trip was to Camp Dakota in Oregon with all the Homans. Peter couldn't come on the trip, so I brought Howard along in his place. But then on the last full day of our trip Peter ended up driving down to join in (Come to find out he wasn't feeling good with his stomach a few days prior to me leaving and it had gotten worse. He didn't want to be alone). So this place was so cool. Not sure how any of us had never heard about this place before. It's a camp for families. There's paintball, rock climbing, aerial courses, ziplining, and much much more. Everyone wanted to come back again. 

The group campsite had a yurt, which had air hockey and foosball. 

You can order pizza and they deliver it to your campsite. Honestly, it was overpriced and disgusting. This is one thing we wouldn't do again when we go back.

Chloe doesn't like it when Clifford holds her. She started crying shortly after I snapped this pic.

But she loves Kristjan LOL

Kiddos waiting to rock climb

Sweet moment - Clifford helping Zoey with her foot placement

Kristjan snuck away to the store to buy candy

Portion of the aerial course

Tara and I brought a variety of adult and kid games. The kid ones were a hit. Kept them busy for quit a while.

We forgot an axe. Here's Clifford and Michael seeing if they could split wood with a shovel.

    Group getting ready for ziplining

All the girls decided to tie-dye a camp shirt 

Peter made it out

Cute little charm Clifford earned for axe throwing

Mystery Room time. Franie and I tackled the activity with all the kiddos. 

Kid Group Pic

Us girls in our camp shirts

Divvying out the activity beads we all earned