My New Car

OK, so I normally don't blog about myself, but I'm trying to catch people up with what's been happening.  My beloved Civic of 6 years finally left me stranded on the side of the road on the way to work one morning.  It had over 250K miles on it, and had been a great car.  Even though I always said I was going to pull the license plates and push it over a cliff some day, I reluctantly sold it to my mechanic for 200 dollars.  I just bought a used Honda Accord, and am hoping to get a few good years out of it. As most of you know, it's all about efficiency for me!  Good gas mileage, cheap used cars are the way to go for our family budget as well as the environment! Since my Civic was only a 2 door, I am happy to finally have something Gabe can get in and out of easier.

Yes...it's Purple!

Big Boy Bed!

Gabe really Loves his new Bunk Bed!  Although I do not allow him to sleep on the top bed yet, he sure likes to play up there!

 

On a side note....I know it's been a long time since I posted anything on my blog.  That is because we finally got tired of our Internet connection and cancelled our service in December.  We had been using a cell signal and it just kept getting worse and worse, until it was so slow we could barely send an email.  Since we have our smart phones, we decided to stop throwing our money away and just cancel the service.  Our rural telephone company began laying the Fiber Optic cables last May using a government grant to connect rural communities.  The service finally became available last week, and we were the first in line to get hooked up.  I will be able to blog, post pictures and videos with ease now!  We have stepped into the age of technology at our "place in the country"!

Aquarium

Visit to the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

Every year they have a "Festival of Sea Lights" at the Aquarium where they put up tons of Christmas Lights and have a 2 dollar plus 2 cans of food entry fee.  A perfect time to visit for a great price!

Christmas Parade

Corvallis has an annual Christmas parade the day after Thanksgiving that wraps around downtown finally ending at the courthouse with a tree lighting ceremony. Benton County always asks county employees and their families to ride on the float, and this year I 

decided Gabe was about the right age to enjoy it. Boy, was I right! He was getting more excited by the minute as we sat on the float waiting to push off. By the end of the parade route he was bouncing up and down, sucking on a candy cane, waving and yelling "Marry Christmas". Dan and I couldn't help from laughing at him.

Our float was the trolley, made to look like a train on the front.

We will definitely be riding again next year!

I had to add this pic to the post.  This was the front page of the paper the next day....Our float!  So, of course I clipped it out and posted it on the fridge so Gabe can look at it and talk about how much fun we had!

*Picture courtesy of the Gazette Times

Halloween 2012.....Gabeasourus

For Halloween I decided to make Gabe a dinosaur costume.  It was simple, and comfortable, and by the time he decided he wanted to be spider man, it was too late.  Oh well.....There's always next year. 

Mom was here, so her and I took him downtown for trick-or-treating and to the library for the kid's Halloween carnival.  It is a big event here in Corvallis.  Gabe really enjoyed seeing all the kids in costumes....characters he knew from TV, books, or movies! 

Gabe would get some candy, start to walk away, and then turn around and say "roar...roar....roar" before his final exit.  It had me (and the store clerks) cracking up!