Week 7

Here's a little recap of our last week's fun.

Ouch, Ouch, Ouch

Here's Casey standing next to his broken down vehicle on I-5. The tow truck is taking the poor van away. Just two days ago, one of his employees called from Salem, telling him that Casey's little blue truck's radiator burst on the freeway and he was stranded. We laughed it off as the truck was pretty old and run-down and a salvage yard towed it for free. We can handle this little trial, we said. Then, two days later, I'm on the phone to Casey as he's driving his silver van to Salem and in the middle of the conversation, he says, "Uh-Oh, I think my van is dying." Sure enough, it completely died and I had to go rescue him. Okay, we say, we can handle this trial too. Then, as I'm desperately trying to catch up on laundry from our trip to the beach, the entire computer system on my dryer fries and it dies. Really? This morning we continued to smile (through gritted teeth) until we got the call from the repair shop. The van's timing belt broke and since he was going 55 mph, destroyed the valves on the inside of the engine. Estimated cost? $3,000. Since we have to have a second car and since it would cost us more to buy a van of the same year and mileage, we're forking over $3,000 to the mechanic. Ouch, ouch, ouch! We're also buying a new dryer as the computer part costs as much as a new dryer. Ouch, ouch, ouch! Add all this expense to the $1400 it cost to replace Casey's damaged hard drive data in December, and our savings is going fast! Thank goodness for tithing...I'm sure the Lord will make things okay in His own due time. Meanwhile, what lesson should we try to glean from this experience? (other than to change our timing belts every 60,000 miles.)

Mr. Nutcracker

At the beginning of this year, we were invited to a party where we had a white elephant gift exchange. We were the lucky recipients of the "nutcracker." With this gift, comes a great responsibility. We are to include Mr. nutcracker in our family activities for a whole year, write about his adventures and then wrap him up next December as a white elephant gift to be given to another lucky family when the party is renewed. Casey, of course, took on this challenge with gusto. Yesterday, we took Mr. Nutcracker to the beach with us. We took more pictures of him hanging out in front of the waves or perched on top of the lighthouse ledge than we did of our own kids. I'm sure he had a wonderful time breathing in that wonderful salty air. (I know we did.)

Don't worry, the waves did not get him. (though they did take out a few of our kids that were standing too close to this particular rock when a giant wave hit. Allison and Drew were soaked head to toe! )

If you look closely, Maggie and Jillian are pointing to the nutrcracker who is perched right above their heads at the Heceta head Lighthouse. We stayed up there for only a few minutes as a massive rain storm was quickly headed our way.

Hopefully, Mr. Nutcracker can join us for many more adventures so that Casey can begin to compose his (no doubt) rhyming recap of an exciting year for the little guy.

Here is week 6. enjoy! (hope there's no type-o's, I forgot to proof-read before exporting)

Birthday adventures

We celebrated two birthdays this week. Mine was last Friday and Allison's was on Sunday. I so love sharing a birthday with Allison. Casey took us both out to dinner on Friday night and tonight (Monday) we had a little family party. Grandma Walburger volunteered to make my birthday cake this year. She said I shouldn't be required to make my own cake. She presented me with the most adorable creation:

It's my family...done in cupcakes. I am the queen bee at the top of the cake (my dress is made of melted tootsie rolls). The girls loved figuring out which cupcake represented each of them.


Here is Charlotte with her cupcake. Allison and I blew out our candles and she opened some presents. (Casey had already given me a few presents on Friday). Allison's cake was a little one. She wanted a flamingo cake so this is what I created. Everyone was so excited about the cake Grandma made that we didn't even bother cutting into Allison's cake. She says that she wants to eat the whole thing herself. We'll see....

In other news, I've been asked to play the piano for Primary on a semi-permanent basis. We lost our Primary chorister and our pianist was called to be the new chorister so I was asked to play until another piano player moves into the ward or becomes available. Though it makes me very nervous and a little stressed to do double duty on Sundays (I'm also the first counselor in Primary), it is forcing me to really buckle down and practice. We'll see how it goes.