Prosser Balloon Rally

Nate and I went to watch the balloons take off early this morning. They had designs ranging from Coca-Cola ads to potato plants, and of course the colorful geometric designs. I had never seen them up close before; it was cool. To launch, they stretch them out on the ground, blow some cool air into them, and then use the torch thing to heat it up so it stands. The 1st video is of a balloon filling with hot air. It was beautiful to watch them all drifting away!

Are you Superstitious?

I'm not. We just adopted 3 kittens born on Friday the 13th (of July). They're all black. Here's the pictures!

Almost Ready!

Here's the bulletin board Mrs. E and I made yesterday. We continued the decorating today using our fabulous stapling skills. I think I'm about ready for school to start (although I have enough details to take care of in the next week). Nate and I are having a busy but fun end of the summer: we enjoyed having a visit from G & G VW last week and from Matt and Laura yesterday. We tried to take the cheese tour at Darigold but it was closed due to flooding (water, not milk). Oh well, we had a good time visiting anyway.

Save the Corn!

This corn was sitting in the field getting gross until Nate talked me into freezing corn. I now have 5 bags of corn in my freezer. I know that is nothing compared to the hundreds of quarts of corn Grandma Hooyer probably froze in her life, but it's a start! If I feel motivated, I'll do it again tomorrow.

Capri Sun Lunch Bag

This was my project yesterday evening. You can find the instructions here.

Home Again

Nate and I had a great time over the last few weeks catching up with family, eating yummy things from my dad's wood-burning grill, celebrating the 4th of July, pear pitching, and hiking, biking, and sight-seeing at Mt. Rainier. The photo below is before I biked from Paradise to the west entrance of the park with Rebecca, Alissa, and Nate's Dad...19 miles of cold/wet but downhill biking. (Click on the links to see some more pictures and videos of the trip.)
Our return home was somewhat sad because while we were gone Jeeves and Wooster were (most likely) killed by the neighbor's dogs.

Voyage through time zones

Nate and I traveled by train, enjoying the view, the freedom to walk around, and not being treated like potential terrorists for having a one-way ticket. The picture is from the lounge car, but we sat in our own spacious seats most of the trip. We celebrated our anniversary on the train by eating in the dining car and watching the DVD of the wedding. Stepping out on the platform to stretch our legs in Minot, North Dakota, I breathed hot 'n humid air for the first time in a while. Not technically "refreshing", but it made me smile.
Now we are on to celebrating the 4th of July and visiting our families spread across the midwest.

Avalanche Ranch: A Wild Ride Through God's Word

At Lynola's prompting, I will give you an update about VBS! Nate and I have enjoyed two days on the "ranch" so far. Nate's job is taking pictures of the herd for Friday's slide show, and I get to lead and help the very energetic Purple "Ranch Crew". I found out this morning that my Grandma F. led the Purple Ranch Crew at her church's VBS. (I think this publisher must have a monopoly or something; did anyone else out there have Avalanche Ranch VBS?).
Pray that they can absorb the lessons from the stories...they can be overly talkative at the Bible Story Room. I think in a group of 15 or so kids of mixed ages (I don't have that many myself, we go together with another group), it would just be better not to ask those "interactive" questions to the whole group at once (what city are you from? Have you ever been to a river? etc.). It is just asking for chaos.
Anyway, the music and the kids are fun. And if the girls raise the most money to buy cows in Bangladesh, our pastor will wear a wig and sing Hannah Montana. The boys haven't decided their challenge yet.

Kitties! (Part II)

Here is a video of our kitties playing. Which one do you think will be a better mouser?

Harbinger

Rebecca had Monday and Tuesday off, so she drove here from Mt. Rainier to visit us. We had a good time catching up, baking banana bread, "thrifting" for hiking clothes, and just hanging out.
Very soon summer will be here, hopefully bringing more outdoors time and visiting time!

Kitties!

Our kitties arrived yesterday. They are cute and also very smart- they figured out how to get out of their box in the garage. They were scared of us at first but they are getting more playful. They look a lot alike, but one has a white spot on his/her back. They do not have names yet. Suggestions will be taken into consideration.

Island Game

Guess what! I am now a computer programmer. OK, I cheated a bit and used the helping program Scratch. You can see the game I made at http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/hnnhhyr/4087. My excuse for creating this is that programming will help me understand Nate better.

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

The title means "Happy 5th of May" for you non-Spanish-readers, and it is a Mexican holiday somewhat like the 4th of July. We didn't participate in the festivities very much, although we heard happy-sounding music coming from town Friday evening while we were outside!
We kept busy yesterday helping with a spring cleaning day at church and then cleaning ourselves up a bit to help chaperone the Junior Senior Banquet. It was fun to see everyone dressed up, the food was excellent, and we even got to take home a cute centerpiece (shown in the picture).

Pita Pita!

This was my experiment on Saturday. It didn't form perfect pockets, more like isolated bubbles. I think I rolled it too thin. We just spread the chicken and beans on top and it was good. Much better than making a special trip to Safeway (I normally don't go there, but they seem to be the only place that sells it) for dried out store ones!

Spring Tour Concert, Spring Project on a whim

Last weekend was busy and fun- the Dordt band and orchestra were here on tour. I was in charge of feeding them, making sure they had places to change clothes and warm up, and places to sleep after the concert. Of course, we claimed Heather and her tour buddy Melissa to stay at our house. Ruth also came from Idaho for the concert and stayed overnight. The concert was great and it was so fun to see them, even if it was very short!
Yesterday at Wal-Mart I was inspired. The pictures show the results. The fabric is tiny pink stripes- some metallic- with a little bit of wrinkly-ness. I sewed it last night after going bowling with friends. Nate was pleased with how late I stayed up (it gave him plenty of reading time).
I didn't use a pattern (learned that from you Mom!), I just measured my blue skirt. I greatly overestimated the amount of fabric I would need so I might need to sew something else too!


...(several hours pass) pajama shirt?

What should we name it?

Here's a picture of our new car, purchased from another teacher family. It is a blue (obviously) '98 Chevy Malibu. The air conditioning works. The trunk is good-sized.
To celebrate, we used some of our Jav-ahhh! gift certificates on a peach smoothie for me and something coffee-containing for Nate.
Little white Nissan is still functioning, although it may be developing some new quirks.

Wronged, Wrong

You shall not steal

Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven...where thieves do not break in and steal

Last Saturday we had the unfortunate discovery of pieces of bike lock in our garage. Yep, they were cut. Gone with the bikes were our camping supplies, the shop vac, and other tools.
And I was upset. Upset that someone would come into our garage and take things that people had given to us as gifts, upset that we had tried to get renters insurance just days before but couldn't because of some of the electrical "features" of our house, upset that we barely got to use these things, and on top of that, upset with us for somehow becoming fairly attached to things we definitely didn't need to live, and can be replaced (Coleman stoves are pretty cool, but they are not a homemade family heirloom). Nate's family is in Louisiana right now helping people whose possessions and homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Life without a good place to live has got to be a lot harder than life without a nice set of pruners and clippers from Ace Hardware.
So, we have taken and are taking reasonable steps to keep "our" things safer. I had always thought of stewardship as buying what's on sale, tithing, and investing time and money wisely, but could stewardship mean leaving lights and music on (we did that before, too), trying to get insurance, or maybe even --as the sheriff suggested-- putting up stickers that say "smile, you're being videotaped" around our home? When do these actions cross the border from stewardship to selfish paranoia?
Are we wrong to own, appreciate, and protect our well-designed computers, good quality sleeping bags, and luxury vehicles (...please think of our rusty truck and notice the somewhat humorous point in my otherwise serious post). I don't think any of these things is inherently wrong. But this week has shown me that it is hard to possess much with a pure heart. And that compared to managing possessions, I probably spend far too little effort storing up treasures in heaven.

I'm going to be a teacher...

...again next year at Sunnyside Christian School. I signed my contract on Monday and am truly looking forward to a second year here (and some things have got to be easier the second time around, right?).

Poisoned Peanut Butter, Projects

Tomorrow there is no school for me (mid-winter break, aka basketball state)! I plan to go to Wal-Mart and return our jar of peanut butter whose product code starts with the deadly 2111. They have been recalled because of salmonella. I find it strangely exciting to have this jar of potentially poisoned peanut butter in the house, although I'm thankful we didn't eat it.













Also at Wal-Mart I'll buy some elastic so I can finish the green skirt.

I made a new curtain for our bedroom and demoted the 70's green one to the storage/guest room.

Sourdough

I just finished sampling this yummy sourdough wheat bread! I think I'm getting the hang of it and I hardly have to look at the recipe any more.

This week was Nate's birthday, which we celebrated by eating at Bob's Burgers and watching Driving Miss Daisy.

Looking forward to a mid-winter break from school next week; I hope to relax and do my taxes (probably not simultaneously).