LET IT SNOW...LET IT SNOW....LET IT STOP!!!!

We have been in a winter wonderland the past week. It was fun at first, did some sledding down our hill, drank hot chocolate, enjoyed the heat from the woodstove. And then......our furnace stopped working during a record breaking cold snap that lasted for four days. The cold lasted as long as our furnace was out.

The few days we have had about 1.5 FEET of snow. This has made traveling up and down our driveway a true adventure. We did get halfway up our 0.3 mile driveway and then we slid all the way back down in reverse. I never, ever want to do that again (if given the choice of course).

Last night we were entertaining the Dunhams, sitting around the table finishing our supper discussing how the worst thing that could happen would be the power going out.......and yes, the power went out. We got more snow and freezing rain and now our driveway is treacherous.

I will attach some pictures to show you what we are dealing with.

Rockin' it out

My kids (and myself) really enjoy dancing to music. We have 'dance parties' at least once a week where we dance to music that we get from our TV satellite channels. Tonight Doc put the new ACDC CD in and the kid's starting dancing. They have a real thing for playing the air guitar as you can see.

The top ten things I have learned about the wildlife

We have lived in the country for 3 months now and I have been educated in many ways. Here is what I have learned about the wildlife so far.

10. Blue jays have a very loud squack that can have you out of bed at 6am before you even have your eyes open.
9. Squirrels and chimpmunks have a running bet going on who can get closest to a car's tires without getting run over.
8. Deer will not move out of the way of a car until you are within 3 feet of it, and even then you may have to honk your horn.
7. In the summer, the birds starting singing at 4am
6. Raccoons use roads as their own personal trails.
5. Roadkill smells worse than anything I have ever smelled before.
4. Spiders in the country are bigger and better at hiding than their city cousins.
3. There are milipedes in the country that get up to 4 inches in length and can mysteriously appear in any room of your house at any given time.
2. Flies like to hang out in a guinea pig's cage
1. Buying deer resistant plants and spraying them with deer resistant spray does not deter deer from eating them.

Bugs and being bugged

There are many critters of varying sizes around these parts as we are discovering. Pictured is Hannah with the king of all insects, a Praying Mantis. As a child I had such a fear of these creatures. I was under the impression that they stung or bit or maybe spit venom in your eyes? Who knows. And even seeing Hananh handling (or manhandling) one still gives me the creeps even though I know that they are harmless.

On a different note Jeremy unfortunately discovered a yellow jacket nest by stepping on it (they live underground). Well the yellow jackets were not too impressed with that and gave Jeremy a sting on the stomach. Jeremy, of course ran, screaming all the way. Did you know that yellow jackets will run after you and screaming makes them even more cantankerous? Well we know that now. Two of them followed Jeremy into the house. Oh, what chaos it was. One landed on his head and bit him; yes these delightful creatures can sting and bite, they are multi-talented. So we finally kill the ones in the house and watched as Jeremy got hives all over his body. Well, living as far out as we do, I strapped Jeremy in the car (after a hefty dose of benadryl) and we drove into town just in case there was going to be a really bad allergic reaction (which you almost always see within the first 20 minutes but can take up to 2 hours). So we ended up at McDonald's, had some dinner and then headed home. His hives improved once the benadryl kicked in. But, the story does not end there. The next day Jeremy is very sore and has a low grade fever, so no school for him. The day after that, he has a higher fever, more pain, swelling to the whole side of his stomach and a flat rash on his stomach and chest. So off to the clinic we go (yes that would be the one I work at, which I try not to go to on my days off). A secondary infection from the bee sting is diagnosed (likely a strep infection) and antibiotics are prescribed. And then to today, when Jeremy wakes up and immediately starts vomiting every 15 minutes, complaining that his stomach is hurting even worse today than yesterday. So another trip to the clinic today, some Zofran (wonderful drug for vomiting) and we are finally starting to get back to 'normal'-and I use that term very loosely.

And yes, we are now the proud owners of an Epi-Pen Jr-a bee sting kit we will keep on hand just in case...

Jeremy's Star Wars Birthday bash

I am not sure how or why I get so crazy when the kids' birthdays come around. I know that I have sworn off throwing themed birthday parties in the past, and yet, as you can see another themed birthday party comes forth from the Beal household. There was a lot of planning involved, not to mention a desperate search for non-seasonal pool noodles that involved driving to many stores including the hardware store where I finally had to buy some pipe insulators to supplement my deficient pool noodle numbers. But to see the smile on the children's faces, and to watch them hit each other wildly with their 'light sabers', it was all worth it.

Special thanks to Dani and Ryan Schafer for helping to calm and organize the chaos. And thanks to Kelsey Ensz, who offered to be the birthday photographer; 85 pictures and 2 videos later, we have a lot of memories captured on camera/computer. I will be hiring all 3 of you to help at all of my children's parties...if there are anymore that is.

On top of the world

Alright, we are not quite that high. But when you are above the fog and can see it below in the valley, it makes you feel that way. The pictures were taken early morning, and I am not a morning person. But now I have the privilege of getting up at the crack of dawn to get Hannah ready for the bus, which is supposed to come at 7:08am but really comes at 7:00am. I am not looking forward to beating the sun out of bed come winter.

The newest addition to our family...

is Slinky, our new kitten. We got her from Walmart. Well she was in a box marked 'free kittens' in front of the store. My sister-in-law JoAnn happened to see the box and mentioned it to me. I just went up to look, and well, you know how the rest of the story goes. And yes, I named her. The kids had crazy names like Princess and Blacky. We had to go with something more mainstream and chic-Slinky says it all doesn't it? I am not sure this cat knows she is a cat with all the love, attention and mauling she has been subjected to.
She will be an outside cat, once we think she is big enough not be another animal's lunch-how many pounds do you really think that should be? It does not pay to be small when you live in the country.

Our first summer of visitors...

All the cousins below

No family resemblance eh?

in the new house in the country that is. And what a quick summer it was. We had a lot of family come to visit. First my Mom came to visit for 12 days. We shopped for new furniture, spent some time at the beach house, and sat outside, enjoying the view. 3 days after my Mom left my sister Gina and her 2 kids came for a week. Back to the beach house we went for some frolicking in the sand and surf. Not to mention our diet that consisted of ice cream at least daily. 2 days after Gina left Don and JoAnn, Doc's brother and his wife came to visit accompanied by their niece Crystal. We had fun just hanging out around the house.

And now back to 'normal'. School is in full swing so we are settling down into some sort of routine. We really enjoyed everyone's visit. Same time, same place, next year we hope.

Grandma's gettin' a Harley!!!

Ok, well maybe not, but here is my Mom on Jeremy's dirtbike taking it for a spin. We have been enjoying the cooler weather the past few days. And FYI it is about 5 degrees cooler at our house than in Dallas because of the elevation (1250 ft) and the wind. So bring a coat when you come over. And hey! When ARE you coming over???

Home, home on the range....

Well I am not sure what a 'range' is and we probably don't live on one. But we are getting more settled into our new house and country livin'.

We had our open house on July 26th-thank you to all who came. If you forgot or had a conflict that day-feel free to drop by anytime. Just call first, so we can be expecting you.

As was promised to the children after we moved into the country, Doc bought a couple small dirtbikes for the kids to ride. Jeremy is the first one to learn as he was the first to have his training wheels taken off of his bike. He is doing very well considering he has only been on the bike @10 times.

And in between teaching Jeremy to ride and work, Doc has been very busy painting some of the interior. He also had the pleasure of scraping popcorn ceiling off of our largest room's ceiling. What a job!! We also got new carpet last week. So we are definitely making the house our own.

Doc plans to paint the exterior during his time off in August. And then we will just replace things as we need to.

Getting settled

The pictures are of different mountains that we can see. Mount Hood is the big snow covered one. The other two are in Washington.

We are starting to get settled in up here. The mounds of boxes no longer reach the ceiling and I can get through most days finding the things I am looking for. We have seen a lot of deer and squirrels on the property. We have a couple humming birds that compete at our feeder and a rabbit that we have been leaving some lettuce for as well. The kids are enjoying all the new bugs. Me? Not so much.

This week we are painting and hope to have new carpet installed at the end of the week. (Who would buy white carpet in the country? We are replacing it with a color that I am hoping matches the color of the dirt).

We will be having an open house on July 26th from 2pm-5pm. So drop by then, if not before.

We've moved

Finally, after trying to be very patient, for what seemed like a really long time, we sold our house in the city and now reside out in the country. Did you know that the birds in the country start singing at 4 am? I found that out this morning. We love our 'new to us' house and the 5.4 acres that come with it. We have amazing views of multiple mountain ranges and more space inside and out to play! Come over for a visit soon!!

And a few more pics. There is definitely some 70's mojo going on in this house.

Here are some more pics of the inside. We will be doing a lot of wallpaper removal and painting this summer. Help is welcome.

Change is in the air

Hopefully we will be moving to a new house at the end of the month. We were up there this morning for the inspection and I snapped a few pics. We still need to have the well tested too to make sure there is plenty of water. Doc has walked the property lines and has seen evidence of elk, cougar and either wolf or coyote. The property is also in 'bear country'. But hopefully our kids will be loud enough to keep them at bay. A couple deer would be ok.