Before the Miles to Escape Mordor (with 2 Minions)...

Sunday June 14, 2015
Hoping hoping hoping we are moving into our new house at the end of the month upon our return from our Oregon trip. I've managed to muster up some active optimism and get these two originals onto mattes. These are quite the accomplishments since often when artworks are completed, if the originals are not commissioned by others, they tend to be rolled and stored away. Having them on mattes preserves them better and they won't be forgotten as easily.

A couple of days earlier, I sent off important commissioned piece of artwork to a "pea friend" (a small readership of my already tiny blog following will know what that means) in Texas for her to have in her convalescence post major surgery. This was a fun piece to create - especially with the stained glass Spaghetti Monster and colorful chickens. lol

More creativity went down over the weekend. This morning I found these of Alexander's and had to scan them.  There's notebooks full of stuff like this from him. These are from yesterday evening. It's easy to spot his Minecraft and Team Umizoomi influences and characters.

Meanwhile, Minion cupcakes made a return. 

February was the last time I decided to get crafty with food. And before that? Years and years preceded any attempt. I didn't think I'd do it again in the same calendar year, but for some reason the minions came back.  Too much had been going on yesterday and I wasn't going to do these for the potluck after church today. I was working on two client artwork orders last night after running around with Chris doing errands. 

However, last night Chris emerged from the grocery store and he had made such an effort to obtain the supplies, that I knew the Minion Twinkies had to happen again. And this time there's little fish sprinkles on the cupcakes as if Bob, Kevin, Stuart and the other minions are swimming (or what they look like just before drowning). Chris even did the spikey hairs this time too. 

 

 

However, these minions were assembled after midnight due to extensive road trip planning for our Oregon trip that is to commence later this week.  Yay! 

It would be nice if we could all fly into Eugene for the family reunion, bask in the glory of the central coast 60s temperatures and pine trees, and then a few days later all of us fly back. But ... if you're in the middle of building a house, we had to be a little more creative than that. 

But the car won't be adorned with all three kids on this road trip. Nope. There's creativity and then there's insanity. We know our limits. 

Getting out here in the nick of time! Disgusting! I guess today/Sunday was the "nice" day....

Therefore, later this week, we're putting Mikelle on a plane and sending her up to Oregon early to hang with her grandparents.  But can she fly into Eugene where it's closer to the central coast? Nooooooo...... :eyeroll: 

Why? Allegiant doesn't do 'unaccompanied minors'. I think she has to be at least 16 before she can fly Allegiant alone. Therefore, that means flying Southwest into Portland. 

Meanwhile, after taking Mikelle to the airport, Chris and I and the boys will take our time and spend three days making our way up to Oregon. We'll hit the Tech Museum in San Jose and we are way overdue for a trip through San Francisco. I've been there twice, but I don't really count it. I've only been in area airports flying through (and my family went to a family reunion in Placerville in 1985 which is only a couple of hours away).  Therefore, it is clearly time to actually visit San Francisco. Too bad we won't have more time than just a quick pass-through. I'd like to think Chris and I can plan to separate trip up there in the near future. More optimism!

At the end of the family time in Oregon, it will be Christian's time to fly. Before officially making the three day road trip back home, we're going to put Christian on a plane back to Phoenix. So yes, we'll have to drive up to Portland for the same reason Mikelle had to fly into Portland initially. But our drive back home will contain a different route. I've always wanted to visit Crater Lake, so that'll be one of our first stops.

Crater Lake, Oregon

Monday June 15, 2015
Boy, did the heat hit with a vengeance today. If only we can leave on our trip a few days earlier!  Despite my difficulties acclimating to the heat, I didn't really hit that "point of pissiness" until around 4pm.  And it was rightfully triggered. A great injustice has been done. 

What am I talking about? Despite an ever changing world and important issues such education in this state being flushed down the toilet and voters continuing to elect miscreants (all the while the temperatures soar to uninhabitable levels this time of year), I knew I could always count on one thing - Dairy Queen. Not anymore. It was 110 today and after running around and making the AC in the car work its hardest and the heat brought on the typical nausea and exhaustion and the evil orb in the sky brought on a headache, I figured why not treat myself to an Oreo Brownie Earthquake? They're a high calorie indulgence, so I reserve it for the occasional need like today. 

And what was I told? That they don't have them anymore! That's ALL DQs. Not cool. Why don't we just paint over the cieling in the Sistine Chapel? Maybe knock over the Eiffel Tower to make room for a parking lot!  We wouldn't do that to classics, so the Oreo Brownie Earthquake should be no exception. 

And bringing back Minions for the conclusion, here is Alexander posing with some Minions at Summer Movie Fun's How to Train Your Dragon 2 this morning. Usually the Monday Summer movie thing is Chris's tradition with the kids. But he had to work today since we're leaving later this week. He clearly has a lot more patience than me to take the three kids by himself to a movie (Alexander being the main challenge of such an endeavor) every Monday morning during the summer. While I'm glad I was able to step in and take them this time, I'm also glad it's something that is mostly Chris's tradition!  

Hey, we all have our strengths. Taking the three kids alone to the summer movie every Monday is clearly not one of mine! lol

Until next time! Probably post trip! Here's hoping our move-in will commence upon that return!