Winter Blizzard '08

Well, the storm continues on...

We got a call earlier that church is once again cancelled for this week.

It has not stopped snowing here since David and I have been up. We thought maybe it would lighten up around 10:00 but it has literally been non-stop.

Grace was learning how to drive in the snow, so she ended up here and is going to spend the night.

We were supposed to go up to Auburn today to have Christmas with David's mom, but we could barely get our car up out driveway let alone up to Washington.

So, we made pizza and David decided that he wanted to move the TV downstairs and put it where out radio was. In order to do that he had to drill a hole into our wall to make an outlet.

Grace helped out on the other side...

Later David Hammerstrom came over with some goodies. We watched a few movies and then went out to play in the snow.

That's basically been the day. We are just watching movies and chilling out (literally).

David and Grace decided to have a race in the snow...in barefeet...in 18 degree weather.

On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!

The race back.

The aftermath.

Getting warm in front of the space heater.

Saying "Merry Christmas"

A few weeks ago our pastor mentioned an article from the Wall Street Journal in his sermon entitled "Mad Max and the Meltdown: how we went from Christmas to crisis." It's main point is that as we as a country are refraining from religion more and more (he used the example that we are afraid to even say "Merry Christmas" anymore for fear that we may offend somebody) we are causing our own economic downturn. The morals and values taught by religion are erased so there is no conscious or morality to stop us from becoming self-centered and self-serving. (It's not explicitly promotion to Christianity and there is no mention of Jesus Christ, but it does seem to be the religion he's pointing at.)

In any case it got me to realize that even I don't say "Merry Christmas" anymore. This was not a concious decision it was just my attitude towards it. I wasn't afraid of offending anyone it just seemed like a why bother- it doesn't really mean anything anymore. That's not true at all. We need remind people about Christ and plant the seeds everywhere, because we don't know how it builds on other people, and Christ uses us as His voice to others.

This has caused me to conclude that I need to start wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and change my attitude toward Christmas.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

We woke this morning to this:

As a result church was canceled today.

We called a few people who live nearby us to see if they want to come over, so we'll see...

Last Saturday we got our Christmas tree, but we didn't decorate it until yesterday. Normally I just throw on whatever ornaments we have, but this year I wanted to have a color scheme to it, so we decided to go with white/clear and gold.

Personally I like silver & blue better, but we had more gold and white ornaments then blue and silver and we don't have the money to buy all kinds of Christmas decorations this year. I'm just going to stock up on it after Christmas for next year. The one thing I really want to get for this year are new stockings. We bought cheap ones when we first got married and they are starting to show its wear and tear. I really want to get those old-fashioned knitted stockings, but David likes the fancier decorative ones. I found some knitted ones that he said we could buy, but they don't really match with anything else. I suppose that's the idea of the old-fashioned kind. I think his would probably match better, but I like mine better. At this point I haven't made up my mind on what to get. Very important stuff you know. :)

I've got most of my shopping done for Christmas this year. The few more that I need to buy I know what to get, I was just waiting to get paid to buy them. I'll probably be doing that tomorrow with David. This year I did a lot of online shopping and it really was nice. I just spent a few hours on Amazon looking for gifts and I was done. I think I'll try to hone this in so I can spend even less time next year, but I think I'll go ahead and do the online thing next year too. For those who do a lot of online shopping I recommend going to http://www.ebates.com/ and getting a free account with them. You earn a percentage back of whatever you spend and they send you a check on a quarterly basis. I've already been refunded $15 myself. The percentages are not high (anywhere from 1% to 6%), but if you shop online often enough you can get a little bit of money back. I'll put a link up on my side bar too. They had been doing a double percentage for the Christmas season, but I'm not sure if that's still going on since it's so close to Christmas.

On another note, after months of looking we bought a couch set for our living room.

We got them at Furniture Outlet. They are soooo comfy. The frames come with a lifetime warranty and the stuffing and fabric have a limited warranty. It was a old look to it, but still up to date. The fabric is tapestry, but he pattern is so suttle you don't even notice it until your close to the couch. Obviously you can't even see them with the pictures. Perfect for dirt and spill stains.

Disneyland

Wow, what a great time we had! We arrived in Santa Ana without any problems. When we got to our hotel it had all kinds of construction barriers that we couldn't find the entrance. We actually had to call the front desk to let us in and even then we still couldn't figure it so we went in a back door. The room was nice and it had a fridge which I was happily surprised about. We noticed that we didn't have any hot water so we called the front desk about that.

The next day we had breakfast in the hotel and went to the gate to wait for it to open.

We got an early entry and headed straight for Nemo's Submarines. We went on a few more rides in Fantasyland and then I told the others to go to ahead of me while I get Fastpasses for everyone for Space Mountain. I went through Sleeping Beauty's castle and some employees were handing what looked like badges to everyone who passed them. When I got up to them they handed one to me and explained that it was a Fastpass to any of the rides (that have Fastpasses) at any time we wanted. Basically we could get to the front of the line whenever we wanted. Very cool. :)

It turned out to be a very light day because most the wait time for lines were only 5 to 10 minutes. We easily got in 30 rides that day.

I had mentioned in an earlier post that Grace and Adam were nervous about going on the "scary" rides. David and I could tell they were still apprehensive because they would walk a little slower then us and not excited. Each time they went on what they was going to be a terrifying ride they got off going "Oh, that wasn't so bad." Once they got through all the scary rides they were skipping a laughing the rest of the day. :)

Obviously they got over it.

Our walk home from the park to the hotel every evening because a bit of a tradition with stopping off at the 7-Eleven for some dessert. It just ended up being so convenient to have a convenient store there. :)

Friday was little bit more crowded, but not terrible. At the head of Main Street they had stage half assembled and cameras being set up on dollies. Apparently, they were setting up for the Christmas special they were going to be filming the next day.

We basically stayed on the same schedule as the day before. Saw the parade and all that jazz. I lost my SD card that had most of the pictures from the first two days on it, so I don't have many to show here.

On Saturday I got up earlier then everyone. Nobody wanted to go to the park yet so I went to the park for the early entry alone. (I was mostly going to see what exactly they were going to be filming).

They had the Jonas Brothers performing (don't worry I don't know who they are either) .

And Ryan Seacrest hosting.

Peter and Wendy had to patiently wait in the 85 degree sun in the back of the parade line.

So, I guess this will be airing on Christmas Day. Maybe we'll be on TV. :)

With the filming going on the lines for the rides were literally non-existent. I was able to get about 5 rides before meeting up with everyone. Since it was our last day we decided to just ride our favorites as many times as possible and get pictures in with the characters.

When we were winding down at California Adventure for the day we decided to go to the Tower of Terror one last time. David, Adam and I put all the slack we could on the seat belts, so when we fell we would get a better falling sensation. When we fell people would remain in their seats, but we ended up being about 2ft off our seats. This worked for about 2 falls and then right when we thought we were going for a third fall they stopped the ride. They pulled it into a the station and pointed at me and David to come with them. Busted. They gave us a warning and told us we could ride it still if we seat belted ourselves properly. Which we did. :)

We decided to head back to Disneyland and get a few more rides in. Our final one was Space Mountain which was still a 20 min wait with our Fast Pass. We went back to the hotel happy, but exhausted.

We got up the next morning and called a cab to come pick us up to go to church. We we got outside we had to wait a few minutes before we saw the cab pull in. We climbed inside and then another cab pulled in and started yelling at our taxi driver that he was stealing his fare. They went back and forth with a shouting match and the 2 cab driver even opened the door telling us to go with him. Excuse me? Even if he was our driver I would not have gone with him.

He kept insisting we were going to go to Los Angeles and we told him no we are just going 2 miles down the road. We finally convinced him an we were on our way.

After church we got back to the hotel and check out. During our stay there we had all kinds of issues due to the construction. We had no hot water when we got home at night, so we couldn't take a shower, but that wasn't nearly as bad as waking us up at 6:00am with noisy construction work. We complained to the Front Desk, asked for a different room away from the construction, but the were unable to comply. David talked with manager before we checked out and got us a full refund on our stay.

We got home without any event (except I realized I lost my SD card). Thus concludes our epic vacation to the Happiest Place on Earth.

Christmas here we come! :)

Halloween, the Beach and Plumbing Nightmares

Two weeks ago was the annual Halloween party at Steve and Angie's.
Here's some pictures:


David as Edward Scissorhands and me as Lucy Ricardo



Steve as Daniel Plainfield from "There Will Be Blood"



Mandee as She-Ra



Rachel as a 70s Roller-Girl

Jon as Braveheart and Mike as Angus Young

Jesse is the Italian Spiderman

Janelle as Audrey Hepburn

George is Duffman

Angie as an 80's Aerobic Instructor

Mariana and Amelia as Lilo and Stitch

The following Saturday night David and I both caught a nasty chest cold and were out of commission all weekend. He recovered rather quickly, but I'm still trying to get over it.

Mom and Pop were in the Bahamas with the Shaws to celebrate John and Pop's birthdays. David and I were able to borrow their car while they were gone. David loved it so much he named the car "The Silver Bullet." It was nice having a second car, but I missed my daily walk home from work especially since it has been a beautiful fall. I wish I had taken pictures, but I really felt like I was in a painting. It's just been gorgeous.

We spent this past weekend with the Hayes' at the beach house. The weather was really nice during the day and only seemed to be stormy at night. I was just so out of it from being sick that I pretty much stayed inside the whole time. David and I did make a trip into Tilamook with Doug and Amy for a little while. We spent the whole weekend watching Disney movies getting ourselves geared up for the vacation. We also got to have yummy Amy food, so that's always a plus! :)

On Monday David discovered that our drain pipe was not draining correctly and it was causing our toilet to back up. We called Rotor Rooter and they spent a couple of hours trying to drain without success. He told us that he thought it was broken and we would either need to find the source of the break or re-route our draining system at a cost of $12,000! Well, we had to do something, because we didn't have the ability to use any water in our house.
We spent the night at the Hayes that night gearing ourselves up to spend the next few weeks there while we work on this problem.
We called another plumber out on Tuesday with a video snake to detect the problem and I'm not quite sure what he did (I wasn't there), but he was able to unclog the drain and he told us that it will probably have to be done every once in a while, but it won't be necessary to reroute or repair anything. Praise God!
We called Rotor Rooter and explained what happened and we were able to get our money back from them!

Today we are leaving for Disneyland. Hooray!

I'm going to...

DISNEYLAND!

Well, In one month and a day from now. I'm really excited, can you tell? :) We have been prepping and planning this trip since June and it's now getting time to solidify things. We reserved our hotel ($50 a night at a three star hotel a block from the park. I was rather proud of that one. :D), reserved our passes and got our airline tickets. A few months back I came across a web site called Ride Max that is basically a software package that calculates the best time for you to get in line so you can have the shortest wait time possible and get more rides in your day as a result. I wish I had known about it when we went to Disney World earlier this year, but I'm going to go ahead and try it out and see if it works.

For those who don't know we are taking David's younger brother and sister (Adam and Grace) with us. We told them that we only have one condition on this trip- that they try every ride that we go on at least once. At first they seemed to have no problem, but there has been some issues lately with them wanting to try the Maliboomer and the Hollywood Tower of Terror. Apparently Grace doesn't like the feeling of falling... and Adam seemed okay, until David described it to him. Well, we'll just have to see how if goes.

I've been reading about the history of Disneyland -particularly Yesterland.com. Did you know that there used to be an undergarment store on Main Street called "The Wizard of Bras"?

Here's a little bit from the article on the website:

"Even if you don’t feel a need to purchase a corset or bra while visiting the park, walk up the three steps onto the front porch, open the door, and enter the Victorian splendor of the Intimate Apparel Shop. This is your opportunity to learn the history of underwear.

Your host is the Wonderful Wizard of Bras. From his revolving stage, the Wonderful Wizard speaks to you through the marvel of tape recorder technology.

Don’t miss the authentic Singer Sewing Machine from around 1860—it’s a 'most unusual and unique part of the display,' according to advance publicity. And remember to look into all the 3-D boxes to see outer and intimate apparel of the past. As you slowly move your head, you’ll see the models’ turn-of-the-century attire disappear to reveal their corsets and pantaloons.

Hollywood-Maxwell’s Intimate Apparel Shop is not just about the Victorian past. In fact, half the store is devoted to the latest bras and petticoats of 1955. "

Yeah, the store lasted all of six months. :)

Another fun fact: You know in the organ in the ball room of the Haunted Mansion? It's the actual organ they used in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Also, they have a new House of the Future that opened earlier this year, so I'm pretty excited to see that.

Oh, I could just go on...

Curtain Call Take 2

A few months ago I posted a discussion that David and I had about window treatments for our dining room and living room. Well, we decided to go with the tab tops for the living room. We bought a pair and brought them home. After carefully ironing them and setting the rod up and hanging the drapes we took a step back and...huh...well, they're alright I guess. They were a little small for the window when they were closed, but how often are we going to have them closed?

Well, as the days went on I began to detest them more and more.

I went to the Fabric Depot and wandered around the clearance section for awhile and found some awesome fabric for $3 a yard. I don't have a sewing machine so I bought some of that iron stitching and went to work.

Here are the results

Not to bad, eh? :)

I'm rather happy with them. (Those white sheets on the couch are the tap top curtains.)

As for the dining room I just picked up a couple of sheers and a 2 tensions rods.

I didn't stop there. I made some valances for the kitchen too.

But what to do with those pesky tab tops? Well, our bedroom's current "drapery" was a blanket nailed into the window frame. We went looking for a rod and could not find one that we liked. All we wanted was simple classic wood one. Well, I found a white one that was to long for our window at Wal-Mart on clearance for $9. We bought that and shelled out the extra .98 for some black spray paint. David chopped it down and sprayed it down...

Voila!