We arrived safely on Sunday in Hayward, and so far everything is going swimmingly. While the jury is still out on which place is better (last year or this year), we are having fun finding out what this lake and house has to offer. Last year our cabin was VERY secluded (like no phone, no internet, no cable - OMG), which was a little freaky at first - but by the end we had come to appreciate the 'quiet life'. Since not everyone loved to fish 24/7 like some people (RICK), we opted for a bit more commercialized lake this year where we could still fish, but also make a wake with the boat and get to town in less than ten minutes. (Oh and it has a phone, cable, DSL, etc - but we have yet to watch TV!)
Yesterday we spent most of the day on the boat cruising the lake, tubing and playing around the dock. We also boated to a Packer Bar on the lake for lunch which was really fun and yummy. Overall, it was a great day and I'm looking forward to what is to come!
As we ready ourselves to depart on our week long vacation to Hayward, WI, I'm getting myself into 'beast bird and fish' mode. If this trip is anything like last year, I'll be up to my eyeballs in fish, crawdads, frogs and any other little creature the boys can get their hands on. I've had a little practice getting into the swing of things here as of late...
I'd be lying if I said I didn't scream like a girl when this next photo was taken.
The last thing I saw when I went to bed last night was Ben glued to his laptop, implementing yet another late-night maintenance for work. Shortly after I awoke this morning, he was out on the couch, addressing the problems which arose from the late-night maintenance. He was in a great mood.
Jake also decided to wake up on the wrong side of the bed at about 6:00 am (after going to bed on the wrong side of the bed too), so I was half sleep-walking while making my coffee and going about my morning business, trying not to disturb the 'worker' in the next room.
A couple hours later, I told Ben I was going back to take a shower, and I really did half expect that he might be able to keep one eye on Jacob for the next ten minutes. Ha No. I had an awesome shower of yelling through the glass door 'JAKE STOP THAT' 'NO JAKE' 'JAKE GET DOWN' 'JAKE TURN OFF THE WATER', etc etc. When I got out, he only had half of the hand soap dispensed all over the counter and himself. Could have been worse I guess.
Shortly after I told the kids to go get dressed and brush, Charlie emerged from downstairs with some wonderful news. Jacob had taken the toothpaste and squirted it all over the place! Awesome! Charlie sometimes has a tendency to exaggerate, so I didn't spaz out right away, figuring it probably wasn't THAT bad. Oh, it was worse.
When I got to the second to the last stair, I spied the first of several huge GLOBS on the carpet. BIG piles of toothpaste resided on the stair, the hall, the couch, the pillow, the ottoman, love seat AND the couch! Also, clinging to both Will and Charlie's doors were thick streaks of paste. Another pile was squeezed down the wall, over the trim, ending in a nice pile on the carpet. OMG. How could there be any paste left in this stupid tube? Oh, and I almost forgot - Jacob had RUBBED the paste in a uniform manner all over his legs and arms. SPECTACULAR.
After some initial yelling and freaking, and a lot of dabbing and scrubbing, we actually managed to erase all traces of the catastrophe. WHEW. From now on, the boys' toothpaste tube will be kept high on a shelf - not in a drawer- within reach of Dennis.
Tomorrow I have a LOT to do. I need to pack for the five of us for our trip to Hayward, WI. Ben has another late-night maintenance to do and a conference call in the morning. I better be on my game tomorrow, so I'M GOING TO BED EARLY.
Charlie's birthday came and went last week! While we did devote the entire day to his celebration, I am just now getting around to posting about it! We had a GREAT DAY. It's hard to believe he is seven years old. Time flies.
Our morning started out bright and early (like 7:00 am) with baking his cake. Charlie requests the same one EVERY year... chocolate with white frosting. Normally, he likes to have chocolate covered strawberries on top, but since I forgot (bad mom!) we went with sprinkles.
For lunch, we went to Osaka - a Japanese Hibachi place. We were going to go for dinner, but Charlie just couldn't wait that long. In fact, he wondered if they served breakfast! Ha! I wasn't sure if he would actually like the food, but he was very intrigued at the prospect of catching flying bits of egg in his mouth... so that's where we went. HE LOVED IT! All the kids did! Our chef was awesome, and gave Charlie about ten tries to catch the food - and after egg bounced off his forehead, hair and hit him in the eye - he finally did it!
Look at Jakey eating his soup like a big boy! HILARIOUS!
We finished up the day with a FIESTA - complete with margaritas (sparkling juice for the kids) and themed music piped throughout the house - it was fun! We feasted on chips, dip, salsa and of course TACOS! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLIE!
OK. Normally I talk on and on about our kids, but this morning I'm talking about ME! As you can see in the picture below, I recently went to a casting call for a remake of the movie Sixteen Candles...
Haha, NO - that is me heading out the door to the doctor after my surgery. It's not really a neck brace, but it sure looks like one! I thought the dress offset the huge bandage around my neck! LOL I went in to have a humongoid lump removed from my neck. (it was discovered by a massage therapist - thank you!) I had it poked and prodded to death prior, which all came back good - but they said the only way to be SURE it wasn't cancer was to take the sucker out. So that's what we did. It took almost a week to get the pathology report back, but it too ended up coming back clear. Whew!
Here's the beautiful incision mark...
I have to admit, I was a little shocked at the size of the scar - but, I also have to remember it is better than the alternative. Hopefully it will lighten up over time, but until then I'll be wearing my hair down!
First off, I apologize for the long span between entries. I am trying to get back into a routine after moving. We are slowly getting settled in box by box! We still have a LARGE amount of items still in the garage, which we are sorting through. It's amazing how much 'stuff' is accumulated over time! WOW!
My latest dilemma now that we are here is school. Not for me - the kids! This community has a very small elementary school, which runs K-fifth grade. For fifth grade, all the kids from a neighboring town are bussed here, and then 6-12 all go to the neighboring town for the rest of their educational experience (I know - weird). We are roughly 2 miles from the k-5 school and about ten from the other town. It's a nice little elementary school, and I was at first excited about the close proximity, but as I compare the two schools.... I'm having second thoughts. The other school is bigger (although for you Denver folks it's still TINY - roughly 100 kids per grade), has nicer facilities and probably more to offer - but I've been gearing the kids up for the move to THIS school for over a year! Ugh, with registration under a month away, I hate to switch it up on them.... but I think I might just have to. I plan to meet with the 'other' principal this week to help me make up my mind... more on that later.
Two things on a lighter note, both relating to CHARLIE:
1. He lost his first front tooth!
2. He looks smashing with his new haircut!
Yes, that's a BALD SPOT on his head! During his latest hair cut, while I was in the other room changing a battery for the tiny clippers, he took it upon himself to cut 'one long hair'. Mmmm Hmmm. I came back to see a very guilty look on his face. "What did you do?" I asked. He just smiled while guiltily looking down at the ground... and that's when I saw it! "CHARLIE! You gave yourself a bald spot!!!" I said, laughing. His reply was "I did??" He had no idea he had shaved himself to the skin on top of his head - he thought he had merely clipped ONE hair! We had a good laugh, which soon turned to embarrassment for him - poor guy. We had to shave his hair super short to decrease the abrupt change in hair length, to make it less noticeable. Will was a good sport as well, and while he wouldn't shave a bald spot on himself like Charlie requested he did, he did have me shave his head all over - practically bald - to make Charlie feel better. BROTHERLY LOVE! :-)
Unfortunately, we just missed the cut-off for planting grass at our new house. Our landscaper didn't want to risk our newly planted grass dying in the hot and dry summer weather which was soon to be upon us. We agreed to play it safe and wait until after August 15th to plant. This decision left us with greater peace of mind about our new lawn's future, but also left us with a LOT of weeds and mud. LOTS of mud. As I look outside today for the second day in a row at the rain, and think back to our 4th of July gathering when it RAINED... it makes me a little bitter about the lack of grass and 'hot and dry weather'. These weeds are growing JUST FINE. Hmph.
I had my first experience scrubbing carpet on Saturday afternoon after one of the kids opened the sliding glass door and accidentally let in a wet dog, complete with mud-covered paws. Everyone turned in unison and inhaled the same "AgHHH!" as we watched the dog scamper across the entire width of the room, leaving a trail of brown dog prints on the light colored carpet. Luckily two guests, who happened to be dog owners, were much quicker to react then I was. They hustled over to the bar for wet rags and started blotting, while I sat, frozen and staring at the mess, thinking to myself how lucky it was that Ben had to run to the gas station and didn't see this little 'incident'. Someone must have retrieved the dog as well, but I kind of missed that part too. haha Thanks again M & B for helping me clean up the mess! It was spotless by the time Ben returned - whew!!! :-)
Scrubbing carpet is one thing, but scrubbing concrete is not exactly the thing I pictured myself doing on a Sunday afternoon - but that's exactly what was going on here. During Saturday's get-together, the kids (5 total) went outside to play with strict instructions to STAY ON THE CONCRETE. Right. In no time at all, they had mud tracked all over the patio, the sidewalk and the driveway - I'm talking COVERED. Even the kids were covered. I was plenty peeved at the kids for not following directions, but I wasn't too bent out of shape about the tracked mud, as I figured the rain would probably just wash it all away. HA! The next morning, when the sun was shining, I could see all the brown baked mud smeared everywhere. Hence, the scrubbing.
Monday, as I was trying to get my crew out the door for a park outing, the mud monster (which is turning out to be ME) struck again. I had to dash inside for one forgotten thing (of course), and when I emerged 20 seconds later, Jacob had driven a ride on toy through the mud and up on to the freshly scrubbed concrete, leaving those beautiful mud markings once again. Aggghhhh! I have to admit I may have overreacted a little by grabbing the toy and forcefully chucking it off the concrete into the mud, causing the steering wheel to pop off (I didn't mean for that to happen!), but seriously, a girl can only take so much in three days!
After I got the kids strapped in the car, I took an extra moment to sit back in the driver's seat and prep myself to really enjoy the short trip to town - a trip with the kids physically restrained away from any MUD!
When I opened my computer this morning and saw that Sarah Palin was resigning - I was shocked. I thought, why in the world would she do that?! But, after watching her speech and listening to her reasoning, I completely understand (and I'm thoroughly disgusted at the same time). The media attacks surrounding this woman since her involvement in the presidential campaign have been absolutely ridiculous. Malicious lies about her family, particularly her young children, have been spread and tolerated in the mainstream media for almost a year now. I can't say I blame her one bit for stepping down from office. At least she's big enough to admit that the kool-aid drinking media is a force she cannot stop. I believe her when she says staying in office will only continue to drain her personal and Alaskan's tax-payer dollars to set the record straight. I am so frustrated! Whether you are a fan of Sarah Palin or not, no individual should have to put up with this kind of constant and cruel media abuse!
WE ARE IN OUR NEW HOUSE!!!WhewTalk about an eventful week. We have been so busy around here that I hardly noticed we didn't have DSL until last night (haha right!) The move started last Friday with only Ben and me doing the work – MAN’s work. I lifted couches, mattresses, furniture – everything!I was seriously dying and whining a lot.Of course, it was the hottest day so far – heat index of 105 degrees.105!!!Nikki + humidity +hotness = one crabby girl.I HATE HUMIDITY.Ugh.By the time Friday night rolled around, I had four layers of dried sweat covering my entire body, and I was so exhausted that I couldn’t really appreciate the greatness of our new shower.
Saturday was better.It was still freakin’ HOT and STICKY, but at least I didn’t have to do as much manual labor.We also had a lot of help – THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!I stocked our new bar fridge full of beverages (adult and kid friendly), which made the entire day a whole lot more enjoyable.I think everyone appreciated the frequent beer breaks ;)It was also very fun to get all the new furniture delivered – the house actually looks like a home.WOW.
I've also already met at least ten people from the new town. All of them were men and all of them were from the Shellsburg Fire Department responding to my 911 fire call.... but it still counts, right?! HA. That's right. I had to call 911 the first time in my life - after being here for only TWO DAYS. I was standing in the kitchen, minding my own business when I started to smell a 'smoky' smell. I thought it seemed odd, but I also knew the DirecTV dude was downstairs installing stuff, so I immediately figured it was him creating the smell. After it didn't go away after a few more minutes, I went down and asked him if he was doing anything to cause the smokiness - he said "I haven't done anything yet" (go figure). As I rounded the corner into the rec room, I could actually SEE a haze of smoke and it reeked down there! The DirecTV dude started trailing me around, trying to locate the source of the smoke - we couldn't figure it out. DirecTV dude, who used to be a volunteer firefighter, tells me he thinks it smells like electrical burning. WONDERFUL. So, after reporting it to Ben on the phone (like what's he gonna do at work?), I reluctantly called 911.
After the first fireman went in the house, I heard him say into his radio, "it smells like electrical or plastic burning". Great. All I could think of was all the new wiring inside the walls slowly smoldering away and turning into a massive fire, engulfing our new house. UGH! When I heard more fire trucks barreling up the drive (WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD!!!) I headed out to meet the captain of the department to explain what was going on. He killed the power and headed inside with a couple more guys. A few minutes later, they emerged holding a round, flat charred thing, reporting they think they found the 'source'. I had no idea what it was and after inquiring, I wanted to hide under a rock. Chief's reply: "Someone turned on the bar microwave with the instruction manual still inside". What!?!?!? I immediately blamed Jacob since the microwave is right at his level, which made me feel a tiny bit of redemption... but not much. As they searched the rest of the lower level to be thorough, I stood outside 'visiting' with all my new buddies and feeling like a big ASS. They reassured me to never feel 'stupid' about calling the fire department, and I suppose I it's true - the one time you don't call, you end up with a crispy house.
Outside of the lower level still smelling a little like charred booklet (which is also a nice daily reminder of my embarrassment), things are shaping up pretty well around here. Our garage looks like a cat 5 blew through, but the inside is looking relatively organized. We are even having people over tomorrow to celebrate the 4th - I can't wait! I'm making four kinds of salsa and a signature 'drink' to enjoy on my deck and patio with friends!!! YAY!
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