The 6 inch cut

Look what I had done in May. I loved having really long hair but I get sooooo hot in the summer and it's a lot of work to curl.  I always wore it up because I would get hot and hair this long was really hard to put up. I had her take about 6 inches off. In reality my hair is still "long" but it feels so short. So far I have loved it. F It is so easy to put up and holds curl a lot better. When I see a picture with my hair long I really miss it but I'll grow it back this winter. Meanwhile I'm loving the easiness.

I didn't color it even though it looks like I did. It's just the lighting.

 

Tasha's New Ride

Tasha recently mentioned that she has always thought these 3 wheel bikes were pretty neat and always wanted one.  Well, we have been looking into buying both of us bikes for family bike rides in the nice summer weather.  So one night Tasha was talking to me about these 3 wheel bikes and she asked if we could look into buying one.  I said we could look and we would see.  She got on craigslist THAT NIGHT.  Quite literally minutes after the conversation.  (That's the way she works. She finds something that she wants to do and she gets it done.)  She found this and I had to come look as soon as I heard her squeal with excitement.  Before talking about the 3 wheel bikes I had asked her what color bike she would like.  She answered "Yellow, but how often do you see a yellow bike?  They aren't very common.".  So when she found this one she immediately asked if we could go get it right then.  It was almost midnight.  So we decided to patiently wait until the next day to contact them :)  And by 'we' I mean 'I'.  Tasha was too excited to be patient.

I should say here that now that we own a minivan its almost like we own a truck, in a way.  Almost.  We THINK we can haul most anything with it.  And by 'we' I mean 'Tasha'.  To be fair: so far she is right.  She is an absolute master in organizing things to fit in a way you wouldn't think possible.  This was no exception.  She ended up fitting this in the van...with some work.  Now keep in mind that we had all 3 kids in car seats also. All I can say is that she is a magician when it comes to things like that.  I am most always the cynic by asking where something will go or whether we have space for it.  You would think that by now I would have learned my lesson.

Oh, one more thing.  Yes, Nicole.  You can ride it when you get here.  :)

Our little flowers in the flower basket.  They are even yellow!

The Goodsell Residence

Millie and Johnathan's lovely home on 9 acres. I had a lot of fun shopping with Millie and getting fun stuff for her home. We were kinda crammed at the end finishing and trying to get things hung on the walls. 

I was blown away with how beautiful Indiana is.  Everything is so green, neat and tidy.  We couldn't find a junky home or yard anywhere.  There are lots of old homes and barns from way back when that are so fun to look at.  The area had a very 'classic vintage american homes' feel.  I have always heard about firefly's, but I had never seen them until I came to Indiana.  They are so fun to watch.  They are like little white Christmas lights blinking in and around the trees all around you.  I tried filming it for Shannon, but my camera couldn't pick up the light.  Indiana is a lovely place to live.  I just don't care for the humidity and the tornado's. :)

All this land you can see is theirs and they have more behind the house. This picture was taken from their driveway.  The house is even further off the road than this. You can't see the house from the road. The driveway winds around to the right of the picture.  Much of the grass you see here they plan to use for hay.

Lots of room with a full basement and a 3 car garage.

The porch wraps almost all the way around the house. They're working on painting the porch the blue you can see on it is the first coat. The blue on the windows is Quinn's taping job. This picture was taken from the van as I was driving up the driveway.

Before pictures of the living room. The front door is to the left of the clock behind the red rocking chair. The picture was taken from a hall way that leads into the kitchen, powder room, and master bedroom. The stairs to the basement are immediatly to the left.

Living room again. Taken while standing in front of the front door.

Living room still. To the left of the white door is the master bedroom. Behind the stairs it leads into the kitchen and beyond the stairs is the diqascgvfffffbning room that they will use as a school room. There is plenty of room in the kitchen for a table. Front door is directly in front of the stairs.

 

The couch matches nothing. They plan to get a new one eventually.  The leather chairs were given to them.

We painted these frames the color of yellow that is in the curtains then printed some lovely up to date family pictures for them.

The Always and Forever sign I found at Goodwill.

We found this at Goodwill. The blue around it is tape. I painted it with chalkboard paint and wahla it now hangs in the kitchen with a memorization pad below it. We need Shannon with her beautiful and creative handwriting to write "Always remember" on it. So Shan next time you're in Indiana stop by would ya?

Still working on decorating above the cupboards. This is what we have so far.

We found this blue states shape. It is the same blue that is in the curtains. We found these wonderful desks at a yard sale for $10 dollars.

This is the landing at the top of the stairs. It's Mom's and my favorite room in the house. It just has such a cozy feeling to it. There are so many things you could do with this room. We also bought that chair at a yard sale for $20. It's for reading to kids when they're in their beds at night.

This is taken while standing on the stairs. Brighty's room is immediately to my right. To my left is a bathroom and beyond that is Jemmy's room.

This is Brightens room. Jeremy's looks just the same. They are both very big rooms with room for lots of kids.

This is the upstairs bathroom. As you walk into the bathroom to the right is a vanity with 2 sinks. Step through a second door way and to the right is the shower (the only one in the house for the time being) and to the left is the toilet. When you see the gables on the outside pictures this bathroom one is the middle one. This darling little dresser was also a $20 Goodwill find and the popcorn tree (that's what I named it) I found at Goodwill and talked Millie into getting it. She liked it but didn't think she had a good spot for it. I told her if we couldn't find one I would buy it from her because I love it. She ended up liking it too much to get rid of it and the only spot for it was in the bathroom. You're welcome Mil for finding that for you!

Our Trip to Indiana

My older sister Millie lives in West Lafayette, Indiana with her husband Johnathan and two kids Brighten and Jeremy. I only get to see her once a year usually at Christmas when there is so much going on, so many people around, and it's usually only for a couple of days. I really enjoy her and I miss her. Millie and Johnathan just closed on their first home and moved in the very end of May. Millie really wanted Mom and Andon to come out to help them settle in. She called me and asked if I would be willing to drive everyone out so our kids could make some memories together and so I could also help with the moving in. I have really wanted to go there to see them but it has never worked out the whole 5 years they've been married. We decided we could do that and I talked Quinn into driving one way with us and flying back for work. On June 11 Quinn and I started on our 32 hour drive across the states. Keep in mind that is 32 hours of driving. That doesn't include stopping for gas, food, bathroom, etc. Wednesday afternoon after Quinn got off work he and I and the kids headed to my parents house in Idaho. It's about 6 hours from Washington. We stayed the night there then Thursday morning got up, packed up Mom and Andon with us and headed across through Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and into Indiana. We only stopped for potty breaks, gas, and food. Between Quinn and I we drove all day on Thursday through that night and all day Friday arriving at their home about 6:30 pm Idaho time which was 8:30 Indiana time. Boy were we tired and so ready to be there. Mom and I were already dreading the drive home and it would be even worse because Quinn wouldn't be with us to help. Quinn slept a little bit here and there while I was driving but Mom and I didn't sleep at all during the night. I just couldn't sleep and mom felt obligated to keep the driver awake. Everyone in the Eastin Family knows how hard Robyn can laugh sometimes. Well my mom and I are the same way.  It is bred into us from my mom's side of the family.  Her siblings are like that and most of my siblings are like that. Quinn calls it my 'Cry Laugh'.  I can hardly breath as tears stream down my face and I am beet red.  It's great!  It's like our own version of a high! We can really laugh about the stupidest things and we really egg each other on when something is funny. With mom and I being so sleep deprived, so tired of driving, and having to make conversation just to keep the driver awake we laughed alot. Many times Quinn would just watch while we laughed our heads off at nothing. He would even start chuckling just because laughing is so contagious. We had a good time.

Driving the first day.

We stopped many times to empty little bladders. This time Quinn was just opening the door to help them when they both had already dropped there drawers and were falling backwards into his arms at the same  time. He barely caught them and his foot may have gotten peepeed on a little. We all had a good laugh over that too.

We arrived Friday night and first thing my Niece Brighty (who is just 2 months older than McKay so they just turned 4) was begging me to cut her hair. On Saturday we tackled that. She was so excited her parents had given her permission and she just couldn't wait any longer.

She doesn't look excited, but she really is.

She loved it and it made it easier to do her hair. Her daddy even told me later that he wasn't very excited for her hair to get cut because he liked it long. Once he saw it he said he changed his mind. He thought it looked so cute.

Millie and Johnathan have some milking goats and boy oh boy were those a big hit. They also have chickens and turkeys. The kids loved that and spent A LOT of time out on their 9 acres just playing, taking care of and wrestling with chickens and goats. Jemmy who is 5 months younger than Gensie is really showing her how to handle the goats.

Jemmy and Lele playing together. I feel bad this is one of the only pictues Avonlea is in with the cousins because most of the pictures where taken while kids were playing outside with the animals. I even meant to get a group shot and never did. Shame on me. I need to take some lessons from Steph and get better at this picture taking thing.

Many books were read

Andon playing with his horses. He is such a good uncle. He loves the kids and is a lot of help with them.

Helping Aunt Meme milk Fudgy.

As you can see she now knows all about goats and how to handle them.

This is from Uncle Quinns babysitting. Quinn was such a sport. He was there with us from Friday night to the following Thursday evening. Johnathan had to work every day so Quinn would watch all 5 energetic kids I think every day while Mom, Millie and I went shopping to get things we needed to decorate the house. He would also install blinds, and tape off the porch and paint the porch while watching, feeding, changing, and napping 5 kids. Super Uncle Quinn.

Uncle Johnathan thought he would mow some of there hugely enourmaouse lawn. Obviously he needed help. Millie and Johnathan will now spend much of their time just mowing the lawn. I'm not kidding it's HUGE.

Many fun times in the pool. The kids really got along well and had a great time together.

What kid doesn't like to have a birthday? Millie had the grand idea of having a birthday party for all the kids. So we did. Millie, Mom and I had gone to a number of yard sales together.  That's one of our favorite sports. We're all really good at it.:) We bought each kid some little something for a quarter or fifty cents then wrapped them up for the party. We wanted to make homemade ice cream but the ice cream maker wouldnt work so we had rhubarb cobbler and ice cream cones and the kids got more than one cone. We had balloons and these marshmallow guns that they really enjoyed. They also enjoyed eating the marshmallows.

Many ice cream cones were eaten and not just at the birthday party.

McKay is helping Uncle Johnathan milk a goat.

These two had a good time together. Brighty is really into "getting married" so she and McKay got married a lot in two and a half weeks.  She did all the proposing.

This particular day Gensie's shirt got wet so she took it off. Who needs a shirt when you're on 9 acres anyway?

Brighty maning the hose, seeing to it that everyone gets wet.

M and J needed to build a chicken coop but they needed a way to haul the supplies first. So Johnathan and I went to the lumber store and made it fit. He had to ride home laying on it like this to keep it from sliding out of the van. Oh the memories.

Of course once we had the lumber unloaded in the garage it was the newest best place to play.

One evening we took the kids down to a grocery store called Meijer where a pony ride is only a penny. They all got lots and lots of rides. It was a very big hit.

We left Monday morning June 30th. The drive home wasn't nearly as bad as we exspected.  We drove 9-10 hours a day and made it home in 3 days. We slept one night in Lincoln Nebraska and the second night in Green River Wyoming. This is eating breakfast the last day in Green River. The kids were so so good for the whole 32 hours and slept GREAT both nights in the hotels. Our first day driving, after we left Indiana, we got caught in a tornado warning. The sky darkend so many shades of black, blue and purple and within minutes was raining so hard I coulnd't drive more than 30mph. After 15 min of driving like that with the wind really blowing we pulled off the freeway with many other cars to wait it out. We stopped for about 20 min then started out again with it still raining hard but not compared to what it had been like. We were blessed. We said a payer and I was confident and comfortable the whole drive.

I guess he needed a place to wrest his hand while he slept.

 

We stopped in Pocatello and met up with Grandma and Grandpa Eastin. They fed us lunch at a park and the kids got to play for about and hour and a half. It was sweet of them to meet us there.  We miss them.

This is at G and G Pearce's house. They have new puppies and oh boy did McKay really really want one. Quinn and I do too but we cant' have a dog at our rental house. He named this one Patch which is what he names all their animals.  That or Lucky. He held this pup all morning long until 1:30 when we left and I had to make him leave it there:( He would rock it to sleep then make everyone around whisper because his puppy was taking a nap. Gensie is checking to see if he's actually asleep.

Shhhhhh Gensie this fella just got his ol pup to sleep.

When I asked to hold the pupppy he gave me very specific instructions how to. I had to hold it like this. We can't wait till we can really get him a dog.

From L to R:  Gensie, Dad, my youngest brother Andon, Mckay, my oldest brother Zatl, Avonlea and Mom

We finally arrived at my parents house Wed about 8:00pm. The next day I let McKay and Gensie play and play outside with all Grandpa and Grandma Pearce's animals. They got so dirty and had so much fun while Avonlea just slept and slept. She was so exhausted from not getting her 12 hours at night or her huge naps. I was hoping to leave by noon and didn't leave till about 1:30 pm because I was waiting for her to wake up and I still had to wake her. I was a little nervous about the last 6 hours we had to get home to Washington. The kids had been without there daddy for 2 weeks and they really missed him and they had been in the car for 10 hours a day for 3 days. They watched a movie for the first hour. McKay was the first one asleep then 30 min later Gensie, then after a few minutes of some serious fussing from Avonlea (I'm sure she was just trying to tell me how tired she was of that dumb ol car seat) she finally fell asleep as well. I turned on the Children's Primary Songs and immediately she calmed down, tried singing along then was asleep in a few minutes. McKay slept for two and a half hours and the girls slept for nearly 2 hours. I only had to stop once after they woke up to nurse and feed Avonlea then we made it home safely to our Daddy.

I know I didn't post any pictures of their new home. I will do that in a separate post. Sorry to the Eastins if these are boring because you don't know my family. I'm posting so much detail so my Dad and siblings can see everything. I have a lot of catching up to do so hopefully a lot of posts soon.