A Weekend in Salem

We took advantage of Katie's mid-winter break and John's first-Friday-of-the-month-off and headed down to Salem, Oregon to visit our favorite traveling nurse...who isn't traveling much these days.  She started at Salem Hospital the middle of October and extended her contract and now she's extended it again so she will be there all summer.  Maybe she's found her new home???

She has been living with her cousin Andrew and family which has been a true blessing.  Apparently Holly living with them made them realize how much they miss family so they are now mowing back to Lynden!  Kind of a bummer for Holly but she found a super cute tiny house on a lavender farm to live for the summer so she's excited for that new adventure too.

Back to our weekend away.  I'm still getting used to just seeing one kid in the backseat.

Holly had a couple of hikes planned for us but when we woke up to SNOW the next morning, we decided to pivot and find some indoor stuff to do.  We met Gene and Cindy for breakfast at a fun coffee shop.  I had a maple pecan latte that was delish.  Not sure why I have to picture of that...the latte or Gene and Cindy.

After breakfast Holly took us on a tour of her hospital.  I can see why she keeps extending there.  It is a really nice, modern facility and the people were very nice.  Everyone told us how much they love Holly of course.  I told them I do too. :)  No picture of the hospital either.

We then went to the Oregon State Hospital Museum of Mental.  The museum is housed in the beautiful old hospital building that was built in 1883.  The current psychiatric hospital is located behind this building.  The movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" there in 1975.  The hospital's director ended up playing the role of a doctor in the movie and many of the patients were used as extras.  

It was a small but very well-done museum that had lots of pictures, artifacts, and recordings documenting the lives of the patients and the people who worked here.

In 2004 in an abandoned building on the hospital campus, someone discovered the cremated remains of about 3,500 people who died while they were living there.  They were in copper containers that were labeled with the patients name and date of death.  Since then the hospital has been working to reunite the remains with living relatives.  They built a memorial to house the remains.  

The building contains the now empty copper canisters, and the cement wall contains the actual ashes now in urns. The "holes" are all the remains that have been reunited with relatives.  

Very interesting and moving place.  Definitely recommend if you're in the area.

The next morning Andrew and Cheryl left for a cruise so we were on Harvey and Anna duty.  We drove up to Portland to spend the day at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.  We had been there a long time ago with our kids (if I remember right, Katie was just a tiny baby).  They had a cool dinosaur exhibit going on and there is a giant area that is all hands-on.

Did you know they think some dinosaurs had feathers?

 

This part was my favorite.  Katie touched this static electric ball which made her hair stand up.  Harvey kept touching her to give her a big shock!

The next morning we planned to go to Holly's church but she woke up not feeling so well so we watched church on-line and just hung out with the kids.

Holly opened a couple (late) birthday presents.

And John and Anna spent lots of time working on this beautiful picture.

We left around noon.  Always hard to say goodbye but easier knowing she'd be home in a month.

A Saturday post because I'm procrastinating what I actually need to get done today

 I found this planter at Second Chance the other day.  I cannot express how much joy it brought me.  I put one of the plants I am babysitting for Holly in her.  She thinks it's hers now but it is definitely not.

Katie got to go on a choir tour to Southern California in February.  She 

I had to have her at school at 1:30 a.m.

She got to do a couple workshops, played at a Veteran's Center, visited Biola, walked around Hollywood and DISNEYLAND.

The long-awaited West Wing project has begun.  

Here's a little before and during of the current bathroom.

We bought this house in 2014 and the owner had recently redone the bathroom with wallpaper (mom and I took that down a couple years ago) and these pink, white and burgundy tiles.  I didn't even know you could still purchase these colors in 2014.  

John had fun scraping them off.

Katie's former bedroom (she moved upstairs to Holly's room after Holly graduated from college) is going to be a master bathroom and closet.

It had a lot of fun built ins but they all had to go.  There is a super cute vintage stool that she used with this vanity.  The former owner's daughter had a estate person come and take her mom's stuff out of the house.  When she found out we had a little girl who would be using this room, she told them to leave the cute stool.  It was very sweet.  Unfortunately, the estate guy didn't want the vintage bathroom tile.

I remember being super excited when we pulled up the shag carpet and found hardwood floors under it.  Unfortunately, it is all getting ripped out so we can put tile down.

This is the master bedroom.  We are keeping the hardwood in there.

I'm also leaving this brick from the chimney exposed.

My family eats tacos nearly every Sunday for lunch.  John usually browns the hamburger in the morning so it's just quick to hear up and eat when we get home from church.  Has anyone else noticed that taco shells are getting smaller and smaller?  Seriously, look at the size of this thing!  I can't even get my finger in it much less any meat.  And it's gone in two bites.  Ridiculous.

That's all for now.  Off to be productive.

Annie

Katie was super excited to get the part of Pepper the orphan in the high school production of Annie this year.  John and I were in Iowa when she was going though try-outs and call backs.  When she finally texted she had a part, I had to look up who Pepper the orphan was.  I can't say I was shocked to read that "Pepper stands out as the meanest and bossiest among the orphans...the part involves a fair share of sass and attitude."  Her lines mostly involved things like, "Shut up," "Do you want a knuckle sandwich?", and "I told you to shut up".  

In the first scene, she gets in a fight.

She was the cutest mean, bossy orphan I've ever seen.

Super thankful to have another musical kid to watch.

I love all musicals and we are so blessed to have such a good drama/music program at LC but this one was just really, really cute.  The songs are so good and they had some really fun dance numbers.

Horrible picture but I had to post it.  After last year's musical (Katie was in the chorus) she said she was determined to learn to do the splits because she noticed that that person gets to be in the front row a lot.  She printed something like, "How to do the splits in 60 days" off the internet and worked really hard.  

She ended up using her new flexible skill three times in the show!

She had a wonderful time, made new friends and is already looking forward to next year!

Her dear friend was the best Annie ever!

Katie had so many people come and watch her. So thankful for family and friends that support and encourage our girl!

This is probably her biggest fan (other than me).  Her big sister didn't even let a massive snowstorm stop her from coming to opening weekend!

She brought a bunch of high school friends one night.  It seems like it was just yesterday I was watching most of these girls in the musicals!

Grampa and Gramma left behind sunny Arizona to come up for two weekends of shows!

And David and Sarah came all the way from Idaho.

This sweet lady came from just down the road but it's pretty special when your brother's girlfriend's mom comes to see you twice. 

And almost all the coffee ladies made it to a performance to watch the youngest coffee kid!

***Edited to add***

Some professional pics that got sent out later.