Thanksgiving for our neighbors.....

Our Happy Thanksgiving treat to our neighbors was that Big Blue was dragged away with the tons and tons (literally) of waste from our upstairs project!

With that being said before either of us could get out there and sweep (for the loose scrap or shingle nail) some of our neighbors were already parking their cars in the spot! Guess they were really thankful to have that eye sore out of the neighborhood. Can't really blame them since it has been gracing us with limited vision as we back out of the driveway, hiding the neighbors socker ball for about 6 months, and leaving us without our convenient spot for our other garbage containers! Needless to say a Happy Black Friday it was as AW Waste took our Big Blue away....we might not feel as thankful once we get the bill for the amount of waste we had to pay to get rid of......=)

It is a season to be thankful for and yes I am thankful for a wider range of vision as I back out of our driveway and have much more to be thankful for!

I am so grateful for this time of year and thinking on all Jesus did for me....wow!
I am so blessed with a wonderful family the Nesses' and the Barnes'!
I am so blessed to have such an AMAZING and handy hubby that I do! Love that guy!
I am so thankful to live in the country that I do....
I am very grateful to have a job that I LOVE!
I am thankful for my home and living in Oregon...love the green and yes the rain too!

As I sit here my mind just continues to think on all that I have to be thankful and grateful for.....of which I could go on forever...but another I must say comes close to mind is that I will be thankful when our upstairs family room, bedroom and bathroom are done!

A nice pic of Big Blue with our good friends Jeremy and Tera loadin her up!



Additional note: Although original goal was to be done this fall certain things like losing appendages and weather and such got in the way! (Which is another blessing and thing to be grateful for! Jeff's thumb is doing amazing and we are thankful he still has one!)
We are now looking into the new year for our project being done.....next up is painting a yummy orange, sweet Georgia brown, and swampwater green in the next couple weeks! woohoo! (oh by the way those colors are not alltogether in the same room!) Bet you are thinking you are thankful for that!

Nope..didn't forget I had a blog....

it's just that LIFE happened......=)

Making apple prints with Hannah! We love eachother!

She calls me Mai Mai!

It just happens that FALL is the loveliest time and one of the craziest times in a teacher's life I have come to find......

This season has brought with it a great group of kiddos starting the year in Kindergarten with me...a wonderful trip to Wenatchee, Wa to see my soul sista Heidi and the adorable Forrest girls Hannah and Hailey...A wonderful baby shower for my new niece Estella Mai (due at end of December)*YEAH for December babies! =)

This fall has also brought many hat orders, which keep me busy and (according to a deep tissue massage therapist) a bit too busy! Guess I gotta give my had a rest once in a while! Moving into a new church building and having a wonderful and successful Harvest Festival in the Southside of Newberg...


From babysitting my studly nephew Jacob, (which included him getting his first tatoo! oh yeah) to visiting the pumpkin patch with my Kinders, making hats for babies and people at work to being suuuuper excited for my sis and her new relationship! Let's just say this fall has been full of sooo many wonderful times and experiences and sadly I was not able to blog about every little detail but have stored those wonderful memories and thought I would reflect on them.

Sporting his latest Ed Hardy fish tatoo! His daddy liked it! =)

He is such a trooper at trying on all my creations!

Realizing how much the fall has brought as I sit here with the wonderful rain steadily pouring down outside makes me so grateful to be living in a state with such wonderful seasons! I LOVE the changes that happen, however the darkness in the morning and evenings is a bit hard at times, I enjoy living in such a beautiful part of God's creation.

Looking forward to my favorite Holiday season of the year! Excited that it holds seeing sisters who have been gone for loooong, and Grandpas 90th birthday I know this next season of life will be blessing in our lives!

For those of you who are already playing Christmas music and planning when to get your tree....I agree, it's time to start spreading the winter and Christmas holiday cheer!

little remainders of summer!!

Just loved going out to my garden on these weekends when I have some time to breathe, relax and not hear the weepy kindergarteners in the background...(although they are getting much better!!..thank goodness for that!)

1. My garden has been a little reminder/remainder of summer!! I could not believe the strawberries I am still getting!! The tomatoes are amazing too!

2. The fun time Jeffrey and I had at the Beaver game was great...and it felt like it was still summer!!! The sun was out...unfortunately their luck ran out!! It was still a blast to hang with my hubby and I love seeing him get all excited about it all!

3. Little glimpses of sun and summer are fun, but feeling that cool breeze and seeing the leaves on our sweet gum tree in the backyard make me all excited for AUTUMN and scarves, and sweaters!! Bring on the chilly fall days.....=)

Hasta...

The joys of summer life and then reality.....

I have come to find that not only have I not posted any blog for...well...awhile....but that I am having a bit of a hard time this year adjusting back into school life and regular responsibility. It might have to do somewhat with the fact that I really only had a couple weeks towards the end of summer for true down time...

I had such a great time this summer, learning how to blog, getting a 4.0 in all of my 9 credits this summer, seeing friends and family help out when we had our mishaps with our summer project and thumb things...=) I had a wonderful time with friends, camping, chill-axing...being in my garden, fishing in the deep sea, working on house projects and just being able to do things during the day. School started last week so that has been an adjustment...waking up again at 5 a.m. is the hard thing to adjust to for me!!

The last few weeks of summer were filled with a fun weekend at the beach with the engineer buds from college of Jeff's and I have attached a couple photos from that weekend. We also have the front of the house done!!! Jeff is pretty amazing and our neighbors so far love what we have done!! Now onward and inward, the upstairs on the inside is now what we are about to tackle.....

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My bud Amy Jean was able to come down (she teaches Kindergarten too in WA) so it was fun to have her here this last Friday when all my Kinder kiddos were at school!

Needless to say I am so blessed to have a job and truly grateful for that! I have no idea who is reading my blog so I guess if I am not blogging for a while you can probably guess that those 54 five-year olds are just keeping me busy and tuckering me out! =)

Hasta pronto...o no tan pronto!

I LOVE

My mamita!!!




She cut my hair soooo wonderfully that I just had to take her out to coffee and chat...that was fun mom!! I LOVE YOU!! I am glad that 29 years ago tomorrow...you and Dad tied the knot and then a couple years later I came along....=) xoxoxo

Love the haircut too mom!!


I also love.....

MY SISTERS!!! xoxoxoxoxo had a great time my dears!

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Love you Ala, Soni and Glo Glo!


I also love.....my dear friend Amy Jean Bean!! Whom I hardly ever get to see...but when I do its as if we were never apart! Love you dear and oh by the way...the drink is called a Chilly Goat...I DO believe its the best cold summer coffee drink in the world!!

At this cute coffee shop in downtown Olympia....=)




Now of course I love many other people and things...like my husband, Jesus and all He has done for me, my wonderful job, wonderful friends and a great church....however these were just some of the stellar pics I had to use!!

Wow...where do I start sooo much has happened..

Well....our house is coming along...Jeff's thumb is healing SO well, and I am hoping to get a picture of it now... especially since he took off the gross nail thing last night!

We had such a fun night at a free movie "flicks on the bricks" in Portland last night! I was so mad that I forgot my camera at home that I was unable to get a pic of the great view we had at the Portland City Grill and our spots on the bricks at Ghostbusters! =) I (being the missionary kid who missed out on the 1980's) never saw Ghostbusters and had a great time watching that funny movie last night with my honey!

Last week I had the chance to go home to Sequim (Jeff stayed, he had to work...) I went deep sea salmon fishing and that was amazing!! We caught our limits in 10 minutes!! I know..sounds crazy and nobody believes me but it was insane how much they were biting!

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We had some fun sister time, although it was short it was sweet...Angela is soon to go off on the Mercy ship in Africa again so it was fun to have a couple days to ALL be together and be girly...watch movies and have dance parties! It was fun!

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I am anxiously awaiting the finished product of our siding on our pushout...I will upload a picture as soon as it is done!

So many things happening at the Barnes' house these days, with school starting....I am feeling that I really am not ready for it this year! Usually I am excited..not quite there yet! I have just finally had fun in my garden, cooking, baking, cleaning....got a 4.0 this summer with all the 9 credits I took, so much going on...just a little snapshot of our lives!!

Enjoy the pics!

House progress....

Scroll through photos to see the process....
Doesn't the new roof look great!!!

Well as we can see from my previous posts the thumb repair is going well and in spite of Jeffrey's realization that it has been sewed on rather oddly (which is a whole seperate blog posting) we have not really fallen behind on the house project!

Just yesterday Jeff got the windows installed upstairs and the new wonderful white trim that I painted up! It looks soooo good! I have attached a photo from earlier on and a photo now of what it looks like up there! We have the siding we are putting up as well and the roof is done! Wahoo! Jeff is amazing and works so hard at everything he does...

Enjoy the pics!

Eykelboschs tie the knot!!

This past weekend on Sunday August 9th, at 4 p.m. we had the pleasure of joining our friends Evan and Chrissy as they celebrated their union together!

It was a beautiful day and the ceremony was full of people and the reception was great as well! Of course the bride and groom looked simply dashing....they were beautiful. I must say that my man Jeffrey did look rather handsome in that tux, (thanks to cuzins we even hid his thumb with some nice flesh colored wrap!) and the blue and chocolate brown that they had for colors in their wedding looked great on everyone!

Beautiful wedding...loved the slideshow at the reception and the good ol' engineer group that graduated together...(this is the same engineer group that meets every summer for a little weekend reunion) This will happen in a couple weeks! However at the wedding we had a mini one...we did miss seeing the Sargents there...but I have attached a couple pics of the engineers and then another of ALL of us!

Weddings always have a way of making me think and reflect on my marriage...isn't it funny how sometimes we know just the advice to give someone, how something might automatically jump into our minds as to what to say to someone about to join other married folks on that ride...I have found though how it makes me reflect on my own advice, and how I at times should heed that!?? I love my husband dearly and we had a nice and wonderful chat that evening and just realized how important it is to stay intentional....intentionally find times to talk and "date" and I am sure that with kids someday that gets even harder! However, I see and realize how important it is to keep that wonderful flame alive and going strong!

Anyway enough of me rambling on....till another day!

Monday morning surgeon report

Seems to be that we are always going on Monday mornings to the surgeon..which is nice for remembering appointments!

This morning we had to make sure to remember to ask about why Dr. Vu had said no chocolate for Jeff when he was recuperating. Apparently the caffeine in it or something can make his blood I don't know go faster...er make him more anxious or something! Anyway so had we known it was the caffeine maybe Jeff would have let up on the coffee he has every morning at work! ha!
So for my sis and other nurse friends out there...thats the answer I guess!

She took at look at the Xrays today that we had taken last week at our hospital here in town, and said they looked okay, but not great....So I guess the outside looks really good, and it makes sense that the inside workings take longer to heal! So, praise the Lord that it has healed this well up until now!

OH and how could I forget, so I am sitting there crocheting or looking through my purse to miss the whole taking the pins out of his thumb! UGH..I did not want to see that...but Jeff watched the whole thing and she just like slid them out! Crazy, they kinda stuck I think a bit, but apparently those little holes will close up soon and he now will need to work a bit on trying to flex his thumb! We were thinking that it was going to be fused and there would be no movement, but she said that was worse case scenario that she would have to go back in there and fuse if there was too much pain or the bone was not grafting and healing well.

So...we lef the appt. with his little corn cob pins wrapped up for us and excited and very thankful for how God has been healing and been amazing through this entire process! Jeff was excited about the fact that he might have some movement and although it could be an entire year for nerves to fully repair and get some feeling back, we are hopeful and continue to pray for that!

THANK you all for your support, prayers and care! He is on the mend and I will be posting a picture of his very normal looking thumb now soon....it has shed alot of gross dead skin and many of the stitches are just dissolving and kinda coming out! looks good!

My crocheted craftiness.....

So I realized that I have had this blog for about a little over a month now...actually August 4th was a month into my blogging adventure, AND I have not posted anything about my crocheting craziness and craftiness!

So I am about to post some pictures of some classic hats and sweater sets I have made as well as my newest couple things I have made. I recently made a Beaver fan sweater set and my little nephew was so gracious to model although it was a bit large...

Have fun and hope you enjoy the photos!

I heart summer!!

So I officially love waking up in the morning....pretty early after Jeff has headed off to work and slipping on my boots and head into my lovely garden! I have loved the fact that the black plastic we put down has DRAMATICALLY helped the weeds be gone!

I am getting SO many cucumbers and green beans, but have no idea whats the deal with my zucchini! I usually have zucchini coming out my ears, but not this year! Oh and one cool thing is that I am still getting beautiful yummy strawberries! I know right? You are thinking...strawberries?? no way! But I do think that planting them in an area in the black plastic has made them concentrate more on their fruit rather than producing more foliage and getting bigger and bigger.....

Anyways, just a little note to say that I LOVE SUMMER....my tomatoes are just starting to get ripe! I love my cherry tomatoes...my plant is almost growing so tall the neighbors will be able to pick some of them over their fence! crazy... well a few short weeks and I will be pack in the soil of my classroom....getting it all ready for those little seedlings the parents will be dropping off...and I will get to water and help them grow all year long into the Kindergarteners they are meant to be!! I am excited for that...but enjoying the present!

Monday morning surgeon report

So Jeff took part of the morning off work for another appointment with Dr. Vu. We had some interesting talk with other patients in the waiting room. A husband and wife and he (the husband) apparently drilled right through his index finger while trying to put a desk together. He did not hit the bone or anything the drill came right out the end of his finger! Crazy! So while we waited about 20 minutes or so we had some fun people to chat with and they decided it would be fun to write a book about all the crazy things people do. Something along the lines of "What happened to you?!"

The longest part of the appointment was actually waiting to see Dr. Vu. Once she saw Jeff's thumb and pushed off a lot of dead skin (this was gross according to Maia) we chatted a bit about when we pins might come out and August 10th is our next appointment.

Prior to this we will be getting Xrays for Jeff at our hospital here to bring next time to her. She mentioned we might even get to take out the pins at our next appointment. =) There was not much else to talk about other than the fact that it looks good and there is no infection which is great!

Thanks for all your concern, care and prayers...it has been great to go through all of this with you all! (plus it has given me something to blog about for a while....hehe)

Now I will have to blog about the craziness of the bills and all the paperwork stuff that goes into all this...geez! I would suggest keeping all your appendages and not cutting them off!!

My first pedicure ever!!

Today was fun...after waking up at the crack of dawn to the sound of the air compressor already sounding off...which meant my husband was hard at work, I started my Saturday watering and weeding my garden.

I then became super excited because friends I have not seen in a while, Sarah, Tera, and Christina (with her baby bump of little Addison) met for pedi's!! Yeah...now I was a bit nervous that the ladies would be like critiquing my "marshmallow" toes or the fact that I have such tiny toe nails its almost impossible to paint them... but it was great! A little uncomfortable at times, but the massage and sitting in a massage chair felt wonderful!

Sarah and I picked the same pink color and Tera got a pretty kind of purple and Christina did this pretty orange/red. We had a blast catching up and chatting, drinking coffee and being girly!

All in all my first pedicure was a good experience....and with good company it was even better!

Berry fun day!!

So Friday is a happy day...no grad class for me!! yipee...

Waking up early to help Jeffrey get started with the shingles on the roof.....having some coffee with my hubby....and then off for berry pickin time!!

And by 9:00 I was with my sisses in law Kristi and Jocelyn at Rowell bros. farm in Sherwood area....We started out and it was freezing! We picked blueberries and I forget how easy they are to pick...the little bundles just fall off into your bucket! We picked sooo many..I got 11 pounds of them, and of course we took a few pics and Jacob looked like a little blueberry himself, sportin all blue...=)

We had fun and around 10:30 mama Jocelyn and Jacob went on home and Kristi and I decided that even though we had limited container storage we would get some raspberries...So we went down the road about a mile and I got about 5 poundsish of raspberries..mmmmm!

We had fun but Kristi and I pooped out on those after about an hour. Whew, picking in the sun is alot harder and hotter than when its cool!

**Jacob has a cute funny face here..i was holding up a blueberry and matching it to the size of his little nose....and he just was being funny and cute!

Here are some pics of cute Jacob and our precious berries..now to freeze some of them...

**OH and I remembered a good way to freeze berries and keep them from not becoming mush in the freezer bag (thanks mom for reminding me)

-After washing your berries put them on cookie sheets and freeze them for a bit this way.

-Once you have frozen them for a while like this then transfer them to ziploc bags or containers to freeze and they will stay more separate and not so mushed together....=) YEAH!

On the repair......

Well Jeff's thumb is lookin better these days. I will be posting a pic, so for those of you who cannot stomach it sorry and just look away!

We go in to see Dr. Vu next Monday morning so we will see what will happen there. We have a couple more weeks at least for the pins to stay in before we know if the graft of bone has succeeded. So keep on praying that it heals and the bone is connected and all! The other day Jeff came home from work saying that he felt tingling in his thumb during the day! Praise God! From what we have read and learned that could be nerves and such repairing themselves...its amazing how the human body works and the way it reconstructs! We are truly created sooo wonderfully!

So this weekend Jeff with have some help with me and our pastor who is coming over to help him finish shingling the roof....because of the HOT weather forecast Jeff is hoping to work early in the morning only till about mid-day.

I will post once we hear more from the surgeon! Thanks again for all the support and prayers....

Camping was fun!!

Now although we went against our surgeons orders...which were NO CAMPING! I (Maia) truly feel as though going camping was probably one of the best things we could have done with the situation Jeff and his thumb were in.

Had we stayed home I know that Jeff would have been wanting to be on the roof putting up shingles...or working on finishing tiling the shower...or who knows what other project he would find to do! So, camping was great! Jeff relaxed, hung out by the campfire and still got to have that pyro part of the trip in helping make the campfires...although there was no water activities for Jeffrey, he helped Isaac trouble shoot on the boat and our little nephew Jacob got to put his litle toesies in the water. =)

I have attached some fun pics of camping, the faces Jacob made when touching the freezing water, and some of the best smiles which of course his Uncle Jeffrey got out of him!! So cute!

Jeff got this killer smile out of Jacob when he put on his big uncle baseball cap on him!! He is just so stinkin cute!


Enjoy!

Good news from the surgeon!!

YEAH!! this morning we went to see our surgeon Dr. Vu in Portland and got some good news!

She pricked the tip of his thumb, and although Jeff could not feel any of that (he might not ever have feeling again) we are at least praying he keeps that digit! When she pricked the thumb it bled, which is a great sign!!! The bleeding means that blood is getting pumped there and thats a great thing!!!

We are excited he is on the mend...tomorrow we go to a physical therapist for a new splint for his thumb so he can more easily go back to work.

more updates to come! =)

This past week....

Well... what started as a normal construction site on Tuesday morning July 7th , ended in our local hospital.

I was busily heaving layers of shingles into our large dumpster and Jeff was upstairs working in our room we are adding on...when I hear (over the sound of my music on my Ipod) MAIA!

I quickly ran around the dumpster and saw Jeff in the driveway holding his hand! I was so glad he did not fall off the roof or anything..I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off for a bit....I am going to have to get better at this emergency thing, especially if we are going to have any kiddos! I am sure we will be visiting there again..hopefully not too soon!

So Jeff says "Maia get some ice...come on lets go!" I proceed to grab a garbage sack and ALL the ice from our ice box in the freezer! I grab my keys, don't even think to lock the house, but shut the garage door and both of us lookin extremely good in our construction clothes head to the hospital...

On our way I realize the splatters of blood on Jeff''s shorts, and think that we were both running on good ol adrenaline....it was quite the trip! Jeff looked down at one point and AHHHH the top of his left thumb was turned around! like the nail was on the opposite side...NEED i say more!

So in runs Jeff through the emergency door while I park, and by the time I got inside the sliding doors he was in a wheelchair and the nurses were fast tracking him to a bed.....They later commented on his height and how the second he walked in the door he looked like he was about to be a foot tall!! I must have been a sight too...walking in with a huge garbage sack of ice, bloody all over the outside....and a glove inside the bag! I think I freaked the nurses out because I said I had a glove in the bag and they thought there was a hand or finger in there or something....oops..i forgot it was the opposite glove! They proceeded to cut off the glove after hooking him up to machines and an IV.....

We had some great friends from church Karen and Tony who showed up for a couple hours, and I was able to go home, lock up the house, change from my work attire, wipe the sand, silt and shingle gravel from all over my arms, face and hair....and I was able to clean up the water on the kitchen floor left out from my ice-escapade!

So long stime in the hospital...about 11:30 a.m. till about 5 p.m. we chilled there....my sis came to visit and Jeremy and Tera and Pastor Willy came around 5:30....in time to see him get all ready for surgery.

Dr. Vu the reconstructive hand surgeon came by and Jeff was wheeled into surgery put under the general anesthetic around 6:30 p.m. Evan and Chrissy came by, Jeff's parents, Brent and Kristi, and everyone else hung out too!! I sure had company while he was in surgery which was wonderful!!

So about a 3 and1/2 hour surgery later....and a hard decision in the middle that I had to make over the phone...knowing that my husband was under in the O.R. Dr. Vu did her best and grafted some bone in on his left thumb hoping for the best! We are praying the bone graft will take and heal up well. She said she was able to attach the blood vessells and was uncertain whether he would have feeling in his thumb, and with either choice during surgery he will not have the joint in his thumb.. So now we are praying for healing and that his thumb will pump blood and start to grow healthy together!

So here is the thumb the first day we dressed it up! Chrissy came over to help us through this process.....We were a bit nervous..but we really felt good about keeping it nice and clean and dressed up during camping! We did a good job I am sure my nurse sis and Chrissy and Sarah will be happy about that....=)

So we are on the recovery trail now...and needing to get those shingles on the roof! Thankfully it has not been raining much, it did over the weekend when we were gone camping but the felt was on so we were good!

Jeff is now on the mend! more updates to come soon!