The place I love

We all know it rains...a lot...in western Washington.

It has been raining here for the last 3 days, non-stop! Don't get me wrong, I'm not really complaining! Well, maybe a little, but not much really.


As I sit here listening to the rain hit the windows and pound on the roof (that's what happens when you live in an easybake oven) I think of my parents who had over 10 feet of snow last year. Yeah, I'm ok with a little rain!!! This is a picture my mom took standing in her dining room looking out (or trying to look out anyway!).

In western Washington we have a little thing called "showers". Now I know, you may be thinking "Duh! I have a shower in my house too! Several in fact!", but that's not the kind of showers I'm talking about. If you're from around here, you know that there is definitely a difference between "rain" and "showers".

The thing is, it's all wet and it's all cold! Sometimes it's fun to stand in the rain and just get soaked. Providing you're someplace like your house where after you go for your little adventure outside you can come inside and take a warm shower! When you're coming out of the grocery store with a full cart and it seriously looks like God is taking a shower, that's not so much fun.





When you're driving and you have the wipers on high and you STILL can't see anything? Yeah, that's not so much fun either.




But the best thing about the rain?

It makes everything green! And I'm not talking about the moss growing on the siding of the house!

I love that in the summer, we have green grass.

I really love that when I plant flowers, if I forget to water...it's really ok because it's probably gonna rain and I won't have to water anyway.

So, there ARE some good things about the rain!

Halloween!!!

This year we did things a little different. Usually I take Kaylee trick-or-treating in the neighborhood around her school and we always hit the house where they have coffee for the parents and hot chocolate and popcorn for the kids. I love that house!!! This year Kia and her friend Lidia took Kaylee and Lidia's 2 nephews out in the neighborhood around her house. Nice for me since that meant that wouldn't have to walk around in the cold but alas...my little angel is still afraid of most things Halloween and called me to come walk with her. I ended up driving the van around to a few houses then they all decided they had enough so I took the rest of the kids back to Lidia's and Kaylee and I went to Uncle and Auntie's to spend the night. All in all it was a good night and Kaylee got "just enough candy". (her words!)

Today we had to come home so Kaylee could go to her friends birthday party then we're headed back to Uncle and Auntie's for the night. We're housesitting again this weekend while they are gone to the Family Life conference in Coeur d'Alane.

Little Miss Dolly is busy as ever and has now discovered how to get up on the coffee table. Bad girl!!! That's an old picture of her but she still looks pretty much the same.

Jumping on the blog wagon

So since I've had this set up for awhile and a bunch of my friends are posting blogs now, I thought I'd officially start one too. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up on this thing although I know I don't have nearly the entertaining life that my friend Cutzi does. And hopefully someone will share with me how to make Cutzi's name turn into a link to her blog. Yep, I'm totally a newbie here people!

Anyway, a little about the Brinkley Bunch...
We currently consist of Mom (me), Teenager (Kia), and Wanna be a teenager (Kaylee), and a fat feline (Sox). Kia's a freshman in high school, Kaylee's in 3rd grade and I will be graduating from College soon with my AAS Degree. YAY!!!

Since today is Halloween I will add a couple of pictures of our pumpkin carving fun this year as well. Grandpa McDonald started planting pumpkins for the girls when Kaylee was about 2 and we've made that a tradition of going to Grandma and Grandpa's house a few days (or sometimes a week if Grandpa's going hunting) before Halloween to carve them. We found out 4 years ago that it's sometimes safer to use power tools to carve than slippery knives when Kia cut her pinky finger and severed the tendon and had to have it surgically repaired. Now Grandpa does the knife work for us! Kaylee's Dad came to help with the carving this year too.

So this year Kia wanted to try a little thing she's seen floating around email circles for the last couple of years...

And of course, Kaylee didn't want to be left out...







And just a couple of weird girls and their pumpkins...