For those of you in Washington, here are some important links: Voter Turnout, State Executive results, and Measure results.

Irene’s Story

Irene E. Springs, 82, longtime Anacortes resident, died of complications from a stroke on Sunday, October 26, 2008 at San Juan Rehabilitation & Care Center in Anacortes. The daughter of Erik J. & Ina E. (Raikula) Wagar, she was born on April 14, 1926 in Anoka, MN. Having moved to Anacortes in 1938, Irene was in the graduating class of 1944 at Anacortes High School. She married Ned Springs and they raised their four children in Anacortes. Besides being a homemaker, Irene was a medical secretary at Anacortes Family Medicine for 27 years. She was an active member of Anacortes Lutheran Church and worked for many years as a volunteer at Island Hospital. She enjoyed her many trips to the Oregon Coast to walk the beaches and search for agates. The staff at Calico Cupboard graciously kept a caring and watchful eye out for Irene as they served her either breakfast, lunch, or both, for which the family is ever grateful!. She was preceded in death by her husband Ned, in 2002.  They were married for 57 years. Irene is survived by her sons and daughters-in-law, Randy & Alice Springs, Greg & Carol Springs, all of Anacortes, and Jeff & Marilyn Springs of Coarsegold, CA; her daughter & son-in-law, Nancy & Jim Loftis of Anacortes; 12 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren.

If desired, memorials may be made to Anacortes Lutheran Church Memorial Fund, 2100 – O Ave., Anacortes; Island Hospital Foundation, P.O. Box 1143, Anacortes; or a charity of your choice. Arrangements are in the care of Evans Funeral Chapel and Crematory, Inc., Anacortes, WA and the San Juan Islands. To share memories of Irene, please sign the online guest register at www.evanschapel.com.

I’ve included the funeral program for you to download here. If you’re wondering about the music, I purchased the slideshow songs from Amazon MP3: How Great Thou Art, and Amazing Grace.  I’ve also included all the pictures from the slideshow in my photo gallery.

Yesterday was our first ultrasound.  It was very cool.  :)  We got to see the baby’s heart beating.  That was really amazing.  Life is so amazing!  Every time I think about this, I am reminded of what an awesome Creator we have.

The ultrasound was the best part of the doctor’s appointment. The rest of the time we had to answer family history questions, and decide what kinds of tests we want run.  Ugh.  My next doctor’s appointment is Nov 4. Oh, and I have a revised due date – May 17, 2009.

I put together this slide show for his Memorial Service.

Here’s a copy of the shortened obituary from the program:

Bill’s Story

Bill was born May 11, 1908 on a farm in Orleans, Nebraska to Edward and Carrie Correll. Bill was the eighth of eleven children. His early years were spent on farms in Nebraska and Kansas. Bill graduated from Garden County High School in Oshkosh, NE in 1926. In 1927 he moved to Montana to farm with an older brother Sam. It was there that he met and married the love of his life Margie Boice in 1930.

In 1932 severe drought and the Great Depression forced Bill and Margie to leave farming and Montana to seek employment in Washington State. They settled in Ellensburg where Bill became a radiator repairman/mechanic and auto parts man at Heinrich Auto Electric and later Butterfield Chevrolet.

While Bill and Margie were living in Ellensburg they both came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and became active in His service.

When the US entered WWII in 1941 Bill went to work for the Boeing Company in Renton where he was a foreman of millwrights.

When the war ended Bill and Margie moved to Ephrata and started Correll Radiator Service which eventually developed into Sun City Auto Supply.

Bill and Margie helped to start the Ephrata First Baptist Church in 1947 and continued a very active involvement in the Lord’s work there for the rest of their lives.

Bill retired from selling auto parts in 1975. Later he went back to work part time as a farm hand for Murray Van Dyke of Quincy. Bill loved being back in farming after a 60 year absence and enjoyed working for Murray for several years before fully retiring in his 80’s.

Over the years Bill enjoyed many hobbies including photography, fishing, painting, woodworking, giant walnut propagation, reading, watching the Mariners, and eventually maintaining a weekly blog on the Internet.

He wrote a couple of books and received two patents, one for a radiator funnel in the 1950’s, and another for a folding saw horse in the 1970’s.

Bill was preceded in death in 2002 by Margie, his beloved wife of 72 years. He is survived by one brother Ivan Correll of North Carolina, a sister-in-law and brother-in-law Maxine and Gerald French of Ellensburg, a brother-in-law Clifford Boice of California, a daughter Doris Matlock of Soap Lake, a son and daughter-in-law Gary and Karen Correll of Nine Mile Falls, WA, a daughter and son-in-law Sue and Paul Barton of Portland, OR, and a son and daughter-in-law Bill and Debbie Correll of Ephrata. Bill also leaves 13 grand children, 24.2 great grandchildren, numerous nieces and nephews, his church family, and many friends.

I love my Grandpa, and am very fortunate to have such an awesome Christian heritage. Here’s a fun shot with ML and Grandpa from this last summer.

I posted all the pics from the slideshow here.

Oh and if you didn’t gather it, I’m the .2 for great grandchildren.

Tobin and I debated about keeping it a secret until I started showing, but realized there was no way we wanted to keep that big of a secret that long.  So Friday night we drove to Anacortes. There was a lot of family at Tobin’s parents’ house as his Grandma recently had a stroke.  We showed up and brought Greg’s early birthday present with us (little did he knew what it held).  I told Greg he’s have to open the present before we left (but really I was hoping much sooner than that).  Greg proceeded to eat his dessert painstakingly slow (the suspense was killing me).  We were there for about 2 hours before Greg finally opened his present.

Tobin had gotten a pen for his dad – so he opened that first and was happy.  Then he pulled out a baby bottle filled with peanut M&M’s and exclaimed that he loved peanut M&M’s.  Everyone just sat at the table looking at the bottle until Tobin’s mom looked at me and mouthed something about me being pregnant.  When I nodded my head yes and said that we were due May 15 everyone started screaming.  lol

We spent a few more hours in Anacortes until we left (a bit too late) for Seattle.  My parents were flying in and we were supposed to be their ride but we were in Shoreline when they called to say that they’d landed and had their luggage.  We had them wait for us, and about 20 minutes later (at about 11:30pm) we picked them up from the airport (they’d been in Mexico for a 2 week vacation).  Originally we’d been planning on following them over to Ephrata Friday night, but by the time we actually got home, I was waaay to tired to spend 3 hours on the road.  So my parents left (around midnight), and we spent the night and headed out Saturday morning at around 6.

When we got to Ephrata we headed up to the hospital to visit my Grandpa who’s been hospitalized since the end of July (he’s 100 so he’s had a full life, but right now he’s dealing with prostate cancer).  Grandpa was a bit groggy – but then we woke him up so that was somewhat understandable.  We all visited with Grandpa (it was pretty emotional), and then headed home for breakfast.  By then ML and Kevin were at the house with their new (very cute) puppy – Sasha (a black lab).  It was very hard getting everyone together at the table for breakfast (M&D, ML, Kevin, Heather, Tobin & I), but I succeeded and then forced Daddy to open his birthday present.  :)  I’d gotten him a camera shirt a few weeks ago at Forever 21, so he got that first (and wore it the rest of the day – matching me).  Then he opened the rest of his present – a bottle with pistachio nuts in it.  Mommy and Daddy both cried I think.  It was really sweet.  :)

After breaking the news to the fam, we headed over to Quincy to take in the Farmer Consumer Awareness Days…  I’d told my boss a few days earlier about the activities, but was still surprised to run into him at Quincy High School.  lol  I didn’t tell him we were pregnant, ’cause I wanted to wait on that…

There was a tractor pull that we watched (it was a lot of fun) until Tobin couldn’t take the sun anymore. :) Then we headed home.  We hung out on Saturday, then on Sunday we went to church and then visited Grandpa again.  After lunch Tobin and I headed home.  We tried to connect with two of our couple friends (Dusty & Kristen Buchmann and Terry & Christina Fritsch) to let them know the news, but nothing really worked out…  We drove to Dusty & Kristen’s but they weren’t there, so we ended up calling them and telling them the news.

Monday night before our youth leadership team meeting we caught dinner with Terry & Christina (at Athen’s Pizza in Des Moines), and informed them of our being pregnant.  They were happy for us.  We didn’t tell the youth at the leadership meeting, opting instead to wait until youth last night to pop the news – which we did and I think the kids screamed for about 5 minutes straight. lol  They’re all pretty excited.  I got a ton of hugs, it was cute.

I also told work yesterday and they’re being pretty cool about it, so that’s nice.  :)

And this morning I updated my Facebook and Google Talk status to I’m PREGNANT and have gotten comments all day from friends.  :)  It’s pretty exciting!

So by now I’m around 6 weeks along, and have my first ultrasound scheduled for October 6.  :)  As you can probably tell I’m pretty happy and excited about this new stage of our lives…

Anyways, on Friday night (Aug 29), we headed up to Anacortes as Tobin’s brother and new wife (Peter and Lisa) were visiting his parents (they spent Monday night with us in the midst of their road trip). Asher (Tobin’s brother), his girlfriend (Kristen), and Laura (Tobin’s sister) were also there. Tobin’s dad BBQed up some amazing wild Salmon (yum – my fave), then we went for a walk down to the marina. (The pic at left is from that little walk.) We eventually ended up back at the house playing card games and eating dessert. At one point the game got quite animated as all the Springs boys sounded off with their best Star Wars impersonations (Asher had a Star Wars deck or two).

Saturday we decided to stick around for a bit (Tobin’s first day of school was coming up and he had originally planned on getting home first thing so he could work in his classroom). At around 9 or so we headed off to a muffin shop and ate some muffins (yum), then headed off to the North Cascades via Hwy 20.

On the way up to the pass, we stopped by this little stand and Tobin’s parents bought some blueberries. I snapped some pictures in their flower garden (right). Very lovely.

At one point up to the pass, we made a stop at a ranger’s station and got information about the hike we were going to do. Continuing up the pass, we stopped at Lake Diablo and I shot some pictures. The lake is amazing – it could be the most beautiful lake in Washington. Seriously.

Continuing on, we made it in to the trailhead for Easy Pass Trail. We parked the cars and started off… Initially, the hike was relatively easy – strolling through the trees over some boardwalks and across a few foot bridges… But then that wore off and it was easy no more! The trail was about three miles long, and gained about 3K feet. Wow.

From the North Cascades National Parks Service website:

Many believe the Easy Pass and Fisher Basin area to be one of the most superb places in the North Cascades. Extensive meadows are crowned by glacial peaks. The short, steep trail to the pass is anything but “easy.” The views, however, are your reward: panoramic vistas of Fisher Basin and Mounts Logan, Fisher, and Arriva.

That sums it up pretty well. The views were gorgeous once we got above the tree line. We saw marmots – I didn’t realize that they were so big! That was cool. There were also tons of huckleberries – they were delicious! About halfway between the treeline and the summit all my breakfast was gone (I’d eaten oatmeal too). The huckleberries helped, but in the end it was through sheer determiniation that I made it to the top – my muscles were really tired (and I was super hungry). The top made the whole hike worth it. We could see glaciers and the view was breathtaking! It was super cold though! I was freezing. It even snowed a bit while we were up there!

At the top we ate our lunch… Man that really hit the spot. Asher was kind enough to pack all our food up too – so that was nice. :) After surveying the view at the top and finishing our lunches, we headed back down the trail. It sure went a lot faster on the way down!

All in all it was a really fun hike – but man was I tired after it! Tobin and I were inspired though to do more hikes (we’ve been wanting to, but it seems like we never have the time).

Once we got back to the cars, we drove up a little farther to the pass – to a viewpoint of the mountains. That was gorgeous. I snapped the panoramic pic below:

After that, we bid farewell to Peter and Lisa – and they headed off toward Spokane. The rest of us headed back, and all met up at the Hansen’s Foods in Burlington. Tobin’s parents treated us all to dinner (most of us had baked chicken and 2 sides). It was delish! Seriously, a great meal – we all belonged to the clean plate club after the meal (and they were VERY hearty!). lol It was a fun time spent with the fam, and we’re looking forward to doing it all again at Christmas (maybe without a hike).

Some more fun shots below… Be sure to check out all the pics from Friday and Saturday.