::winner(s)::

Thanks to everybody for your support, I'm so glad we could raise some money for the Neilsons!

The official winner of the auction is Kathy (my sweet mother in law)--let me know which photo you'd like!
My Dad still wants to go with his bid, so he's going to get a photo as well.

If any of the rest of you who posted a bid are interested in still donating that amount and getting a photo, please let me know. I think it would work out great that way.

For the winners, just use the button below to donate your respective amounts. Forward me your paypal receipt and tell me which photo you'd like and I'll get to working on it for you.

Allow a couple of weeks for delivery because I need to order the photo from an online lab. The prints they make are lovely.

And thanks again for bidding. How fun!

::for nie nie::

Stephanie Nielson (Nie Nie), a friend in this bloggy world of ours was recently in a bad plane crash along with her husband Christian. They were both severely injured and very badly burned. They're in the hospital trying to recover, but it's going to be a long road and very expensive. They have four sweet little kids and this is going to be really tough on their family financially I'm sure.
If you want more details you can go to her sister's blog here.

Stephanie has a sweet blog called the Nie Nie Dialogues. While reading it it's very easy to feel the love she has for her kids and husband. She and I both went to the same high school, and I never knew her well, but nonetheless she feels like a friend.

Design Mom invited us all to get involved in helping the Neilsons through holding silent auctions on our blogs. The proceeds of the auctions will go directly to the Neilsons.
Check Design Mom's site for a listing of other blogs holding auctions. I think there will be quite a few today.

Up for auction here is the following.

One (winner's choice) of the following photos, 8x10 size framed in black.













These are some of my recent favorites. I hope one of them appeals to you.

Just leave your bid as a comment on this post along with your email address. The bidding will continue until midnight Saturday August 30th.
If you'd rather just contribute to the cause, click the button below and you can send them some help through paypal.

Or of course if you could simply say a few prayers for the Nielson family. I know they will be appreciated.

This is one of the things that is so incredibly cool about blogs and the internet. Most of us would have no idea that this had even happened if it wasn't for the electronic connections we have with friends, all over the country and world for that matter. How neat that we can be there for each other in times of need.

::pipeline::

So here we are today at the Pipeline in Hawaii.




Look at that barrel! Too bad you'd have to be the size of a kitten to surf on those waves. They looked perfect today.
So obviously we weren't in Hawaii today. This is what the Pipeline actually looks like:

(photo from Mauro Ladu's flickr stream)











Good thing Max doesn't care where we are!


We visited a new beach today and it was so fun. It had smallish but nice waves, with good barrels as you can see--not like that matters. But they were great boogie boarding waves for Max because they weren't too big when they broke.
I was afraid it was going to be a little too cool for the beach today, but it was so nice. The sun was bright and warm, and the water was cold, but not too cold. When we were in the shade it was nice and cool because of the good air temperature. I'm so glad we went.
Also, the beaches out here tend to be very very crowded. At least all of the ones we've visited this summer have been.

This one wasn't really very crowded at all. We had room to move, and I could actually lie on a towel and keep an eye on Max in the water because there weren't a thousand other people out there. On the other beaches I just can't keep track of him from any distance, short or long because there are so many other people around.

We had a great time. Max got really cold in the water, but the sun warmed him up pretty quickly.





Too bad there are only a few weeks left before it will really be too cold to go beaching.
Max starts school next friday too, so that'll put a cramp in our style. Fall is coming! Good thing we've had a great summer so far.

::a good day for the kitchen::

I couldn't believe it. Yesterday I cooked a whole bunch of stuff.
I'm not really a cooking kind of person. Honestly I haven't had much time for it the last few years, and it was quite a chore to make dinner between all the stuff I was doing. So Kris or I would make dinner from time to time, and we'd eat out from time to time and sometimes we'd just have to eat pancakes for dinner.

The only things I actually enjoy cooking are yummy treats like cookies or cupcakes. I could make those all day. So I would make up a batch every once in a while and we'd share them with friends. Other than that though, the kitchen didn't get a lot of workouts.

Anyway, since we've moved out here work has been a lot slower for me and I'm finally done with school, so I've had more time on my hands, which is amazing. And since Kris is finally making some money I have no excuse. I've had to start cooking dinner.
And I think I've been doing a good job! I've a least planned for a different meal every night, whether it's a whole new one, or leftovers or sandwiches or whatever. So we usually know what we're eating beforehand which is really nice. It's also nice for Kris to have leftovers to take to school to eat for lunch.

I know for sure it's saving us a lot of money, since before we had to go out to get food a lot. It was expensive. Kris often had to go buy lunch during the day too, which added up quickly. I'm sure we're also eating healthier than we were. So I feel good about it.

I had a marathon 24 hours of cooking yesterday. It was crazy. A friend brought us a big zucchini, and since I don't really like zucchini I figured I better try to make it into a bread. Which I did on sunday afternoon. Kris was nice and helped me grate it up. The bread turned out totally delicious. I'll eat zucchini any day if it's hidden in a bread like that!


On saturday I bought 4 pounds of strawberries because I really wanted to make some freezer jam. Kris's mom often makes freezer jam and it's just sooo delicious.
I pulled out the strawberries yesterday and a couple of them were already moldy! So I knew that was my cue, and I started in on the jam right that second.

It turned out great, which I'm really glad about because it was my first time making it. I used a lower sugar recipe and it tastes so much better than the lower sugar jam we were eating from the store. There's just no comparison.


After I made the jam I got dinner ready, Max's favorite, chicken and rice casserole.
But then I realized that the jam had only used half the strawberries. We had gotten way too many. So I needed to find something else to do with the rest. Luckily I have a baking blog that I love to read. It's delicious just to read it. I found a recipe there for a oatmeal berry crumble or something like that. Boy is it yummers. It's a flaky bottom crust with strawberry (or any berry) filling and flakey oatmealy topping. It used up the rest of my berries. I would highly recommend this recipe to anybody wanting to eat something yummy. And I would highly recommend the Baking Bites blog. It's great.



This stuff served as a perfect family home evening treat.

I couldn't believe I had cooked so much in one day! It was like a world record or something.

And to top it off I got Max to do this for his little friend who has a birthday this week:


So all in all it felt like a pretty good day yesterday. And we'll have delicious jam in the freezer for a while to show for it!

::Park Nirvana::

When Kris and I came and visited Providence for the first time in February, our friends Chad and Melissa drove us around this area. We were trying to decide between living here and living in more of a suburban type area.

As we were driving along Kris and I caught a glimpse of this park. It was like Max's dream made flesh or something. It was all surrounded by a high iron fence and scattered among the playground equipment were a whole bunch of cars. Little tykes cars. It was like a car burying ground or something--like all the cars in Providence had gone there to live out their remaining days.

So once we finally got out here Kris and I tried to find the park for Max. It wasn't easy to find, but we finally did it.
It's a little more than a mile away from our house. A while ago Max and I set out to see how cool it really was.

He was pretty much psyched out of his mind.

He tried to ride every single thing there was to ride.



I couldn't come close to documenting all his different rides.




There are a good amount of other toys there too. Check it out. This is all besides the standard swing set/slide setup that any normal park has.

Crazy huh?

I guess people just bring their old toys here when they're done with them. It sure makes a fun park for guys like my Max.


Anybody seen one of these things before?

This thing was propelled by arm strength. Max was kind of slow. His arms are a little scrawny.

And he ran over my foot a few times. That wasn't very comfortable.
Isn't that a weird toy?

Max was totally in heaven. We stayed quite a while. Several hours, which is a really long time for me to stay at a park. I amused myself with my camera for a while (which is probably obvious to all of you) and then I called my mom and talked to her for a long time. When I got done he was still going strong.

Places like this are hard because it's so nice he has a good time, but leaving is such an ordeal it's almost not worth going! He's getting better about things like that, little by little, but it's still often quite the struggle.

Max finished up this park visit by appropriating some little girl's bike. I wasn't really paying attention because there were SO many different things just sitting around. It was only later when I was looking at the photos that I realized probably nobody dropped this little bike off here to die.

But he didn't get in trouble with anybody, so that's good!

We haven't gone back yet, but we'll have to do it soon. It's starting to cool down a bit out here, so I know we need to take advantage of the fun outdoor activities while we can! It's a lot more fun for me to go to the park when it's a little cool outside anyway.

So what do you think? Best park ever?

::Kellski::

Happy Birthday to Kelly!

We miss Kelly. It was so fun that we lived so near them in Kansas City, and now that we're far away we miss them!


(max and kelly's first meeting. kelly had just gotten off the flight that brought him back from his mission. no he didn't have some weird disease.)


(kelly lived with us in kansas city for a summer before he got married. max loved it so much)




(planet sub. mmmmmmm. we were all so sad when kelly went back to utah!)



So happy birthday to Kelly, one of Max's best friends and most adored heros. Hope it was a good one!!!

::Spike's::

Last Monday night when Kris got done with work we picked up our cute friend from church Rachel and headed over to Spike's Junkyard Dogs for a family home evening dinner.
Spikes is this funny strange hot dog restaurant that has a few locations in Providence. Spike is a bulldog. He's the mascot.

I've never really seen a stand alone hot dog restaurant before. I've seen plenty in the food court in the mall, but nothing like this.
It's a really funny place, I don't know how else to describe it. It's supposed to be a junkyard, the outside of the place has a whole bunch of hubcaps hanging all over the walls. There's a chain link fence running down the middle of the inside, separating the seating. It's funny. Then there are all sorts of goofy signs on the walls.


Anyway, it's pretty tasty. They have a veggie hot dog that I like pretty well.
We went there the first time because we were driving around trying to find something and ran across it when we were hungry. Kris couldn't resist trying it. After that Kris and Max were both hooked.

(the obligatory picture of Max eating)
It's a guy thing. Evidently a lot of the guys we know out here are fans of Spike's. It'll come up in conversation from time to time. "Have you been to Spikes?!"
(Carie and Ricky, did you ever go to Spike's?)

They have the weird hot dog buns here. They're just not like anything out west. Or mid western for that matter. It takes a little more work to eat these buns.
But they're tasty.


I wouldn't want to go there every day, that's for sure. But it's fun to go once in a while. And it's more affordable that a lot of places to eat around here. And of course we had to introduce Rachel to a Providence gem!

But evidently "hot dog addiction is possible" so watch out. If you come out here and try it, you might not want to go back!!

::A List::

This afternoon Max asked me to write out a list for him. He was looking for a "to do" list I think. This request was inspired by this movie that Kelly made with him a while ago. In the movie Max has a list of things he had to do before he could go bike riding. He crossed them off as he went along.

I asked him what to write on his list and he didn't really know. He wanted to go check the movie on his computer and have me write what it said, but I saw this as a good opportunity for an exercise in creativity, so I made him think up some stuff.

It took a few minutes, but he came up with an incredible list. Check it out. I had no influence on any of these items.
After the first one they just came flowing out of his mouth and I felt like I had stepped into wonderland or something.

1. Exit the one that is bigger.
2. Help the flower get to the zoo. (I think this one was slightly inspired by Dora the Explorer)
3. Zoom up the one that's bigger.
4. Exit this thing where help is.
5. Help wanted, the camera and exit.
6. Singing about cameras and words and family.
7. Something that's really exit and cameras and phones and flowers.
8. Love the one that's bigger.
9. Music from box and flowers and camera and pictures.

Ok, WHAT?!? What's the fixation with exits I wonder?
I'm thinking I'll take this as my to-do list for tomorrow. Anybody else want to take on the challenge?

I especially like item 8. It's kind of intriguing. I'm definitely going to try to love the one that's bigger from now on.

::Hah::

The microwave that my dad helped me pick out when Kris and I first moved to Kansas City pooped out the other day. It started to make a really funny noise and smell bad when I was trying to steam some vegetables. So we retired it.

We went and found this really fun red microwave at Sears, and after much deliberation and driving back and forth to the mall a couple of times we bought it. It's fun because I have some other red stuff in the kitchen and it fits right in. The color is really happy.

Unhappily though it appeared to be slightly possessed and would randomly beep sometimes, when nobody was anywhere near it. It would also add and subtract time randomly while we were trying to cook, and would change levels. Beeping all the while. Oh, and it would just randomly stop cooking and freeze up too.

So we took it back on saturday. The Sears isn't really that close to us, so it's kind of a pain. We got a new one.

We plugged the new one in yesterday and went to turn it on--the light inside turns on quite nicely, but it appears whoever built it left the motor out. No cooking, no motor, no sounds.

Luck of the draw, or just a really horrible product?

In the mail today I got the following letter from Sears:

All I can say to that is HAH! Good thing I have a sense of humor!

I'm not sure what we're going to do now. Get another one of these duds or go for something different?

Another not so funny thing that happened was yesterday. The three of us went over to visit our friends Chad, Melissa and baby Grant. Max and Chad were playing a little game of hide and seek while the rest of us chatted and played with the baby.
It was getting late so we told Max he could hide one more time. He ran off to hide and Chad went to look for him.

Chad couldn't find him. Anywhere. So Kris went to help him. Melissa and I were talking when I realized it was really quiet in the house, and that Chad and Kris were STILL walking around looking for Max and calling for him. That was weird. So Melissa and I started looking for him too. Their house isn't that big. It's kind of like ours. One floor with a couple of bedrooms. Melissa and I couldn't find him. We went around looking in laundry hampers, under beds, behind couches. Everywhere. That's when it started to get worrying. It was just SO quiet. He's not good at hiding without giggling when people get too close! So we were worried that maybe he'd gone outside when we weren't looking or something. That was a scary thought. Everybody but me went out to see if they could see anything outside. I gathered my wits about me for a moment, then went into the middle of the house and yelled his whole name as loud as I could and told him he was dead meat if he didn't come out NOW. I started counting to three. On one I suddenly heard some bumping sounds. On two I heard his little voice saying, "Don't count!!"
He was in the bedroom closet that we had all looked in several times. Quiet as a little mouse. He was so proud of himself for hiding so well. And since he came out when I called him seriously we couldn't even yell at him.

We taught him about "Olly olly in free." Maybe we should've done that earlier!

Now the thought of four adults running around a house looking for a little stinker of a four year old is funny. At the time it was a little freaky.


And now I leave you with this last question. Is anybody else sick of watching beach volleyball every night? I'm really wishing we could see something else--something different. There are so many sports played during the olympics and we're stuck in bikini land all the time! Arrgh. Can you tell I'm tired of it?

::Update::

How did I end up with a son that loves fruit so much?
The other day we ran out of bread so he couldn't eat his standard PB&J for lunch. He requested to eat this can of fruit cocktail I had in the pantry. It was for him, but I was thinking he'd eat it a few different times, like maybe four. Nope. He ate the entire can full for lunch.

I can't really stand fruit cocktail. The slimy grapes, the yucky peaches. The only thing I really like in there is the pears, and sometimes a pineapple fools you into thinking it's a pear.

Anyway, I'm not a fruit cocktail fan. But my son is. And it's just crazy to me.

It's great. I'm glad he loves food that's actually good for him. (Along with plenty of foods that aren't good for him.)

Speaking of eating and the dining room, Kris did something nice for us today.
There was a chandelier in the dining room that we didn't like. It's just like a chandelier that was in the dining room at our first house in Missouri. Gold, not very pretty. We replaced the one at our old house as soon as we could.

I realized yesterday that we had a box of hanging lights down in the basement that we'd gotten a couple of years ago as a really good deal from some hardware store. We didn't have a place for them at the time. So Kris went for it to see if we could use those to replace the unfortunate chandelier.

I'm glad he's handy because I sure wouldn't know how to do this.

Max was very distressed when he took the chandelier down though. He couldn't figure out why we didn't like it. He had all these reasons why he liked it. Like the ring at the bottom and some other funny stuff. In fact, by the end of his plea for it he was saying he LOVED it.
Who knew the man had such a strong opinion on the lights in the dining room?
Here's how they turned out.

I think they're lovely. They hang a little ways above the table. The blue is really nice.
They're SO much better.

And what did Max say about them? He LOVED them. I was relieved.

We went clothes shopping for Max this afternoon. He's pretty much grown out of everything he has. His pants are all too short, and his shorts keep creeping shorter up his legs. The shirts he's been wearing all summer are starting to look short and some of them are so stained and nasty I can hardly look at them. So we thought it was about time for some new threads, especially since he starts his school in a couple of weeks.
We ended up going to Old Navy and found a bunch of cute stuff for pretty cheap. He looks so cute in the clothes. I'm so envious. I wish I could go to the store and get a whole bunch of cute stuff that I know will look perfect on me! The little stinker.

See look at those adorable little jeans! So cute.
He's playing with Kris's tape measure in this photo. He has a thing for it. It drives me crazy.

I'm glad he can start looking cute again. He was starting to get a little ratty looking.
Can you see the giraffe skin on the floor in those pictures? We went to the zoo yesterday (and I forgot my memory card, so sorry no photos) We saw some really cool giraffes and so he was inspired to get out his Halloween costume from last year. He does make a cute giraffe.

More measuring tape antics.

This soccer jersey that my siblings got for him in England is one of his favorites. It's getting so short and tight and has so many old stains....it's going to have to be sneaked off into some sort of memory box.


Kris has been on call this week for the first time, but hasn't been called in once so far. We're wondering if all the emergencies are waiting for tomorrow or something. Luckily Max and I already arranged a ride home from church in case he has to ditch us.
Maybe he'll get off easy and won't get called in at all for the whole two weeks...we'll see!

And last item for the update.
Here's my burned arm.

This can happen when one actually cooks dinner. I was trying to keep myself between the dog, the boy and the oven door when I removed the cooked dinner from the oven yesterday and I paid the price. Way to sacrifice my body, right?

Later.