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Family

Miles to Magnolia

August 27, 2018

Hope all of you are having a good start to the week – I have been so thankful for cooler weather here, even though WA has been blanketed with heavy smoke from Canadian fires. It actually rained for a little bit last night, and it was nice to pull a blanket around my lap in the evening as we watched some TV together.

This is a catch-up post, but every year during the last week in June is the American Family Therapy Academy’s conference. It’s one of my favorites, so I try to go whenever I can. This year, it was in Austin and we planned a few days over the weekend to drive down to Waco (it’s less than two hours away from Austin) to see Magnolia. I’m not sure the trade-off was totally fair – I made sure we went to a good BBQ joint in Austin for Aaron, and then he spent two days driving around looking at flipped houses in Waco with me! 🙂 He’s a good man.

Some of the highlights of the trip:

  • I was surprised at how small the silos were! On TV, they seem huge, but they are relatively tiny, and nothing is in them; just next to them (I thought the Magnolia store would be IN the silos).
  • The “shotgun” house is just two blocks from the silos.
  • It was really fun to walk through the store – we bought some gifts for family and friends, but I mostly enjoyed the decorations!
  • We waited in line for over an hour for cupcakes at the bakery – but they were worth it! We got a fresh peach one with cream cheese frosting and a graham cracker crust (my favorite), and a dark chocolate with a vanilla buttercream frosting.
  • I took pictures of a lot of the houses we drove around seeing (you can get addresses for a lot of them online, except for the newer ones – those seem to be more under wraps) but narrowed them down to three of my favorites: the shotgun house, the “barndominium” (you have to look hard to see that one in the picture, it was down a gated country road), and the bed and breakfast, which is actually a town over in sleepy McGregor, 30 minutes away from Waco.
  • We tried to go to the Magnolia restaurant, but when we got there at about 2:00 in the afternoon, they said their reservation line was already several hours past closing. Yikes! So we went to In-N-Out instead and it was just as good – grilled cheese animal style.

We had the best time, and our only recommendation to others would be to go in winter when it’s cooler and the crowds aren’t so thick!

Family

Anniversary Trip

August 6, 2018

We have had a whirlwind summer. Lindsey has had extra classes to teach this summer, a book project with a colleague, and most recently a trip to visit her brother and sister-in-law in California. The farm has also kept us very busy, but more on that in another post. We did manage to get away for our one year anniversary on a fun road trip around the Olympic Peninsula.

Our first stops were the towns of Hoquiam and Aberdeen. We had seen some cute (and inexpensive) properties for sale on Zillow and were interested in the area. It is a part of Washington that neither of us had visited, and only occasionally driven through, so it was fun to drive around and see the sights. If you have followed this blog at all, you know that the last thing we need is another project, but it would be really fun to some day fix up a beach cottage or even a duplex and then rent or sell down the road.

We then headed North to Forks. The best way to get brownie points on your anniversary is visit the spot of a certain book and movie series your wife enjoys. The highlight of the northern part of the road trip was Lake Crescent. We rolled through right before sunset and the light bouncing off the water was beautiful. Definitely on the list for a future camping trip. After a stop for dinner in Port Angeles, we continued around the peninsula and south to a little town called Seabeck. Yes, we drove the entire peninsula in a day, which made for a very long day, but we were pressed to get to our Airbnb for the night.

The room we rented was a beautiful studio with a murphy bed, a small kitchen, and a huge bathroom (seriously, the bathroom was almost as big as the rest of the studio). It was incredibly well laid out and it got us thinking about how to utilize such a small space. This studio would make the folks at IKEA jealous! We also had a great note from our host wishing us a happy anniversary, along with a coffee coupon and a yummy muffin. We crawled into bed for the night… and let’s just keep it PG for our friends and family and move forward to the rest of our trip. The next morning we headed to Poulsbo and walked around all of the cute shops and stores. If you haven’t had a chance to visit, the neat Viking vibe and mix of antique shops, coastal stores, and food outlets make for a fun experience. For lunch we found a little Mexican restaurant in a tiny back alley. We were a few minutes early before they opened for lunch, but they let us come in and order and we had the whole place to ourselves. Not many things more romantic than having a private lunch in a sleepy little hidden restaurant in a cozy coastal town on a warm May day. The evening in Seabeck was peaceful and beautiful with the water right out our front door. There were several bird houses nearby and the sights and sounds of this place helped rejuvenate us for the busy summer ahead.

The next morning we headed home. We decided to get breakfast on the road but quickly discovered that several places were closed for Memorial Day and the places that were open were packed. We drove around Gig Harbor for awhile and then went to a late breakfast/early lunch at one of our favorite places, Moctezuma’s Mexican Restaurant. We drove past our old house in Tacoma on the way home and then headed back to our busy life. A short but relaxing and wonderful anniversary trip.

Lindsey wrote a Year One post awhile back and I having been thinking about what I could write in response. It is such a weird but wonderful feeling to have someone in your life that you feel is an extension of yourself. I have always been more of an introvert and typically need to recharge after spending any amount of time with people, but with Lindsey, she recharges me. I don’t feel tired of being around her or feeling like a need a break. I’m sure we will have our ups and downs as every married couple does, but after one year I can genuinely say that I am more in love with her than when we got married. She constantly makes me want to be a better person and yet is completely accepting of the person I am right now. In our first year of marriage we purchased a house, started a remodel, sold a house, bought a bus and RV, and moved multiple times; all things that could be crushing for many couples, but we made it to year one. As crazy as it has been, I wouldn’t change anything because I get wake up every morning with the love of my life. Happy Anniversary Sweetie!

 

Family

Year One

May 11, 2018

We are coming up on our first anniversary at the end of this month. Here’s a little love letter for you, hubby.

I picked right.

The best things about you aren’t the things I used to care about. It doesn’t matter that you leave your little mustache trimmings in the sink without rinsing them down, or that you wear your shoes in the apartment sometimes. All the little things that I used to think mattered in relationships are just that – little, irrelevant things. The big things are the stuff I always needed but never knew I’d have. You’re so steady and kind. You’re such a good conflict resolver. You’re tuned in to my heart – saying things like “What do you need to feel more loved today?” You put me first. You love my family. You work hard at things without giving up. You’re hopeful. You respect my opinion and ask what I think about things. You give me a backrub each night before we go to sleep. You consistently work to make my days better. Three years after our first date, and I love you even more now than when we got married.

I picked right, and I’m so lucky to be with you.

Happy Year One, my love.

 

Family, Farm

Modern Farmhouse

March 29, 2018

It’s been a much-needed catch-up week on my release from jury duty! Aaron and I have spent a bunch of time out at the farm doing miscellaneous projects. It’s so cute to see the three chickens scratching and pecking around the farm. I’ve been telling Aaron I want some chickens that lay different colored eggs – blue, green, speckled, brown, etc. Today he ordered some baby chicks to arrive in July – 15 of them! They are mostly Ameraucanas, which lay the blue and green eggs. There are also some Welsummer, who will lay dark brown speckled eggs. He’s still looking to find us some Olive Eggers, which lay beautiful olive-colored eggs, and some Marans, which lay dark chocolate colored eggs. Because we ordered so many, we get a free “mystery” chicken with them! Ha!

Today we drove out to Auburn, which is only 15 minutes or so away now that we are in Bonney Lake. We needed to run to the bank and do some other errands, and I convinced Aaron to swing by Nordstrom Rack for a quick stop. 🙂 I found a beautiful periwinkle colored Eileen Fisher sweater that used to be $249 (gasp!) and was marked down to $30. Fun! Aaron waited patient for me to try things on, and when I came out, he greeted me with a happy “hi sweetie!” A few minutes later as we were getting ready to check out, a lady walked up to us and said “I just had to tell you – the way he greeted you coming out of the dressing room was so sweet. He’s a keeper.” 🙂 I thought, yep. He is!

On the way back home, we passed by a house that I hadn’t noticed before, but was done in a beautiful modern farmhouse style. I loved it so much I asked Aaron to pull over and I went up to knock on the door to see if anyone was home – I wanted to ask them who their builder was, as we are still trying to get that nailed down for the farm. No one was home, so I left a note telling them who we were and that we loved the style of their home and wondered if they would share the name of their contractor with us. We’ll see if they get back to us! Here’s a photo of the house. I love the white, vertical siding, the black gooseneck lamp above the garage door, and the black framed windows.

Family, Farm

Burn Piles

March 26, 2018

There was a small window of sunshine yesterday in the last week of rain, and Aaron and I put it to good use! We spent all day burning four huge piles of brush/brambles/wood from the trees we had to trim to get temporary construction power out to the farm. It felt really good to get rid of all that, and the drive in to the house now looks so much better. I tried to find a photo of the piles from before, but wasn’t able to – so just imagine four piles of yard waste at about six feet tall each! All of the brown, patchy areas in the picture are where the piles were – all the way up to the branches of the trees! The chickens loved scratching around in the newly-unearthed dirt and found lots of grubs and things to eat. There’s also a picture of us at the end of the day – unshowered and haggard! But happy. As you can see, Aaron’s mission to grow his hair out into a man-bun is coming along nicely. 🙂

Other recent happenings:

  • Rachel, Gavin, and kiddos surprised us a few weekends ago with a visit! They hadn’t seen our farm yet, so it was fun to show them around. We have little Aaron coming up to stay with us for a week during his spring break, and are looking forward to going to NW Trek, visiting the Tacoma vintage car museum, and taking a trip to Seattle if we have time.
  • This week is my spring break. Several months ago, I was summoned to federal jury duty and tried to get out of it – no one else is available to teach my classes in our program. They said that wasn’t sufficient, and all they could do was postpone it. So I scheduled it for the week of this break, BUT got the best surprise when I was dismissed before even having to show up. So I am using this unexpected week off to get a lot of other things done!
  • I’m teaching a new class this summer for the DNP – doctorate in nursing practice – program at PLU. It’s been so fun to collaborate with the nursing department on this. Students in the program have to take one class on family therapy for the psychiatric component of their degree, and that’s the one I’ll be teaching! I just finished up the syllabus for it, and am excited to see how it goes. It will only be four students this first round, so I’ll get plenty of time with each of them.
  • Aaron and I are going to Washington DC in a few weeks for a work event – I am going for the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapist’s to lobby for MFTs to be included under Medicare coverage. MFTs are one of five federally recognized mental health disciplines, and the other four are already included – so we hope to be on it soon too. After the event on Friday, we are taking the weekend to explore. High on our list is the new Museum of African-American History. Happy to hear other recommendations too!

 

Family

Sunday Funday

March 5, 2018

Aaron is truly the guy I’ve dreamed of – he is just the best partner and friend. He regularly does things for me that totally make my day. We were really tired this last weekend from a stressful week, and Aaron told me he had something fun planned for Sunday. He surprised me by taking me to an early morning trip to a new Home Goods store in University Place – he knew I’d been trolling it for weeks waiting to see when it would open! To put this into context – Aaron’s likes shopping about as much as my dad does, i.e. he’d rather wait in a car than go in and look around (I introduced him to recreational browsing! Ha.). He patiently wandered the isles with me and carted around a huge Mason Cash forest mixing bowl I found for $11. It was so fun. As if that wasn’t enough, he took me to the Sew Expo at the Puyallup fairgrounds – I’ve been wanting to do that for several years and just haven’t had time before. Some of my favorite things from the Expo were the modern quilt designs, apparel fabrics from my favorite Seattle fabric store: Drygoods Design, and a WA-famous Fisher raspberry scone. I can’t wait to get into quilting and sewing more when we get settled.

Family, Farm

February Freeze

March 5, 2018

After weeks and weeks of rain, we had a funny cold patch in February where it snowed almost every day for a week! It was fun to look out of the big bay window in our house and see a blanket of white across the yard. We closed the sale on our house last week and are happy to have that behind us, although it’s kind of bittersweet as we’ll always remember it as the first house we shared! We made another big life choice last week and decided to move into an apartment – it’s been difficult to be in the RV with very unreliable functioning of all kinds of things – water pumps, ceiling leaks, no real insulation, etc. All of this together has felt kind of emotional for us – we’ve been really trying over the last year or so to make decisions that will, in the long run, save us money that we can put towards our house. It’s hard when those things don’t seem to be working out well, and we have to backtrack. It’s felt like one step forward and two back at times. As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about all of the work we’ve done trying to get things going with the farmhouse and how many dead-ends we’ve hit – I don’t have the energy tonight to write about all of that, so I’ve put Aaron on that task for another post. 🙂 Anyway – we are now in an apartment in Bonney Lake, which is only 10 minutes or so from the farm. It’s wonderful to be so much closer, and that’s given us some needed encouragement.

Family

Aunt Evelynn’s Birthday Bonanza

March 5, 2018

In February, we took a fun trip down to Woodland, CA for my great-aunt-Evelynn’s 90th birthday party. Because it fell on a three-day holiday weekend, lots of us were able to make it – my parents, Casey and Jenn, Reed and Linda, Grandma, and a lot of Evelynn’s friends from church and the community there. We used the church’s fellowship hall for a brunch birthday party – we made egg dishes, potato dishes, fruit salad, punch, cinnamon rolls, coffee cake, etc. and had photos of her up around the room. It was fun to see people from so many different areas of Evelynn’s life all gathered together to celebrate her.

Aunt Evelynn called me a few days ago to tell me a story about growing up with Grandma that’d been on her mind. She and Grandma were young – I think 12 and 14, and Grandma decided to skip school with some friends. They climbed up something (I can’t remember now what it was – a lookout of some kind) and were then too scared to come down. Day turned into evening, and a search party was out looking for all of them. Finally they were found, and taken home – all of them hungry and tired and cold. Aunt Evelynn said the story kind of typified their personalities: even though she was older than Grandma, she was always a rule follower while Grandma was a rule breaker. 🙂 Grandma has pretty late-stage Alzheimer’s now, and so she isn’t able to remember these stories herself. It made me think about how we should be writing these down or recording them in some way so that they aren’t lost.

One of my favorite stories about my Grandpa Crawford on the other side of the family was of him growing up as a boy in Eastern Canada. His father was a baker, and Grandpa began working in the coal mines at a really young age to help contribute to the family. He also did deliveries for his father, and one day, he was out with two cakes when he slipped on a patch of ice. As he was falling, he knew he would either lose both cakes, or he could slap them together in an attempt to save them both. He chose the latter, but was then afraid as he made his way back to the bakery that his father would be angry with him – the cakes were no longer deliverable in that state! When he got there, his father surprised him by going to the cupboard, taking out a knife, and carving two big pieces of (now) six-layer cake. They sat and ate the cake together and had a good laugh.

Family

Whidbey Island

February 4, 2018

Aaron is turning 33 on Tuesday! I love these months while we are the same age. 🙂 I’m a tiny bit older than he.

We took a fun surprise trip to Whidbey Island this weekend. I didn’t tell Aaron where we were going – I just told him to pack for two days on Friday and we were gettin’ out of dodge! It was a beautiful drive up – we took the ferry and had hot chocolate and saw seals in the water next to the ferry.

Some of our favorite things about the trip:

  • We had dinner (twice!) at a little place called “Christopher’s” that was so good! Really amazing, local, fresh food.
  • We went to a drive-in movie theater and watched “Ferdinand” and “Jumanji.” It was so fun to relax in the car with the seat heaters on and listen to the movie through the radio!
  • Cinnamon rolls and coffee at “Knead and Feed” in Coupeville.
  • Greenbank Farm – they have a bunch of little art galleries, gardens, etc. and an on-site cafe with tasty soups and sandwiches.
  • Deception Pass – we drive home by going north instead of south across the ferry. It was grey and cloudy so I didn’t get a good picture, but it was such a pretty drive. We want to go back in summer when we can see more of the sights across the pass.
  • We stopped by a new Restoration Hardware Outlet on the way home – Aaron likes shopping as much as my dad does (he would rather sit in the car than shop), so I always appreciate it when he takes these little detours with me! 🙂