Ho Hum

A week has passed but there's still not a whole lot to write about. It's been fairly normal around here:

Sharaya and Allie come for dinner on Mondays now instead of Thursdays. (Sharaya has a second job and Mondays just work better.)

Diana was house sitting for a friend last week but she's home again.

Everything's the same for Chuck, Beth and I.

Yep, pretty boring around here. :)

Beth writing the memory verse on the board for our Sunday school class.

The Mountain is Out!

Whenever you hear someone from Seattle say 'the mountain is out', they're referring to Mt Rainier. On a clear day, she towers over the city like a momma duck watching over her baby chicks.

We all anticipate this view as we head south on I-5.

It never ceases to amaze us.

For Sale

It's been a quiet week. I watched Allie last Saturday, we went grocery shopping, colored with her colored pencils, blew bubbles and just hung out all day.

Seattle's been in a heat wave for the last few weeks. Temps in the 80's and 90's with no air conditioning! But we go shopping and out to eat (definitely don't want to turn on the oven!) and we set up a lot of fans when we're home.

I went to a friend's sons graduation party. He's also leaving in two weeks to join the Army. My friend C made dozens of cupcakes with camouflage cupcake liners, there was fruit salad, steak kabobs... enough food for more than 80 people! C really knows how to party!

I'm helping this week at a huge 'yard sale' at our church. It's to help raise money for our men's recovery home. This sale takes place in our gym plus outside in one of the parking lots. People have been bringing their stuff for weeks, there's thousands of items! I'll be helping in the hotdog stand for a couple hours then heading inside to help wherever needed.

C took these today after they finished setting up.

 

 

 

It's gonna be a fun weekend!

 

Zoom Zoom

I've been playing with the zoom on my camera.

 

 

 

One In a Million - The Weekend in Pictures

 

On Friday Diana and I took Allie to the beach.

 

 

 

 

I bet the streets of our home town looked a lot like the streets of yours on Saturday!

And like the streets of a million small towns across America this weekend!

 

 

 

 

 

Did Captain America come to your town too?

 

 

 

 

Sharaya drove and Diana & Allie rode in a car from the dealership they work for.

It's hard to tell, but they're in there! :)

 

 

 

 

The view from our seats!

 

 

 

 

 

Then on Sunday, Beth offered to take us out to her favorite restaurant, Old Country Buffet.

(She calls it Pass The Plate.)

 

 

 

 

Chuck, Beth and I had this morning off (Monday) so we went out for yogurt and then down to the water front for a while.  

 

 

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend too!

Tic Toc

Beth doesn't know how to tell time. They taught it to her in school and we tried to reinforce it at home, but she just never 'got it'.

She can't tell time, but she loves the clock! Beth likes knowing when to leave, when to eat, when to bathe. We have a few analog clocks around the house but most of them are digital. And it's the digital clocks that Beth understands. Well, 'understand' might be too strong of a word. She reads the numbers and that helps.

I write her notes each day to tell her when her bus will pick her up. We tell her what time she needs to be upstairs so we can go shopping. She wants to know what time we'll be home from work, and what time dinner will be ready.

For many years, Beth would eat lunch at 2:30. Every day. Didn't matter if we had all gone out to a restaurant at noon, on the drive home she would announce, "It's 2:30!" We'd tell her that she just had lunch and she'd respond with, "Oh."

I haven't figured this one out yet but some nights we'll all be playing board games and she'll begin to announce the time, "It's 8:45. It's 8:52. It's 9:04." Okay Beth, is something going to happen? Why are you telling us the time? "I dunno." She just loves the clock.

For this reason, I don't know why it took me so long to figure out I should use the clock when it comes to her TV.

Maybe it's just me, but as the night wears on, I feel the TV should get quieter. Everything else winds down at the end of the day, so the TV should as well. But Beth just gets louder. Not only is her TV blaring, but she's yelling and screaming and laughing and whooping, she's really loud!

For years, I've told her to turn her TV down. Night after night. For years. Literally.

Chuck and I lay in bed at 11:30 at night, tossing and turning, trying to sleep over all the noise. (It doesn't help that her living room is directly below our bedroom!) Then I'm out of bed and headed down the stairs, "Please turn your TV down."

She reluctantly picks up her remote and slowly turns it down. Back upstairs I go.

But recently I got the idea to have her turn her TV down at certain times of the night. I checked her TV one evening to see how loud it was and I think the volume level was 50. Then I asked her if she would turn it down to 45 at 9:30. She said okay!

Then I asked her if at 10:00, she would turn it down to 42.

And to quote Elliot from ET, "It's working!"

Why did it take me so long to figure this out? :)