Spokane and Skagit

Wow, I've been terrible at keeping up! Let's see, Kevin worked for ILB in Spokane for a couple months and then got laid off, went to camp, and the day he got back he got called to Potelco in Skagit. He's been working over there for a while now. He's staying at another apprentice's house because all the RV parks have been full. 

Outage work on Whidbey Island 

Working along the Skagit River. 

Not too shabby scenery! 

Kevin's first transformer bank in the field. 

He stepped, so he's now a fourth step and has his hot training from camp, just waiting for his hours to step again and go hot. Saturday school is over (yay!!). 

Learning hot sticking at camp. 

Potelco has been good. He has to take call about a week a month and the timing has been terrible so far, Mothers Day and the Kj's birthday and a camping trip. Other than missing those things, he's really been enjoying where he's at! 

Trip to Point Defiance over Memorial Weekend 

The kids are good. Kj is done with preschool and Drake has one more week of kindergarten and then summer break begins. I'm looking forward to the kids sleeping in and not having to rush out the door every morning!! 

Summer is in full effect!

Where did the time go??

Let's see....The last post I did, Kevin was working in Umatilla I think on the substation. That seems like ages ago!! Let's fast forward: 

-my car is fixed. Finally. 

-Kevin worked on a substation in Umatilla for a bit and just stayed in hotels because the trailer had a broken axle. 

-then he worked on a substation in Boardman for a while and was able to bring the trailer down there for a couple months. 

-took a layoff at Thanksiving and was home for the holidays, despite crazy windstorms. He missed the storm work because he was on a substation crew. :( 

-we had a lovely Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

-missed a storm call on Christmas Eve, whoops. And then another New Years Eve. I was glad to have him home anyway. 

-he's now been working for ILB in Troy, ID doing distribution work for the last two weeks and commuting back and forth, 2.5 hours each way. 

Not much is new on the home front. It was nice having Kevin home over the holidays. As soon as I got used to our new routine of him running the kids around, he got called back. Side note: Next year, we need to save up for the layoff so things aren't so tight!! 

I've been cross country skiing as much as I can.  We got a decent amount of snow this winter so I was able to go at home, my favorite!! We've been up to Mt Spokane a few times and I just got back from a girls trip to Montana to ski. 

Drake is still adjusting to kindergarten. I just signed him up for soccer this spring to see if that would help him socialize. 

 Kjersten is the cutest menace, always keeping me on my toes. 

Here are some photos of what's been going on. 

Oh ya, and I went to Germany for ten days!! 

Drakes first school picture! 

Our only damage from the big windstorm. We were without power for four days while Kevin was in tricities. 

Inland Power and Light crew fixing our power!! We brought them donuts. 

Drake making snow angels in the first snow of the year. 

Getting ready for Christmas! 

Blurry picture, but getting our Christmas tree. 

Our Christmas tree hunt, my favorite holiday tradition! 

Kevin played a lot of guitar on his time off. 

Kj's preschool Christmas concert. 

Drakes kindergarten Christmas concert. 

First family ski trip. 

Skiing at home. 

Winter makes my heart happy!! 

Ready to open presents on Christmas Eve. 

Opening Christmas Day presents at nana and papas.

More presents at Grandma Roxanne and papa Kens. 

Family photo at Christmas #??. It felt like the 12 days of Christmas. 

Drake loving the snow. 

Kj loving the snow. 

Sledding buddies. 

Trekking to nana and papas. 

Birthday party!! The big 6 year old! 

A delightful ski at home. (Loving the snow!!) 

Big rock. 

Kevin made this headboard from cross arms from his first job and barnwood from an old shed my parents built that we had to tear down to put our house in. 

Girls weekend!! 

Oh ya, and Germany!! 

Austria 

Swiss Alps 

That's a wrap. What's coming up? We'll see where Kevin goes after this Troy job wraps up this week. He goes to camp in March and should have his hours to turn hot late spring or early summer. He's almost a fourth step, of seven steps. Saturday school is in full swing every other Saturday, second year, and then he'll have third year Saturday school next spring and hopefully be done with his apprenticeship shortly after that!!! 

Random weeknight visit

We've been missing Kevin on the weekends because he's been out working on my car so much, so we decided to take advantage of the current situation and have some fun! I let Drake miss school (cringe) so we could hang out at the hotel and swim, order in pizza, catch up on random cable TV, and make Kevin's week a little more bearable. If we're paying for a room, we might as well use it!!! 

We love road trips!!! 

Made it to the hotel pool! 

And hot tub

The kids were so excited about this hide-a-bed. 

Kevin had to leave for work about 5:30, so we had breakfast at the hotel by ourselves. I must say that Holiday Inn express has the best free breakfast! Fresh made pancakes, yummy cinnamon rolls, tons of fruit, granola, boiled eggs, yogurt, hot chocolate, juices. The kids and I dig it. Especially Drake. 

We've stayed at this hotel in the past because Kevin worked on the Starbuck job with a guy whose wife is the manager and it's been great every time. There's a fridge, microwave, and dishwashing sink and dishes in the room. It makes it totally tolerable to hang out all day with two kiddos!! 

--I wrote that last sentence in the morning. By the end of the longest day ever, my tune has changed. We had a good morning, watching The Disney Channel, eating the remnants of breakfast, and a long trip to the pool while I worked (having kids old enough to play in the pool by themselves is glooooriius!!!!).  We walked to Pita Pit for lunch, and then that is when all hell broke loose. Back at the room, it was literally five hours of me reminding them to be quiet, and not to stomp and jump, and to keep hands (and all other body parts) to themselves. And not to destroy the other one's toys just for fun because you're bored. Kjersten. I was so worried about the people in the room under us, or on either side, and I spent the entire five hours stressed and grumpy, and working. In hindsight (where everything is obviously 20/20), we should have taken a time out and gone outside to run around for a little bit and blow off some steam, get a little tired and have some fresh air. 

I'll make myself do that next time, for all of our sake. Some days we have fun and some days just kinda suck. But, the point of going down there was to see Kevin and we got to eat dinner with him and him and the kids swam, while I enjoyed some peace and quiet packing the car. 

We're home now and not ready for the rest of the week, but that's how it goes when you randomly pick up and leave midweek!! 

Umatilla, OR

Kevin finally moved out of Starbuck, WA! His short call ended up being seven months and almost two steps! He is now officially a third step, and by the time it got to the board for approval, he's already half way through his third step hours. 

I keep thinking how quickly the last year has gone. And then two seconds later I am trying to convince myself that we can do this for another couple years. Some days it seems so easy, so routine. And then the next day it just seems impossible. My hope is when we look back on this time, we are completely sure without a doubt that it was worth the sacrifices that we've had to make. It's so hard to not have Kevin around all week and then to hardly see him on the weekend because he's taking care of things around here, broken cars mostly. A month in Hawaii is what I've got planned in my head. Sitting on a beach drinking cocktails while the kids make sand castles. I hope eight year olds like to make sand castles. 

In other news, my car is still broken but should be fixed (for real) this coming weekend (fingers crossed!!!). Not having my own car for the last three months of summer has turned me into a crazy maniac. I'm so thankful that my mother in law has let me drive her spare car, but it's just not the same. I live out of my car! Especially in the summer. I love to randomly drive down to see Kevin in the middle of the week to cheer him up. He works so hard for us and I know it kills him being away from his family all week. But it's just awkward when you have to drive someone else's car a couple hundred miles randomly in the middle of the week. 

Thusly, I feel like I missed out on half of summer and that's really bumming me out, especially now that Drake is in kindergarten. To top things off, the axle on the camp trailer broke and now it's stuck at home and Kevin is having to stay in a hotel, which is a lot more expensive than an RV park, but thankfully, again, he's getting a super good rate. 

After Starbuck, Kevin worked in Umatilla on a substation for a couple weeks, which was supposed to be 4-10s but he only got one Friday off. He's since moved onto a new substation in Boardman, OR and he has an RV spot lined up there as soon as the camp trailer axel is fixed. 

What's new around home? 

Sissy started preschool. 

Drake did mutton bustin at the fair and had to check out the tractors!! 

The kids still love touring restaurant bathrooms. 

Grandma made Kj a super cute dress!! 

I've got Germany on my brain (I'm going there in less than three weeks!!!) Road trippin through Germany, Austria, and Switzerland!! 

The kids are so obsessed with swinging. 

Tonight I'm contemplating taking Drake out of school Wednesday to go stay at the hotel for a day so we can see Kevin and swim in the indoor pool!! Counting down the hours until Kevin can pick where he's working!! And counting our blessings for the people who have pitched in to help us get through these last few months of chaos!! Xoxo