now we're cooking......

daddy got himself a new grill.

not by choice.

ok, here's how it went down.

a few weeks back, while grilling, the hub noticed that the flames were a little higher than normal.

so, like every good man does...he investigated.

sure enough, our less than 2 year old grill had rusted out burners.

he makes call number one to Costco.

the gentlemen on the other end said, "here's a 1-800#, you can order yourself new parts."

that of course, irritated me.

why?

well, why do we buy things from Costco?

for their great reputation for standing behind their products-of course.

but whatever. just my thought.

so we waited.

and grilled some more.

and burned more food.

and more....

until last week.

i was cooking ribs, which are greasy anyways but again, whatever.

thankfully, the hub came home so i was off the hook to finish up dinner.

love that.

while i was out in the yard....(he cooks, i garden, everyone wins)

i hear him yell.

i look up to see flames engulfing the grill and my hub attempting to pull the burning grill away from the house!

he quickly pulled it away and put out the fire while i ran inside for the fire extenquiser.

the hair on his arms was cinged but no burns.

the side of our house, black marks all the way up the side.

thankfully, no one was hurt. no tank blew up.

and we ate pizza for dinner.

unfortunately our grill didn't have such a happy ending.

after a quick phone call to Norm over at Costco, we got ourselves a new grill.

PLUS, they gave us the difference in price so now mama has herself a new grill AND some store credit. maybe i'll get a new awning for my patio after all!

and this is why we shop Costco!!!!

school spirit??

i full on admit it, i'm one of those moms that wonders WHY mothers let their children dye their hair.

well, wouldn't you know it....i'm now eating my words.

that will teach me to judge fellow mothers.

a few weeks back, jack, who doesn't have a fearful bone in his body decided that he wanted to color his hair for spirit/field day.

he was on the red team.

duh, had you not figured that out yet.

so since the boys needed haircuts anyways, i had the dude at Great Clips color it for him

AND

of course, this is the night that we needed to make a trip into bellingham. of course it was.

i keep saying, OUTLOUD, when someone would look at him funny, "honey, you are going to have to wash that out after tomorrow!!"

yup, think i said it 12x's.

gotta give it to the kid though, he didn't care if anyone else did it with him.

he was going to have team spirit....

and boy, did he have spirit.

no matter how embarrassed i acted, i was proud of him for his boldness....love that about him.

the grinder....

here is my 'grinder'.

that is what the coach lovely referred to when describing jackson.

i've never heard the term but now that i know the terminology, i think it suits him just fine.

GRINDER= ONE WHO NEVER GIVES UP.

good job bud, so proud of you.

also, please take note of the awesome, royal blue- 'LUCKY SOCKS' that he insisted on wearing every game.

hey, whatever floats your boat.

he can pull it off.

and that's my dear nephew-eli, in the background, hands on his knees, waiting to spring into action.

he was the 'scorer'.

you wanted a sure goal.

pass it to him.

jack was great on defense.

eli great on scoring.

both are needed to win a game.

and their team, The Brown Bulldogs were UNDEFEATED!!!!

every team feared them.

and rightly so.

Farm Chicks...finally...

sorry, i accidently started with the pics! and wouldn't ya know it, yours truly doesn't have the know-how or the patience to learn how to do switch it up.

whatever...you get the jist.

my new little black table. and yes, that's dust gracing the bottom shelf. you'll see much of that at my house.

a very old blue milk container? why would one need THAT you ask? well, no one NEEDS one but dang, it sure looks great next to my red house.

my favorite find of the weekend! a nice addition to my vintage wedding cake topper collection. that's a good post for another rainy day.

my blue picnic basket! i LOVE this. i love the color and i LOVED the oil cloth covering the bottom (forgot to snap a pic of it) and i LOVE to picnic so what's NOT to love about this??

my mother. she went with the hopes of finding one of these! she did (lisa did) , in the first hour!!!
what is it??

why let me tell you. she has memories of her grandma, filling this little gadget up with water & sprinkling it on her clothes, just before she would iron! i love it!

my SIL and i, waiting to get in!

the FAMOUS pomegranate margarita! to die for. (ok, not really worth dying over but they were SOOOOO yummy!)

all sorts of interesting, vintage things making up what they call 'the cake'!!

a hip, country gal.

our new friends. jeni & elaine. yes, they are mother and daughter. don't they look fab? this was also the booth where i found my cake toppers. one of the best vendors there!

thinking of trading in my Sequoia...think of all the little rascals i could transport. and i'm SURE none of my children would be at all embarrassed if i pulled up to school in this bad boy.

no, Howdy to you.

the SIL came looking for one thing.

sweet boots.

she got um!

dang cute.

can it get any more country than THIS????

i'm almost there!! people behind us were irritated cuz mom and i were holding up the line...i needed a picture here!!

waiting patiently to get in. can't you sense our anticipation???

my SIL had these DARLING little bags made up for us when we got in the car. honestly. how cute it THAT!??? a package of Kleenexes (for the tears of joy over our STEALS, a notebook and pen (with 190 vendors, writing stuff down this was an essential) and candy. which, btw, didn't make it out of town, AND the best thing...energy drinks!

thanks lis, you're the best!

a few people have asked, "WHO are the Farm Chicks?"....after i give them the 'do you live under a rock' look, i tell them about this charming little antique show. truth be told, before i went, i didn't know what to expect. the only reason i know about this show is from my blogger friends (thank you friends!) and of course, i 'm a self-admitted blog LOVER-and blog lovers surf blogs.

it's what we do.

last weekend, lisa (my favorite sister-in-law), my mom (my favorite mom) and our friend, Marilyn (my favorite lynden marilyn) and i left lynden on friday morning, hoping to hit a few shops on our way to Spokane. after 6 hours in the car, we just wanted to get there already. friday night we had a great mexican dinner (and the BEST pomegranate margaritas i've ever had!), hit the hay early, dreaming of all the treasures we'd find in the morn!

the gates at the Spokane fairgrounds (location of the show) opened at 10 but we had heard rumor that people started lining up at 5 AM to get the best deals. (i'm sorry but the only reason i get up that early is if i have a plane to catch).

we were that by 8:45 ish.

time flew quickly since we spent our time meeting new friends.

like jeni and elaine who flew in from Salt Lake City, just to meet us. :) it's amazing how a room full of old stuff can bring people together.

such nice people. looking forward to seeing them next year!

back to the show...

it was madness, MADNESS i tell you!

rumor has it...4,600 woman (& a couple brave husbands) entered the doors at 10 am!
i'm not kidding when i tell you we looked like a herd of cattle.

mad, crazy cattle.

that's madness, right?

we closed down the show at 6.

back to the hotel for happy hour. (thanks marilyn! :))

did a little TJ Maxx for MORE shopping.

Boston pizza for a late, really late dinner.

hauled our tired bee-hives back to the hotel.

crashed. and NO ONE (lisa) slept on the floor! hee. hee.

up bright and early for MORE junking!

sunday we basically closed down the show.

then home. sweet. home.

i missed my chicks.

i'm hooked.

one building-190 vendors-SUCH nice people-great company-good food-a few great finds.

we're going back next year!

if your up for an adventure, let's start planning now!

hey, maybe we can charter a bus????

no, seriously, let's!!

another interesting little tidbit i heard....

outside of the show, there was a cash machine.

full to the brim with $60,000 in cash.

cleaned out but the end of the weekend.

can you imagine the conversation those money dudes had while filling it back up??

"WHAT could possibly BE in that building to make woman go THAT crazy spending all this money??"

(i dare say they snuck in the back door to check it out. just a hunch.)

it may be a crazy rumor but hey, it wouldn't surprise me.

Farm Chicks are a breed of their own.

proud to say, i'm now part of it!!!