recharged

whoa it's been quiet a while since I've blogged...


honestly I stopped because we moved home... I thought that life "at home" would be normal and who really wants to keep up with a normal, every day blog?


but I've missed it! and life is far from "normal" so I'm jumping back on board. Our life is busy, busy just like yours so bare with me while I get back into the swing of things!


I'm an open book and I miss sharing little tid bits about our every day. Plus in the last few months I've been getting asked "what happened next" Tramp lines wives have said this little blog gave them insight to how it would be at home.




Also start blogging is #15 on my 30 before 30 bucket list... yes I'll be sharing that too.

first thing first... a recap of the last year, I can't really remember where we left off so I'll just dive into the big stuff!


- we bought our house! we've lived a little over a year and love it. You'll be seeing more of the house soon. I have big plans and lots of projects that I'll be dragging you all one.


- we got pregnant, found out we were having a little girl and now baby Kimber is over 5 months old and just the sweetest little thing. I'm planning on doing a blog of her birth story soon.


-Wesson turned 3 and just keeps us on our toes. He is 100% all boy and loves going on bow shoots with Daddy


-and of course where is my lineman? over the past year Mike has been working mostly in Washington. He went on his first storm as a journeyman lineman (one week before we had Kimber, yeah that was fun...) He's never more than 3 hours from home and home every weekend. He's had a few months of 6 days a week but mostly 5s. Currently he is home EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. and it is wonderful. Is this what some families have daily?! crazy stuff.


So that's the big stuff. We're just enjoying being a family of 4.5 and living this beautiful life of ours. I'm excited to be sharing our journey in this next step of our life with you all, whoever you are ;)

Back.

We're Alive I swear. We're all happier and busier than ever!


Last blog... November?! eeek. Sorry friends life literally got away from me.


I have a million pictures to post and updates to add but as exciting as our holidays were I'll just sum it up as:

• family filled
• soooo much food
• lots of Mike time! (he's been on basically 3 days on, 4 days off)
• Thanksgiving with the McBride fam, I successfully baked my 1st homemade pie with homemade crust!
• I learned to use my sewing machine and made pillows, haha.
• We took Wesson down to the Lighting Ceremony. He loved the jeeps!
• I went a pj party with my favorites from my yoga studio.
• We found, bought and moved into our new house.
• Wesson was hilarious on Christmas morning, too much fun.
• I let some things break into my hard work of not letting things affect me as much, as a result I left my NSUJL position. I still 110% support NSUJL but its best for me and our family if I'm not in the middle of it. Being a part of a non profit is A TON of work filled with people who want to take it down. It was too much but I applaud my sisters for sticking it out. For now I needed to focus on building our little family up.
• We went to bed at 10 on New Years.
• I officially became a bandwagon Seahawks fan. As a result I almost had my first football heart attack...
• Wesson is growing, growing, growing and is officially in the potty training process. eek!
• Mike is in the middle of switching jobs, again.
• I went to yoga and wine night.
• Our child thinks he's a dog.
• I deleted and got a new fb. fresh start.

So much else has been happening. From big things to small things we're taking each day at a time and smiling a long the ways.


Sorry for being MIA but I'm back and the chaos of moving has settled down.


We have big things coming up for 2014 but we'll be focusing on keeping life simple.


Love you all <3

Halloween 2013

Last Thursday I was planning on meeting up with the girls and taking our babes trick or treating, well I was looking forward to that our night took an even better turn when Mike called and said he was on his way home for a 4 day weekend!

 

Nothing is better than first time trick or treating with Daddy! Since Wesson was barely saying trick or treat we decided to take him to Grandpa's office (yes Grandpa dressed up as a bunny!) Wesson was pretty shy at first but warmed up by the end and was his typical sweet self. He would take a piece of candy from the buckets and put it in his bag, only to replace it with another piece from his bag. Sweetest child ever I'm tellin ya!

yes we used a grant sack, we kinda forgot to buy a bucket & we have enough of these laying around!

 

We had planned on going down town afterwards to all the shops, but after not being able to find parking we decided to ditch out and go have burgers and beer at Red Robin YUM! We have SO many years of actual trick or treating so we didn't feel too guilty.

 

Plus we did hit our favorite houses! Kelsey and Orion got the honors of being Wesson's official first trick or treat house followed by the Wall residence. Who by the way loaded us up with full sized candy bars, yeah that's where its at! Next we went to the Novotny residence which was the craziest damn neighborhood. We were scared we were going to run over the little gobblins and witches running around! With Steve and Rob having such a popular house (they ran outta candy fyi, yeah they were those people, but they did give us spiked apple cider...) anyways the door bell was ringing off the hook and Wesson was loving it! He would run up with Steve and check out all the "big kids." 

And yes we're 100% those parents who raided their kids candy bag after we put him to bed... we don't feel that bad ;)

 

Since Mike didn't have to rush back to work (perks of the job finally ending!) We were able to attend Christopher's first Halloween party at his house! Although we (and Matt and Kels) were the oldest people there we still had a blast and were able to cut loose. And lemme tell ya my husband, yah that old guy, he cut loose! But drinking that much and dancing that much at his age... well he woke up a little sore. We ain't as good as we once was... 

paul bunyan and his blue ox

such a good kid....

silver & blue!

obviously took all the pics before people came lol

miner and his silver!

Sexy construction worker and the retard...

 

Halloween was a straight blast but now we're full blown into November now...making turkey day plans, Christmas plans and shopping lists! We have so much to look forward and I'm just so incredibly happy we're back home to enjoy the holidays this year! :)

Par Star

With the upcoming of continual good news with Mike's job and the recent half birthday celebrated I figured its time for a brag post on my boys :)

As most of you saw on facebook Mike started his new position as foreman on Thursday! What exactly this means is that he runs his crew now. He has a lineman, 2 apprentices and an operator/groundsman. With being a lineman for such a short time it's a big responsibility that he wouldn't have taken if he didn't feel 100% confident in his job and his means to keep his crew safe. Also this job is ending in a few weeks so it has been more of a trial run... let me explain that.

Mike is officially a Par Star (Amanda THANK YOU for sharing this adorable name, Mike hates it and I love it ;)) He has been offered to be kept with Par. Once this job ends he will be following Par to the west coast of Washington, Everett all the way down. PS yes this means hopefully I can spend some time with our west coast family!! :) In this upcoming job he will go back to being a lineman. The west coast job will last until roughly February than he's being asked to "push a crew" (be a foreman) again for the job that will be opening up in the Tri Cities area! How cool is that?! (more family!!)

For once in the past 5 years it sounds like we will not be getting laid off, whaaaat?! Seriously is this was normal life feel like? We are on the up and up in our savings and finally we won't to relay on it for if/when he get's laid off. No more sitting around for the apprenticeship to call. Folks, this is the freedom you get after topping out. Even if he were to get laid off there are hundreds of halls all over the US ready to put Mike to work. We're just very happy the work is near home though :)

Now onto my littlest man.... Wesson is now a year and a half old.... I'm not joking, I recounted a few times. I think that means I can stop saying he's X amount of months.... is it just me or am I the only mom who has a really hard time remembering! "uh... he's... 17 months?" Jeeze.

Anyways, he a handful. An adorable, happy, very handsome handful.

• he has all of his teeth now except for the 2 year molars. thank goodness he's not a biter
• he runs, jumps, plays in dirt,  & always wants to be outside... he is such a little boy!
• although he loves to play in dirt he has issues with getting pumpkin guts on his hand... strange child.
• he jumped in his first pile of leaves last week and now every time we walk outside he jumps in the leaves, even if there's only a few lol
• the 4 wheeler and dirt bike in garage prove to be a constant battle. our stroller is in between so every. single. morning he runs to one of the other and wants to start them up. we need a shop to hide these toys...
• but to solve? this issue Wesson now has his own battery powered four wheeler that is kept down the road at grandma and grandpas... He got it back in September and its amazing how much better he is already. Mike is trying to convince me he'll be a dirt bike next summer. Did you know that at the pee wee races at the fair they actually say "1-6 year olds?" that's not helping my case of no bike til he's 3... sigh...
• we're slowly starting the potty training bizz. honestly I have no idea what I'm doing but I was told (by my sweet husband) that I'm lazy if I don't try. sheesh! Yesterday morning I was getting ready and the boys came in to visit, Wes kept trying to lift the toilet seat and saying pee pee soooo we let him try, and surprise he actually peed in the toilet. Which let to a fun game of doing it all day. I'm shocked and not ready. He's growing up wayyyy too fast!
• he's slowly talking more. well okay he's talking a ton but we're slowly starting to understand more of what he's talking about.
• he loves yoga day care. my once shy, cry when I leave baby is now running up the stairs to go play when we get into the studio.

He's sleep and eat patterns are pretty much the same still. He's down to one nap a day, which surprisingly I actually enjoy. We're able to get more stuff down now, he loves to bake so its easy to cook meals while he's up. Than I get this glorious 1.5 hours in the middle of the day to clean,  email, work, nap...

he literally wrestles with Remmi now, they will roll all over. cutest thing!

Being a stud with his favorite ladies.

oh yes, our sweet boy prays. He folds his hands and says amen! love!

blue eyed stud

he gives kisses now...

first leaf jump!

of course loved the drill. anyone wanna guess what Wesson is getting for Christmas?!

<3

1st football game. he clapped and yelled right along Aunt Kelsey ;)

half birthday present. a new CAT toy! :)

Wesson is just so much fun and growing so much every day. He fills my heart so much watching his little mind work and play through out each activity... This will be his first Halloween trick or treating. He's saying trick or treat but it mainly sounds like TT but that's okay he's cute enough he'll get candy. We're going trick or treating at Grandpas office than meeting our mommy & baby friends to go down town. Cannot wait! :)

Happy Monday Friends! xx!

Labor Day Weekend

In our house Labor Day weekend has always been known as "black sheep bash weekend." Honestly I still have no idea why its called that but roll with it...

It's always just been known the McBrides sneak away to St Maries to Mike's grandparents cabin. Like most things the apprenticeship took us away the last two years but we were finally able to get back and it was one of our favorite times yet!

such a stud.

We headed to the cabin early Saturday morning after stocking up on camping food, filling the coolers with beer, loading up the four wheeler and hooking up to our home on wheels. Once we got down to the cabin we immediately cracked some cold ones and put the boat in the water. Unfortunatly the boat didn't last too long since Mike was on a mission to sink it ;) not really but the seal cracked so it was a short lived boat ride. Wesson loved it. Shocking I know. That kid loves anything that makes loud noises!

perfect afternoon!

Matt, Kelsey and Orion came up later Saturday afternoon to join in the festivities and it made the weekend that much sweeter. Pulled pork sandwiches, huckleberry cheesecakes, and drinking games lead us to more laughter around the fire and a night swim.

Rem & Orion being cute in the water

I don't know what it is about the st maries river that makes us feel like we're 18 again. Its a beautiful feeling to go back to the place where we really feel in love and the place where noticed my soon to be husband fiddling with a box in his pocket (aka my ring ;)) all day.

 

Sunday was spent on the dock catching fish and more swimming before heading into town to watch the best firework show we have ever seen. Matt's words " best damn American bad ass firework show. How have you guys not let me come before!?" he was in awe... and so was our little boy. After Matt bought Wes his own bag of popcorn he laid on back and enjoyed the show. Pure happiness.

Us girls grabbing a drink at the blue ox before

I'm lovin this pic mainly because Matt's face is the same as Wessons... ;)

awwwwwh

boom!

our group :) xxxx!

 

It was the perfect last hoorah of the summer. I know technically there are still a few weeks left but in the great Northwest the leaves are starting to turn and leggings are starting to come out. Its September!


Oh and I'm one very happy linewife.... Mike had orientation last Friday and his crew decided to wait another week to start work! yippee so I get my lineman on my birthday! Wes, Rem and myself will move Mike to Ione Saturday morning and get him all settled in and hopefully catch the train ride everyone keeps talking about!

We'll be fully enjoying these last few days because come Monday Mike will be working 13 days on 1 day off until Thanksgiving/Christmas time. It'll be a long few months but you can bet we'll make the best of it and me and the boys will be road tripping lots to see daddy! :)

Happy September Friends :)

#3: Try Sushi

When I first shared my 25 before 25 goals try sushi was by far the one that most friends wanted to help me out with. Last Friday I got to check #3 off and couldn't have had a better night!

I met up with some of my favoritest girlfriends downtown at Bonsai. It was so great to catch up with everyone, its been a busy summer for all so getting all of us in one place was pretty wonderful.

I figured since sushi is kinda fancy I couldn't just order a bud light so I decided to start off with a huckleberry lemon drop and was seriously impressed. I might not have to be so back woods after all!

                                        

In the week leading up I was asking everyone's opinion of what to order but decided to go with Astra's suggestion of ordering the "tiger." I honestly couldn't name 2 ingredients except for rice and shrimp but dang was it yummy!

I was actually very impressed with the drinks, food, and atmosphere. I am very excited to take my burger loving husband to try it again sometime soon!! :)

Since Mike was home with Wes I didn't have to feel guilty about staying out a little later and fully enjoying the down town cda experience.. haha let me just say my sushi/ girls night out was one of my favorite memories of the summer!

We decided to keep the "fancy theme" going... carriage ride to the Beacon? okay! 

carriage ride :)

 



 After a few drinks (aka beers) sorry I couldn't keep up with what to order! haha at the Beacon we decided to check out the new country bar. I can't remember the name and I'm also aware its actually not new but new to us!

We had SO much fun dancing the night away. I even got a special treat Christopher showed up and actually danced with me! If I can't have my hubs I'll take my handsome brother!

Thank you again girls for making my fancy night, a wonderful memory. xxx!!

I'm adding this gem in here to top off this post... we took Wes to the fair yesterday. Sweetest child ever.

catch up: aug addition

Hey fellow blog readers! If you're reading this thanks for hanging in there during my sporadic postings and ramblings during this summer! So here's the haps of what's been going on in the crazy world of the McBrides!

 

Bashlyn Val Underdown was born on August 10th. Ahhhh this makes my heart so happy. As you all have gotten to know through the blog Astra and her lineman Brandon (who's now a 5th step! woop!) got to welcome this beautiful girl to the world after 10 months of waiting. I love this little family and am seriously looking at dates to go back to Colorado.

We had our 3rd annual family reunion last week and it was probably my favorite year. Mike not only got to come but he brought our house on wheels so we got to camp in style!

Jussy & I at camp.

CORNHOLE! ah we love us some games and cornhole is defiantly at the top of our list.

(Baby) Jocelyn turned THREE years old!! gah this makes me tear up with happy tears. She's growing up so fast and turning into such a beautiful little lady.

My first Tone It Up motivation mail came from my TIU pen pal. LOVE! :)

We celebrated 3 years of wedded bliss on the 14th! Okay its been really tough but we've had lots of obstacles but I am so happy to have Mike by my side.

Silly goose.

Wesson's attended his first North Idaho Fair, complete with his own huckleberry ice cream cone (momma didn't wanna share ;))

While at the fair he fell in love with dirt bikes. Between Mike and my dad this kid is gonna have a bike before he's two!

Bittersweet: Mike's Omak job ended today so he's back on the books. Luckily he's already number 5 and rumor has it Sturgeon Electric has a job opening up in Air Way Heights (whhhaaaaat SO close to home!!!) we'll see, he'll most likely be back on the road shortly after labor day. Until than I'll be loving havin my lineman home :)

 

And lastly tomorrow I'll be meeting up with some beautiful girlfriends to knock out #3 on my bucket list!

 

xxx night!! :)



Weekend Ramblings

Since this was our first low key weekend all summer and I don't really have exciting stuff to share this Monday I'll keep it short n sweet!

5 Things Monday!!

1- I went to my 1st ever hot yoga class. I've been meaning to check out The Yoga Room since I've moved back to town. Well as we all know life picks up, we get busy, blah blah. I finally decided to go on Friday morning and I am SO glad I did. Its exactly 1 mile from my house so no dealing with traffic (if I was real motivated I'd run there but... I'm not) The studio is adorable and Celeste the owner was just awesome. I was worried hot yoga would be way different than yoga and it really wasn't. There's just something great about that first down dog in class. Love it! I'm even more in love with the fact little bug gets to come with me! Not for mommy and me yoga cause lets be honest, I wasn't a fan. Celeste brings in this sweet lady who has two kids of her own to hang out in the play room upstairs. The Yoga Room offers a steal of a deal, I bought a pass to go 3x a week for a month- child care included. I can't wait to really jump back into my practice again! :) And as always if you're nervous and want a friend to go with, CALL ME! I love meeting up and taking new friends to class!

2- My 21 year old brother just BOUGHT his first house! Seriously. Now I'd be lying if I didn't say I was a little jealous but for the sake of my parent's and his own sanity I am very happy! His house is the more adorable version of mine. Ours has some quirky things that if we were buying we'd never have bought this house. Its the perfect fit for Christopher, large back yard, RV parking, 3 bedrooms, the whole nine yards. I am so proud of him. I don't know many 21 years olds getting their shit together like he is!

snazzy new couch. Remmi approved.

3- The minor foot procedure. Yes I'm leaving it at that. I got work done on my foot that is causing me to not really be able to put shoes on and it hurts to walk. haha its so dumb and nothing seriously. I'm leaving it at that. If you ask for details, I'll send you a picture and you'll be grossed out and probably won't want to be friends anymore. that'd make me sad.

4- Wall Reception Bash!! Woop finally it came! Our dearest friends, Brandy and Mike got married last September. (yes I was suppose to go but typically linelife decided to move us the week I was leaving!!:( booo) It turned out perfect. Low key, good friends, cold beer, great food! Just what the bride ordered! Love you two!!

love love love them!

the old t n p

my world!

 

5- Because this blog was semi lame I'm leaving you with this adorable picture that will brighten your Monday morning. We have the sweetest, water child. I just love him so much.

awwwwwwwhhhhhh.