Highlights - Autumn 2013

This Autumn was honestly one of the best we've had in a few years.  The weather was wonderful!  It got cold enough early on to just make the leaves turn and then it warmed back up, so we got to enjoy weeks and weeks of gorgeous glowing trees everywhere before the real cold zapped them brown.

Working down in the valley, I got to spend my afternoon breaks out on the bike trail, trying my hardest to meet a goal to ride the 7 mile trail in 30 minutes so I could do the whole thing during my break.  I just could not shave off the last 5 minutes, but I sure enjoyed those sunny afternoon flying down that trail through the farm fields.

Also exciting for me in the valley was the progress on the construction site!  The exterior walls went up and were painted, and the structural steel went on for the roof.  As Fall progressed, we got a fair amount of rain that left great reflecting ponds in the building to catch some delightfully abstract snapshots.  Have I mentioned lately how fun this job is?

 

 The longer warm temperatures also let us have a decent tomato harvest before the hard frost!  We tarped the plants early on and they pulled through with some beautiful red and yellow tomatoes.  Yummmm.

 We had an unpleasant surprise in the guest bathroom after all the summertime visits.  The door frame swelled up and wouldn't let the door close, clueing us in to a water problem!  It turned out the valve on the toilet supply leaked just a bit every time you flushed, and it had been flushed more than normal in the last couple of weeks!  So, we got to learn all about how a bathroom is put together...by tearing it apart!

 After consulting with Google and local contractors kind enough to advise us, we figured out what needed replaced or repaired and got it all cleaned up and put back together in time for our Thanksgiving guests! (more on that visit in the next post).  I like how adding the white really brightened up that small room, and kept us from having to repaint everything.

 The "Land" was harvested, so we could get back up there and work on a plan for developing it.  We've been drawing things on the computer, as you can imagine, but it was so fun to stake out the buildings where we thought they'd go.  We took a large tumbleweed and placed it where we think the house will go.

Then we stood on the land, looking at the topography we have to work with and the imagined views from certain rooms inside the house.  This will likely be our new backyard view...

...This little spot definitely feels like home already.

We had a car club meeting at our shop, where the guys helped put the rest of the body of my Model A together, so it could be put back out to pasture for awhile.  You see, I've signed up to take my 7 exams to become a licensed architect.  finally ready.  So, I won't be spending much if any time tinkering in the shop until I get these out of the way.  It's time to hit the books again!

When hunting season hit, we got the treat of spending another weekend at the Coeur d'Alene cabin we went to earlier this Spring!  Shannon and I had to study, and the boys had some hunting and fishing to do.  Again, it was super relaxing and seemed to make the weekend last longer than 2 days.  Hot tubbing, hiking to clear our heads, cooking deliciousness, watching movies by the fire...  Pretty hard to find a better setting to study without feeling stuck inside.

The Derby Dames had a home bout again, at the Beasley Coliseum and we brought our cars again to park inside to show our support.  This one was actually a double-header bout, with back-to-back action against 2 different teams.  This sport is seriously so fun to watch, and our Dames won both!

 

Then, there was SEMA!  The big event of the year for Hells Gate Hot Rods.  Andyman worked his tail off to get ready to show his company and products to the aftermarket world.  Then, Forrest, Andy, and I drove to Vegas for a week of marketing to the crowd.

 We got to stop by Burley and spend the night with Janet's family.  Tyler got the treat of two grown boys playing legos with him for hours!  They ended up with some pretty cool hot rod tractors.

Once in Vegas, we got our booth all set up, and checked our New Products in to be featured in a different area of the show.  They have it set up so distributors can browse just the new products and contact you if they are interested in carrying them.  

We also featured them front and center in our own booth.  These header caps are ingenious for people like us that drive our hot rods both on long trips and in cruises and shows where you want to show off and make a little more noise.  Andyman developed the one on the left and Forrest developed the one on the right. 

 We were a tiny company in a sea of the big players in Hot Rod Alley.  If you look closely, you can just make out our sign.

 We got to meet a lot of great people, from our neighboring vendors who were very supportive and encouraging to magazine and TV Show editors and PR folks to famous fabricators, painters, etc.  This was a lot of fun for Forrest, who was much better at recognizing and knowing them.  He introduced Andy and I to them and whatever they were most known for, and we've had fun looking them up and learning more since coming home.  One of these was the show Counting Cars.  We hadn't heard of it, but some of the folks from the show stopped by our booth, and one of them even gave us a tour of their shop after the show one night.

 

The more we network, the more we realize the hot rodding crowd is a surprisingly tight knit group, even spanning across countries!  And, what a fun, friendly, and inventive crowd it is!

 Yet another treat to our week in Vegas was spending time with some of our favorite people who happened to be there too!  Our friends from the Sunnyside hot rod shop were there, so we got to wander the Strip and have dinner with them.  Birthday girl, Colleen was there too!  And, she and I walked our feet off to see as much as we could between setting up our booth and going to her very fun birthday dinner - chatting all the while to catch up.  I surely do love this gorgeous sisterfriend of mine!

Highlights - Summer 2013

I guess summer really is gone now!  And, we've even enjoyed some gloriously warm and sunny autumn days and a few snow storms since the last post.  Before we go on about that, how about a flash back to our summer days?

Fathers' Day weekend got our summer fun off to a great start.  Andy went fishing with his dad, while Faith and I went bike riding!  We even fit a fun car show and target shooting into the celebration. 

A couple of weeks later, I got my wisdom teeth yanked out.  Decided to try doing it with just local anesthesia since they had all broken through the gums.  I got a bit worried about that wild idea a few days before and called them to ask if I could have headphones in during the extraction.  They had to discuss it amongst themselves but said yes!  So, I brought a little ipod shuffle with random tunes and am so glad I did!  I had to sit in the room while my ability to smile vanished and I was nervous!  So, I turned on some Ray Charles and no more cold sweats.  When the doc finally decided I was numb enough, I swear he set a stopwatch because he asks if I'm ready and then starts ripping them out like he's racing someone!  The first 3 were out in under a minute, and then they fought with the 4th one while Mr. Charles sang "It's all right, baby, it's all right" over the sound of the drill.  Then, it was over and I had a blubbery mouth with extra room.  And, I got to have lots and lots of scrumptious smoothies right in the middle of a heat wave.  I'm tellin' you - schedule your dental adventures in the summertime.  It's pretty awesome.

There was more bike-riding, and Marie got to join us for a great 4th of July ride along Coeur d'Alene lake and river.

We had a fantastic garden with the best broccoli we've ever grown, and our plump covey of quail are still hanging around the yard and I got one testing the structural integrity of our wall-of-water. 

We thoroughly enjoyed countless summertime meals out on the deck with fresh garden and farmer's market produce and watched the hummingbirds and neighbor's sheep.   

Near the end of July, we had a most memorable trip to hike Mt. Rainier.  We got to have dinner with Nana and Papa first and take in all the beauty of their place in the summertime - a rare treat for us.  Their garden was flourishing and all the flowers in bloom were so colorful!

The hike with Margaret, Greg, Beth, Bryan, and Amy was incredible!  Just enough hill climbs to break a sweat, the lingering snow, the unique flowers and wildlife, the fun adventurous spirit of the group, the breathtaking views in all directions...  So great.

 

The new Hells Gate Hot Rod shirts that Andy let me design were printed, and their arrival was all sorts of exciting!  The truck on the back of them is our good friend Nickie B's hot rod that we helped him build the first year we knew each other.  Nick was a big part of Andy's transition from low-riders to hot rods, and he taught me so much as I was getting sucked right into the lifestyle.  When Andy started talking of starting his own hot rod business, Nick volunteered the shop name Hells Gate Hot Rods that he had come up with years before and didn't end up using.  So, this was a tribute shirt to our mentor!

Our Anniversary trip this year was a hot rod road trip to Yakima for the Vintiques show.  We took the Dodge on its first long trip, with a vintage canvas cargo carrier on the back to make up for having such a short bed.  

The drive went quite well!  We just had some oil puking problems due to having no baffle in the new valley pan, so we just had to pull over every once in awhile and mop up the mess.  We got to stop by our friend's shop in Sunnyside for an open house BBQ before ending the day setting up camp on the fairground in Yakima.

This show was a new one for us, and it was such fun!  They have been putting on the show for something like 30 years, so they have it pretty well figured out.  They feed you a dinner and a breakfast over the course of the weekend, and there are lots of fun activities besides just looking at the other cars in the show.  They had shuttles to the mall too, just in case you are feeling stuck and need some retail therapy.  It's usually unbearably hot at the show, so people had swimming pools set up in their camping spots!  We had no trouble entertaining ourselves between activities with some pranking back at the campsite:

 You have to be careful bringing a family-size tent to a gathering with this mischievous group!

 

 The show had open cruising around the fairgrounds in the evenings and one night, they had drag races at a nearby racetrack.  Marc wanted to test his Hemi-in-a-Limo on the drag strip, and they signed him up!  I've never seen him so nervous, and rarely so excited.  It was fun to follow him through the prep with everyone coaching and encouraging him before his first drag racing experience.  What a thrill for him!

The very next Friday, Suzie came to visit!  She swung through Lewiston to take a tour of 'my' construction site, and it was so awesome to share it with her!

Then we had a chill weekend, playing cribbage and watching a wicked-cool lightning storm Friday night...

  

Then, Marie and Dave got to join us for Saturday, and we got to take all the pups for a walk!  I sure like when these guys visit us.

Summer temps were still in full swing at the end of August (not normal here!), so we joined our friends for a boating day on the river one sunny afternoon.  It took a bit to get brave enough to go tubing, but the driver took it easy and Thu and I went out first.  It was easygoing but really funny, with both of us scared of falling off and clueless about the universal symbols for faster, slower, and done.  Then, the guys took turns trying, and succeeding in throwing each other off the tube.  

When it was our turn again, Heather joined us, and off we went!  

 

 The trouble was, the driver went too slow....  It turns out that when the line goes slack, the tube sinks!  And, you get sucked right off it!  So, we all got to experience falling off the tube!  It turned out to be less scary than I thought it would be.  Life jackets are awesome.

Luke had brought his new-to-him jet ski to play too, and Andyman couldn't wait to get on that thing!  He used to ride jet skis all the time, living down in the Valley, and just loves it - especially the more challenging stand-up models like Luke's.  Crazy fellow.

Highlights - Spring 2013

Spring thaw came and found us offering once again to buy a piece of farmland just south of where we live now.  We were hoping the seller had softened as much as the ground, and we could finalize a deal.

*It took a few months, but we finally sealed the deal!  Standing on the property here:

 We spent a very rejuvenating weekend on Lake Coeur d'Alene when it was still chilly enough to keep the crowds away and make the hot tub a real treat.  Our friend needed to build a few model rockets for a science experiment with elementary school kids, so she and I spent hours building, taping off, and painting them while the guys were out fishing and turkey hunting.  We took advantage of a warmish afternoon to throw horseshoes, had some amazing bbq'd meals and lazed around by the fire.  Sometimes just two days can stretch out to feel like a vacation!

We got to tour a local car collector's shop with the club, and it was pretty incredible how many rare/original cars he has kept and cared for for years.  He used to own a car dealership and he used to race cars as well, so he has always been into the value, history, and power of a vehicle.  And, he takes better care of these rarely-driven cars than most people do of their daily drivers!  His grandsons were hanging around while we toured, and you can tell he's passing his passion right along to them.

 The afternoon before my birthday, Andy and I had just returned from buying my bicycle.  I was working on the computer and Andy was out in the shop.  There was a knock on the door, and when I answered, there stood Chad and Suzie!  Complete disbelief happened right there.  I'm trying to figure out how they just appeared without a sound from miles and miles away, wondering if Andy knows they are here, where are the dogs, are they really here for me...It took me a minute to invite them in!  What a great surprise!

Suzie obliged my wish for a birthday hike and we took off to Kamiak Butte.  When we returned, Dave and Marie had arrived too and well, my birthday was awesome.  I've got a thing for surprises :)

 We have a few frogs in our little pond again this year, and they were way more vocal about mating season this year than we can ever remember!  You know that lovely sound of frogs on a warm evening?  I've loved that sound (along with crickets) my whole life.  Well, it turns out that it's one of those things best loved from a distance.  When these fellows are excited 2 feet outside your window, it is deafening!  Holy smokes.

Margaret and Greg came for a springtime visit too!  We had great food and game time, the weather was perfect, and they even brought some photography tools to play around with.

 The reason for the tools was dear Bether's wedding!  I got to shadow their photographer and have some fun capturing their happy occasion.

 This also meant bonus family time while the bride and groom drove off into the sunset or whichever direction they were headed.

 Speaking of driving, springtime is also the start of car show season!  For the first show, Chipman Taylor in Pullman, we didn't have a vehicle put together to take so Andy got to drive Marc's 1952 Hudson.  Shifting it was a new adventure, and finding the stereo when it came on too loud to hear the transmission. :)  It was a great cruising car with tons of room inside and those head-turning body lines of a Hudson.

 Our car club's show at the beginning of June turned out awesome!  The weather was perfect, we had record turn-out, and the Dodge made it there for its first show as a painted show-off.

One of the main goals for having it at the show was to get Ybarra to pinstripe it.  The man has skills, and those fine lines really made Andy's scallops pop!  

Of course, another highlight of our car show are the derby dames and their bout with any Knuckleskraper  brave enough to try.  Here's Luke taking a spill.  I love this photo because of the spectator's face expressions.  This guy is resilient, and brave to get in the mix with these dames!