Tag Archives: what the hell are we doing?

A Very Late Car Update

I decided on the pontiac vibe in Dec. They knocked 300 off of it, that brought it very close to kelly blue book and what is even better, we got 2.75% on interest! After 4yrs, we’ll only pay 335 in interest….so very pleased.

It may be the now standard boring design, but it is bright red and I’m getting about 25mpg, and it has a bit more zip then I expected. For the holidays, we got me a new stereo for it, so now I can use my ipod and it has blue tooth for my phone, perfect. =)

It isn’t my first choice, if I didn’t need to be practical I would’ve gotten another Jeep Wrangler, 2 door, soft top this time. But had to be practical. And with as many errands as I do for us, being practical has paid on on the gas…..I’ve already put a bunch of miles on it.

Since it is red, we named it the Red Baroness….which works great, since my great-grandpa Schinkel was a pilot instructor in WWI Germany and probably taught the Red Baron how to fly. =) My uncle has his pilot license.

It’s gotta be 4:20 somewhere…

Hello!

It is just after 4pm on Sunday April 20, 2014. I have my AC/DC playlist jamming away while I have my window open so I can not only get some fresh air, but I can also hear the Rufous Hummingbirds come and go from our feeders.

While not in the great number or varity of hummingbirds we was so lucky to have while in Patagonia, we still get a kick out of these few 5-6 Rufous’s. With a Anna’s being seen every so often.

Our friends Daphna and Allen visited us this weekend and as usual, we did nothing but laugh… Ok, we ate and drank more, but you know, a good time was had by all. They even brought Maude so Drew could day “Hi!” to her. Sakura of course is above them all and stayed in the bedroom pretty much the entire weekend.

But she made her presence known…

When Daphna and Allen got Maude, we got them a dog toy. One of those “squeak” toys that we thought nothing of. We saw it, squeaked it once, threw it in the cart and later sent it off in the mail forgetting all about it.

Until we visited a few weeks later to be informed, that not only is there 1 squeak in this toy, but 18 of them. And Maude LOVED this toy above all others. To the point that when they took the toy away, Maude would cry. Both Daphna and Allen work from home. They voiced their appreciation in many tones and ways and very colorfully.

So of course we felt bad and decided on our next visit to make this up to them but getting them more squeak toys and putting them in odd places around their house, while leaving a doggie treat next to it. What made this even funnier was at this time of this, Daphna and Allen had many sleepless nights prior to this night, so when we left at 8pm they went to bed…

Only to call us at 11pm letting us know they went to bed when we left but had to get up a hour later to search their house for a full hour for any more squeak toys so they could, at long last, go to bed and SLEEP!

They used many colorful words and gave us an example of what they hear over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over… Xs 1,000.

I tell you this so you can better appreciate this…

When we met up at Daphna and Allen’s hotel room for lunch, one of the first things we saw sitting on the bed, was Sakura’s squeaky mouse. Which is battery operated and very sensitive so any minor vibration will set it off.

My first thought was Maude stole Sakura’s toy, but then I realized I told Drew to watch Maude carefully so she won’t steal anything, so it must have been Sakura coming out of the bedroom when we was site seeing the park, and putting her squeaky mouse in Daphna’s bag just so she can also torture these poor, squeaked to death people.

Cat’s. They are evil.

Our visit even started off on a bang. Daphna told us she planned to leave at 1pm so she should be here by 3pm. We knew there was a zero percent chance this would happen, but we love her for trying. Around 4pm she texted that they just got off the ferry. Around 6pm Daphna text’s me “they are on “whatever road” so will be here in moments”

I heard of this road, but for the life of me, where is it??? Um… Wait a minute… I call Daphna.

After a few questions and a round of debate, Daphna and I concluded that yes, Pauline and I really are at Fort Flagler State Park and no, that we are not, nor have we ever been, at Fort Worden State Park, which is across the bay from Fort Flagler and about a 40 minute drive.

And honestly, this explained so much about prior conversations like “why did you get a room in Squim?” (hour away) and why it took them so long to get here but after hearing about their travel and recent events, it just adds more lore to our dysfunctional, untrustworthy, immoral lives that we all share with each other as we have for the last 14+ years at least.

I made some chili, this time I really went for it, and it turned out really good with a strong kick. Now I know how to get there!

We then took Maude and walked around the park, showing them a small section of Fort Flagler as we talked long into the night and watched the stars from a battery. The weather was as good as we could have had, it could have been 10 degrees warmer, but other then that, it was great.

They left around 12am and we met up at there room in Port Ludlow, WA (20 minutes away) They stayed at the Inn of Port Ludlow which was really nice, nice room, very nice staff, and good food at the restaurant where no one under 21 is admitted which is another reason to LOVE it!

After a really good lunch, we walked around the beach some to let Maude off the leash and she quickly took to the water and even swam with a large branch in her mouth. Apparently this is the first time this dog went swimming willingly.

After this we came back to the park, we walked where we walked last night due to a missing water bottle, we found that and returned home to get our Jeep as we showed them the rest of the park. They left around 6pm and Pauline and I still trying to recover. It has been rare where we have been on the go at this rate for 2 days.

The extra bonus is, we will be just 1 ferry and 1 hour from Daphna and Allen all summer.

This will be a good summer!

 

The Happenings & Random Pictures

It has been overcast with some wind today, but felt pretty nice….even if we didn’t take advantage of it….lol Planning on doing so tomorrow, need to break in my new hiking boots. =)

Coast Guard Cutter with the mountain background from earlier last week

Coast Guard Cutter with the mountain background from earlier last week

I did get some small things done off of my to do list today, so that was something. We got a walking jacket for the cats. We wanted got it for Drew first because he is the skinniest of the two so we knew it would fit him. Then we would try it on Sakura, so we know what size to order hers (it’ll be purple). He seemed to do ok outside, nervous, but excited….keep purring and looking towards hubby to make sure that he was still there. Now her, she didn’t care for it all….but when she was a kitten she got out for about 22hrs and was never happy with the outside or people since. Use to growl at them out the window at our house.

She isn't liking it very well at all.  =("

She isn’t liking it very well at all. =(“

Drew in his walking jacket eating the grass.

Drew in his walking jacket eating the grass.

I spent Friday trying to contact a consignment store and the third party delivery service so we can empty our storage of our beloved bedroom set, dinning room set, living room table set. We really don’t want to give up our beloved king storage bed set, but why pay for it in storage if we aren’t going to use it for the next 10yrs? That is more then it is worth. =(

Beautiful Morning

Beautiful Morning

In process of phone calls, I looked down and saw that I was missing one of my accent diamonds on my wedding band part of my wedding/engagement ring set (I have them welded together). So not cool! =( I just had the prongs checked just over 2yrs ago, but this is not uncommon. Lucky I have my jewelry insured, so if there is any costs it is covered. And I have a jeweler that we totally trust. They are very reasonable and take very good care of us. We’ve gotten nearly all of my jewelry from them and they do my appraisals. The negative is that I had to ship my ring out to them since they are in Indiana. But it is worth it. They should get it Monday and hopefully, I’ll have it back by the end of next week. The other thing that drives me nuts is that I would have no ring on my finger, well, I solved that. Hubby gave me the blue topaz ring I wanted for our 10th, so I put that where my wedding/engagement ring goes. That is a HUGE help…..other wise I would lose it, not having something there.

Picked up a TV for the bedroom last week, now need to get another apple tv and figure out how we are going to set it up. Our rv is a 2002, so it was made with square box tvs in mind. But no matter what, it is one step closer where we can use our bed for cuddling late at night in front of the tv. We don’t like to spend that much time in bed, it actually hurts our bodies, but we miss the cuddling on our movie nights. So I’m looking forward to us getting it set up, once we figure it out. Friday night over the last few years have become our movie night after we watch Real Time with Bill Mahr.

Out birding a few weeks ago

Out birding a few weeks ago

Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, AZ

Pauline and I had some errands to do in Tucson so we decided to make a day of it and visit the Pima Air & Space Museum and Saguaro National Park East unit.

We arrived at the Pima Air & Space Museum around 9:30am and we immediately knew we did not plan the day out too well. We was both hungry as hell, so we had to start our day at the diner. We was the first customers of the day, and while it took a bit longer then we expected to get our food, the food was really good and well worth the wait.

Pauline for the grilled Ham and Cheese and I got the Cheeseburger with American cheese and we shared a side of fries. We give it 4 of 5 stars. Typical diner food, but done well. We would for sure eat there again.

We also did not wear the proper foot wear. We both decided to wear tennis shoes, but hiking boots would have been the better choice, since this place is MASSIVE in size. We tried to take pictures of everything we saw, but there was just too many Airplanes. We was going to take the bus tour of the “Bone yard” but we decided we can do that on our next visit, there is just too much to see in one visit.

We spoke to many of the volunteers while there and discovered one was Purdue Alum and many were Veterans of World War II.

We had a great visit, but again, one day is not long enough to see everything. We walked a fast pace and it still took hours.

The B36 here was in amazing condition. And We was told it is 1 of 4 left in the world. We saw another one in Atwater, CA in April, so we have seen 1/2 of the B36’s left.

The volunteers also told us they are working on getting the needed funding to build a new massive hanger for “Cold War” aircraft, so the B36, B47, B58, B52 and others.

This would have to be a HUGE hanger to fit all these birds.

The aircraft with yellow wings are trainers.

The B29 had lots of items that was used in battle along with pictures and personal items of the crew.

This was the best Air Museum I have ever been to. The Space Museum was small but nice for what they have.

Seeing 2 references to the USS America CV-66 was a very nice surprise. May she rest in peace.

Gallery

Geoffrey Platts Trail

This gallery contains 11 photos.

Now this is a late post since we did the hike on it May 14th. But I finally gave the pictures I took to ToRn and he got them all edited and uploaded. He did good and posted his when … Continue reading