Tee Pee Creeping Gone Bad

Family Reunion Plans Ruined

Have you ever had one of those things that you really wanted to do, but you keep getting little signs that tell you you shouldn't?  That is what happened to us yesterday and my husband and I took these as signs from God to STAY HOME.  We just wished we would have took notice a little sooner than we did.

Most of it started Friday night, the night before we were planning on leaving.  We had had Vacation Bible School all week long, which I will be blogging about in another post.  That morning Stinky had woke up with a sore throat.  She is not one to complain about being sick, so I knew something was wrong.  Later that evening she ended up with a fever.  It was very low grade, never got over 100.  She had it for most of the night, but early morning it left.

Hubby and I had planned on leaving the house by 6am to get on the road.  It was only a 1 hour 45 minute drive there and we thought we'd get there bright and early to spend the whole day.  Greg was even looking forward to our trip so he could go fishing.  I did let Stinky sleep in though for a bit.  When she woke up, we could tell that she didn't feel good, but there was no fever and she wanted to go.  We all got ready and packed for the day.

We got gas, drinks for the ride and a small snack for the kids.  Off we go.  We had about 30-40 minutes left until we reached our destination and hubby needs to use the little boys room.  He pulls over, beside a cliff mind you because we are going over a mountain pass.  Chinook Pass, in Washington, to be exact.  A tiny road on steep mountains is not my ideal place to be.  He gets out, I hear the van start to die and try to save it but I'm too late.  It dies.  

Greg gets in the van and tries and tries to start it.  It won't start.  He thinks it's my fuel filter or fuel pump or something of that nature.  We're of course, parked uphill, as we were still going up the pass.  Because he can't get the van to start, the power steering and power brakes won't work, of course, so that makes things even harder.  Greg knows we can turn around and get faced downhill and probably be ok, but there isn't room to turn around and my van won't start anyhow.  

There was a point when he was trying to position the van to turn around and boy he was getting close to the edge with hardly any brakes for me!  Stinky felt the same way.  Bubba stayed pretty calm, surprisingly.  Poor Stinky was crying.  We were all praying by this point.  Greg and I both tried our HARDEST to stay calm, so the kids would feel better.  I was shaking so bad that I thought for sure I was going to pass out.  I was envisioning many things that could happen to us.  I don't like being parked on the side of a highway with the kids.  Anything could happen.  Especially with a cliff on one side.

So since we couldn't start the van, we tried pushing it.  The kids got out because it was so close to the edge.  I unloaded my purse, and things I knew we would need if I have to walk with the kids (sunblock, etc.).  A man pulled over, of course it was AFTER I helped Greg push the van out of a hole.  That was hard!  We had to rock it, and rock it, and rock it.  There was one point that I just kept pushing and pushing and we got it out.  After a guy stopped to help, a forest ranger found us.  He told us to just wait it out and see if it will start.  lol  Ok.

I am thinking of many things right now.  It's hot in the van, I don't want the kids to overheat.  I checked Stinky's temp to make sure it hadn't gone up, it hadn't.  Thank the Lord.  I also thought we could get hit by a car and have it push us over the edge.  So I took everything heavy that could hit the kids in the head while we are rolling down a hill and shoved it into the back so hopefully it wouldn't get them.  I made sure we stayed buckled for that reason also.  

Greg had been outside of the van by now, checking all things.  He was tapping things, laying under the van and whatever else he tried.  He came up to the window, tried to start the van and we heard this strange noise.  We both look at each other with shock written all over our faces.  That weird sound was the engine running!  Greg yells, "Hurry!  Let's go!!"  I jump out of the van because he had just opened the side door and pull it shut!  He runs to the gas tank, shuts it, then runs to the hood, shuts it and he jumps in.  We scramble to buckle up, praying out loud to please get us turned around.  We thankfully got turned around and we go on down the hill, towards home.  

Now we are yelling, "Thank you Jesus!" and so happy to have it running.  We had already decided that this was too many weird signs and that we need to get home.  All of us are upset, it would have been  a fun day.  But what can we do?  We don't want to go further over the pass, into Eastern Washington and break down there.  

We stopped in town to get some food to take home before we got there and while me and the kids were inside getting the food, the van died and Greg couldn't get it to start.  So while we wait for it to start, we ate lunch.  Then Stinky had to go to the bathroom, and it was gonna be a while.  Greg got it started then, but it took us too long to get out and it died again.  We sat a little longer.  By now, I am so tired of the sun on my legs because every position that the van has died in, I am in the sun.  I was trying to get out of the sun, but running out of room!

After we got it started, again, it died on us, again.  We finally got it going and made it home and it died in the driveway.  I am glad that church was planning on me being gone today, so that didn't really mess anything up.  Hopefully, we can get it fixed before Wednesday night, when I need to be at church to help watch kids during Family Bible study.

I am bummed that we missed our Tee Pee Creeper reunion though.  I had heard it was the last camp out reunion and that is uncool that we missed it.  But the Lord had different things in mind.  We truly felt that we should go home.  It was such a strong feeling.  Especially to me, while I was praying.  It was way too strong to ignore.  And the worse part for everyone else was that the family was expecting us there and we never showed up!  People don't get cell phone reception there and so when I called to let them know what happened, it was only voice mail I got.  I did leave a message, but Grandma won't get it until after she gets reception.  :-(       

      

Fun in the Sun

Our short little week of Summer weather that we had last week gave us some time to play in the sun!!  On Wednesday we went to the lake with my bestie, Shyann.  It was a delightful day and the kids really enjoyed themselves.  Stinky and Bubba were able to play in the lake, which was a first for them!  And S was a great baby all day long!

S even enjoyed getting in the water.  He got a little angry with his mother when she removed him.  lol

 
Shyann and I spent most of the day just relaxing in each other's company.  There was no need for words the whole time.  We just enjoyed the weather and water.  Having friends like that is the best!

After spending some time in the sun and water we took the kids over to the little playground to expend some more energy.  All of this with hopes that our little ones will tire out and sleep beatifully for us that evening.

I couldn't resist taking this picture.  I am sorry if this is you or someone that you know.  But this is my example of a bad haircut:

Family Pics and Picnics

It is not often that my family can do something and ALL of us enjoy ourselves.  For some reason, it just works that way.  But Saturday afternoon we had a great family day and all of us enjoyed ourselves!  I am so thankful that the Lord gave us such a great day.


The weather was beautiful and I wanted to get out and take some pictures.  I thought first that I would go down to the Farmer's Market in Orting and take some shots there.  I mentioned to Greg that it would be a good day to get out and take my camera somewhere.  He apparently thought so too!  But he didn't want to go to the Farmer's Market, that I knew.  But he had other great photo ops in mind!

A while ago he had shown me something that he discovered on one of his drives.  He likes to get out and just take drives.  Anyway, it's an old stone chimney.  It's the only thing standing around the whole area besides tress.  And the trees are old.  He also wanted to take me to see the trees that the beavers are chewing down by the river.  

We started out our day trip heading towards Kapowsin.  Our first stop was to get a few refreshments for our trip.  Across the street for the gas station that we stopped was a whole gang(?) (crew?, group?, flock?) of bikers neatly lined up at the Kapowsin Tavern.  Now for many of you who do not live near me, Kapowsin is basically a 4-corner town.  One corner is a gas station and another corner the tavern.  That's about it.  

I liked the looks of these bikers and decided to snap a few shots.  A few of them watched me and sat for me to take their picture.  

Our next destination was to see a huge tree that beavers have chewed almost all of the way through.  When we arrived at the spot, there were fishermen there so we decided to leave them alone and come back another time.  But I did see trees where the sap suckers are making holes to suck out sap (hence the name, sap suckers ;-P ) and I found it interesting that they make almost straight lines. 

 I was really excited about our next stop.  It was the old chimney.  I do not have a good enough camera to really get the details in my shots of this.  But one day I will and I'm going to go back.  The trees that are grown up around it are old trees, you can tell by the thickness.  So that chimney has been there a long time!  There isn't evidence of a foundation anywhere around it, so my guess is that it was a cooking chimney.  

Long time ago, kitchens were not built onto houses because kitchen fires were all too common.  So the kitchen was built away from the house.  Greg's uncle mentioned that a railroad used to go through there and maybe it was used at a camp for railroad crew or something of that sort.  There is a number on the front of it, you can't really tell what the number is by my pictures.  I don't know if it is a year or a type of address, or maybe if it was a work crew it was a number to identify them?  I don't know, but it is 2917.  That is carved in the shield.  Below the shield is a ribbon.  The left side of the ribbon has writing carved into it also, but I couldn't make it all out.  The center and right side as well had writing and says "of", but the right side was all worn smooth.  There is also an image on each side of the shield.  I don't know what they mean.

My pictures do not do it justice....This first picture shows the stone chimney hidden in the trees.

 Here is the front of the fireplace

 The shield that says 2917

 This picture below shows the size of the tree growing not too far from it.

 Greg always likes to drive on this road called Camp 1.  It is a road that trucks use for the rock quarry and I think it used to be for logging trucks too.  He sees lots of wildlife up on this road.  He's seen countless deer, elk, quail, bobcats and probably others.  With him I have also seen a baby coyote wandering around.  The kids and I don't necessarily enjoy this drive too much, but he does, so we endured for him.  :-)  I did take a few pictures on this leg of our trip and ended up with a beautiful one of a foxglove that I am going to save for another blog.  But I will show the picture that I took of a little water fall and the pictures of the foxgloves that I am not saving for another blog.

 Now it's off to more beaver trees.  I made sure to get the logs and the wood chips in my pictures because the kids loved it.  This first one I love though!  It shows the funny side of my husband.  I told them to ignore me and told Greg to pretend he was showing them something.  He did!  lol 

 This log below looked like brass in the sun.  My camera didn't capture that. :-(

Hanging out and having a picnic at the river was our last stop of the day.  We didn't get to relax and hang out quite as long as we wanted to because of some disobedience but still had fun all the same.  We let the kids get in the river where there was a calm little pool.  They certainly loved that!  Here is the path that we take down to the river.

 Bubba's strawberry with pepperoni.  YUCK!

My sexy hubby standing there with his Non-Alcoholic Beer.  

Can you see the kids playing?  It was so weird to be at a place where they could get that far away from me and I didn't have to worry.  There was no one else there.  It was just incredible.  I felt the presence of God out here in His wonderful handy works.  Very comforting.

 This rock appeared to have baby rocks stuck to it.

 I love love love putting my feet in mud!!

  Doesn't that look like a good family day?  Praise the Lord for that!!