Dates & Justine's Birthday Celebration

On Saturday, October 18th, Michael and Robin made the trek up here so family and friends could buy some beef from them. This is the 4th time we've gotten to see them this year. Once for our staycation in January, another time for them to deliver beef, our camping trip in August and then this time. I love it! 

After everyone picked up their beef we went out for an early dinner. When they were up the last time to deliver beef I wanted Sushi, but they had just had Sushi so we went to 13 Coins instead. This time around they were up for Sushi. 

We went to Trapper's and decided to get All You Can Eat. We had never done that before, but it was fun! 

This was my first sushi roll and it was so good. The only bummer about All You Can Eat is you can only get each roll once. I got another roll after this and it was good, but not as good as this one. We also got gyozas and edamame. 

Just the next day on Sunday, October 19th, we celebrated Justine's 17th birthday. His actual birthday is the 20th, but he was going to be celebrating with family on that day.

 He wanted to go to Red Lobster and since we have picky eaters we just took him and Ella and left the boys at home to make their own lunch. 

After lunch we came back to the house so he could open presents. 

He had a bunch of cards to open. He also got new Bluetooth Headphones from Ella, PS5 Minecraft Game from Jack & Zeke and a Google Home Hub from Michael, Owen and me. 

Ga-Ga & Pa even came over and they said that Justine was able to open the OJEZ box because his name started with a 'J'. He opened it and inside was $117! 

That night we had SNL group at our house and I got Costco Pizza for dinner.

 I had asked Justine what he wanted for dessert and he finally decided on this Mango Float dessert. It looked supper yummy unfortunately the mangos I bought didn't ripen quick enough so we ended up using canned peaches instead. It was still so good, but now I really want to try it with mangos. 

A couple days later on Tuesday, October 21st, we went out to celebrate Ella and Justine's 1.5 year anniversary. 

Justine is probably asking to order something. This is his please face! 

They wanted to go to Bai Tong which is where we took them on a date last November. 

This time it was much more comfortable since we didn't get seated where every time the door opened we got blasted with cold air. 

Crab Rangoon! 

Crispy Garlic Chicken, Salted Egg Fried Rice and some yummy spicy dish that I can't ever remember the name of. We also got an order of their fresh rolls....I love those! 

As for gifts...Justine got Ella this pretty ring. Her gift to him is she wants them to design matching sweatshirts together, but they haven't gotten around to that yet. 

Corn Maze!

On Wednesday, October 8th, I decided to take the kids to the Corn Maze. I had looked at the weather coming up and it was showing rain...lots and lots of rain! I usually like to wait to go to the corn maze until later in the month, but I really don't like going after it's been raining a bunch since it feels like it turns into a muddy mess and if you wait to go until too late in the month then a bunch of the corn stalks have been knocked down by people making short cuts through the maze. 

The mazes this year were an Outlaw and a Cowboy. It's always fun to see what designs Carpinito Brothers comes up with. 

Ella, Justine and I went into the Cowboy Maze first while Jack and Zeke went to the Outlaw Maze. 

They had laid down a really nice layer of bark so the maze was in great shape. There were already a few shortcuts from people walking through the stalks, but it wasn't bad. 

It took us about 20 minutes to finish the maze. 

Time for the Outlaw Maze. 

That maze was fun because the 'WANTED' letters were so big! It took us less than 20 minutes to finish the Outlaw Maze. We finished both mazes before Jack and Zeke did. In fact we heard them when we were in the Wanted Maze so they hadn't even finished that one after we had already finished the Cowboy Maze. 

Justine on his Throne of Hay! 

The pumpkin patch is so cute. I wanted to go over and get pictures with the sign that says, 'How tall this fall?' But you have to pay to get in there and then we would have ended up getting pumpkins which I didn't want to get this year. So instead we went over to check out the produce section. 

I didn't end up seeing anything that I needed to buy so we went over to look at the HUGE pumpkins. This was the first time I remember there being so many pumpkins usually it's just one or two. 

Jackson ended up coming down to Corn Maze a bunch since he got hired on for the season. He only worked for about a month. His job was to deal with all the wheelbarrows and then he also added up the weight of the pumpkins and gave people their slip of paper to take over to the cashier. It wasn't his favorite job by all means, but it did give him a little cash. He was thinking about possibly applying for another seasonal job with Carpinito Brothers at their Christmas tree lot, but then one of the other employees said he worked there last season and it seriously sucked all the joy out of the holiday season so Jack decided that wasn't for him. One of the really nice benefits to him working there was when he worked a closing shift he could go over to the roasted corn stand and if they had leftovers they'd give him a bag to bring home. He was able to bring home a bag of roasted corn on the cob 3 times. Yummy!!!

Random Stuff From September 2025

Here are some of the random things we did in September. 

Ella ended up earning 2 more free tickets to Wild Waves so her and Justine were able to go one more time. It was on Labor Day, September 1st, and we were thinking it was going to be crazy, but it actually wasn't as busy as it was the Sunday I took the whole youth group. The weather wasn't the greatest, but it was the last opportunity that they'd have to do go so they just had to make do. 

After Justine and Ella went off on their own, I dressed their stuffed animals in their matching shirts and then posed them. 

Bunny and Pikachu had a great day at the water park even though Bunny almost got stung by a bee. 

The biggest bummer of the day was that they were out of some of their condiments and supplies. It was the end of the season so I get them not wanting to reorder a bunch of stuff right before they close down for the year. They were out of the large Icee cups and they were also out of ranch. That was the really bummer because it's just not right eating chicken with ketchup! 

Snuggling! 

On Wednesday, September 3rd, Zeke had his follow up appt with the pediatric cardiologist. He sees a cardiologist and a pulmonologist every two years to check in on both this heart and his lungs because he has Pectus Excavatum....a concaved chest. This time around they found out that part of his heart is being constricted and affected by his Pectus. We made an appt for the next month to come back in for Zeke to do an exercise test so they could gage just how affected his heart is by his Pectus.   

On Friday, September 5th, Logan came over to visit for the weekend. 

Earlier this year we talked about getting bestie pictures for the girls. I was around their age when I got bestie pictures with my best friend and it was so much fun! 

A week before Logan came over on, Saturday, August 30th, I was at the mall with Ella and Justine. We went into JCPenney's to look around. I wanted to say "Hi" to Pooja who always takes the kids pictures...now that both Owen and Jack are finished with birthday pictures we won't get to see her as often. When I was talking with her I remembered that Logan was coming over the next weekend so I should just go ahead and schedule pictures so that's what I did. The photo session was scheduled for 1:45pm the following Saturday. 

Jen met us at JCPenney's the next day for the photo sessions. Pooja had so much fun with the girls. I'll post the pictures in a separate blog. I had bought a Groupon so we would get the same deal I always get for the kids' birthday pictures, but Jen went ahead and bought the entire digital album since it was going to be too hard to decide which 3 pictures to choose from since all the pictures were so cute.  

After pictures we went and got lunch. I got Chipotle, Ella got Panda Express and Logan and Jen got burgers. We wanted to hang out more so we walked all through the mall and bought some jewelry and then we walked by Undercover Fries and we had to introduce Jen and Logan to them.  

We got a large basket to share. We get them with the BBQ and Sour Cream seasoning mixed. In fact the guy that ordered in front of me placed the same order. 

We got normal fries since Logan doesn't like curly fries and while they were good...curly fries are even better! Oh man...now I need some of there fries! 

On Sunday, September 7th, after church we needed to go buy croissants from Costco so we could have croissant sandwiches at our first Sunday Night Life (SNL) Group with the youth that started the night.

Ella and Justine messing around before everyone showed up for our SNL group. 

Every April & September, Michael and I get to go to his water conference that's put on by WASWD. The engineer firm that Michael uses always takes their customers out for a nice dinner one of the nights. At this dinner they always have LEGO flower arrangements as the centerpieces of the tables. At the end of the dinner those centerpieces get given away in some way whether it's because you have a sticker under your chair or your birthday is the closest. I mentioned to the lady that plans the dinners if she needed help putting the LEGO flower arrangements together I'd be happy to help...plus I have teenagers that love to put LEGO's together. She actually reached out to me at the beginning of September to ask if I was still interested to which I said...YES!!! She ordered the LEGO's and had them shipped directly to our house. She order 6 of the same flower arrangement. 

On Monday, September 8th, Justine came over in the afternoon after Ella was finished with school and they decided to each put one together. 

 

Actually they decided to race to see who could put it together the fastest and lets just saying racing with LEGO's isn't really a good idea. You almost always end up forgetting a step or doing something wrong. They did eventually both finish putting their flower arrangements together though. 

Owen didn't have a job lined up after his job with the water district ended. In order to motivate him to get another job, we told him that he would be working for about 2 hours everyday doing odd jobs around the house and he needed to apply for at least 2 jobs every day until he got a new job. It really ended up being so nice since we had a lot of odd jobs that needed to be taken care of around the house. The one he tackled first was burning all the leftover scraps of construction wood we had piled up next to the shed. He spent hours and hours outside burning wood. There were times the he need to go eat lunch or go do something else so then I would go out and tend to the fire. We all actually tended to the fire at one time or another. I really enjoyed taking over for Owen when he needed me to. The only thing I didn't enjoy is how I smelled like smoke afterwards. 

Jackson sits on this loveseat everyday for school and everyday Charlie comes over to kneed and then lay down for his hours and hours of beauty sleep! 

Michael's water conference was September 15th - Sept 18th. On Wednesday, September 17th, WASWD had their big party since they were celebrating 30 years of existence. We all had to wear party hats so I just had to take a picture of Michael and Peter in their party attire.

When we got home from the conference on Thursday night, Ella showed me how she learned to put her hair in a messy bun. It looked so good!!! Unfortunately she's forgotten how she did it since she can't really put her hair up like very often because her hair is so heavy it ends up giving her a headache. 

On Monday, September 22nd, we had an official first in our house. The first time I sent any of my kids to Costco to buy stuff. We had just recently gotten Michael taken off our Costco card....he has a business one through work so he never uses the personal one...and we had Jack add to our account. I needed just a few things so I went online and found the things I needed took pictures of them and texted them to Jack. Owen went with him and Jack only had to call me once because he couldn't locate a couple of things. He's since gone back one other time to buy Feta for me. It's a whole new world!!! 

Puyallup Fair & Sunset Dinner Cruise!

Last year I had such a fun time taking the youth to the Puyallup Fair that I decided to take them again this year. We met at the church at 9:30am on Saturday, September 20th and took the church van down to Puyallup. This time we had more kids that were able to come so that made it even more fun. One thing that was a bummer was that Michael wasn't feeling well that day so he ended up staying home to rest since we had plans later that night and he didn't want to have to cancel them. 

First stop was the Starbucks across the street from the Gold Gate. 

The student all had their tickets and I had an educator ticket. A couple of the students even had extra student tickets. We asked a group if they needed tickets and they didn't. There really weren't a lot of people coming through the gate at the same time we were so we just left all the tickets sitting on this statue thing for people to grab if they needed them. 

The first place we headed was the free archery place. I didn't take as many pictures this time around. Some of us did archery and then we went over and play chess. A couple people were still playing chess so Lina, Amy and I sat with a guy at another booth and learned how to play Bridge. It was a lot of fun! 

This whole area had been under construction last year so the Sasquatch had been off to the side. This time around he was in this courtyard area right when you walked in. 

 

125 years of the Puyallup Fair....still not gonna call it The Washington State Fair. 

We did all sorts of stuff during the day. We spent a ton of time in the Showplex wandering around enjoying the samples and finding things to buy. Ella and Justine bought Jibbitz for their Crocs. Jack bought a 3D printed monkey for him and Zeke. Lina and Amy bought this container of fun cute mini trinkets. I bought dip mixes and a ring. 

We did go and check out the piglets...they're so cute! 

We were trying to find other small animals like bunnies or guinea pigs, but I don't think they were at the fair that day. It was the second to the last day the fair was going on. We did see this plastic cow and it didn't have a sign on it saying you couldn't get on it so Ella climbed up for a picture. Jack tried to get on it after Ella, but it wasn't anchored to the ground so it almost tipped over. Jack inadvertently went cow tipping! Thankfully it didn't actually tip all the way over.  

For lunch we all got our own things at different times. I got my normal order which is a gyro...yummy!

I told the kids that it's pretty much a rip off to pay for tickets to go on the rides, but a couple of them had free ride tickets so they were able to go on a few rides. The lines were crazy nutso though so that limited the rides they were able to go on. They definitely had fun though! 

As it got closer to the time we needed to leave we decided to get all the desserts we wanted. Lina had some leftover food tickets that she gave me so I got my Dole Whip for free which was super cool. 

Ella and Justine got a crepe and a Dole Whip.

We headed out around 3:30pm since Michael and I had plans. I got the kids back to the church and then Jack and Ella took Justine home. While I hurried and drove the church van back to Pastor's house and then drove home. I had just enough time to change clothes and get freshened up for the next fun adventure. 

Michael's birthday gift to me was a sunset dinner cruise on Lake Union! 

It was such a gorgeous night spent with a gorgeous guy! 

Michael paid for us to have a table at the window. 

 

He ordered a charcuterie tray to be brought out once we got there. It was so yummy....I love cheese! They also gave us each a glass of champagne. 

 

The boat pulled away from the dock at 7pm. The sky was so pretty with the city in the background. 

Our table was on the first floor but once we started moving we walked upstairs and went out on the upper deck to get some pictures. 

Lake Union is such a busy lake....there was all sorts of activity on the water. Sailboats, kayaks, paddleboards, party boats...we even saw one of those hot tub boats! 

I wore my jean jacket and it was enough to keep me warm while we were outside. We really couldn't have asked for a nicer night. 

I forgot to take pictures of our main dishes. Michael ordered one chicken entree and one beef that way I could choose which one I wanted. I actually ate a little of both meals. Poor Michael still wasn't feeling the greatest so his appetite wasn't what it normally was. He ended up going to Urgent Care the next day and got some antibiotics that thankfully they helped him get better in a few days. 

We each got a piece of cheesecake with our dinner, but Michael also ordered something special since it was my birthday. 

Chocolate covered strawberries! They were so so yummy! 

During our boat ride we cruised past the boat house community where the Sleepless in Seattle boat is. We also went into Portage Bay and through the Montlake Cut over into Lake Washington. By that point it was pretty dark out, but fun to see all the lights shining from the houses and buildings. It was also nice just getting to sit and chat with my hubby.

It such a fun day spending time at the fair with the youth and then getting to go on a date night with Michael doing something that we wouldn't normally do. Great memories for sure!