In between the weekends

Wow, lots going on! This past weekend we were at Oma and Opa's for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. We did not actually see any tulips, due mainly in part to that fact that we were having too much fun at PACCAR! Actually about halfway through PACCAR, we split into two groups - those that REALLY wanted to do the tulip thing and those that wanted to stay at PACCAR. It was just me and "the men" at PACCAR... such is the life of an engineer. I am often in meetings where I am the only female. Although industrial engineering has a lot more women than other types of engineering... anyway, getting off topic (you know I'm the queen of that!). After PACCAR we got a bite to eat at a new brewery... it was delicious!! YUM. Then we went back to Oma and Opa's and met up with Julie and Oma to go GEOCACHING!!!! We found four caches, including our first non-micro cache. The non micro was a Lock N Lock box (Lock N Lock itself really needs to be the subject of another blog another day - it is AMAZING!) that was probably 8x6x2. There were all sorts of little trinkets in there but we TNLNSL (geocache speak for Took Nothing, Left Nothing, Signed Log). It was great and we all had fun. Then back at Oma and Opa's, Julie, Geoff, and I sat outside and planned our camping meals. We planned Saturday night to be a "spontaneous" night (pick something up at the local market, perhaps fish since we'll be at the coast) and Geoff made fun for planned spontaneity, but when you're camping you don't just have a fridge full of stuff to choose from. You either have to plan the meal or plan to be spontaneous! After the planning session, we went inside for a DELICIOUS dinner. Steak, asparagus, salad, sweet potatoes, corn... oh my. :) After that we played a game called Hand and Foot. It was quite fun... I'd never played before but it's pretty easy to catch on to. Then Geoff and I went in the hot tub! I looooove hot tubs especially on cool evenings, it was a perfect night for it - not raining but still cool out. After that it was bedtime. The next morning we went to church and then headed back to Oregon. :)

There was also a lot of discussion about me and my blog at Oma and Opa's - for example, when does Kelly laugh? She doesn't laugh out loud at "planned humor" (pranks, TV shows, movies, comedy routines, etc.) but does she laugh when someone says something sarcastic or otherwise funny? Yes. What does she blog about? I don't remember the other things that were discussed but I know that there was discussion about / study of me and my blog. Odd.

Sunday evening we had a coaches meeting for softball - we got uniforms, met the other coaches, and aligned on rules (fun things such as all the players can be on the field at once, even if you have 12 people. There are 5 innings, an inning ends after 4 runs, everyone has batted, or 3 outs - whichever comes first. There is no keeping score. After an hour and 20 minutes, no new innings can start. A girl gets 7 pitches or 3 strikes when she is at bat).

Monday we had softball practice - this was the first time we used coach pitch instead of the tee. Coach pitch is what we'll use during the game. About half of the girls did awesome and had no problem hitting. The others will improve with time. They are all so positive and enthusiastic - we have a great team!

Last night we took a grand trip to Costco and purchased a new vacuum. We bought the Bissell Healthy Home. We have been talking about a new vacuum for MONTHS (and have probably needed one longer than that). We even went and "test drove" vacuums at Christmas with my mom. The Bissell Healthy Home was on clearance at some Macy's about a month ago and we tried to find one but they were out - sad. But then yesterday at lunch we were talking about what we were going to do that night, and Geoff said "I'd like to vacuum but it's a lost cause with our vacuum cleaner". I said "well we have to go to Costco tonight, let's just get a vacuum." The look on his face was PRICELESS. He was like "what? You just want to buy a vacuum, just like that?" After some discussion we decided we'd do a little research during the afternoon and pick a vacuum (I wanted the Healthy Home, he wanted a Dyson). A little while later he IMed me and said "you know what? I've been reading some reviews, and everyone says that the Healthy Home is awesome and the Dyson is just NOT worth the extra money. Let's get it!" So we did. And it's FANTASTIC. We vacuumed the downstairs, the stairs, and the upstairs and had to empty the canister twice because it picked up so much stuff. Ew. We were living with that. And I have allergies! Oh well. Now our home is healthy indeed. :) And our vacuum is excellent! We also did all of the camping shopping last night so we're ready to go for this weekend! Oh, and when we were at Costco I was browsing through the wine area and this nice fella said "excuse me, do you guys know anything about wine?" Geoff and I looked at each other nervously and said "a little". He said that his doctor wanted him to drink a small glass of red wine for his heart each night but that he didn't really like red wine so he wanted something sweet. We told him that unfortunately red and sweet don't really go together, unless you're talking about a port. So he asked about a particular bottle of wine he was looking at, but it was a cab and merlot mix so we said no no no!!! And he was like "well at least you steered me clear of that!" Then Geoff said that if he made a bowl of pasta, maybe with some sausage or peppers and onions, that might take some of the bite out of the red wine. He seemed to like that idea. We just had a lovely conversation and he was a lovely man. I'm glad he stopped us to chat! I always have the best conversations in Costco. I hope he finds his wine and his heart is okay. :) (poor guy is lucky I didn't try to invite him wine tasting with us!)

Tonight we have our first softball game! The weather looks kinda crummy, so we'll see what happens later this afternoon. I hope it's not rained out, the girls are so excited! Really I think the first couple of games will just be a glorified practice... but we'll see. It will be fun either way!

Tomorrow we have another game and then Friday we're going CAMPING! We're going to the coast again and we'll just leave straight from work - it works so nicely that way and we love getting there early, doing our setup, and then starting our campfire and observing everyone else pull in after they get off of work later than we do or have to drive more than we do. It's fun seeing some guys back their HUGE rigs in, and it's great to see who tumbles out of a pickup truck, or what kind of party lights people pull out to hang up. It will be a fabulous weekend!

And now some random things:

I use a lot of CAPITALS when I type. It kind of reduces the effect, don't you think?

Last camping trip, in February, we came up with the name Momlie for Geoff's mom (combining Mom and Julie). She was signing an email to both of us saying she was on her way to meet us for camping and wrote
"Mom/Julie
Juliemom?
Momlie?
Julom?"
We laughed and I said "she never should have written Momlie, now I'm going to call her that!" When she met us at the camper I told her that and she said "you know, I actually kind of LIKE the name Momlie". So I started calling her that - it's a great name for me to call her, and it's perfect for any hypothetical future grandchildren (from Geoff, Trevor, or Rebecca). But I haven't been calling her that around other people or in my blog because people would be like "who's Momlie" (okay, maybe I'm not giving you enough credit... you would probably figure it out!). Anyway, Momlie is "the mother in law". So from here on out, that is what she will be known as in the blog.

6 or 8 months ago, they started building a drive thru Starbucks on my way to work (previously there was no Starbucks on my route, if you don't count the one in the Albertsons that I drive by). It didn't open for a very long time, and then about 2 months ago we saw a car in the drive thru. They were open! We commented that there would be more and more cars as more and more people realized that it was open. And in fact each day for the next week or so there were more cars in the line. It leveled off at approximately 5. Well today was kinda yucky and cold out, and Geoff said "wow, look at the Starbucks line!" I immediately thought "oh, that must correlate with the weather." Then I said out loud "we should log date, time, temperature, weather conditions, and number of customers in line." Geoff said "Great idea! Do you have a log book we can use?" I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't... he had the same idea I had, that the weather changes the amount of people in line. He even said that it was too bad we couldn't figure out what each person was ordering! So tonight we're going to get a notebook from home and start logging the Starbucks line to see if there is in fact a correlation. Ahhh, this takes me back to my queuing theory classes. I love it. (actually, my group really DID study a Starbucks line as our project in that class... hehe). Anyway, that will be fun. I'll let you know the results.

Okay, I think that's enough for one day... sorry so long, but it's been a while. :)