Phoenix to Spokane

Well, Keri and Ryland arrived late Thursday night. They missed the big storm in Phoenix and were able to get out of the airport. They were about 1/2 hour late. Not bad considering last time it was 4 hours late. Ryland has changed a lot! Not his looks so much but his activities and knowledge. He know a lot of colors!!! Even pink, gold, and yellow! Ryland found our basement this time. That is where I workout and he found the Nordic Track. He was fasinated with the handles of the Nordic Track. Click on the video below to see him at work!


We must have walked down the basement stairs ten times to swing the handles of the Nordic Track. It was a whole new adventure in the basement.
Of course, between the trips downstairs there was dancing!Click on the video to see some smooth moves!


Friday night we went out to Kristin's to take some pictures of Mike and I for Christmas cards. It's nice to have a professional photographer in the family. Thanks Keri! Layne's cousins were out there and there was a lot of running and playing in the fields. Not only was there a lot of running there was some tree climbing too. Climbing trees a classic childhood activity!Sometimes when you are only three it is easier to get up the tree than it is to get down the tree and you don't know what to do. Even though Layne asked for help and was a little scared she got down by herself. "I can do it." Great words!!! Her mom was close by just in case. Katie arrived Sat. and will be here until Sunday evening. Keri and Ryland leave on Monday morning! More pics to come!

Thursday in Spokane

Well, today started with a project. Katie and I were testing our communication skills. We put together a shelving unit I bought Mike. Of course it wasn't as simple as just putting it together. We had to make a place for it in the garage. That was the challenge. Mike cleared out a few things and then the assembly got started. I lucked out on this project. Katie had helped a friend put the very same shelving unit together so she knocked it out in no time. Katie had to leave before we got the last unit done but I had no problem finishing. Then I decided to get some organizing done in the garage. That is no easy task when most of the stuff is used by your hubby. I picked up a bag of cement or tried to. It had been in the garage so long it was hardened but I didn't know that. Crash, right on my big toe! OUCH!! It is still throbbing. It was getting sort of cool in the garage so I took a glance at the clouds outside and they were getting black. Soon I heard thunder and it started to rain. Then...check these pictures out. Serious hail. I was trapped in the garage! Just kidding. I did get the garage a little more organized after I was done watching the hail. I can get my car in there now. The rest of the day was pretty ordinary. We had rain off and on with some thunder and lightening too. Mike and I planned to go to the Spokane Indians game in the evening and we were beginning to wonder if there would be a game. The game was rain free. We stayed for every minute of the ball game. As the skies started clearing we were treated to one of God's promises! Check this out! If you have never been to a Spokane Indians game let me tell you there is a lot of activity between innings. Lots of contests. Tonight there was a puzzle building contest, a golf ball chipping contest, and a remote car contest! Oh yes, it was rally towel night too. Click on the video to see the towels in action.
This lady didn't let all the activity distract her. She kept score the whole game. She loves baseball you can tell!This is the guy I sat next too. He was a wild man but that is why I love him. Never a dull moment.There are even things to do on the concourse at the stadium. You can test your throwing arm or do a little shopping. If you throw the fastest in your age group at the pitching area you win a ticket to an Indians game. "The girls" did that a lot when they were younger and won a lot of tickets. There was no prize for being the best shopper. Darn! Oh yes, there was a baseball game to watch too. The Indians won 7 to 6!Mike and I both have good memories at this ball park. Of course, this is where we had Keri and Mark's engagement party. What a great place for a party. We were able to play softball and BBQ thanks to Mark's brother-in-law. Mike played baseball in high school at this field in the city championships. This is what he shared with me tonight. There were two outs, bases were loaded and Mike hit a triple off the right center field wall to clear the bases and win the game. That had to be very exciting. Wish I would have seen it. My memories are of taking "the girls" to the Indians games when they were young. They all took their gloves just in case they had the opportunity to catch a fly ball. They watched every foul ball!!! After the game they would lean over the Indians dugout and get players to autograph their gloves! Fun! I really love going to baseball games. Tonight when we sang, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and we got to the line that says, "I don't care if I ever get back" I thought that is the truth!

Hot Ride To Priest Lake

The temperature was supposed to get to about 98 degrees today. Some say that is too hot for a motorcycle ride. Not Mike and Jackie! We are tough as nails! I wanted to take this ride because last fall Mike, Shelly, Jim and I took the same ride. It was October and I have now named that ride "The Frozen Ride." I have never been so cold in my life. I wanted to do the same thing but be warm. Well, I was warm!!! The wheels started rolling about 9:30 AM. We met John and Arnie about 10:00. We headed north to Priest Lake, Idaho. It was about 100 miles to our lunch spot, Hills Resort. We took back roads as usual as far as we could. It was a beautiful ride. We arrived at the lake safe and sound. It was really getting warm. We ate lunch at the resort. We ate burgers, steak wraps, salad, fries, and more. We had a great view of the lake. Here are the boys and Jackie at the resort! Pretty serious group don't you think!I was standing near the lake taking this picture. It is the resort/restaurant! Absolutely beautiful.I brought my bathing suit thinking I would want to get in the water. Well, I really didn't want to take the time to put my suit on so I just splashed around in the water. Lake water is usually pretty cold but it was just right for splashing. It seemed to be getting a lot warmer outside.I took some pictures of the boat slips and the lake. I live in a really great place. Beautiful lakes are everywhere. This is just one of many.


Check out this little toy that was sitting on the shore of the lake! OK, now it is just hot! Does it look hot in the pictures? After some picture taking and water splashing Arnie and John decided to head home. We were headed out a few minutes later I thought. Mike saw someone he knew that was putting this fast, fast boat in the water. Mike was talking to his friend and I headed back to the motorcycles. It is really just hot now. I hear someone shouting Jackie! Jackie! It was Mike wanting me to take a boat ride. I don't like riding in boats so I declined. I don't feel good after I race around in the bouncy water and I just really don't like boat riding. I will take a canoe anytime! I was eventually persuaded? to go! Just as I thought I am not a boat person. One time Mike said look at the lake, it is so pretty. My eyes were closed! :-) We got up to 50 MPH in that boat. That isn't top speed for the machine either. Not fun for Jackie! It is amazing how 20 minutes can seem like 2 hours when you are not having a good time.

Next was the drive home. Have I mentioned it was hot? I wanted to be warmer than I was on "The Frozen Ride" and I got what I wanted. I had to get all my gear on! All the gear all the time. That is me. I have a mess jacket and mesh pants so the air goes through them, thankfully. That helps a lot! I just wanted to take the fast track home. It was about 3:30 at this point. We didn't take any back roads on the way home. As I turned on to Francis Ave about a mile from my house I saw the temperature. 100 degrees! I am sort of thinking that 100 degress might be too hot for a motorcycle ride now! I think I will name this ride "The Way Too Hot Ride."

The NFL's Best Moment Ever

Hey, check out Keri's (my daughter) blog! She has a link to an article about Steve (my step-son). Gail (Steve's mom) emailed and said the writer that took credit for this particular article wasn't the original writer. Jason Krump was the original writer. It was published on WSU's website in Dec. 2007. That is not good to take someone elses writing for your own. It is a fun article to read and those of us that watched it love reliving the experience. We all remember where we were and what we were doing. I was in my classroom waiting for open house to start. Our PE teacher was watching the game with me. When the punt was blocked Diana in the 6th grade wing said she heard me screaming. I can still remember every little detail. I tried to call Mike about 6 times but couldn't dial the numbers. I finally got a hold of him. He was a proud dad!! I really have no idea what I said to the parents when they got to open house. Fun stuff!!! Here is the link to Keri's blog. Keri's Blog

Summer Night and Baseball with a Friend

Well, I dropped the ball tonight. I don't mean that literally. I forgot to bring my camera to the Indians game. I feel like my camera has been attached to me most of the summer. What was I thinking???? Not sure! I did the next best thing, I took a couple of pictures with my phone. Cheryl and I have wanted to get together and go to an Indians game all summer. We finally made it tonight. It was fireworks night but the fireworks got canceled. Lots of fires burning around here. That didn't disappoint us though. We got our food and made our way to the seats. We had great seats. Right behind home plate! Food consisted of pretzels, cheese, coke, and beer. Yum. I think the pretzel was Cheryl's dinner though. HMMM! You better eat something when you get home Cheryl! Cheryl and I talked and talked. We got caught up on life! Now I bet you are thinking we probably didn't see any of the game. Not true! We saw all the good plays. Women can multi task you know. We kept an eye on the game and we talked away. We saw the three home runs the Indians hit. Cheryl even knew that the same guy hit two of them. I missed that. We saw several good defensive plays and commented that there was a team in Seattle (that shall remain nameless) that could use some of the Indian's players. I was going to add that we knew the Indians won but I thought I better check the score just in case. We quietly left at the top of the ninth thinking the Indians had it in the bag. Not so. They lost buy one run. Glad I checked!

I drove home with the windows in my car down and listening to country music. It occured to me that I don't spend enough time outside in the evenings during the summer. There is nothing like a warm summer night! Peaceful and Relaxing. On the way home I thought about my friend Cheryl and how easy it is to talk with her. I can always count on her friendship no matter how often we get together. That is very special and I am very thankful for her!

Keri's Tribute to the Olympics

Is this adorable or what! I think I have the most adorable grandkids in the world! Do you think all grandmas think that? Keri is very creative. If you haven't checked her blog in a while give it a click. She has tributes to Ryland and Mark! The are very special. Check it out.

Birthday Number Three!

Layne turned 3 yesterday! The time goes so so fast. When her mom and dad asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday Chuck E. Cheese was the answer. If you don't know what that is I will tell you. A pizza parlor geared toward kids. Lots of games, kids, and fun. The kids get tokens and can put them in the games or rides and play, play, play. It was fun to go as a grandparent. Probably because as a grandparent you get the fun without the responsibility???

Even some of the adults got into the game playing. I am not sure who won this basketball game but there was some serious trash talking!
And of course Kristin and Layne had a little competition squirting water to make Barbie or Ken move in their cars! Layne looks pretty intense in the bottom picture. Maybe she has Kristin's competitive spirit!
For about the first hour of the party Layne and her cousins just ran from activity to activity. Once in a while Layne would stop and talk to her mom to get some more tokens. I had to steal her for a minute to get a picture with the two of us.

Of course there was food, presents, and cake complete with blowing out the candles!!!

There was even an appearance by Mr. Chuck E. Cheese himself. He got the birthday song going and paraded the kids around letting everyone know there was a birthday being celebrated.Happy Birthday Layne! We all love you!

Hiawatha Bike Trail

The day started early! Up at 6:00 AM. Hey, it's summertime! I am not usually up that early. A truck rolled up to the front of my house about 7:15 AM. Cindy, Sheree, and Becky tumbled out of the truck ready to put my bike on the bike rack. This is our picture out in front of the house. I teach with Cindy. Sherre and Becky are Cindy's neighbors. I just met them today. What a great bunch of ladies. I haven't laughed so much in a long time. Thanks for the fun, laughter, and the great company ladies. The Hiawatha Bike trail used to be a train track. The tracks have been pulled up and it is now a 15 mile bike path. We started in Montana and ended in Idaho. The trail winds along the old path of the train with train trestles and tunnels included. Speaking of tunnels the first tunnel is a little over a mile and a half long. It is so dark you have to wear lights to navigate your way through the tunnel. It is truly pitch black!!! It is also very wet. The temperature stays between 40 and 45 degrees no matter what the outside temperature is. Some of us were better at navigating the tunnel than others. There were 9 tunnels total but the first one was the longest, coldest, and darkest! Here are the girls after the trip through the first tunnel.The scenery was absolutely breathtaking. We stopped a lot to take pictures and eat and laugh and...just to take it all in. As we rode along on our bikes we could see the train trestles that we would cross in the distance. It is hard to get a feel for how high the trestles were off the ground. You will just have to go yourself to really appreciate how high they are! There was a fire that roared through these mountains in 1910. A train was passing through during the fire and the engineer decided to make a run for it through the flames. One man thought he would have a better chance to survive if he jumped from the train. He didn't!I like this next picture! I am not sure exactly what Cindy is doing but she is doing it. Cindy won the prize for the day for the wildest helmet! You gotta love the colors! We could see her coming!Here we are on one of the trestles with another one that we had already crossed in the background. If you look very closely you can see two dim lights coming out of this next tunnel. That is Becky and Cindy! Sheree and I had time to stop our bike, get off, get our cameras out and take pictures of those two coming out of the tunnel. We pondered a bit about what was taking them so long. You can't stop and look at anything! It is too dark!We made some new friends along the way. Rose and Carolyn are pictured below. They live in Montana and stayed the previous night at a great bed and breakfast in Wallace, Idaho. Our group is pictured below with Jim and Jim! They drove the buses back to the top of the trail. First we were a little suspicious about their name tags!! Jim and Jim, come on! They convinced us that those were their real names. I told them they would be on the internet tonight and one Jim said I couldn't put the other Jim on the internet because he was in the witness protection program. Sounds fishy to me. When you reach the end of the trail you have the choice to turn around and ride back or pay $9.00 for the shuttle. The shuttle is a school bus equipped to take the bikes. All that laughing, eating, picture taking, and biking expends a lot of energy. We decided to take the shuttle bus. On the way back on this windy,one lane, dirt road we we blessed enough to see a cow moose and her baby. Pretty neat! We were done! We were of course hungry. We piled back in the car and headed for the Snake Pit in Kingston, Idaho. Mike and I had been there on one of our motorcycle rides. Cindy, Sheree, and Becky were Snake Pit rookies. We all had buffalo burgers. They were so good. We had so much fun laughing and joking that one lady asked us if we were having a bachelorette party. I don't know what made her come up with a bachelorette party but she was convinced we must be partying! No party, just fun! There was a little food fight and some discussion about sunsets in Arizona vs. Washington. That one became a little heated! :-) Something about the living on the wrong side of the tracks. Click the play button below to watch video of part of the food fight. Can't take Cindy or Sheree anywhere! :-)
I think we laughed the most on the ride home from the Snake Pit! I'm not sure anyone out there would really want to know the details that caused this laughter. As they say, "What happens in Cindy's car, stays in Cindy's car!" We returned to Spokane around 7:00 PM. I felt like I had known Becky and Sheree forever. Along with Cindy, they are the kind of ladies that make the most out of life and the adventures they have! Isn't it fun to be around people like that! Great Day!