Corn Fields & Farms

Jesse and I went back to our parents this past weekend. (About a 2.5 hour drive) Where we live it had been stormy and raining but the closer we got to our parents the clouds were breaking up and the sun was shining.

Lots of farms on our drive and I thought it looked really neat with the clouds. These pictures are out the window doing about 65mph... pretty good, huh?! We also seen "Oreo cows" The head and butt were black and the middle was white. I couldn't get a picture fast enough... I'll try next time.

The below pictures are of a cornfield that separate my parents from their neighbors. The house in the last picture is of the neighbors... I was at their place when I took the pictures. They were having a NASCAR party. They deep fried a turkey! Yum! They also deep fried Twinkies! Those were so good! Kind of tasted like an elephant ear from the fair! They rolled the Twinkies in a batter (similar to a pancake mix) fried them, then sprinkled them with powdered sugar.

You don't want to eat this corn... they call it field corn and it is not good. Only the cows like it!

Missing Tigard

How about some love for Tigard!?

I don't know when it was but July sometime... Jesse and I were sitting in our apartment in Tigard and noticed a beautiful sky. We couldn't see it very well so we hoped in the Jeep and drove down 99 a bit to this place.

I got some very cool shots!!

I need to brag about my Tigard neighbors for just a few moments. Really missing them right now! We had very cool neighbors there. Brandon & Natalie... were in the program with Jesse and I love them to pieces!! Miss them tons! If Jesse and I were going a little stir crazy we could always call them and go and visit for awhile.

Zack & Sara... were our go to garden neighbors. You could find Zack grilling a couple burgers while drinking a bottle of beer. Sara would be drinking her wine trying to keep her cats from running away. Jesse and I would sit out there and distract them from their grill (and cats) and have a drink with them at night. So fun!

Liz, Faith & Justin... You could always find Liz out on her patio with a glass of wine! She has the sweetest daughter Faith and a rapping boyfriend Justin. Justin would always try to get me to rap... told me it was just liking rhyming... well I can't do either!!

Lee... he passed away right before we left. He was an old man that was hard of hearing and loved Jesse to pieces! He would come over and bang on the door so loud!! He would need Jesse to put in a movie for him to watch because he couldn't figure it out. He was a pretty neat guy and glad we were able to meet him.

Ryan & Lin... BBQ boy!! Ryan is always grilling and cooks enough to feed an army! I can't tell you how many times we would be sitting in our living room and all of sudden we would either hear things being thrown at our windows or hear our names being yelled. It was Ryan... he was grilling and had extras. He also had a Long Island Ice Tea to go with it. Ryan is an awesome cook! Sure do miss his grilling nights!! We actually just got a call from them this past weekend... they are engaged!!!!!! I am so excited for them!! Love them to pieces!!

Love and miss you Tigard neighbors!!

Tia & Jesse Day!!

Last week my sister [Shannon] and my little niece [Ellyn] came to stay with us for 3 days. Elly was so excited to have a Tia & Jesse Day. She actually got to go to Tia's house and sleep over!! Exciting stuff!!

Both Jesse and I had to work while they were staying with us. But, we work from home!! We certainly confused Elly. She would bring a chair over to my desk and say "Why do you have to work here? You have to work at a Doctors office. This is not work." My sister works at the hospital for a Doctor... therefore she thinks that everyone should work for a Doctor and not at home!

She got to color all over my papers with my pens and pencils! Good times in her eyes! After I was done with work then we went to play in the lake. She loved it out in the lake and didn't want to go and eat supper.

Cute story about the lake. She would sit in our apartment and look at the lake and beg to go out there and was I done with work yet because she was ready to go swimming. At one point she came running over to me "The water in the lake is going away!!!!" Of course I played along and said "NO WAY! Show me!" She runs me over to the patio door and says "See, the water is going away." Here a big clump of yuck was at the surface of the water and it sorta looked like the bottom of the lake.... : )

Here are some pictures of our time together!

We went shopping one night and got Elly these adorable shoes.

She starts preschool this fall with Ms. Amanda and needs cute shoes!!

She walked around saying "I love my new shoes. They are soooo cute."



This is our sassy little Ellyn.

I had to sneak this picture because Elly wouldn't let me

take their picture. I tried to get a nice one and she cried. : )

My sister brought us this cake because she was here on our 4th anniversary!!

The cake was made by the same lady who made our wedding cake. Very cool!

Virtual Tour

Here is a virtual tour of our new home. Enjoy.

We're in Wisconsin!!

The trailer is fixed!! We were back on the road at 3:30pm Wednesday afternoon with a fixed trailer. Dave ended up having to change all 4 of the bearings on the trailer. Good thing Jerry (Jesse's brother) called and told us to check all of them... otherwise we were just going to change the bad one. Thank you Jerry for the heads up! We drove all night (25.5 hours) and made it to Jesse's parents house at 5pm tonight! Tomorrow morning we head to Appleton to our new apartment. Update you more later.

Trailer Troubles

We were off to a great start on Monday. About 14 hours of loading the trailer. We had to pack everything so tight and use every last bit of empty space we had. We did get everything in the trailer... we do have our truck bed full but not too full. It was a long hard day but we finished and pulled out of the apartment at about 9:30pm and drove to Troutdale, Oregon. We needed to find a hotel with truck parking. We have a massive setup with this trailer and can only go to big parking lots. (Troutdale has lots of truck stops and we fit in well.)

Yesterday started off great. We hit the road running. About 7:30pm we stopped in Missoula, Montana to fill up with gas and drive another 1.5 - 2 hours to Butte Montana to stop for the night. We pulled back out onto the interstate, following Jesse's Dad, to soon smell a horrible gas/oil smell. I looked at Jesse and asked him if he forgot to put the gas cap on because we are now pumping our own gas. (Side note about gas pumping... we find ourselves just waiting for someone to come fill us up. It takes about a minute before we realize we have to do this ourselves. Oh and running the credit card machines on the pumps... not our friend!!)

Jesse's Dad (Dave) pulls over onto the side of the interstate. Jesse gets out to see what is going on and comes back to tell me that it is not good. We have a bad bearing in one of our trailer wheels... can't go any further until it gets fixed. Jesse and I take off to the next exit and start looking for someone to help us out. Plus, it is 8:30pm local time - not many places still open.

We find a guy who builds trailers! (SWEET!) He is not sure that he has parts but he will let us park the trailer there so Dave can work on it. Plus this Trailer-Guy is going to have a mechanic come in in the morning to help out.

Jesse's Dad limps off the interstate with his truck & trailer and drives to this place to park the trailer for the night. Meanwhile Jesse's Mom (Mary) is calling around looking for a hotel for us to stay at. We are at a Best Western and we got the last room. There was a cancellation just before she called. Sturges is going on right now and we were having a hard time finding a room!! Praise God!! The hotel is probably 2 miles for the Trailer-Guy.

Dave got up this morning to meet the mechanic at 8 and they are still working on it (12:30pm right now). I just went and dropped Jesse off by Dave so he could help out and it sounds like they need to replace all 4 bearings (1 per wheel) before we can hit the road again. We have talked the hotel into letting Mary and I stay here until 2pm. After that I think we will be snuggling up to the local Starbucks.

Did I mention that Dave & Mary bought this trailer brand new... they are kind of frustrated that it broke down. It shouldn't have.

Our original goal was to be at Dave & Mary's Thursday evening but we are about a day behind now. When I dropped Jesse off Dave mentioned something about pulling an all-nighter. We'll see what happens.

We also have a HUGE wild fire here in Montana. When we drove in last night you could see the big "clouds" of smoke and airplanes dumping water. Mary said that she seen about 10 firetrucks go by while they were sitting on the side of the interstate. Trailer-Guy said that they had that interstate closed a few days ago due to smoke. This morning we woke up and it is really smokey and you can smell the smoke.

Alright, I better run and keep Mary company. I'll let you know when we finally get there. (I am still hoping for Friday afternoon.)