Yikes!

Jeremy returned safely from Montana with his grandpa's truck, but the trip put him in the hospital with a leg infection!

The Dentist

Trinity started some dentist visits in the month of May. She is always in Princess style, of course. OF COURSE!

Grandpa's Truck.... from MONTANA!

Jeremy received a call in the fall with the announcement that his grandparents were going to give him his grandpa's truck. We waited 'til spring when he could drive it back over the mountain passes... mid-May he flew to Billings.

Room swap

For the kids' Spring Break this year, we exchanged bedrooms.

Part I involved moving dad & mom to the living room and the boys helped enthusiastically.

Part II was getting the boys settled in our old room - new mattresses, a new bed for Shad, Camten moved to a bunk & his old toddler bed sold (the money saved to go towards a new Xbox game).

Part III was getting the boys' old room ready for dad & mom, which was a progress that involved paint and new carpet and more time than originally planned for,

but Part IV saw everyone settled in their new locations HAPPY!! :-)

The switch was a great idea and helped give everyone elbow room to grow and snuggle comfy in our Sunnyside home.

Grandpa's Truck

My favorite project to date.... painting Grandpa's truck. Uncle Bert drove it out from Scappoose so we could take part in restoring it. We took a lot of pictures and carefully duplicated decals & colors to turn out a truck that was recognizably Gib's Luv.

Student of the Month

Yay Shad!!!

Everywhere he goes... teachers and grown ups are happy working with Shad. He rec'd this award for outstanding progress. He continually overcomes his drive for perfection.... to practice and try and work hard while having a friendly attitude. WE LOVE YOU, SHAD!!

New addition

When the kittens turned 5 weeks old, we started adopting them out. There is a window of cuteness about 2 or 3 weeks long. We were so sad to see each one go since they were so adorably cute. We even found a good home for Orange, the momma kitty. An older couple took her out to their country home outside of McMinville to catch mice and freely come and go in their house.

But one kitten we accidently grew attached to ourselves. I know it's so important not to let that happen, but FLUFFY was so very fluffy and big and sweet. He would let Trinity carry him around like a baby, wrapping him in blankies. He was so quiet and calm, content to sleep on Jeremy. How could we not keep him?!

AS I write he's passed the "totally cute" stage and progressed to "slightly obnoxious" stage. He sleeps during the day and romps while we try to sleep even attacking our toes under the covers. He often wakes up the kids biting their fingers in play - sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the middle of the night... even Camten on the top bunk. He attacks Penny (especially her one back leg) with unending viciousness of play and she cooperates by complaining loudly in an unending yowl of no real pain or anger that is driving us all crazy.

But he's our Fluff, now, and part of the family.

Aidan's concert

One of the great.... responsibilities of parents of kids is attending concerts. Aidan did a great job! And we all cheered him on!! LOVE YOU AIDAN!

12 Year Anniversary!

Celebrating LOVE! :-) We dropped the kids off at Mom's and caught a movie, just the two of us, and ate at the Klondike Restaurant near the river in St Helens.

We took lots of pictures of each other - sitting on the same side of the booth as brought up in the movie, Date Night. It was probably the most relaxed, fun anniversary we've ever had. We've survived a lot - our first year in the Maaco, the years before the Maaco, the years of wondering what would be better than contracting, four new little treasures, and the first years of being married.

We are happy to always enjoy each other, looking forward to chatting every day and dropping in on each other w/ visits or texts or phone calls. We are happy to work together, happy with our new business. We are happiest with our kids and hanging out altogether. We are happy to have worked out so many minor irritations, happy to have decided to love each other despite our obvious, continuous faults (which will persist whether we want 'em to or not.)

I like the pictures we took of ourselves at the restaurant on our separate cell phones. After 12 years, we are happy to have fun together and laugh at ourselves. That's a lot!

Daily fun

We'll remember Aidan's 3rd grade as the year of massive amounts of homework. Aidan often worked an hour every evening all year - more homework than Shad in 5th or any kid to date at our house. Hopefully we'll show off his super learned skills for years to come! :-)
Camten and Trinity have spent a lot of time with Mom running errands, some more fun than others. Spring brings the peepers to Burns Feed store!
Shad was hoping to start an electrical storm in the kitchen. What he got was an experiment showing how warm (red) "air" rises and cool (blue) "air" sinks - anti-climactic.
A picture for my honey.... his sweatpea in his latest creation - HI HONEY!

Winners!

Chip Foose was there this year and Jeremy ran into him Friday morning... for a personal signing of his glove box & a check-out of his truck. NICE!


Portland Roadster Show 2010. It was an honor to be chosen to participate in the show. We had inside help getting our application to the top of the pile to be considered. We had to prove Jeremy's truck would be ready in time to a representative who enjoyed hanging out with us on a couple occasions. We heard over 400 vehicles were turned away... which might explain partly why the Roadster Show is moving from the Convention Center to the Expo Center for next year. So... it was a huge honor to make it in the show, but we trophied, too!! We rec'd 2nd place in the truck category we were in - our beautiful factory-original '71 long box Chevy truck won 2nd place at Portland's biggest indoor custom rod show!!! :-) The whole shop celebrated!!!

Salmon Release

On a Saturday morning adventure, we headed to Mt Hood Community College to release salmon into the wilds of the pond with Wildlife Stewards club at Deep Creek.

We never miss a chance to turn an ordinary adventure into an extraordinary one... so we parked some distance away and had to break new trails to get to the group. Challenges are fun, so we took the hill on in as many ways as possible from every direction. Trinity posed for the pictures.

Mr Chambers brought buckets of baby Salmon and all the kids took turns releasing cup fulls into the water and teasing the ducks.

More Maaco Fun

Creativity... all that is necessary to turn any place into a GREAT place at any time. A little sunshine doesn't hurt.

Do all kids find the stuff grown-ups think of as "piles of junk" so much fun? The kids love the scrap piles, discarded tires & broken chairs. I can't count how many "treasures" we've found or can't let go of. I can't help thinking it's better than buying more stuff!! There's plenty to play with already!

Fracture

Going to the doctor with mom, two brothers and a sister is a joy Shad was able to experience Thursday after his pinky finger swoll up all black and blue from a basketball game of Knock Out.

To say there was a little climbing, jumping, videoing, fighting, and glove-blowing-up just doesn't capture the full extent of 5 people crammed in a teeny tiny space during dinner time, but it's a start. The grand finale was when the doc showed up and declared an X-ray was needed and then we all enjoyed watching Shad get a splint. He really played the poor-guy to the extreme, but he was excessively teased.

The pictures were mostly shot by Aidan using my camera that has a busted screen, so it's a guess what's being captured. The puppy faced Shad was taken with my new phone. I don't remember if I knew Aidan was videoing the doctor or not. Shad was obviously tired of his theatrics, but that only egged Aidan on. I think I have 20 pictures of this visit. And 8 videos.

Shad still won't admit that he likes the splint or gets any comments at school.

SEVEN!

On February 27th Dwight dropped by to visit. We were very happy to see him and chat. It was really cool when he helped us anxious parents calm down and let Orange deal with having kittens. We were nearly beside ourselves wondering what to do, how to help and how many were coming! Dwight had to leave after #3 or #4 (not sure the number was a memorable factor in his visit) so he didn't know 'til days later that Orange was quite busy for hours... 'til she delivered SEVEN little mew-ers. All orange except for one lil' rebel grey. All healthy. All happy in Trinity's closet. Orange seems to know what to do with them all. She's a great momma. It's a mystery.

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Jeremy and his shop

"Is it Ok for me to like our Maaco so much?"

It's a legitimate question. We grow up thinking "work" can't be "fun" even if it's a nice theory to work at what you like to do. What happens when you find you really do enjoy working?

I guess our first thought was to thank God and be grateful for the time He gives us in it. Any success we experience comes from God. Sure, we work - we do everything we can think of as soon as we think of it, challenging patterns or assumptions as often as possible, but "God gives the increase." And... it's His. But we sure are having a good time running it!

Jeremy enjoys all the aspects - he likes giving estimates and doing bodywork, painting and detailing and returning a job well done to a happy customer. (It's more complicated than that, and we enjoy all the behind-the-scene aspects, too, which needn't be elaborated on.)

I know it's not about me or my preferences, but I've never had so much fun working with my husband at something he enjoys so much. I've learned a lot plus I get to do lots of fun paperwork, but mostly, we get to spend a lot of time together and with our kids. Our shop is the best 'cause we can do it just the way we like it.

We pray God blesses a lot of people through our family business.

Makeover for Mom!

We do own an autobody and paint shop... so it's only fitting that after a year in business we might paint the boss's vehicle.

I think the bodyman counted 140 dents on my van (why'd he count?!) that were mostly from breaking it out of that ice storm in '08.

We picked a color out of the book that was close to the original, but we left that grey behind and went for ice blue (w/ pearl and coarse aluminum sparkle!) I feel like I got a makeover!

Growing Up and Valentine's Projects (and Chocolate)

Camten lost his other top front tooth... and yet he can still whistle!

Trinity assures us she is a BIG girl, too, even if her teeth are all still (rather beautifully) IN.

This is Camten's biggest school homework week ever... he brought home the Journey Pig as the next Star Student in Kindergarten. He gets to draw out a story of what J.P. does with us this weekend, which, hello! will be watching football!!! And then he gets to decide on some personal favorites to detail the All-About-Me poster to share with his class.

This happens to also be the weekend before Valentine's parties, so in last-minute fashion, we shall dump out the available Valentine's on the table and start madly addressing them. My boys just love writing, so that will be fun. No wait... they love candy and hate writing, so I'm going to have to buy a lot of bribery material. (And that will be fun!) (eating chocolate. for me. I like to eat chocolate and getting candy for Valentine's means some small snacking and replenishing mom's stashes undetectably. I don't think I can spell it out more clearly. If that's confusing... then you don't love chocolate or you aren't a mom. Or both.) (never mind.)

Maaco Milestones

On January 14th, 2010, we celebrated ONE YEAR in business. We reached 1000 cars on Feb. 1st - 2 weeks later.

We painted over 20 cars in a week again this past week ending Feb. 5th... and we're hoping 20/wk will become standard or even a distant memory as we leave it behind for 30/wk.

We have a great crew, which wasn't true a year ago, and a lot more people know we're here. Maybe the economy will bounce back? Regardless, we still have God. Otherwise, how could we share these Milestones at all?!