My Finished Bathroom!

Just thought I'd publish a couple of pictures of my beautiful new bathroom. It's like being in a fancy hotel bathroom! I love it! I'm still trying to find some nice things to put in it for decoration. I'm looking for a nice 'water theme' picture to hang on the wall over the tub. I love the blue-green rug and curtains. The best part is that when I'm tired of blue-green I can change the colors of the rugs and curtains to something else.

I Killed the Maytag.

My 2-year-old washing machine died on Thursday. We thought we were so clever to buy a Maytag two years ago. Now we aren't so sure. Actually, what went wrong isn't so much a big deal, just a little pulley, but you can't buy just a little pulley to replace it. You have to buy the whole motor assembly, which costs $130 - almost half the price we paid for the whole machine new. They get you coming and going now days. So Tom has tried some 'mickey mouse' work on it. It worked for a little bit, but now the bearings are popping out. The part to fix that is $75 bucks. I'm about to pull my hair out about it. I've been washing the clothes in the Kitchen sink (not an easy task when you have a 5 year old who digs holes in the yard with the dogs). Tom says if this ever happens again, he's just going to buy a new machine. I think that's what the Maytag people would like. There's still time, it's not fixed yet. I may have a new machine before the next week is out.

Silverwood

Last weekend we took our annual trip to Silverwood Theme Park. We enjoyed spending our time there with the Drakes, a family that we're friends with. Winston and I spent time at the little kid rides while others went on to ride the roller coasters. I'm not much of a roller coaster rider, so I didn't mind staying with Winston. We did get to go together as a family on the log-waterfall ride (I can't remember what it's called.) Winson is certainly a thrill-seeker. When he is older he will definitely be going on the coasters with his Dad! Then I can spend my whole time at the wave pool! I took him on the ferris wheel. I thought he would be afraid of being up so high. Truthfully, I was the one who got scared! The wind picked up while we were sitting at the top (they were loading others in the lower cars). The wind really got me squirrely because the bucket car we were in started swaying. Then Winston started putting his hands up in the air and yelling "Wooo Hooo!" and rocking the car back and forth. I kept yelling at him to sit still. He wouldn't have any of it. Then when the cars started moving fast, he thought that was great and started waving his hands even more and yelling "Wooo Hooo!" Crazy kid. I also took him on the "Scrambler", an old carnival ride that goes around in circles and spins the cars in circles at the same time. He loved that one, too.

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After spending several hours in the hot sun, we continued on into Boulder Beach, which is a water park that is inside of the Silverwood Theme Park. We had fun floating the river, letting the kids play in the water fort play area and taking a turn in the wave pool (my very most favorite). Winston got so cold because the wind really picked up after we got wet. We didn't get to spend as much time at the water park as I would have liked. We then took the train ride around the park and some of us went to the Ice Skating show while the guys went to ride roller coasters again. All in all it was great fun. I let Tom carry our bag with our swimsuits and towels in it. He decided to set it down by a tree while he rode a coaster. Someone took off with our bag. It turned up in Lost and Found - but we didn't know until we got home. We had to have it shipped to us - wet clothes and all.

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After our day at Silverwood, we went across the Highway and camped at the RV park there. The Drakes camped there with us and we enjoyed the evening visiting with them. The next day we all went to Lake Couer D Alene and hiked around Tubb's hill. There was a little rocky beach there and the kids enjoyed playing in the water. Some of the adults enjoyed it too! We saw an Eagle's nest where the Eagle flew in and was feeding it's babies. That was really cool. On the way home we splurged and got the $6 burgers at Carls Jr. (Tom's favorite).

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Now we are home. The bathroom is finally done and to keep from getting bored, I've started getting some more scrapbook pages done. Keaton is keeping up with the crop of grass growing on our farm. Lifting the grass catcher bags is good for his football muscles. Football will start in about 3 weeks. Winston has been playing like he's "Joy-Joy dog". Don't ask me what that is. It's some creation he came up with. He pretends he's a dog and won't answer us with anything but a "bark". We had to draw the line when he wanted to eat his dinner off of a plate on the floor. We told him that Joy-joy had to turn into a boy during meal times and when we have to go into a store. He seems to be okay with that.