The Nelson Narrative

I haven't linked up with  Shay and Sheaffer for What's Up Wednesday in forever (haven't posted at all in forever until yesterday) so here goes: What We're Eating This Week Lots of junk (Christmas cookies, 4-layer delight, chocolate).  Actually, that was more last week but still finishing things off this week.  It's mostly all gone so hopefully back on track next week, or at least on Monday the 4th. What I'm Reminiscing About Travel and our annual NYE party at our friends' that won't be taking place this year.  We have been going there for NYE every year since 2012 but because of COVID we won't be going this year.  It's always a super fun, low-key gathering with the kids playing upstairs and the grown-ups hanging out downstairs drinking, playing games, watching funny YouTube videos or just visiting, then we all watch the ball drop at Midnight (on tape delay since we're on the West Coast) and the kids shoot silly string and do all kinds of no

  I have been bad about blogging this year.  I haven't posted since school started, making this my longest drought yet in 12 years.   We had a really fun trip planned in late June to Branson, MO, and another trip to Hawaii in August, but of course we had to cancel both.  Instead, we made several trips to our condo at Crescent Bar.  As I've mentioned a few times before, we were gifted one of the in-laws' condos in late 2019, and it needed lots of updating to make it rental ready, so we made several trips over there between February and September to replace furniture and bedding, purge excess household items, etc.  We still have a ways to go but we're getting there.  I've been meaning to do a before and after post for some time, so hopefully I will get to it soon. Having cancelled our trips to Branson and Hawaii, we had timeshare points that we were going to lose (you'd think with COVID and all they would grant an exception but whatever), so we decided to book a l

 Today was the first day of school, but it is remote, of course.  At least for the first six weeks but I'm sure it will be at least until after the Christmas break. Sigh.  They have been home every day since mid March.  I really can't wait for them to be back at in-person school! Anyway, it went really well.  We didn't have any technological issues or anything and I was able to work without too many distractions. Kayley wouldn't let me take her individual photo.

 Well, I haven't been keeping up with my weekly summer break recaps.  Not a whole lot to report anyway, given the fact that all our vacations were cancelled and we obviously aren't doing a whole lot.  But we have gone to Crescent Bar several times.  We went again this last weekend and brought friends this time. We went Thursday night, and then on Friday we drove to Lake Chelan and rented a pontoon boat.  The girls and husbands did some tubing but otherwise we just cruised around the lake, stopped and floated here and there and swam a little. When we got back to Crescent Bar we took the paddle board out on the river and just relaxed with some wine. On Saturday, we went wine tasting, then later we rented Wave Runners.  It was pretty windy, though, so the water was choppy and we were getting sprayed a lot and it wasn't all that enjoyable, unfortunately.  But all in all, it was a really fun weekend. View from winery A lovely white called "Rousanne" Paul and Kayley Add

I have somewhat of a tradition of blogging each week of the girls' summer vacation.  Sort of.  I think I've done it maybe 3 or 4 out of the 7 summers since preschool.  Anyway, I am going to try and do it again this summer, but like all the other things I mean to blog about, it is always so hard to find the time. So the school year officially ended last Friday, the 19th.  They barely did anything since mid-March, but nonetheless the 19th was the official last day.  We left for Crescent Bar that afternoon to spend the Father's Day weekend there.  We were given one of Paul's parents' condos (they owned two) last fall, so we have been gradually trying to update it and make it rental ready (they had stopped renting it several years ago, and the furniture/décor hasn't been updated since they bought it in the 80s).  I will eventually do a whole before/after post on that but we have a ways to go. We got back on Monday the 22nd and then Tuesday was just a normal work

We had a great Mother's Day.  We decided to break the social distancing guidelines and go to the in-laws.  But first, the girls made me breakfast in bed! Not a mimosa, but peach Izze and orange juice, scrambled eggs, bacon, apples with Nutella, and a Balanced Breaks (cheese, nuts and dried cranberries).  No, I didn't eat it all. A lot of local shops were posting on social media about curbside pick up for Mother's Day goodies, so in an effort to support my favorite local gift shop I had Paul order me a gift basket.  So fun. Also, in my effort to support local, I ordered a bouquet of flowers from a local flower grower for Paul's mom, as well as a variety box of fudge from a local candy shop. At the in-laws, we had a snack of chips and salsa, fruit, and veggies and then we went for a walk.  Paul's parents walked with us for awhile but we were planning on going much further, all the way to the water (probably about 2 miles one way, give or take, so n

I can't believe it's May already.  The weeks go by really fast but then when I think back to January and February it seems AGES ago.  Weird.  Anyway, today I'm documenting our typical Sundays in quarantine. Before the quarantine, a typical Sunday was: sleep in until about 8:30 or 9:00 (me, Paul is up much earlier) relax on the couch with a cup of coffee and watch an episode of Flea Market Flip (same routine as Saturday but on Saturdays I usually watch either Fixer Upper or Flip or Flop), then get ready for church and go, if we're going, which we typically do about 1-2 Sundays per month, then lunch, miscellaneous stuff around the house, maybe walk Kona, grocery shop, dinner, TV or maybe family game night, read (me), bed. Nowadays it's pretty much the same except we obviously don't go to church, but we have consistently watched it online every week.  And I sometimes do the grocery shopping on Thursday or Friday evenings, so I don't always have to do that o

It occurred to me yesterday that I really should be documenting these unprecedented times.  I'm going to want to look back and remember what it was like.  So I'm going to try and blog at least weekly about our life in stay-home mode. As you may know if you've ever read here before, one of my most frequent complaints is not having enough time to work on my long list of projects.  And my favorite type of weekend is one where we have absolutely no plans.  So honestly, I've kind of been loving not having anywhere to be for the last several weeks.  I definitely am missing things like girl's night, game night, date nights (like we have very many of those anyway) Target runs, etc., but for the most part I'm enjoying finally having time to work on my projects! Besides projects (which mostly include purging/organizing drawers/cupboards/closets, sorting through pictures and putting in albums, scrapbooking (which is one of my projects I haven't actually done yet),

Well, it certainly was an Easter like no other.  It's funny because every year we either go to Paul's parents' house or one of my relatives' homes, and I always think that one of these years it would be nice to just stay home and be have Easter just the 4 of us.  Well, this year I got my wish.  It ended up being a great day, but I miss having other family around. The day started off with my normal Sunday routine of relaxing on the couch with a cup of coffee and watching Flea Market Flip.  I did some Bible reading, took a shower, then it was time for online church.  The girls even watched with us for a bit but then they got bored and disappeared.  I thought we'd have to fight them to get them to watch at all though so I was ok with that. After church we had a nice brunch complete with mimosas, then we hid eggs for the girls.  After the egg hunt we went on a beautiful walk (everyone except Olivia) on a trail with a cool bridge that for some weird reason I have nev